'Ode to Civil Lines' published in E-Fiction India

Hello folks! There's a magazine in America called E-Fiction and it has several branches such as E-Fiction Horror, E-Fiction Romance and so on, and now even E-Poetry, their newest branch. So E-Fiction India is an Indian branch which began around nine months ago, managed by Indian folks. It has a hard copy as well as a soft copy version but you mostly have to pay for it, though on certain dates they allow you to download it for free. E-Fiction India publishes other genres such as poetry as well.

I have a poem published in the June issue, 'Ode to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010'. It is elsewhere on this blog as well, but this is a slightly edited version. and so, here goes, my attempt to put my love for my beloved Civil Lines into words...


Oade to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010


Dusky darkness steals tiptoes softly
cradling the white fragrance
of the raat rani, shefali, frangipani.
The moon between the two tall palms
is a boat,the star is a kiss on the sea-sky.
At 7pm in the grounds of IP college
spirits and gods and trees converse
mysteries like flying insects are suspended in mid air.
A silhouette of blue smoke seems strangely kindred
At odd hours, this spirit creeps out to share this tryst.
Six years have made it a translucent omnipresence.
Then the smoky spirit glides down the street
pervading ,absorbing atmosphere
which mutates into night smells
jostling against food smells, sounds and lighted
shops, autos at the gas station
cars teeming with yellow cat-eyes
Sights, sounds, memories, smells,feelings
are brewed together, the logic of boundaries
comes undone. The spirit traverses
by-ways of winged hopes,
feathered dreams, nostalgic idylls
of rajpur road, under hill lane, sri ram road
and ram kishore road, that take me across
time and space, desires and sorrows
back to the room of my own I call home.
My five feet four inch fifty kg body
may measure acres, square miles, cities
but a whiff of smoky translucence
will always glide down bylanes of dreams
and memory at 7pm, in the IP grounds
the place that brewed and stewed and cooked
and sprouted me.