Things you discover on the first day of cycling in Delhi

Cars are beasts.

You are tiny.

But sometimes, near red-lights,
you can outrun the best of them.

Cycle-lanes change everything.

The Ring-Road takes almost ten seconds to cross,
width-wise, and a life-time to go round.

Working class cycles do not have helmets and lights
and their main purpose is not 'exercise'.

From the Def Col nallah
to the under-the-flyover Saheli office,
is a slight dhalaan you hadn't noticed before,
now it comes as a welcome surprise,

you find out the inclinations of your city,
where it nods, where it raises an eyebrow,

that from the ITO metro station to the Medical College
is a slight chadhaai. You always pay for a dhalaan,
with a chadhaai somewhere else.

Things slows down, as you cycle,
you see different things, notice punture shops near your home,
one opposite DPS Mathura Road, one at the railway tracks
at the Lajpat station.

With this time, you look at things closely,
at Modi posters, at the Madame-Tussauds-trimmed beard,
at funeral processions, at bathing men,
at hypno-Kejriwal.

Rickshaw-pullers ask you
to move it.

Near Pragati Maidan, a boy looks out his school bus, and asks
with a cocky-class-3A-sort-of-smile -
"Uncle, aapke paas bike nahin hai?" ("You don't have a bike?")
"Nahin,"
"Isme gears nahin hain?"
"Nahin"
"Simple?"
"Haan," and looks somewhere between disappointed,
amused and pitiful, till an older boy
pulls him down.

Bus drivers that let you pass
deserve a place in heaven.

At 11 Ashoka Road, in the giant party posters,
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, though top-left,
feel like bottom-right, and remember the old days,

you cycle past them
as the Lutyens trees open their arms.

Children's Poets Laureates

Most of us think of THE Poet Laureate as the one that represents our country. For the U.S., that is Natasha Trethewey who was recently appointed to serve a second term as U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
But many U.S. states and cities have also been designating laureates on a local level.

I'm pleased that there have also been more appointments for children�s poets laureate. Here are three recent appointments.

Children�s Poet Laureate for Wales named at National Urdd Eisteddfod" from Wales Online

�Former Urdd Eisteddfod chair Aneirin Karadog has been named as Wales� next Children�s Poet Laureate. Mr. Karadog said, �The role involves working with young people during their formative years, when the imagination is so alive.... One of the appealing factors is a chance to re-light my own imagination through theirs.��

"UK�s first black children�s laureate: new history curriculum could alienate pupils� from The Guardian (UK)
�Ted Hughes, then poet laureate, and his friend and fellow author Michael Morpurgo devised the laureateship�first awarded in 1999 to illustrator Quentin Blake�to mark a lifetime�s contribution to children�s literature and highlight the importance of children�s books. Previous children�s laureates include Jacqueline Wilson, Anne Fine, Michael Rosen, Anthony Browne and Morpurgo.... Blackman is the eighth children�s laureate, inheriting the role from the Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson.�


From The Los Angeles Times "Poetry Foundation names Kenn Nesbitt its children�s poet laureate

�The Poetry Foundation announced Tuesday that Revenge of the Lunch Ladies author Kenn Nesbitt will be its next children�s poet laureate, a position the foundation created in 2006 to recognize that �children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative audience.�... This honor is not related to the U.S. poet laureate, who is named by the Library of Congress. Nor is it connected to regional poets laureate, such as Eloise Klein Healy in Los Angeles or Juan Felipe Herrera, California�s poet laureate. Nesbitt succeeds J. Patrick Lewis as the fourth poet to hold the position. His numerous books for children�all of them full of child-appropriate silliness�include The Tighty-Whitey Spider, My Hippo Has the Hiccups, and My Foot Fell Asleep. In an interview with outgoing laureate Lewis, Nesbitt listed influences including Lewis Carroll, MAD magazine, and �that greatest of all children�s poets, Anonymous.��