QUOTE : He asked you not to like me,<br />So why did you, Neera?<br />Even now, I perform breaststrokes in caterpillar-stuffed north eastern clouds<br />He didn’t ask me for any poems for 50 years,<br />So why are you asking now, Neera?<br />Even now, standing in 10-foot-deep water, I wield icy rods<br />He wrote an editorial on my sub-judice case,<br />Turning an editor, why are you asking for my writing, Neera?<br />Even now, I love flatbreads stuffed with smoked penguin fat<br />He did not confess to being my anthology’s publisher<br />Why did you confess, Neera?<br />Even now, I have family-pack yawns in the face of families,<br />He didn’t like pronouncing my name<br />So why are you telling it to youths, Neera?<br />Even now, in bloody waters, I join the Bollywood chorus of tiger sharks<br />He had said I have nothing of a true writer<br />So why do you think I do, Neera?<br />At Imlitala, I knew rat roasts don’t taste too good without charcoal smoke<br />He said I have nothing creative in me<br />So why do you think I do, Neera?<br />Having burnt bank notes worth Rs 5,000 crore, I smelt death<br />He said I’ll never write poetry<br />So why do you think I have, Neera?<br />On the banks of Amsterdam’s canals I have heard doddering old men sing limericks<br />He transcended from sorrow to anger and anger to hate<br />Why are you so generous Neera?<br />Please don’t tell my grandmother.