(For Kuppa, for those ‘quarters’ of McDowell’s Whiskey)

What is this city Called drunkenness, my friend? People tell me that I Live there now.

So if this city Does exist, it is quite strange Because all I find in it are A quite room, with a table,

A reasonably full bottle and A glass from which I am Sipping something close To forgetting.

But I then keep forgetting That to forget requires One to first remember Everything. And this

Takes forever. Time Never passes. Only I pass Through a stupor of bottles, And burn in their heat

Into something less than A shadow, falling down Those long disused roads, Where time was leaving

As it was arriving. So why Is it that I only hear you and Me laughing at something I am Supposed to forget, and did forget?

[1] Come again, you foreign clouds For it’s from your wings, I gather pearls. Come fill our lakes again, and as you arrive At the lake shore I shall welcome you, In a lotus's shadow, with my black earthen pot

[2] Your season to depart has come, I know. Yet will you not turn at some point, And come back? To the black mosque I shall go, and ask if even in your heart There is some mutual love or not?

If you go by these lanes of dust, I will greet you at their beginnings.

[3] Lest you stop somewhere In my anxiety, I shall Tie around your neck A dozen amulets, and with My antimony put a mark To ward off the evil eye On your white cheek

Come by and touch our gardens, where By the peepul tree, I shall wait for you.

Not knowing, or understanding, folk Hindi perfectly, this is a loose translation of a Gulzar's village lyric "Phirse Aaiyo Badra Bidesi ". Perhaps I shouldn't touch some of these, almost all the beauty dies in my hands!