CONVERSATIONS IN A CAR III
Ashok Niyogi
If death and disease were flowers on the market
They would have been sold every morning.
Nothing to people is more fascinating.
I realize that I could have eaten out for a whole month
At other peoples’ parties
Discussing my cirrhosis,
But after the month was done
And the moon had waxed and waned once,
They would have moved on to somebody else’s cancer.
Memories, memories of a diabetic coma
Memories of a disease,
Eases the flow of conversation between lost souls.
And we who control NGOs
And meet up with hotel chairmen
For scraps of food for dogs and cats,
We too are rats that live in newspaper columns.
Cars with German aid are parked outside
Whilst we gorge over human death
In platinum and black.
This is a strange country
Where we take in stray dogs for irony
And a thin, emaciated, tired, old dacoit
Holds three states to ransom.
Hyenas laugh, and beaches are virgin
Because we are environment conscious,
Yet paedophilia breeds like mosquitoes in the swamp,
And incest is the fashion.
Because forty-year old friends
Look at each other’s wives’ cleavages
And the wives show.
This is the ethos of Probasi Bengal
From Wharton and Harvard, Caltech and MIT,
The lights are out, the nipples are out,
Post-menopausal nipples that cause ripples,
Shrivelled nipples that need a most assiduous tongue
And people save on shaving their armpit hair.
Dyes are the order of the day,
Maqbool Fida Hussain never used so many colours
So many browns, and shades of black.
In this tug-of-war, somebody has to take up the slack,
Somebody has to say, “No, I will not probe
At your nipples in the dark. I will just dance
A tune to the music and after the dance is over,
I will kiss your hand and say, ’thank you’,
Even though you killed my feet.”
I promise you
From this jungle gentlemen will retreat, predators
Will rule with their cheque books and bellies and
Women with their cleavages and busts.
But time will take its ultimate toll-
No money for a face-lift, no money for the liveliness of the breasts
And predators look askance at dried or bloated meat.
The whole story lies in the crow’s feet,
Forgive me my trespasses dear Lord, for I have been caught unawares.
It must be real, this is an intrusion,
They say you have to walk to your destination.
Now if what they say is really true
I’ve been smart.
I’ve been there on a trial run and come back
In Gucci perfume.
