tourist information for shillong

a series by Tarun Bhartiya

Tourist Information for Shillong -1

Gray coarseness of the fear- stricken evening road

Sixty five degrees to the left, fluttering dewy white fluorescent light

Scattered

I send petitions to slippery friends in Delhi

With three cob-webbed petals of a wild rose

The Fuckers are still involved in feminist poetry composed by Men

Like the Women of Kaitharkala

And that garrulous Avinash still sucks in puffs of Coffee Bite

My wife till yesterday has eloped

with a Punjabi officer from Happy Valley

She must have surely reached Alipur Duar by now

I am still arranging my suitcase

Cannot find my black socks

Friends if you come, I would introduce you to the secessionists

Even they listen to Lucky Ali

in their white Ambassadors

Tourist Information for Shillong-2

In the south, uncouth Bengalis and

Khasi coolies acquainting

In the North, peeking out of the

‘Waiting- for- rain- this- sawan’ window -me

me who sports

a Momo-Beer relationship with about Five Khasis, eight Bengalis, four Biharis and three red ants

there in India

in celebration of

Thakerey’s acquittal

glasses of Beer froth   plates of Batata Bada sizzle

Tourist Information for Shillong-3

Cow Mother’s thigh should be rubbed with pepper

and kept for about twenty four hours

When the morning hymns of Radhaswamis echo

put it on a seventy five percent cold charcoal fire

and wear your purple glasses, then yellow

You would see famished children returning from churches in their Sunday best

Light pink lacy borders with blunt edges of triangles

Phudmawri’s cowmeat -when will it cook in my kitchen

when Lamuel Kharkongar arrives at Mars as Hynniewtrep’s ambassador ?

Tourist Information for Shillong-4

Yaar, you haven’t tasted my macaroni yet

If you feel like getting up from bed

Then go and throw all the letters in the valleys of Sohra

where the red beaked sparrow

will teach her chicks

how to discriminate between

a Lie and a Worm

If you wish,  go and visit Tsering Wangmo, the owner of Bombay Restaurant

Ranting stories of Lhasa in Nazareth Hospital

While in Shillong Lhasa Market, his daughter, Chimmi Wangmo

sells a blue sweater  with a red-

up AGAINST THE WALL motherfucker

If your fingers tire of shaving time

Then say, ‘Tarun go see if the newspaper from Delhi has arrived.’

While I would still be deciding

till when I can kiss

the curd- like sweat of your fingers

As soon as you take away your hands- I would be breathless

like Gora Line

Tourist Information for Shillong-5

Now every poem (no, roads) cross Delhi (no, Hastinapur)

The ashes of Pandit Ramvilas Sharma cooed

The Sacred thread ceremony of Saint Marx was solemnised

With  every aggressive facial gesture

Right then  Kympham spread out a game of plains-dwelling giants and

life-size Gods

Mawphlang Mushrooms

in fake Chinese chowmein

Shillong Times via a Bihari D.C.

Some slit- eyed boys are making an AK47 dance

and the second dose of Imphal grass

Ma put  in the Aaaloo Dum

translated from Hindi by the poet

Tarun Bhartiya is weird