Extract: Like Blood on the Bitten Tongue: Delhi Poems by Akhil Katyal

Akhil Katyal’s poems speak of the city, and of the big themes of love, longing, death and nostalgia. A selection

164pp, ₹499; Westland

This evening in Delhi

when the auto climbs
the Lodhi Road flyover

and the two modernist arms
of the Methodist Church
take God’s shape

for that half-a-second
my eyeline swims through
the shikhars of the basti’s Shiv temple
straight to the finial—princely green—
of the white-as-milk dome
of the Khilji Mosque

in whose shadow
sleeps Nizamuddin, beloved
of God, Mahbub-e-Ilahi, lying here
eight hundred years, he will outlive us
all, our prince, till the half-second
passes, you climb down
just as his dome’s white
catches the last of the sunlight
and you realise

one doesn’t always have to travel
four hundred thousand kilometres
to reach the moon.

For someone who’ll read this 500 years from now

How are you?
I am sure a lot has changed

between my time and yours
but we’re not very different,

you have only one thing on me:
hindsight.

I have all these questions for you:
Do cars fly now?

Is Mumbai still standing by the sea?
How do you folks manage without ozone?

Have the aliens come yet?
Who is still remembered from my century?

How long did India and Pakistan last?
When did Kashmir become free?

It must be surprising for you,
looking at our time, our lives

must seem so strange to you,
our wars so little,

our toilets for ‘men’ and ‘women’
must make you laugh

our cutting down of trees
would be listed in your ‘Early Causes’

our poetry in which the moon
is still a thing far away

must make you wonder, both
for that moon and for poetry.

You must be baffled
that we couldn’t even imagine

the things you now take for granted.
But let that be, would you do me a favour

for old times’ sake? Would you go to
Humayun’s Tomb in what used to be Delhi

and just as you’re climbing
the front stairs, near the fourth step

I had cut into the stone wall
to your left—‘Akhil loves Rohit’.

Will you go look for it?
Just that. Go look for it.

Akhil Katyal (Courtesy Westland)

Bangla Sahib

The Delhi night is full,
the moon sits on high.
The road is grey with
the remains of the day,
those who walk by, see

Bangla Sahib

sending
gold
into
the
sky.

Vishwajyoti Ghosh (Courtesy Westland)

Outer Ring Road

you’re in an auto
speeding

he’s standing by the roadside

you hold only a glimpse
before a bus passes between him
and you

your neck keeps turning on an axis
of desire

the bus consumes all angles

passes by
leaving nothing of him

leaving everything of him
you keep moving

still holding
the glimpse
you will hold on to
all year

Extracted with permission from Westland.