Travel Poems

Waiting for the Haripriya Express

The train connecting the god of creation

To his consort, the goddess of wealth

Is late by a half hour; 

Men who shed their manes 

In utter devotion

Utter curses under their breaths;

I read a story about two men 

Afflicted with eloquence 

Over their disgust for each other 

When shut in together for a long time;

My destination is neither wealth nor creation

And my nonchalance knows only brevity;

One worship-bound traveller tries not to spill

The over-sweetened train tea 

He rushes to his consort, the goddess of wait 

A group of freshly shorn men 

Boisterously picks on the smallest 

Of their freshly shorn companions

To pass the time in a sporting manner; 

The disembodied feminine voice 

Of railway service 

Regrets the delay. 

The Daffodil Estimator

The airlines crew hurried past

The economy waiting lounge 

Where I sat recovering from a panic;

They were of the aircraft I would have boarded 

Had they not insisted on a transit visa 

To step into the airport of their country

On my way to another,

And I had bought the cheapest ticket

On the next flight on a different airline 

Passing through a more hospitable one.

The tall and ramrod straight men and women 

Marched past in pairs:

two, four, six, eight…. 

I lost count!

But unlike the daffodil estimator 

I did not call them ten thousand

Even though I had never seen 

So many blonde people at once before. 

Honeymoon Animals

The cat comes pat

At breakfast-time everyday

And is fed an egg – his 

Which he is only too happy to give up;

We sit at the window and write poems:

He about mythical animals 

And I about real ones

While minding the open window 

For monkeys;

A country where the bats are big

And glide gracefully and not flap 

Their featherless leather wings

Is a good country, we agree,

And that a bird in the bush

Is worth two in two bushes;

We eat dal and rice

And tell each other this is what we had always wanted 

Over and over again;

We take motorboat rides costing 

Two thousand and five hundred 

Sri Lankan rupees and discuss what would be

An appropriate tip for the boatman to quell the guilt 

He forces upon us with his stories of want

While pointing at duck, heron, cormorant, pelican 

Turtle and water monitor arranged as if on display

Around the lake;

We visit the museum of things

And make appreciative noises; 

We drink in the same bar everyday

– alternating between Lion and Tiger beers – 

We are expats we tell ourselves 

And not tourists.