Development
We play games You and I and they Play at reconciling what is irreconcilable Agreeing on irrelevant details and grand concepts But glossing over love and understanding That the concepts embody We play...
View ArticlePoetry And Development
The gardener cannot know the secrets of the garden Until he has been bruised by the thorns that protect the flowers. Because of the drought the peasant knows it has not rained on the mountains...
View ArticleIt Has Been a Long Journey
It has been a long journey, From the winding brick paved lanes of Panipat1, Where Boo Ali Qalandar2 Preached the unification of God and Man, To the wide avenues and squares of Paris, Where Voltaire...
View ArticleTo Ashraf – My Neighbour’s Son
Ashraf You were no Islamic fundamentalist Your beard was not a fistful And you did not carry the mark of the sijdah on your forehead In Ramadan You did not spend your days in fasting Nor your nights in...
View ArticleLament of a Relocated Person
They came with bulldozers And a gun carrying police force They gave no notice They held no dialogue They turned the house I built Brick by brick Over thirty years Into unusable rubble. The utility...
View ArticleIstanbul – Side Street on Istiklal
Small street Loads of tables Some topped with cheap formica Others of marble with their edges chipped off People playing board games Blond women – pretty but not flirtatious No wine but strong Vodka...
View ArticleIstanbul: In The Square Opposite The Yemi Jami
Friday – Quranic recitation Qirat – very beautiful Sitting at a drink kiosk In the square opposite Yemi Jami Under an umbrella Purchased for ten lira It is raining The kiosk owner and waiter are...
View ArticleParis
A cafe in Belleville At the cross roads I sit at a window table To watch the world go by As Paris taught me Forty six years ago. I do not take coffee any more But I order one In remembrance of the past...
View ArticleSindh Saghar
I am torn between the court and the shrine between the bohemian poet and the dervaish between shaping nature and surrendering to it between the world of the ganga jamna doab and sindh sagar each...
View ArticleDelhi
the gate of the jama masjid morning prayer time and on the face of delhi a sad smile of wisdom and in my being an intense aloneness on one hand is the dying urdu pronunciation the pressure of the...
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