A MOMENT OF MAGIC & OTHER POEMS (Satis Shroff)

A MOMENT OF MAGIC (Satis Shroff)

She had short, golden hair

Tied neatly behind

With a blue satin-scarf.

Yet I saw her

Wearing a diadem,

A flowing satin gown,

Like a princess.

A meek, submissive smile

A movement of her fair hair

Akin to a Bolshoi ballerina

In moments of embarrassment and coyness.

Her blue Allemanic eyes,

Sweet and honest,

Knew no intrigue,

Neither treachery

Nor rebellion.

‘I was brought up to obey,’ she whispered.

Pure bliss and love sublime,

A book you could read.

Plain and straight,

Not in-between the lines.

An openness, and yet

She's resolute and seeks

Perhaps stability

Or security?

A neglected childhood

With pain and punishment.

A legacy of the Black Forest

Nevertheless, she remained

Soft and tender, submissive and sincere.

Not demanding and aggressive

Ever alert and considerate.

Murmurs and sighs filled the air.

Love became stormy and frantic.

Sweat and aphrodisiac mingled,

To create a moment of magic,

To recede in moans and whispers,

A thousand kisses.

Brought to reality

By the rays of the dying sun,

The sudden noise

Of birds coming home to roost.

A tranquillity after the tumult

Within our passionate souls.

* * *

ECSTATIC WITH ECSTASY (Satis Shroff)

The one-eyed, pock-marked Newar landlord

Had ‘rooms to let’ in Kathmandu.

In the sixties came the Hippies,

Flower Power,

Make Love, Not War.

They left his flat a mess,

With the sweet smell

Of Cannabis,

Psychedelic paintings on the walls,

Seminal fluid and menstrual blood

Smeared on the once white sheets.

The Sahuji was plainly perturbed.

‘How could the new sahibs and memsahibs

Behave so inconsiderately?’

Thirty years later,

The grey-eyed Love Parade guests,

Were still lying prostrate on his terrace,

Golden brown baked bodies,

Kissed by the rays of Surya,

The Sun God.

One part of his brain whispered,

‘Oh, it’s delightful,

Where can you see so much exotic,

Eros and tantra,

Except at the bathing spouts of Balaju?’

The other half of his mind admonished,

‘These shameless grey-eyed creatures,

Don’t behave like guests in the Nepalese sense.

During the Raj in India,

They came with uniforms, cannons and rifles.

Then with long unkempt hair,

Like Shiva’s ascetic followers,

In cotton home-spun clothes,

With the word ‘Ram’ in Devnagari script,

On flimsy blouses, trousers and skirts,

Became high on marihuana.

And now with designer drugs,

Ecstatic with ecstasy

And techno-music.

‘I don’t have to travel

To see the world.

The world comes to me,

In all its splendour,’

Chuckled the ageing Sahuji

Of Catmandu.

*****

THOUGHTS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (Satis Shroff)

I’ve become a European,

Integrated and assimilated,

As they say.

As the Breisgau-train dashes Through the Black Forest,

Between Elztal and Freiburg,

I am with my thoughts

In South Asia.

I hear the melodious cry

Of the street-vendors:

‘Pan, bidi, cigarette,’

Interspersed with

‘Garam chai! Hot tea!’

The sound of sambosas

Bubbling in vegetable oil,

The rat-ta-tat of onions,

Garlic and salad

Being rhythmically chopped

In the kitchen,

Mingled with the ritual Sanskrit songs

Of the Hindus:

‘Tame-wa Mata,

Sabita tame-wa,

Tame-wa vidhyam,

Tame-wa saranam.’

The voices of uncles, aunts, cousins

Debating, discussing, Gesticulating, grimacing

In Nepali, English,

Newari, Hindi and Sindhi.

I head for Swayambhu,

The hill of the Self-Existent One.

Om mane pame hum,

Vajra Guru pemey siddhey hum

Stirs in the air,

As a lama in a Bordeaux robe

Passes by.

I’m greeted by cries of Rhesus monkeys,

Pigeons, mynahs, crows,

The cracks of Heckler & Koch guns

Of the Nepalese Army.

My eyes scan the train passengers:

Blondes, brunnettes, black-haired

Germans,Arabs, Turks, Africans, Afghans,

Their faces painted,

Like mine.

Black, red and gold stripes.

Soccer was in the air.

*****

THE BEAT GOES ON (Satis Shroff)

There’s a brodelndes Miteinander,

Different melodies,

Natural sounds,

Musical tunes.

I hear Papa listening to classical ragas.

We, his sons and daughters,

Dancing the twist, rock n’ roll, jive to Cool Britania,

The afternoon programme of the BBC.

Catchy Bollywood wechsel rhythms,

Sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle,

Rafi, Mukesh and Kishor Kumar.

In the evenings after Radio Nepal’s External Service,

Radio Colombo’s light Anglo-American fares:

Dean Martin’s drunken schmaltz,

Billy Fury,Cliff Richards, Rickey Nelson,

Sir Swivel-hip,Elvis Presley

Wailing ‘You ain’t nothin’

But a hound dog.’

Out in the streets the songs

Of the beggars:

‘Amai, paisa deo,

Babai khanu chaina.’

Overwhelmed by the cacophony

Of the obligatory marriage brass-band,

Wearing shocking green and red uniforms.

A tourist wired for sound walks by,

With a tortured smile on his face,

An acoustic agitation for an i-Pod listener,

Who prefers his own canned music.

From a side street you discern the tune

Of ‘Rajamati kumati’ rendered by a group

Of trasditional Jyapoo

musicians,

After a hard day’s work,

In the wet paddy fields

Of Kathmandu.

Near the Mahabaoudha temple you see

Young Sherpas, Thakalis, Tamangs, Newars

Listening, hip-hopping and break-dancing

To their imported ghetto-blasters:

Michel Jackson’s catchy tunes,

Eminem, 2 Pac,

Madonna, Sido, Bushido.

****

WORLD OF MUSIC (Satis Shroff)

Everyone hears music,

Everyone makes music,

With or without music instruments,

Humming the latest Bollywood and Broadway tunes,

Drumming on the tables, wooden walls,

Boxes, crates, thalis, saucers and pans.

Everyone’s engaged in singing and dancing.

The older people chanting bhajans and vedic songs,

Buddhist monks reciting from the sutras in sonorous voices,

When someone dies in the neighbourhood.

Entire nights of prayers for the departed soul,

Interspersed with serious Tibetan monastery music.

The whole world is full of music,

Making it, feasting on it,

Dancing and nodding to it.

I remember the old village dalit,

From the caste of the untouchables,

Who’d come and beat his big drum,

Before he proclaimed

The decision of the five village elders,

I remember the beautiful music from the streets of Bombay,

Where I spent the winters during my school-days.

Or was it musical noise?

Unruhe, panic and flight for some,

It was the music of life for me

In that tumultuous, exciting city.

When the sea of humanity was too much for me,

I could escape by train to the Marine Drive,

Gaze at and listen to the music of the breakers,

The waves of the Arabian Sea

Splashing and thrashing

Along the coast of Mumbai.

Your muscles flex, the nerves flatter, the heart gallops,

As you feel how puny you are,

Among all those incessant and powerful waves.

Glossary:

Wechselrhythmus: changing rhythms

Bahn: train

Mumbai: Bombay

Bueb: small male child

Chen: Verniedlichung, like Babu-cha in Newari

Schwarzwald: The Black Forest of south-west Germany

Miteinander: togetherness