Achilles' Heel

Come with quick steps over the grass.

If your feet are pale with the dew, if your anklets slacken, if pearls drop out of your chain, do not mind.

Come with quick steps over the grass.

Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener: XI

Circumnavigate New Delhi’s Central Hexagon, and you shall meet it.
Standing tall, in a bodice of Dholpur sandstone, dotted often enough with immaculate Rajput-style columns—it carries the kind of quiet grandeur that befits Jaipur House perfectly.

High on zero hours of sleep and a triple sauna session, I made the best decision of this month: to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). I now make the second best, to write about it.

It humbles, not because it is larger than life, but because it is deeper than most care to go. It unsettles, for if you stay long enough, enchantment outruns intention. It daunts, lest you leave early and miss the magic. NGMA knocks you unconscious only to bring you back to life; it takes your breath away and gives it back anew.

It discerns you, excessively.

She wets her hair in the shade.

The sun dries them for her.

She bathes alone in the river.

The trunk accompanies her.

Her feet catch the mud, her toes roughen up.

Oh, so the river says—
Lady divine, come back mine,
I’ll lick your woes away.

It’s blur,

a haze, like the betel leaves on them

spices slapped.

Boys in knickers, men in turbans.

Wrapped fresh and crisp,

you bite into betel juices

the panwaadi makes.

Refreshing.

Refresh.

Instagram awaits.

**Pan-Patti Shop**
Antonio Xavier Trindade

Two hundred years ago,

I see you now.

A fuchsia I swear is pink.

Men that haven’t changed.

Your nose pin and amulet

as they catch the light of day.

A court I court.

Dancer, with auburn hair.

Gold from neck to navel, silver to the toe

ता थई, तत थई, अतत थई, थई तत.

The yoni’s flare.

I see you now,

Two hundred years ago.

Where lore and secrets exchanged,

drama meted.

Where light filters like our shadows—

the shadows of mothers of mothers,

veiled, muted.

That’s what all pictures are.

**Meeting at the Staircase**
Gaganendranath Tagore

Razia, there goes she.

The equestrian.

Her saddle, her throne.

Razia, there goes she,

a mantle with goddess blood shone.

Razia Sultana, sovereign more than most.

Take me back, back to where Pichola banks.

Lake city. Hazel sand.

Sandstone washed. Sitar playing.

Where the dhoti, a sartorial verb,

and Lal maas, heaven on earth.

Take me back, to the sun’s roar.

Ambrai nights. White canoes.

Take me back, back to where Pichola banks.

Let me, lie on hazel sand.

**Old Man from Udaipur**
Narayan Shridhar Bendre

Man and wives, empty eyes.

Like love forlorn

many times.

Man and wives, barren hands holding

other hands.

Man and wives in blue silk,

I spy some skin.

There’s more sky than city.

There’s more city to the sky.

There’s white and brown
and a little grey.

My color runs dry.

How she’s the perfect shade of honey,

her waist bent the perfect bit.

How she holds onto the टहनी.

Mohini with a butterfly

in the garden of Kāma,

where nothing is forbidden

and fruits freely find the earth.

Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.

If the wreath is not woven, who cares? If the wrist-chain has not been tied, leave it by.

The sky is overcast with clouds; it is late.

Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.

Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener: XI

They say parents want to give their children a better life than they had.
But how does one do better than the best?

What is a good life?

Is it more means to meet ends that come in golden hardware and jacquard prints? Or maybe a bigger arsenal of European automobiles?

But how does a Merc compare to school rides in a 3 Tonne? Or the pride of walking into a lobby graced by insignia compare to fresh-cut gardenia and bespoke chandeliers at the Ritz?
How can smoked salmon defeat fish fingers? Or the humble Old Monk not rise to Japanese whisky?

We speak of providing our children with more exposure, more happiness, more love, more joy.

But I think a 2-year posting to Thoise gives you more than a 2-week trip to Thailand, and childhood should look like scraped knees, tipsy pudding and five cities a decade.

I want my children to learn etiquette visiting the mess kitchen, as they thank the cooks for their dinner.

I want them to know that Horsebit monogrammed tracksuits hold nothing against my father’s good old Shiv Naresh printed T-shirts.
And not a thousand cold plunges compare to the cadets’ morning runs, no matter the weather.

I want them to be chagrined by the most cumbersome accommodation, so that 15 years hence, when they come back to a bungalow for summer break, they can smile at the irony of life.

I don’t want bone china or pastel-hued linen. I want the olive, white and blue; I want the 1915h cocktail; and all the people we love and call family, dining in messes over the nation that have probably looked the same since 1994.
And we eat proper and we eat slow,
in white plates, with just a little gold to show.

What I’m really trying to say is… it’s Sunday tomorrow and some very lucky kids will have dosa for breakfast.

To the best kind of life,
Cheers

Achilles’ Heel

Come As You Are

The Olive, White and Blue