Escale à Pondichéry
When we walk along the promenade
I think of Brighton Pier
Of the most inconsequential of things
fallen there among wrappers,
fortunes and evening tears
Of empty karaoke bars
Of debris washed ashore
Listless, fatigued, it couldn’t care less here
where the air is thick and foul and dank
the heat offensively rank
In Rangapillai Street the spirit shall take up the human play
this earthly life become the life divine;
The Creator, The Maintainer, The Transformer and Great Destroyer
The seagulls pair and criss-cross
by deafening analogy so do the scooters and rickshaws
other than that, it is total coma pounding in my head
Visions of the East strand in this port-of-call
French in street names only
Splendour but a name that decays
in the flaking paint and the black moulded walls
The sad account of a fore-bemoaned moan
which I new pay as if not paid before
The Paris Syndrome: too much garbage and, oh, mon Dieu, the heat
I think I’ll faint – or throw up
The real thing does not live up
to les extraordinaires avontures de Corentin Feldoë
Ashan: Poorly, Corentin Sahib! Very poorly! People hold on to their rupees so dearly!
Kim: May Allah reduce your tongue to ashes if you're lying.
Ashan: F.Forget what I just said, and have this!
Corentin: No, no chance. We would not want to get you any poorer...
Kim: Corentin! Come and see! A strange medal!
Corentin: Weird! What may this symbol stand for?
Old man: It is the sign of the Cobra! The sign of Death!
Corentin: What do you mean, old man?
Old men we see
And elephants as well, in inlaid wood
Which they are trying to sell to us on the baking pavement
I do not live up to my own expectations
I am no more than a Mrs Moore
A follower of the Middle Way
An idolator
The East and the West have never met
on Goubert avenue
Darasuram
Dark-brown cows are sweeping their tails,
moving a cloud of flies from their posterior holiness.
It’s midday or thereabouts and I am thirsty.
We’re behindhand.
I watch the crow, perched on the twin ruin in the distance.
A scavenger of a succession of epochs, survivor of several destructions.
I imagine road-kill, insects, frogs, snakes, mice, corn, human food,
even eggs and nestlings of other birds.
Between him and me a bowl of dust.
Out of the shade of the Rudraksha tree Rupeesh our driver steps forward.
I see his even white teeth glistening.
I see the white of his starched shirt.
Then the creases in his dark-blue trousers.
The synthetic fabric of his worn-down shoes.
He walks splay-footed as a merganser.
Would his wife mind?
I’m sure she doesn’t.
He is beckoning us.
Tilts his head side-to-side with that typical Indian wiggle.
It puts me on the wrong foot for a second again. One says thank you, one says your welcome,
one says yes, it’s okay, please come in, no problem, or just simply I hear you.
But all I see at first is an emphatic no.
Such a source of embarrassment to think of a nodding head dog
set on the parcel shelf of a car, propped on a handmade lace doily on top of the old television set.
I must put on the charm and respond with a big smile. So conditioned not to give offence.
Okay. He is taking us to a place to buy some drinks.
Or so I think.
We follow him on a sandy track to a labyrinth of cottage dwellings,
turning corners in ever-increasing narrow lanes.
Must not lose sight of him. Keep the smile on my face, thaw that anxiety look.
We are giants milling around through a crowd of inquisitive eyes,
eyes that burn on my white Caucasian skin, a rabbit caught in the floodlight,
neon-signs pointing at us, the perpetrators, the trespassers.
Crowned with a Keith Haring halo radiating colonial sin,
I am the sacrifice, the scapegoat, the lamb washing away the sins.
And there is salvation and perdition in no one else.
Safety lurks on a doorstep. A trap-door to the tourist trap.
Oh here we are at last, not buying drinks
but being bought in a silk weaving mill
for 30 pieces of silver cash-cows for coins.
'Here our treasures, madam, the jewels of our hand-looms, the queen of textiles,
feel the rich splendour of the silks, see the intricate patterns, the colours,
it’s authentic, madam, look at the flame that I remove
and how it extinguishes itself, see the powdery ash'.
My eyes are murderous as you flee behind your second eye, and I’m
left to do the talking, the smiling, the nodding,
like a diplomat, ill at ease, granted a royal audience.
Sweat is trickling down my spine. The rotating ventilator
purrs like a chopping guillotine. I swallow and feel my heart beat,
exhaust myself with complaisance and politeness. And with every
benevolent smile I tighten the warp and woof around me,
the tangled web of skeins and filaments. For I do not wish
to buy a sari nor a scarf then perhaps.
I am clad with a robe, half captive, half queen.
Reeking with fear and white as the moon,
I’m sat on a plastic chair as if on a Peacock Throne inlaid
with sapphires, rubies, emeralds and pearls.
Fanned by servants. Offered tea.
The imperial visit of the memsahib.
Yards of silks at my feet in all too pleasing colours.
I smile, I nod, I manage to say it’s time we went.
And when I get up for my royal exit:
"Please take this scarf, it looks well on you, no obligation to buy''.
Overwhelmed by gratitude I bow in acceptance.
But he is but a merchant trying to sell
and snatches it back on the way out. No offence.
A flicker of disappointment in both their eyes.
Ashamed and embarrassed I leave,
an Adela Quested returning from the Marabar caves.
The audience has ended. And, by god, I wish I had bought something.
Kerala Song
This is the land of temporary eternity
of standstill in continuous motion
How lost we are here on this flat-lined sea
How at home, so unfamiliarly
In the wings of a bird, in the
distant weather, in the
startling blue of the kingfisher feather
lives the god of small things.
This is no country for gods
no country for man
Here reigns the mirror water
the frozen frieze of palm trees
The water is lovely, dark and deep
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep.
You stand at the helm and I
watch you in the enveloping heat
that sticks to your back
that swamps your armpits, invades your nostrils,
a snakeskin impossible to shed
swathing day and night,
the omnipresent predator
that slows every movement.
And in-between the sun rises, the sun
sets with perpetual curtain punctuality
denying us our mortality.
Your angry eyes don’t go unnoticed
They linger in your walk
The water laps, we don’t talk
This maze of canals a primordial Venice
A vortex that drains the
maddening riot of the plains
that stills the songs of the temple dance
that quells the neon camp of temple stalls
usurps and mocks the course of history
This is no country for gods
This is no country for temple bells
no rivers of blood
no turrets no spindled sugar spin
Bargemen and riverains
move like sleek tigers hidden
in parenchymal jungle green
A life in heavens that are unseen
The blue and the white and the green
I’ve seen emeralds in my dream
lush palaces of monsoon kings
nightjar calls carried on tremulous wings
my love a flyleaf of fireflies
an eye that opens and liquefies
like cardamom pods crushed between my teeth
I’ve spread my jewel in your crown
with ambers and verdigris
shelter-deck down to the Arabian sea
South-India, October 2010
Note to Escale à Pondichéry: quotes from A Mitten Lost on Brighton Pier by Patrick Daniel Toland
No comments:
Post a Comment