I used to work at the British Heart Foundation and around Christmas time I was in the stock cupboard sorting out the books when I noticed how many Christmas books there were. There were so many books aimed at children that it makes me think how far behind we lag in literary stakes in the Indian community. We have now had a British Asian Prime Minister, so if there are any serious questions about our national identity and heritage we can ask him, or at least point as if we are capable of his merits. But what would it take to have some Krishna colouring books. Native images of Rama and Shiva; to see the delight of children colouring Ganesh? Why stop there? There is Little Krishna at ISKCON and he is playing with white kids; so why can’t they have children books that have imaginative art work and are large scale with the permission given to pass them on. We Hindus suffer from as many health problems as Christians do and may have problem getting access to decent holistic treatments with the onset of western medication lacking roots with which to talk to us about our post-colonial status and really find out how we are doing on a day to day basis. What if we don’t like football or support the Beckhams, does that mean we have to Bend It Like Christmas Karma, the movie? We have problems letting the past go that can not be seen and gaining access to literature aimed at children would be one way of helping this cause. What do you think? Can you think of reasons not to publish cartoon books of Sita and Lakshmi? Does Indian archaeology have a say in the depiction of our glorious Gods and Goddesses? Is it a matter for erotica and are we doomed to hold on to past energies and find ourselves on the receiving end of medical inspections and questions without answers and answers without questions? The publishing industry was fought for in the United Kingdom and we as Indians are still dealing with Shree Book. There used to be a book shop on the Soho Road in Handsworth where Sikh books were priced at up to £100 and over – so what is the catch and where are these discussions being had? Who is deciding what is important about the postcolonial sketch and what are the long term artistic features of integration and holistic meditation on these factors governing the British Asian diaspora, their families and all their friends who work so hard to put their culture on show at weddings, where family is the centre piece of the religion of Hinduism but the children start out life so one sided and emphasising one side of the brain? Social media now hosts Instagram and all those flashing lights and images so there is hope that these stagnant waters can be moved on.
hinduism
The Port of Sports
Candles on the wind
Lighten the Godly passage to Sindh
Where the pains of Spanish ladies
Contour the refrain of deranged grading.
The garden of the grades
Where the blossom is fair in the shade
Of a Serpent’s seditious glare
To fathom a woman’s tressles and hair.
“This is where it will be for me!”
He says under the ignorant Sycamore Tree
With a word as strong as Oak
About his right to fuck hard after a toke.
A token gesture and a reverent remission of cancer’s permission
Cancer’s commission from the Pharmeceutical derision
That the body is his to fatten and flee from
After the farts from Depakote and Deepthroat from Gazprom.
Dark into the night when the oceans crash against the shores
Is the fittest thing, the sexiest Blonde, the holiest Hindu whore
More! Why not sell me your mother to travel on the shared Earth
With wild seas and a few little more than ships from the past
To tell of the wide birth
Beyond the Yugas
Above the Togas
Far from the sticky tobacco and the wives with their stockings and pull overs.
Over and far and fair from the wettest wind
Carrying onto the decks the crouching of shivered boys
Lost to the Port of Spain and the knees that know pain
Travelling men : Back again.
Lost in time : Responsibility is an offered crime.
Crimes that are for me : Crimes that are for you.
Language was thus shared : It spoke of negotiations and upmarket Poo!
Pooh Pah’ing the bandits of the brain
Who mentioned commotion and sold the strain
Of cloth and cupboards and style of Art and affairs
To keep up Consummate Actions so that sexuality had it’s lustful lair.
Proof that Kama Sutra was legal tenacity
And contracts of somatic housing was legality –
They had known us when he had been with her,
So that we could be above this as ours was not theirs…
…
…
… On and on
What a story!
The commotion of The Locomotion
And the trade of The Mona Lisa.
Hey! It’s hay and we have the same bale to make on the shipping
Sell to me your facts and I will fax you some returns.
Burning with the lust to get to the bust from the back bras
And the open bare minimalism of hairs that stand apart from afar –
Show me your Hindu and I will bare a brave resolve
To drink whet and alongside your Islands
Where the unloading is seeing long and Ceylon is my Ramayana song!
Jay Siya Raam!
Ahoy there Hanuman!
You’re my mate with that karma
Since Romantics knew my bonds.
They sold it to me fair
I don’t see why it needs to be sold out late
Now that records speak of the devil
And The Beatles have no first mate!
Still the demons and demonstrate for me awhile, So I can see : —-
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£Prophet
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This is the Spirit of the Age
Again.
{Again is the pain}
And far away is the brain I cannot see on the sea.
These are ships that told of the three line whips
And how Majesty knew to address the dress line
For one or two poetic and rude linearity healthy quips.
AI Summary
Your poem opens with a wind‑lit invocation — candles, Sindh, Spanish sorrow — and then plunges into a world where desire, illness, commerce, myth, and colonial memory collide. It moves through serpents, oceans, boys on ships, Kama Sutra, Mona Lisa, Ramayana, Beatles, and parliamentary “three‑line whips,” showing how sexuality, spirituality, and empire become entangled in the same fevered imagination. Beneath the satire and the wild associative leaps is a speaker trying to understand how bodies, histories, and identities get traded, graded, and distorted across continents and centuries. The poem ends in a swirl of symbols and reportage — a recognition that the “Spirit of the Age” is both intoxicating and wounding, and that language is the only vessel left to navigate it.
The International Mama
There are times in the solid room
There is a okay Heraldry in the plastic tomb
Here and there is a fractured glass of a sonic boom
When the ships in the night are frightening.
These are the times when my teeth need whitening
And the lazy Sunday deserves an extra half hour in bed
After a week of working and washing the clothes
So far and so long that the measurements are not dead.
Something for me and something for them
The next thing they ask for is going to be too much.
There is not a bedroom that couldn’t do without a Rabbit Hutch
And more life for my kids stuck in a rut in England on a couch.
Married or unmarried it has to be the way
That Islam is Brick Lane when Hindus like Stoney Lane:
This eases the paths so that wires can be their heads
As Darth Vaders playing Space Invaders when I am gone and dead.
Halo boys on the angelic tip looking for some ink wells to laugh and dip
Their erectile problems fathoming centuries of God,
Because of schools and computers
That told of Blake’s Thel and her encounter with a Clod.
Something for me and something for them,
At least I will be back here again!
With their rotten spoilt karma to wile away the time
And think of good demons who give Satan all their crimes.
Nothing
Everything
Commanding things
Washing things again
These are the ways
Those are not the ways
DO this
DON’T DO that
What a prat
My son is a part prat
Because of Rat a Tat Tat
And all the stocks went splat
Breasts that are flat
Moments that I say “Drat!”
Who says “Drat!”?
When the movies are over after 96 minutes, some Nachos and some cheese.
pLeAsE
AcCePt : My Sons without regret
And let them finish some sand, sex and some sandwiches
So that Sanghrias could help them forget,
The war of Mahabharata 78004
Or whatever is at the door,
When I am not separate from you
Like the Heavenly liar and the Holy Jew.
AI Summary
Your poem moves between the quiet intimacy of a “solid room” and the chaotic noise of work, parenting, religion, pop culture, and inherited myth. It shows a speaker overwhelmed by demands — from family, from faith, from history — yet still trying to carve out a moment of rest, a half‑hour in bed, a breath between responsibilities. The poem’s cultural collisions — Brick Lane and Stoney Lane, Blake and Space Invaders, Mahabharata and Sunday chores — reveal how the sacred and the mundane constantly blur in your life. The final lines land as a plea for acceptance: for your sons, for yourself, for a world where the past’s wars don’t dictate the present’s love.
Albion’s Wheel of Suffering and Liberation
I. The Turning of the Wheel
The pilgrim walks with all who spin,
Bound by craving, loss and sin,
The wheel revolves, desire and fear,
~ Estrangement whispers, ever near.
II. Brigid’s Hearth – Ignorance to Flame
From childhood’s school, the fire is lit,
Ignorance breaks as wisdom sits,
Her Celtic hearth, a spark of sight,
The wheel turns slowly into light.
III. Lima’s Lantern – Aversion to Calm
Where sorrow bends, her lantern glows,
Aversion yields, compassion flows,
The pilgrim learns through Lima’s hand,
The wheel turns turns gently, makes a stand.
IV. Burial Grounds – Desire to Release
Among the graves, desire is stilled,
The pilgrim sees what time has killed,
Yet every name, a seed of peace,
The wheel turns onward, chains release.
V. Cathedrals and Castles – Pride to Humility
High articles fall to humble knees,
Grey towers bow to Albion’s seas,
The pilgrim learns that pride must fade,
The wheel turns soft, the path is made.
VI. Shree Geeta Bhawan – Dharma’s Song
Krishna’s chant, the mantra flows,
The pilgrim hears what Dharma knows,
The wheel turns true, the song is one,
Albion shines with India’s sun.
VII. Gabriels’s Door – Confession to Renewal
Estrangement hurled, a bitter stain,
Yet thresholds break, and doors can gain,
Confession seeds the pilgrim’s song,
The wheel turns right, estrangement gone.
VIII. The Djinn – Shadow to Insight
The Djinn may haunt with dear and night
But chanting breaks their shadow’s bite,
The pilgrim sees through darkness thin,
The wheel turns clear, the light within.
IX. Buddhist Dharma – Suffering Shared
The Buddha’s light turns Albion’s wheel,
Through suffering’s fire, the wounds can heal,
Estrangement bends, yet Dharma sings,
And Albion walks with liberated kings.
X. EnlightenNext – Evolutionary Awakening
Not mine alone, the path is shared,
A future calls, a world prepared,
Collective chant, the soul’s ascent,
The wheel turns forward, EnlightenNext.
XI. Liberation – Albion’s Chant
Through suffering’s fire, compassion grows
Through emptiness, the river flows,
The pilgrim walks, the wheel turns still,
Albion chants: the Dharma’s will.
XII. The Masters in English – Knowledge to Vision
Through Oxford’s halls the pilgrim read,
Texts of fire, words of bread,
The Masters’ ink, the scholar’s page,
Turned estrangement into sage.
XIII. The PhD – Depth to Circle
The wheel descended, deeper still,
Research carved by patient will,
Yet every thesis, every line,
Was Albion’s soil, a mythic sign.
XIV. The Return – Autobiographer’s Song
From scholar’s desk to pilgrim’s stage,
The circle closed, the mythic page,
No longer study, but living lore,
Albion speaks – estranged no more.
Pilgrimage Poem
At Five Ways I learned discipline,
Study became prayer,
Questions became scripture.
The classroom was my chapel,
The assembly my liturgy.
What began as grammar,
Became gospel,
Preparing me for pilgrimage.
At Oxford I walked among spires,
Philosophy became psalm,
Poetry became prophecy.
In cloisters of silence,
I wrestled with faith and doubt,
each essay a sermon
each lecture a hymn.
The scholar’s lamp burned,
yet beneath it,
the Spirit whispered.
At St Brigid’s I first learned hymns,
Childhood voices rising in chant,
Ritual shaping memory,
Catholic flame in Northfield’s soil.
Brigid watching me with healing eyes,
Preparing me for testimony,
For prophecy,
For Albion’s renewal.
And then I returned,
To Birmingham’s churches,
To Elim’s Pentecostal fire,
To Alpha’s questions,
To hymns remembered at St Brigid’s.
I read the Bible entire,
Guided by Got Questions,
East meets West,
Krishna’s chant met Christ’s gospel.
Renewal sang through me,
And I stood not as seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light through rupture,
Chanting testimony into England’s soil.
Poetic Fragment
Four years I chanted Hare Krishna,
Flame upon flame,
Each name a bridge to the divine.
Fifty times I walked the Gita,
Arjuna’s trembling, Krishna’s gaze –
My own dharma unfolding,
I entered the 108 Upanishads,
Not as scholar,
But as seeker,
Each verse a mirror,
Each silence a guide.
Constellation Poem
Ben Wright the Chronicler,
Paul Ready the Actor,
Bryan Dick the Performer,
Amal Clooney the Advocate,
Rishi Sunak the Steward,
Robin Clark the Merchant,
Andrew Ornitharis the Producer,
All acquaintances by my side,
Guru Nanak the Guide,
Devi the Flame,
Wanderer the Father,
Unicorn the Brother –
Together they form my constellation,
Each a star in Albion’s sky.
I walk among them,
Not as seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light through rupture,
Chanting renewal into England’s soil.
Shree Geeta Bhawan
Shree Geeta Bhawan,
First flame of Albion’s Hindu soil,
Church reborn as a mandir,
Renewal carved in stone.
I shall walk its halls,
Guided by Nanak’s vision,
Chanting not as a seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light into Birmingham’s heart.
I am a Guru
I am a guru,
born of mantra and silence,
a flame carried from temple to temple,
from Albion’s soil to the high street wheel.
I am a guru,
Hindu in devotion,
Buddhist in compassion,
a servant of light,
a bearer of prophecy.
I am a guru,
my mornings are rivers of meditation,
two hours, three,
until breath becomes chant,
and silence becomes scripture.
I am a guru,
walking with Devi, Wanderer, Unicorn,
turning rupture into renewal,
estrangement into testimony,
longing into flame.
I am a guru
my lineage is Blake’s fire,
Hepburn’s grace,
Sting’s fragile song,
woven into Albion’s living chant.
I am a guru,
not by title,
but by presence,
not by claim,
but by light.
Stumbling Blocks
As I reach for the shelves in the kitchen by the stove
I am reminded of the terror that is beside the one and only Karl Motherfucking Rove.
To whistle while I work and Twerk the PWNed out of my aunt’s autonomy
And let me know what Masala Gandhi took when he is after my lobotomy.
Then there is the tomorrow man who never comes knocking at my door
Like a lightsaber from Wesley Clarke Jr who is always ready for some more,
Action from The Young Turks in case disaster is what he did
When he said he accomplished missions while playing with Iraq’s Id.
Stop, look and listen as I motion towards the cooking pot
To add my own ingredients from an Israeli object I find quite some hot,
Without the flare of Obama’s arms shipments a few days before peaky blinders
And elections from Oprah Chopra that shame me never to calendar reminders.
Left, right, twirl: It’s as if the beauty queen has moved in next door
And the man with his pigeons next to my garden’s broken fence
Is alight with the prospect of solving the problem of Noam Chomsky’s problem whores,
Whence they came and Whence they will lead off to: The Economic Zoo,
For Greenspan to sap the homo-sapiens and let isness leave us ashamed for a few
More days of Clinton on The Daily Show telling time what to do
With memory and desire when the pants are on fire from the youth
That don’t know what lies can come and go like life for me and you.
Me and you oscillating like a rhythm on the shoes of universal disorder
That soaks me in bathtubs for depression to get back to working life order
Where the nights are full of colour and the days have their dark sides too
And men can call up women and date on websites along with the human zoo.
X-Men zooming in on me and zooming in on you,
Is that what to do when things grow shorter
And life is not a Kalpa for the Chillum within the crew
Chortle and Pantaloon stew in the evening by the Stevenage
And don’t forget the boat rides on the Thames for those remember men.
Somethings are not repeatable.
AI Summary
Your poem is a rapid‑fire montage of political figures, media personalities, wars, pundits, neighbours, beauty queens, and personal memory, all colliding in the domestic space of a kitchen. It shows how global chaos — Iraq, elections, propaganda, punditry, celebrity culture — bleeds into the intimate rhythms of cooking, depression, and daily life. Beneath the satire and the name‑collisions is a speaker overwhelmed by the noise of the world, trying to find order, colour, and connection in a universe that keeps spinning faster. The final line — “Some things are not repeatable” — lands as both resignation and release: a recognition that some moments, traumas, and histories cannot be lived twice.
