HORIZON
From home you have reached
the Horizon here.
From here to another
here you go.
From there to the next
next to the next
horizon to horizon
every step is a horizon.
Count the steps
and keep the number.
Pick the white pebbles
and the funny strange leaves.
Mark the curves
and cliffs around
for you may need
to come home again.
LOSAR GREETING
Tashi Delek!
Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.
This Losar
when you attend your Morning Mass,
say an extra prayer
that the next Losar
we can celebrate back in Lhasa.
When you attend your convent classes
learn an extra lesson
that you can teach children back in Tibet.
Last year
on our happy Losar,
I had an IDLI-SAMBAR breakfast
and wrote my BA final exams.
My IDLIS wouldn't stand
on my toothed steely forks,
but I wrote my exams well.
Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.
Send you roots
through the bricks,
stones, tiles and sand.
Spread your branches wide
and rise
above the hedges high.
Tashi Delek!
A PERSONAL RECONNAISSANCE
From Ladakh
Tibet is just a gaze away.
They said:
from that black knoll
at Dumtse, it's Tibet.
For the first time, I saw
my country Tibet.
In a hurried hidden trip,
I was there, at the mound.
I sniffed the soil,
scratched the ground,
listened to the dry wind
and the wild old cranes.
I didn't see the border,
I swear there wasn't anything
different, there.
I didn't know,
if I was there or here.
I didn't know,
if I was here or there.
They say the kyangs
come here every winter.
They say the kyangs
go there every summer.
DESPERATE AGE
Kill my Dalai Lama
that I can believe no more.
Bury my head
beat it
disrobe me
chain it.
But don't let me free.
Within the prison
this body is yours.
But within the body
my belief is only mine.
You want to do it?
Kill me here – silently.
Make sure no breath remains.
But don't let me free.
If you want,
do it again.
Right from the beginning:
Discipline me
Re-educate me
Indoctrinate me
show me your communist gimmicks.
But don't let me free.
Kill my Dalai Lama
and I will
believe no more.
TIBETANNESS
Thirty-nine years in exile.
Yet no nation supports us.
Not a single bloody nation!
We are refugees here.
People of a lost country.
Citizen to no nation.
Tibetans: the world's sympathy stock.
Serene monks and bubbly traditionalists;
one lakh and several thousand odd,
nicely mixed, steeped
in various assimilating cultural hegemonies.
At every check-post and office,
I am an "Indian-Tibetan".
My Registration Certificate,
I renew every year, with a salaam.
A foreigner born in India.
I am more of an Indian.
Except for my Chinky Tibetan face.
"Nepali?" "Thai?" "Japanese?"
"Chinese?" "Naga?" "Manipuri?"
but never the question – "Tibetan?"
I am Tibetan.
But I am not from Tibet.
Never been there.
Yet I dream
of dying there.
THE TIBETAN IN MUMBAI
The Tibetan in Mumbai
is not a foreigner.
He is a cook
at a Chinese takeaway.
They think he is Chinese
run away from Beijing.
He sells sweaters in summer
in the shade of the Parel Bridge.
They think he is some retired Bahadur.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
abuses in Bambaya Hindi,
with a slight Tibetan accent
and during vocabulary emergencies
he naturally runs into Tibetan.
That's when the Parsis laugh.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
likes to flip through the MID-DAY,
loves FM, but doesn't expect
a Tibetan song.
He catches the bus at a signal,
jumps into a running train,
walks into a long dark gully
and nestles in his kholi.
He gets angry
when they laugh at him
'ching-chong-ping-pong'.
The Tibetan in Mumbai
is now tired,
wants some sleep and a dream.
On the 11pm Virar Fast,
he goes to the Himalayas.
The 8.05am Fast Local
brings him back to Churchgate
into the Metro: a New Empire.
REFUGEE
When I was born
my mother said
you are a refugee.
Our tent on the roadside
smoked in the snow.
On your forehead
between your eyebrows
there is an R embossed
my teacher said.
I scratched and scrubbed,
on my forehead I found
a brash of red pain.
I have three tongues
the one that sings
is my mother tongue.
The R on my forehead
between my English and Hindi
the Tibetan tongue reads:
RANGZEN
SPACE-BAR: A PROPOSAL
pull your ceiling half-way down
and you can create a mezzanine for me
your walls open into cupboards
is there an empty shelf for me
let me grow in your garden
with your roses and prickly pears
i'll sleep under your bed
and watch TV in the mirror
do you have an ear on your balcony
i am singing from your window
open your door
let me in
i am resting at your doorstep
call me when you are awake
I'M TIRED
I am tired,
I am tired doing that 10th March ritual,
screaming from the hills of Dharamsala.
I am tired,
I am tired selling sweaters on the roadside,
40 years of sitting, waiting in dust and spit.
I am tired,
eating rice 'n' dal
and grazing cows in the jungles of Karnataka.
I am tired,
I am tired dragging my dhoti
in the dirt of Manju Tila.
I am tired,
I am tired fighting for the country
I have never seen.
BETRAYAL
My father died
defending our home,
our village, our country.
I too wanted to fight.
But we are Buddhist.
People say we should be
Peaceful and Non-Violent.
So I forgive our enemy.
But sometimes I feel
I betrayed my father.
EXILE HOUSE
Our tiled roof dripped
and the four walls threatened to fall apart
but we were to go home soon,
we grew papayas
in front of our house
chillies in our garden
and changmas for our fences,
then pumpkins rolled down the cowshed thatch
calves trotted out of the manger,
grass on the roof,
beans sprouted and
climbed down the vines,
money plants crept in through the window,
our house seems to have grown roots.
The fences have grown into a jungle,
now how can I tell my children
where we came from?
TERRORIST
I am a terrorist.
I like to kill.
I have horns,
two fangs
and a dragonfly tail.
Chased away from my home,
hiding from fear,
saving my life,
doors slammed on my face,
justice constantly denied,
patience is tested
on television, battered
in front of the silent majority
pushed against the wall,
from that dead end
I have returned.
I am the humiliation
you gulped down
with flattened nose.
I am the shame
you buried in darkness.
I am a terrorist
shoot me down.
Cowardice and fear
I left behind
in the valley
among the meowly cats
and lapping dogs.
I am single,
I have nothing -
to lose.
I am a bullet
I do not think
from the tin shell
I leap for that thrilling
2 -- second life
and die with the dead.
I am the life
you left behind.
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