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 climbsthe Lodhi Road flyover

and the two modernist armsof the Methodist Churchtake God’s shape

for that half-a-secondmy eyeline swims throughthe shikhars of the basti’s Shiv templestraight to the finial—princely green—of the white-as-milk domeof the Khilji Mosque

in whose shadowsleeps Nizamuddin, belovedof God, Mahbub-e-Ilahi, lying hereeight hundred years, he will outlive usall, our prince, till the half-secondpasses, you climb downjust as his dome’s whitecatches the last of the sunlightand you realise

one doesn’t always have to travelfour hundred thousand kilometresto reach the moon.

For someone who’ll read this 500 years from now

between my time and yoursbut 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 treeswould be listed in your ‘Early Causes’

our poetry in which the moonis still a thing far away

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

You must be baffledthat 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 toHumayun’s Tomb in what used to be Delhi

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

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

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

Akhil Katyal

Bangla Sahib

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

Bangla Sahib

sendinggoldintothesky.

Vishwajyoti Ghosh

Outer Ring Road

you’re in an autospeeding

he’s standing by the roadside

you hold only a glimpsebefore a bus passes between himand you

your neck keeps turning on an axisof desire

the bus consumes all angles

passes byleaving nothing of him

leaving everything of himyou keep moving

still holdingthe glimpseyou will hold on toall year

Extracted with permission from Westland.