Aditya Shankar
Poems by Aditya Shankar
In a Film Emir Kusturica Might Make
In a film Emir Kusturica might make,
three jobless young brothers
in a politically disturbed country
keep searching for their lost cow.
While they move without luck
from one old looking street to another,
an aspirin seller coming from a dark alley that
leads to the underground,
walks past them repeatedly in epidemic ridden pockets
with the winning smile of a cruel profit.
Hanging out at brothels during the night,
They hear the war music of the losing
by hopeful country rats,
the song of presence by the standing shadow
of an old building that fell.
Whenever in doubt of solidarity,
they stay together in bed with a single girl:
What else to do, they ask often,
than to still keep travelling
from one part of the falling country
to another
imagining among many other romantic things
that you could still find somewhere
a normal busy street without soldiers and tanks
where the cow stands stranded among incurious passengers
like an awkward image in a poem
In a film Emir Kusturica might make,
three brothers with the remains of an
old rural landlady in their eye,
leave home in search of a cow
they never expect to find.
When somebody changes the direction of
the railway track in that country,
nothing happens.
Youth*
Happy youth are not interesting
Inside the bathroom,
on the balcony parapet, or
the top end of the window sill -
Standing in front of mirrors
that you find hanging at different heights
in all houses that have men,
they pass the big moment of miscue
while cutting a moustache without regrets
They walk in late to offices,
breaks the costliest jar at a friend's place,
forgets to go for a date with the hottest chick in college
and still remains calm
While traveling along with them
carrying my small worries and anguishes,
happiness and jealousy,
victories and meanness,
I become totally out of place and
dream of a city twenty seven centuries
down the line when,
from a jail in a far off island,
boats would come for people
who fail to laugh even once a day
the last train out of the dooming world
is at the station and you wake up late to miss it
Happy people are not interesting
With a small sandal,
they end the secret game of hide and seek
I have with an introverted insect in the toilet
Note:
* - Dedicated to JM Coetzee
What I Got from a Telephone Booth
There is a pleasure in using
someone else's things
To find a burning cigarette on the stand of a
public telephone booth and smoke it secretively
to make yourself the continuity of an unknown,
as Kieslowski does in Red*
To remember a poem in the deep forest,
that talks about kissing a transformer**
or the unexpected trail marks of a vehicle
instead of the soil
With a long handled umbrella in one hand
and a tip of the dhothi held up in the other,
To jump across a puddle with the mathematical
precision of an old, high school master in white and white,
while playing the higher level of an
online role playing game
Writing is not an act of excuses then,
of things indebted to past or girls or even
a mouse
where you could freely imagine a village
where only the saree weavers live and
you go there driving a truck, along with your
mother
and on your way, stop by a cemetery
to kneel in front of the grave of a stranger
and pray as intensely as his son or wife
Let me tell you that
sometimes when we meet
for a coffee or a cinema or
for peanuts on the park bench,
I am both the second and the third person,
where I use a smaller eye to look at you
and the bigger third eye to look at myself
with the excited shyness of a voyeur
Note:
*- A movie by Krzysztof Kieslowski
** - An image in a poem I read
Aditya Shankar (b.1981, Thrissur, Kerala , India). A bi-lingual writer who writes in Malayalam and English.
Poems published in various national and international journals including The Little Magazine, Indian Literature,
Chandrabhaga, Haritham, Pyramid(US), The word Plus, kavitha Sangamam, Literary X magazine (UK), Mastodon
dentist(US), Millers Pond, Word-smyth (UK), Harithakam, Wild Goose Poetry and also many other literary
publications of repute. First book 'After Seeing' published in 2006 is a series of poems based on cinema. It is
currently being translated into 3 Indian languages. Member of the editorial board, 'Kavitakkodi'. Currently working
as Creative Head in Depicti Media Pvt Ltd, a game development company, after completing B.Tech from
CUSAT, Kochi, India.
In a Film Emir Kusturica Might Make
In a film Emir Kusturica might make,
three jobless young brothers
in a politically disturbed country
keep searching for their lost cow.
While they move without luck
from one old looking street to another,
an aspirin seller coming from a dark alley that
leads to the underground,
walks past them repeatedly in epidemic ridden pockets
with the winning smile of a cruel profit.
Hanging out at brothels during the night,
They hear the war music of the losing
by hopeful country rats,
the song of presence by the standing shadow
of an old building that fell.
Whenever in doubt of solidarity,
they stay together in bed with a single girl:
What else to do, they ask often,
than to still keep travelling
from one part of the falling country
to another
imagining among many other romantic things
that you could still find somewhere
a normal busy street without soldiers and tanks
where the cow stands stranded among incurious passengers
like an awkward image in a poem
In a film Emir Kusturica might make,
three brothers with the remains of an
old rural landlady in their eye,
leave home in search of a cow
they never expect to find.
When somebody changes the direction of
the railway track in that country,
nothing happens.
Youth*
Happy youth are not interesting
Inside the bathroom,
on the balcony parapet, or
the top end of the window sill -
Standing in front of mirrors
that you find hanging at different heights
in all houses that have men,
they pass the big moment of miscue
while cutting a moustache without regrets
They walk in late to offices,
breaks the costliest jar at a friend's place,
forgets to go for a date with the hottest chick in college
and still remains calm
While traveling along with them
carrying my small worries and anguishes,
happiness and jealousy,
victories and meanness,
I become totally out of place and
dream of a city twenty seven centuries
down the line when,
from a jail in a far off island,
boats would come for people
who fail to laugh even once a day
the last train out of the dooming world
is at the station and you wake up late to miss it
Happy people are not interesting
With a small sandal,
they end the secret game of hide and seek
I have with an introverted insect in the toilet
Note:
* - Dedicated to JM Coetzee
What I Got from a Telephone Booth
There is a pleasure in using
someone else's things
To find a burning cigarette on the stand of a
public telephone booth and smoke it secretively
to make yourself the continuity of an unknown,
as Kieslowski does in Red*
To remember a poem in the deep forest,
that talks about kissing a transformer**
or the unexpected trail marks of a vehicle
instead of the soil
With a long handled umbrella in one hand
and a tip of the dhothi held up in the other,
To jump across a puddle with the mathematical
precision of an old, high school master in white and white,
while playing the higher level of an
online role playing game
Writing is not an act of excuses then,
of things indebted to past or girls or even
a mouse
where you could freely imagine a village
where only the saree weavers live and
you go there driving a truck, along with your
mother
and on your way, stop by a cemetery
to kneel in front of the grave of a stranger
and pray as intensely as his son or wife
Let me tell you that
sometimes when we meet
for a coffee or a cinema or
for peanuts on the park bench,
I am both the second and the third person,
where I use a smaller eye to look at you
and the bigger third eye to look at myself
with the excited shyness of a voyeur
Note:
*- A movie by Krzysztof Kieslowski
** - An image in a poem I read
Aditya Shankar (b.1981, Thrissur, Kerala , India). A bi-lingual writer who writes in Malayalam and English.
Poems published in various national and international journals including The Little Magazine, Indian Literature,
Chandrabhaga, Haritham, Pyramid(US), The word Plus, kavitha Sangamam, Literary X magazine (UK), Mastodon
dentist(US), Millers Pond, Word-smyth (UK), Harithakam, Wild Goose Poetry and also many other literary
publications of repute. First book 'After Seeing' published in 2006 is a series of poems based on cinema. It is
currently being translated into 3 Indian languages. Member of the editorial board, 'Kavitakkodi'. Currently working
as Creative Head in Depicti Media Pvt Ltd, a game development company, after completing B.Tech from
CUSAT, Kochi, India.
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