Tag: paris

Dreams

I take long walks
In Latin quarters in Paris

I enter a random church
Someone is playing Ave Maria

I climb Sahyadri hills
Feeling free and fatigued

I walk along Marine drive
Watching rains approach

I am stranded in deluge
Waiting for a transport home

At times I am sailing
Along Tungabhadra in Hampi

Or I am listening to a stream
On some river bank in Bhutan

Or I walk and sob on a beach
Unsure of taste of salt

It could be sea
Or my tears 

At times I am trapped
In Escherisque space

Or walking on a 
Mobius strip 

I am lost and then
I am found

I reach yet
I don't reach

While Uncertainty is
The only certainty 

Waking hours 
A prolonged nightmare

My escape and freedom
Is in my dream 

Selfish it may seem
I don't want to be awake 

I don't want to talk
Of nightmares today

#covidtimes

Here She Lies…

Under the Canopy

Here She lies

In Paris

In exile

At Pere Lachaise

A mother, a queen

With a vanquished dream

She crossed seven seas

A sin in the 1850s

In the hope of justice and freedom

From the Queen of England

Mocked, ignored and bribed

She told them

They could not own

The kingdom of her son

And her pride

Here she lies

Our own Queen of Oudh

Next to a bush of roses

Growing in the wild

In exile

at Pere Lachaise

Resting quietly among the greats

She sought nothing

But Peace and Freedom

 

Among all the shiny graves

If you see an earthly grave

Fractured by Time

Under a green canopy

Know that it’s her

India’s brave Queen Mother –

Janab-e-Aliah Mallika Kishwar

Who crossed seven seas

A sin in the 1850s

To seek Peace and Freedom

And fair political justice

From the Imperial queen

And did no compromise

 

Do pause

And pray

If you may

But do tell her tale

Here She lies…