A few days ago the Advertising Club Hyderabad had their annual gala...the ADEX 2008...which I had to unfortunately miss since I was committed to watch my daughter Deeksha's directorial debut...a play called TAX FREE.

But when I got reports of the function I was a bit disturbed...couldnt the Ad Club function without the mandatory Pole Dance? Did a gathering of supposedly mature individuals engaged in the world's oldest profession need tittilation of this kind to ensure attendance? And strangely a thought crossed my mind...what kind of person would do a Pole Dance anyway? What was her compulsion? And I wrote...

Olga the Pole.
The announcer cymbaled
into a rolling thunder of a
crash boom bang.
And the audience
frenzied into anticipatory ecstasy.
The lights danced
their digitally unleashed sway.
And the testosterone levels
peaked beyond the meter’s scale.

Olga pranced in.
Her lithe body etching
overtly sexual hieroglyphics onto
the sizzle that she ramped.
Her costume peeked once
in a while from behind her
nudity. Her sweat mingled with
her body spray of disgust.

She looked away from the shimmering
pole, the chromium of distaste.
Just before she got her hands around
it, her lover for the rest of the show.
As each man in the well of faces
throbbed in her grip
she remembered to seduce the pole.
Slowly. Languorously. Stretching her sexuality
like a metaphor, letting the hated object
read between her lines.

Her hair climaxed in a fitful of passion
as it flew enraged at the abomination
that was her encored orgasm.
Her inner thighs chafed with
the embarrassment of celebrating voyeurism
in a pitiful imitation of a eon old
fertility rite.

The crowd exploded into an applause and
a few of the more inebriated, lunged towards her
with garlands of money. The gleam in their eyes
semaphoring their intentions, their motives.
Hands groped at her public parts while her privates
cringed at the sheer ignominy of it all.
Her heart for instance cried tearless and
her soul, dried up of all emotion, looked to the skies
for redemption.

Olga the Pole.
The emcee husked into his phallus like mike.
And she took her bows.
Looked sensuously at a few faces
while emanating hatred to all.
She was hungry now. Hungry to feed her infant.
The breast yearned for the suckle of love.
She loosened her strap. The man with the biggest
dollar sign reached for her. And had the
dinner she had worked up for the child.

Starved, he wrestled with the fabric of her poverty.
Starved, the baby wrestled with the fading texture of hope.
Starved, she wrestled with indecision.

Who to kill?

The father. Or the child.

Many years ago I read a book, by Harold Robbins I think. In which the hero who is Roman Catholic listens to the Kaddish (a Jewish Mourner’s recital) and breaks down. While I respect Robbins’ perception and mastery of the human emotion, this particular scene rankled. How could anyone who does not speak a language, break down into tears by listening to the Kaddish?

Yesterday, I think I got my answer.

Sridala’s dad who I had met on a few occasions, passed away a few days ago. And there was a Prayer Meeting held at their home. Having been unable to meet Sridala in the last couple of weeks due to a chaotic schedule, and wanting to pay my respects to the soul of the departed, I landed up there.

After some of the people there exchanged reminiscences about Sridala’s father, Sridala announced that the Vishnu Sahasranamam would be chanted. Those uninterested, were welcome to step outside for tea.

My body half turned towards the exit. But then suddenly the chanting began.

30. 40. I don’t know how many. Voices in harmony. The recital began. Some of the words I understood. Some I didn’t. Some words I remembered my mother chanting. Some were as alien as latin. But I couldn’t help but admire the way the paatis and the maamis recited from memory. Harmonised.

I turned back and let the aura of the moment envelop me. My feet felt rooted. There was a heart swell that caused a lump in my throat. The Vishnu Sahasranamam is not a mourning mantra. It is not an eulogy. At a simplistic plane it is but the chanting of the 1000 names of Vishnu. It is supposed to be the cure for all evils, balm for all sorrows and potion for all hope.

But yesterday the Sahasranamam was the sound of friends and relatives mourning the passing away of a good man. It was the sound of society reassuring Sridala’s mother, Sridala and her son that they should not think they were alone...that we were all there for them. It was the chant of mankind serving as background music to the journey of a soul from earth to the heavens.

And I cried.

What will happen
one day, when we run out
of road islands
and politicians
who seem to be dying
now of accidental diseases,
and cine stars
who leave behind
unbalanced progeny
run out of options
as far as making people
remember their names
for traffic jam posterity.

So no more
NTR Gardens and KBR Parks,
Rajiv Chowk
and Indira Gandhi Terminals.

What do we have in store?

Nameless, faceless
islands, road medians, dividers.
Street Corners
struggling to find
a memorable identity.

Maybe then, the Municipal Commissioner
out of sheer exasperation
will come up with a speed breaker
of an idea, or a pot hole
of a brainwave.

Then the directions to my house
will be simple.
Come from Punjagutta,
up towards Banjara Hills (if it’s still called that).
Pass Nagarjuna Circle
(you’ll be amazed to know how many
people think it is named thus after
a cine star who has a dog lover
for a wife, and a few bitches
for enroute entertainment).

Then slow down for the
Hanumantha Reddy speedbreaker,
bump across the Chinna Yadav pot hole,
grind over the Pedda Yadav road disturbance,
turn right at the Keshava Rao bulge
and groan up the Srinivasan swell,
take a deep breath at the Vellanki road break,
turn right at the Chenna Reddy water log,
and ask anyone for the Marurs.

If someone were to point to a small ditch,
just say hello to my late parents,and look around…

You may hear a dog barking
that he too needs a patch on the road
where his territorial rights
transcend early morning transgressions
and get etched into eternity…by name.

That’s my house…

So simple to find it na?