Splotched

I lie here – splotched

Grey skin on grey tarmac

Stretched – Like a cry

Limbs outstretched

Clawing a last appeal

Head smashed flat

Teeth sharp white

Spread wide

A grimace of death

Guts spilled out in

Soft pink coils

In the soft pink dawn

Blood – still warm

Spattered like

Rose petals strewn

On a new corpse

Eyes staring

Clinging to my

Last life



A few minutes back

I used to be a creature

With nine lives

Flowing across the road

Like a fluid moment

Of light

Now, here I am

Splotched

-by Rita Putatunda

blind mind block

turning back the clock a blind mind block
a pair of hoarded old socks a frog croaks under the rock
the cry of the peacock a crow rudely mocks
a girl in a frothy frock with her hands caught
red-handed in the forbidden crock full of ticks and tocks
the defendant sits in the dock justice is ad hoc
the room is filled chock-a-bloc rows of eyes wide in shock
knock knock a hammer is breaking the lock
thoughtless feet flock pocked faces gawk

-by Rita Putatunda

Still Life with Flowers

This one took me a while. Done in oils, and that too with thick layers, I had to wait for each layer to dry, or at least semi dry, before adding the next layer. Meanwhile, of course, I did get on with some other paintings I'm doing.

Painting white blossoms is great fun, because white is never simply white. Shadows and reflected light and colours from the atmosphere and neighbouring objects reflect on white. Yet, while adding those colours, one has to take care to make it look white. Which is challenging. And I love it when it gets challenging. Painting can become a bit of a bore if it gets too easy. Though, I must say, that with each piece that I'm finishing, the next one gets easier, in terms of manipulating the paints, creating special effects - do look at the leaves closely, I love the effects I've created on them - and general ease of something one gets used to because one is doing it regularly.

Though I'm really loving these still lifes - the adherence and discipline to creating realistic forms and structures, which I feel I need to go through at this stage - every time I start putting paint on my canvas, I keep getting visions of the abstracts I'm dying to do. I'm feeling so torn. Should I do what I feel is a necessary step on my art journey, or just give in to what my heart wants to do?

I met and made friends with a couple of artists this week. I chatted with them and they said certainly I should follow my heart :)

You see, She thought I cared

For Dehu bai – who did my daily chores for 15 years or so – who died after a second heart attack --

Sometimes she’d cut her finger washing the utensils

(she never was careful about that kitchen knife

though I had warned her a zillion times)

Or scrape her skin

Grazing it on some rough part of the floor or door

As she laboriously swabbed it or dusted it –

And I would absentmindedly

-- Almost impatiently really

 for she’d often catch me when I had the least time

for the likes of her --

Put a band-aid on her wound –

And she thought I cared for her --

And sometimes it would be a headache

Which would have me rummaging for an aspirin

-- just to get her off my back, you see,

irritated at the nuisance she was being --

And she’d think I really cared about her

I could see it in her eyes

I could see it in the smile

She’d give me

Sometimes she’d say Memsa’ab, I’m tired today

Can I just wash the dishes and leave the rest for tomorrow --

And I’d say resignedly, Ok, go home and get some rest –

More really to get her out of my hair

Than anything else --

(I suspected all she wanted was to play hooky

and dash off somewhere to merely gossip with the

other baais that she loved to chat away the day with) --

And she would think I cared for her

I could see it in her eyes

I could see it in the smile

She’d give me

In the fifteen years that she did my chores for me

She often played truant

Especially when she’d go away on her pilgrimages

To her beloved devas  –

And I’d throw a tantrum

And the cynical atheist that I am

I would taunt her silly worship

Of those lifeless idols of hers

And she’d smile indulgently

And keep working for me

And I’d let her stay

For it was too much bother really to look for another maid

And she’d think I let her stay

Because I really cared

I could see it in her eyes

I could see it in the smile

She’d give me

She was getting on in years, you see

And few others wanted to have her work for them

She was slow, her bones creaked

She would often stop to take a rest

Sipping her endless cups of tea

(took her time really

when you come to think of it)

But I didn’t care

If she pottered around all day

As long as my work was done –

And she thought I cared

I could see it in her eyes

I could see it in the smile

She’d give me

I could see it in her eyes

I could see it in the wan smile she gave me

When I visited her in the hospital

(she looked so frail, so feeble) –

Perhaps she saw something in my eyes

Or on my face

For her to give me that smile again

From her discoloured hospital bed

Wedged in a corner of the crowded ward

Which told me that she thought

I really cared --

And on the way back home

In the sunshine that blinded my windshield

I wondered how and where and when I’d find

A replacement –

(maid servants are so hard to come by

these days, you see…)

At seven in the evening

The servants in the neighbourhood

Came and gave me the news

Dehu bai was no more

A second attack had taken her swiftly –

And they sat on their haunches

(as they’re wont to do when

they settle down for a long gossip)

On the landing outside my doorway

And reminisced -- chewing their paan

Looking solemn and sad --

About how Dehu bai had of late

Stopped working for everyone else

Except for me –

You see, apparently,

She had told these women,

(when they had asked her why she persisted

working for me in her advanced age)

That she’d work in this house (my house)

Until the end of her days

Because this Memsa’ab (that’s me)

Really cared for her

You see, she really thought that,

That her Memsa’ab really cared for her –

I saw it in her eyes

I saw it in the smile

She’d give me

-by Rita Putatunda

In these green shades of Madhuban

(trying my hand out on a completely different genre - not easy for me since I'm so convent educated anglicized)

Radha O Radha, my lovely,
Why don’t you believe me,
I am your dark lover,
Your Kanha, who loves you
With all his heart,
Come my sweet Radha,
Wipe those sulks off
Your fair face,
Come, your Kanha will
Play a tune just for you
On his bansuri,
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

Kanha O Kanha, my dark lover,
You say you love me,
But I’ve seen you play
With the gopikas in
These green shades
Of Madhuban,
I’ve heard you play
The same tunes for them
That you play for me
On your bansuri,
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

Radha, O my lovely Radha,
You know I merely dally
With those gopikas,
Look into my heart
In my heart there is only one,
Only one fair face,
And that is yours,
My sweet Radha,
Come, come, come to
Your Kanha,
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

Kanha, O my dark trecherous Kanha,
You whisper your sweet lies
Into your Radha’s ears,
Like honey dripping
From the bees’ hive,
But like the bee you sting me
When you dally
With the gopikas,
Laughing and cavorting
With them
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

O Radha, my lovely Radha,
Can’t you hear the sweet
Tune I play for you,
Can’t you see
How I long for you,
How my arms ache
For you,
How my heart swells
For you,
Come, my lovely,
Your place is here,
On your Kanha’s
Dark breast,
Within his loving arms,
Which long for your
Lovely charms,
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

O Kanha, my dark dark lover,
You whisper in my ears
Like you whisper
In your bansuri,
You play your fingers
On your Radha’s
Tender longings,
Like you play
On your bansuri,
And like your bansuri
That bursts into sweet tune,
Your Radha bursts
Into song,
O Kanha, O Kanha, O my Kanha,
My dark dark lover,
In these green shades
Of Madhuban

-by Rita Putatunda

I am your friend hailing from India (edited)

a tribute to Ezekiel –


Oh hello hello jee

Good evening jee

I am very very much happy

You are dropping in

To my humble home

Think it is your home only

Relaxing relaxing


But saar I am very very much not happy

you are not coming everyday, you are not talking

you are not telling

you are liking or not liking me

you are understanding na why I am anger


but still I am telling you

ok ok

but is not ok ok na

why you are not liking me?

I am not expert writing

But very very much I liking you

very much I am trying

everyday poems I am writing

from my head only

I am not understanding

strophes apostrophes catastrophes

I am very much confusing

I am breaking my linings

I am not realizing

what all my wrong doing

what you are wanting

I am not knowing those

but I am not neglecting

my education making me better person

everyday I am reading

history geography politics

improving my self - good for nothing

I am always believing

self improvement of myself only

so that you are always liking me

you are teaching so many things

I not knowing at all

India is my country

I am proudly saying

I am watching on TV news

I am improving my gk everyday



so when you are coming

and showing what mistake I am making

then I am correcting myself only

then you are liking me, no?



I say, saar, you are going? so soon, I say?

no commenting? I am writing and writing

but you are no commenting I am feeling so sad

you are not liking or what?

when you are coming again? you are coming again soon, no?

you are commenting next time, no?



I am your friend hailing from India

Only

-by Rita Putatunda

The Empty Canvas

The empty canvas – a fathomless void

So blank it engulfs even thought

It swallows every glimmer

Of imagined conceptions

Knowledge and revelations

That the mind can grasp

In that void – this blot

A dot, a tiny spark

Beginning to revolve

Meandering drunkenly

In the expanse –

Not yet a manifestation

But about to be

A maiden flight

That is about to spring into life

The silence surrounding the sound

At the birth of the countdown

A motionless womb –

Then the resounding boom

A flash of blinding light

Illuminating the endless vacuum

A devastation of fire white heart

Melting exploding in shards

Of multihued gaseous grist

Seed atom molecule particle

Swirling supernovas coalescing

Clotting into swirling consecrations

From within this vast womb

Of revolving bodies

A tiny being of flesh and blood

Looks in awe at this vast creation

Of germinating births and deaths

And makes a tiny dot – a spark

Meandering drunkenly

On a blank canvas – and leaves marks.

An infinitesimal fraction of a heart beat.

-by Rita Putatunda