A Beautiful Blue Body

holds a flute, by the side of a white goddess, 
arrests thousands of hearts
while the goddess smiles like a cheshire cat
resting her head on his marble shoulder

each time long red curtains unfurl 
to unveil the statues — pristine, ethereal, 
washed in honey, smoothed in milk

voices fly towards the ceiling
like a flight of pigeons, who, 
now sitting on the dome’s other side,
reached here after flying over a mosque

Baankē Biharī Lāal Ki Jay
Radha Lādli Sarkār Ki Jay

As the voices levitated 
I stood on my toes, raised my neck,
expecting the beautiful blue
body’s flute to play

I prophesied something; a movement
a melody of motion.

But they remained, 
statues, 
unmoved, smiling,
distanced from the world

whose alluring
nayan-naksh
perhaps looked within.

Later that evening 
a thousand bare feet distanced by half an arm
danced to a rhythm, drenched in a trance

soaked in joy, oblivious of life, 
so and so, it could begin 
to sow in my skin, seeds of oblivion
even if I were marble – blue or white

In the moment of those bodies dancing together,
in the endless baramdah, on the temple floor,
a thousand feet thumping, in synchrony — There, 
then, perhaps, I saw it-

moving through the air, 
outlining the bodies, the trance,
passing along tired breaths
trembling in drops of salty sweat

before the eyes,
away from sight

I saw God – hiding 

                    somewhere

                                  outside the statue.

Who all should I tell?
Everyone is dancing.

***

On Memory 

I remember wanting to use a knife, to cut through the thin white membrane on the skin of this one mis-shapen garlic clove – separated from the closely tight bulb where all garlic cloves rested in a fetal embrace, their skins touching each other. Instead of using the knife, I tapped incessantly on its misshapen surface to peel its thin rind off. The oil in which this garlic was predestined to caramelize wouldn’t touch this mis-shapen toned body of a clove, which exposed itself once the rind was off its skin. I couldn’t help but stay with it. But why did I let the cooking wait because of this one clove —  a mis-shapen clove of garlic that looked like a scar?

I sat with it for some days, 

                it shrank and became brown. 

                      While the smell it left on my fingers 

                            evaporated with time, 

                     it left an impression – 

the rind of another memory.