A poet’s reflections on twilight days and Delhi nights

Leave us here in our women’s chambers

leave us here so secure

chewing the lotus

with lotus maiden

amidst the fumes of a suspended past

that waft away

an uncertain future

space so marble-cooled

illusions so fixed behind crenellated

tiled and cypress walls

the blood and passion of war

the heat and dust

of the summer plains

is far

far is Panipat

Shah ‘Alam conveying the grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive.j Image: Benjamin West [Public domain]/Wikimedia

sweet the tintinnabulation

of the tiny golden bells

on female feet

sweet the swirl of the skirt

leave us in the zenana

to frolic as imperial transvestites

to shrieks of cool laughter

and the soft pleasures

of the Indian clime

don’t start

oh, son of Taimur

that strange sound is just

the British bugle playing its tune

take another pull

with golden goblets and jeweled swords

let us play out the history of our race

let us once again war

and love

here

behind the laced curtains of the woman’s chambers