Postcards from Hong Kong

On non-poetry Wednesdays, this window of my new Hong Kong house in Kennedy Town keeps me busy. It changes every other time with the slightest tweak of mist, sunlight, cloud, and rain… leaving me spell-bound for the whole day.

Today I glimpsed a rainbow, strawing from the sea, my heartbeat stilling…

Yesterday I saw three planes orbiting this sky at three different altitudes – needles pin-pricking the haystack of clouds.

Only Nature can shut us up and out. | I will miss this window in June when I leave for India.

And then comes the poetry in Hong Kong, every Wednesday. Fringe club or Peel Street.

I’ve realized wherever I go (few places: Europe, S. Korea) I don’t search for people of my skin or nationality, but mad people or writers and poets. They are my biradhari – however moody, crazy, bi-polar, funny, serious, kinky, smoky they might be. | Literature and madness is religion. The word is god and prayer.

And so yesterday I walk around Central – supposed to be the main junction – the pot where everything climaxes and culminates – I walk its lanes to find Orange peel half-expecting rinds at my feet.

Dark is this alley, glistening with young flesh, – stars of the night rendering in goosebumps – comedy night invitations, music, clinks of drinks at the brinks of outdoor restaurants, people in black: shimmering or plain… I walk higher asking for Orag…ange peee…eel. Half a mind saying I am not going back if I don’t find it in time amidst Orange free and Hong Kong House, pubs, and restaurants.

Then it happens –a door, a pathway, a stairwell, an elevator. Orange peeled into soft mute glitz and treasure of treasures – sheer pleasures – a bunch of poets lacing the rectangular glass of a tiny, cozy room. Everyone has a drink in their hand.

And Henrik, and Rama, and Blair, Akinsola, and Vishal, Andrew, Malini and Laura… – and such a crackling variety of poetry packed into one night, I’m stunned. High on wine and the discovery of the craziest lot with energy, verve, joie de vivre they will take a glass room levitating on the hallucinate of comic camaraderie alone. | It’s nice to see serious poets reading serious stuff, but lovelier to see crack-us-by-the-minute poets reading serious stuff, soul-searching stuff, hilarious stuff, riveting stuff. | I am charged like a bulb. I too add voice to this with three poems of which Golden city was appreciated the most.

And I come away smiling all the way through the MTR – an inner smile under a poker face. And then grinning once I reach home.

[Sorry no photos of this event.]

But me reading my poetry at Cyberport, a Wednesday earlier.