Last night, an acquaintance got small talking,
it’s something acquaintances apparently do,
and I’ve only just recently come to realise
there’s no gentle way to ask someone to fuck off,
so I indulged
in stretching the conversational rubber band.
“What’s with the weather?” he asked,
with politically correct politeness.
It’s the kind of weather
that makes you crave a good cup of tea.
That way you know
if you’d ever be invited over.
But more importantly because,
the one who was supposed to be selling tea
is presently unavailable,
preoccupied selling what a billion and a half
call a democracy, apparently.
I can neither confirm nor deny;
both require documented evidence,
and let’s just say,
our good old grandfather
isn’t particularly fond of paper,
or as he calls it,
being eco-friendly.
The one thing he hates more than paper
is evidence.
Because imagine
every grandfather having to prove
all the rivers they crossed to get to school,
or the simpler fact
that they ever went to one.
Twelve summers
of broken spines,
jailed mouths,
London Bridges falling down
like architecture fell in love with gravity,
and an army of monkeys
scratching and biting
until you agree
the only colour this country
and its people
could ever bleed
was saffron.
Because crimson
is too reminiscent of criminal evidence,
and by now
we know
dear old grandfather
abhors the idea of evidence.
At an age
most reconsider life choices
and potential osteoarthritis,
dear old grandfather gathers around
his pack of hyenas,
or as he likes to call them,
the petals of the lotus
he’s the epicentre of.
Lotuses are very specifically precise
to his peer group.
Both thrive in
and from
absolute and utter filth.
Almost as if
they are a walking, talking, breathing
washing machine —
or as he prefers being called,
the geopolitical Ganges
of a nation
being told
its past
is the only future
it ever had.
Dear old grandfather wakes every morning
complaining
how noisy and nosy
his neighbours are,
sipping imported tea
from saffron-embossed porcelain
bought and paid for
with taxes he collects
like inheritance mistaken for birthright.
He doesn’t read newspapers.
Partly because
one can’t quite tell
if he ever learned to read,
but more importantly because
he dislikes anything
that doesn’t have him printed in capitals
across the front page,
the back page,
and every page in between.
Every now and then
he reaches for his designer chappal.
Now don’t you dare judge him
for million-dollar footwear
while he hands you a list
of everything
you shouldn’t be buying,
because greed
is his sole inheritance.
He reaches for those chappals
every time he sees a cockroach.
Word has it
he’s been suffering
a rather severe infestation lately,
and it’s got his cholesterol-choked heart
beating rather fast.
A grandfather however obnoxious
you are taught not to pray ill for,
and we are, after all,
a land of cultured chromosomes,
so we ruin another night’s sleep
breathing through
his audacious farts.
I could have called him an appendix,
but appendices,
when arrogant enough,
can be uprooted overnight.
He is, to be factually precise,
a variant
of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus:
the Hindutva Immunodeficiency Virus.
A potentially lethal,
definitely contagious disease,
mostly spread
through unprotected mindfuckery,
commonly found
in civilisationally virgin nuisances
desperately seeking purpose
through the pointless pride
of a polluted past.
And the most fascinating thing
about the HIV virus
is how effectively
it convinces the body
its own cells
are the enemy.
Because once you wage war
against yourself,
death becomes
a matter of clockwork.
Imagine believing
you’re a martyr,
when all you ever were
was the last nail
in your own fucking coffin.
Imagine drinking cow piss
as beverage,
and still wondering
why your skull,
split open,
smells of stale bullshit
and fresh cow dung.
“I had just asked
what’s with the weather,”
is, I’ve just discovered,
a remarkably efficient way
to lose acquaintances.
