Friday, January 27, 2012

Vote For ......!


It is one of the fun parts of being a blogger, that you make many friends; you never meet these folks , but everyone acts as if they know each other very well, and remember each other .  It is actually true....because, your words are mostly you.

Sangeeta Khanna, my blogger friend from Delhi, is a trained scientist/botanist with amazingly green fingers, who is also a nutritiionist, admirer of traditional cooking and ayurveda, photographer , and dietician; that is when she is not participating in Himalayan cycle rallies with other daring women.

Dhiren Shah, known alternately as Hitchy in the blogworld, is another friend, who besides being an experimental cook, crazy cricket person, and poet (mainly when upset), lives in Bharuch, Gujarat, and is an avid follower of Sangeeta's food advice; that is, when he is not dishing out expert financial advice to unsuspecting folks, or participating in Himalayan rallies of another type...

Sangeeta recently posted an amazing set of photos of her garden resplendent with greens of all kinds, the types of which you never see in the market, as far as freshness and quality is concerned.  Somewhere between drooling at her garden, and possibly agonizing about the recent cricket happenings in Australia, Dhiren  remembered me, and my tendency to make poems on photographs that move me.

There was a Facebook nudge, and the following happened . While you ponder over 3 folks having nothing else to do on a Friday evening than drool over spinach, have a look at the slideshow, highlighting the subjects of the poem...

(Please ignore my name on the slide show. The photos are clicked by Sangeeta.  Picasa added my name on its own :-).....)




The Green Election Commission
appointed
the wiry grasshopper
to check
if election code rules
were being bent
by the plants.

And so he watched
from behind a tree trunk,
as the
Bok Choys
threw their weight around,
glaring at the
baby spinach;

The posh Zuchchinis
looked around
in a Page 3 manner
at the climbing Peas,
as if to
join in despair
at the lowly junta spinach
but
got roundly snubbed.

The crowded spinach and
the coriander greens
in their element,
at the Sangeeta Leela grounds
in new Delhi,
urging the
Tulsi's firangi cousin Basil,
and
Dills of Dilli
to join,
along with the
slightly quiet Celeries.

No dearth
of housing,
lots of water,
and good nutritious
unadulterated organic food,
and a
mother-like leader
who let them play
in the garden....

The grasshopper
went back to the
Green Election Commission
threw a Dill
on their able,
and said,
"I resign,
and I am joining them.
Roti, Kapda,
and a Cool Makan,
with an honest,
knowledgeable leader
who enjoys
playing music with the soil
and creates wonderful green songs !

I will vote for her "

And the Desi Gulab,
opens up a wee bit more,
smiles at the cherry tomatoes,
nods
and says ,
"Didnt I say she would win ?"......


6 comments:

  1. Loved it. More than ever this time :-)
    Thank you so much.

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    1. Thank you ! It really is so much fun doing these poems. Wouldnt have been possible without the lovely photos....

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  2. What a beautiful creation inspired by a kitchen garden? A whole commentary on the condition of the country and its election system! How I wish this could also happen in real life! And yes, I was drooling at the palak and coriander patches :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you ! You know, it is unusual to find someone who is so good and well informed about gardening, botany, food, ayurveda, and cooking traditions, likes to share her knowledge, and then again, a good photographer. The poems just happen :-)

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  3. Amazing ! :) :) :)

    Now this is one election where I would love to wait... and not only that... but I would have a problem like whom to reject instead of the other way round !!!! :D

    The blog samaj is an amazing place, so many wonderful characters we never meet and yet they are such an integral part of my life... everymoment every action reminds me of someone or the other and I imagine how they would react at this ! :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you ! This was so much fun ! The first time I explicitly involved and mentioned TWO bloggers in a poem...But honestly, I'd love to be part of a blogger trip to Delhi, and spend a day in her garden. :-) ...No harm dreaming, anyway !

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