That night in Mumbai when Brandt asked 'Are you good with speed?' and I said 'Yes'

it was as if
I pillion rode the moon
on the Western Express Highway,

and every mile we raced on his bike
we reclaimed from the sea,

the Goregaon high-rises passed us by
like longing measured on a Richter scale,

and the sky, window-lit at Malad, tripped
onto us,

at Kandivali, the fortieth floors spun out
into the night till the sky was only staircases,

and when he dropped me
by those black mountains of Borivali,
I realized I had held onto my seat
like the black holds onto basalt,
like the skin holds onto bones,
like Mumbai holds onto sea.

B.V. Hospital, Thane

They come on a trolley, the Gods,
pushed on each floor of the hospital
till all the patients & their relatives make
their own blends of medicine and faith,
as they fold (without thinking?) hands;
I was told: "Next 48 hrs. are critical."

I weigh it in my mouth, again, 'critical,'
the word now sounds like prayer for Gods,
and holding prescriptions & bills, my hands
learn each wall, each bench the hospital
has, the next thing the doctor said, "Faith,
have faith," & I didn't know what to make

of Gods so out of place, or what to make
of doctors, who when dealing with "critical
patients" must at some point turn to faith,
their oath still an old "call to all the gods
and goddesses to witness" here (B.V. Hospital)
all the "power and judgment" of their hands;

or is it like when I first felt her hands
after three days of not-knowing, of "make
or break," she breathed on her own, this hospital
then was full of idols, "No longer critical?"
I asked, and when they nodded, the Gods
wherever, whoever they be, I gifted faith

so readily, like threads around trees, faith
spun in reams and reams of red hand-
-made cloth that cradles those Gods,
who made (without thinking?) small make-
-shift things for us, and (this is critical)
called it living, and sometimes, in hospitals

when we try to keep their word, the hospitals
become sanctums, and once flappable, faith,
pig-headed, remains, & even in those critical
hours, when the blood refuses and hands
over the heart for little countdowns to make
the claim, at that point between us and Gods,

hospitals are little games, where the Gods
play over our faith, between skies, till they make
us fold (was it critical?), tremulously, our hands.

Bombay

Look at the VT in the mornings for the rush of Bombay,
look at the black ocean at night for the hush of Bombay.

If you haven't been on the Evening Local from Bandra
to Virar, then you haven't yet felt the crush of Bombay.

You carry back the sea-gulls, the breakers, the waves,
you wear the sea like skin, feeling the brush of Bombay.

There was once "a tower whose top was in the heavens" like
Antilia, off Peddar Road: Bible warns The Plush of Bombay.

When his eyes met mine, the Local slowed down at Dadar,
the whole world halted, turned red in that blush of Bombay.

You would never, Akhil, like your kind before you, "leave the
streets of Delhi," then why like a lover, do you gush, of Bombay.

This is not fair, Bombay,

to get me in the habit of the sea, as if
you do not know, I am from and will go
back to my land-locked Delhi. Now the
next time I feel blue and all the world
comes crushing on to me, what do you
suppose I should do, with no sea, no
waves, no sand, no grey, wet boulders
on this calming edge-of-land, that tell you
the world's too big to carry on your shoulders,
so let it be, so let it be.

(thanks to Kyla Pasha)

Haji Ali

is like Bombay flying a kite in the sea,

and standing by its side,
- water, like creepers, grows
on stones - you see the high tide
happen under your feet.

This is the magic spot where
six hundred years before,
the saint's coffin, adrift, smooth
like ivory, white like bone,
came back from the Arabian sea.

This is the magic spot
where that couple from Borivali
meets, sits together;
the waves rise and come
to keep them,
but still, somehow, leave them
to themselves,
the rock dark-grey-wet
around them the world yet
they sit on noon-stone
- now ivory under the sea -
alone.