Points and Counterpoints

Sitting here, alone in the night in a lodge

At the foot of the hills

Drinking whisky and smoking,

Sitting like a fat Buddha with glasses

The liquor- flushed cheeks rubbing its frame

The bloated belly like an over-filled sack

Slumping over hiding my nudity

The fleshy thighs spreading over the chair

Like over-watered dough

And the smell of fried beef in my nose

Its spices still tingling my tongue

And its shreds snuggling

Between the yellowing teeth –

 

I am trying to take a fresh look at myself.

 

Overweight, smoking, sluggish

Muscles long forgotten to stretch

I fit the bill for a cardiac case.

All that remains to be known is when.

It jerks me out of my drunken reverie

That it could be in the next moment

Or the one after the next.

 

While my estranged wife would be

Busying herself with religious rituals

That will bring her blessings and good fortune

Benefactions of the Goddess

Like the thousands of her sex

Who pollute the city for a day

And while my son would be busying himself

With an enactment of preoccupation

With his studies

While actually listening to Rock

Or to the intermittent telephone calls

Of his friends

And while my dogs would be

Lying panting, exhausted with barking

At all those passing our gates

And I believe, wondering where I have gone-

 

I sit here, an escapee from that din outside

Though helpless, having to listen to that from inside

And as ever, pursing my lips and repeating

That I have to cut down my eating and drinking

And smoking and shouting and later wallowing

In self-pity

And walking every day morning

And working it out at the gym

Or swimming in the pool

And to be sharp and assertive

And write poems and write what all

And go for long rides on the bike –

 

And wondering, what the hell,

What is the point in postponing

The inevitable

But then wishing I would be free of this guilt

This guilt for living the way I want to

Wishing I could live the way I want to

Without wrestling with this guilt

But then again at the back of my mind

This constant ticking that

I am a potential candidate for myocardial infarction

And then thinking, Hell! Everyone is,

Everyone eventually will be, that or something else

But the question, I realize

Is not about the hundred ways of dying

And having no choice in that matter

But on living –

Which brings us to an examination

On the quality of life

If somebody would provide a standard

So much measure of happiness and sorrow

So much of richness and depravity

So much pleasure and so much pain –

And I am getting confused

But have to put an end to it

The best way, I know

Is to remind myself again

To reduce weight

To stop smoking

To stop drinking

To be happy

Be happy

Be happy

And never never to look deeper into oneself

Or ruminate over the past –

And –

Perhaps at the moment

Of the inevitable

Tell oneself – now I am puzzled-

What or wonder if there is

Any point at all in talking

To oneself as one lie dying.

***************** Balachandran, Kallar, 09.03.2009