River

River............
The dreams of slit that flow from the banks of mind to the shores of history /,
Standing at the Yamana riverbed my camera clicks on as the water gnaws shores
and makes sediments of life out of it/,
A fish. A Tortoise. A bird . Being made out of the same slit and sand /
Baked in the heat of love and heaves of the war torn lands/
I lay them on a piece of cloth as I place a newborn baby in a cradle/
I dip them in Yamuna / A baptism with black waters/
The fish and the tortoise cry/ The images around them come alive /
Did you say that the history is dead/?
I fly above the mountains / the birds, fish and tortoise in my baggage tell stories to each
other / They are still wet with memories
I showed them along with the paintings, which I did in the art camp with Uzbekistan
Artists, at the venue of of German Ambassador’s residence/
I unpack them at the Indian Embassy in Uzbekistan/
A land where religion graze side by side with men and women /
There let the birds fly, fish swim and tortoise crawl along /
They spread the stories /
I walk towards the Syrdarya River / Vast expanse of water / Like the punctuations of the
poetry of its flow, / There stands a shepherd boy and his flock/
I put the birds, fish and tortoise where they belong /
Holding on to the tip of a cool breeze Syrdarya raise its watery hands to receive my
offerings