Poetry: Vidya Hariharan

Vidya Hariharan

Late Nights and Early Mornings

Late nights are busy nights, 

Others sleep or toss and turn,

It makes no difference,

As long as they are far away,

And their ghosts do not interfere with mine.

Reading, thinking, imagining 

Is easier and fuller in the night.

Squares, rectangles and pinpricks of light 

From other restless rooms

Keep me company sometimes,

At other moments, exist in the periphery.

This city doesn’t sleep, truly.

This city cannot rest, completely. 

This city writhes within me-

An entity compelling me to stay up,

And keep watch, its spirit palpable.

So, early mornings are strangers to me.

***

Tomato Chutney

Ripe, red tomatoes, rinsed and chopped, 

Lay on the board, ready for the wok,

Sugar, chili powder, cumin and salt,

Ranged in a row on the granite top.

The gas turned on, ready for the pan, 

Steam from the water rose up and ran

In rivulets on the glasses perched on her nose,

gently she scraped the tomatoes

into the pan and added the spices, 

letting them simmer and cook 

till the bubbles rose up, and she screamed,

“Dinner’s ready!” Her children came 

One by one; ate silent, with head bowed

They failed to see the chutney red

Smeared to one side of their Ma’s forehead.

***

Contemplations of a Death Row Inmate

fresh laundered shirt

her perfume 

on my skin

lingering 

ghost of her touch

beneath my collar

fleeting

a memory 

complicated knot

of the tie she tied

laughing

shaking her head

gently

resting on my 

sternum

whimsy playing

on my lips

as I enter

Death row.

***

Bio: Dr Vidya Hariharan is an enthusiastic traveller, coffee guzzler and manic reader. The poetry gene jumped two generations as her great grandfather P.S. Rama Iyer was a Malayalam language poet and author. She lives and works as a lecturer in Mumbai, India. Some of her prose and poems can be found on Poem Hunter, Café Dissensus, Setu, Muse India’s Your Space, Glomag, Borderless, Mayari Literature, Poetry Super Highway, Poems India, Contemporary Haiku Online, Pan Haiku Review and Under the Basho. Her poems “Beauty” and “Open Heart Surgery” have been selected as Editor’s Pick for July and September 2024 respectively. She also won the Editor’s Choice Award for her haiku from Under the Basho in 2024.

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Setu, July 2025

Poetry: Vidya Hariharan

Vidya Hariharan

Love and Marriage in a Metro

Falling in love requires a phone.

With constant calls and messages,

The interchange is always on,

Every minute, each second there’s sharing,

Of loving words, jokes and memes.

The virtual world keeps reality away,

Text messages speak of dreams,

Of a life together which nothing may

Break asunder or keep apart.

Love you forever, whispers the heart.

Spending every minute spare

Talking of this and that.

Real time meetings are so rare

So busy are the couple even to spat.

After some months, the parents are told:

“We’re getting married, we love each other.”

This too is shared on zoom, lo and behold!

Thus, a marriage is arranged, end of discussion.

The hall is booked, friends and relatives

 E- invited, the hired hosts greet the guests, 

Gifts are Gpay remitted.

Which heaven are such marriages made in?

Who knows, maybe it’s like the internet of things.

Nobody understands how relationships work

A deep mystery it is, where emotions lurk.

Times are tough for lovers everywhere

They’re too busy to sit and share.

Work consumes these poor Romeos

Love blooms sweetly in the pauses.

***

The Fashionistas

Torn jeans and coloured hair

Seem like fashion flair.

The beauty queen and the local vagrant

Both are dressed similar.

Long bearded men wrapped in lungees 

Stretch on footpaths at their ease.

Draped in sarongs gliding on the stage,

Young models with stubble are all the rage.

Hollow cheeks, caved in belly,

Palms outstretched, always hungry, 

Begging at traffic signals for a fiver

Is she very different from a diva?

***

Inappropriate behaviour

What do they mean

When they say

‘act your age’

‘Cos as you know

I may be fifty

On my bones,

But in my heart

I am still sweet

Sixteen!

So when they say,

‘Act your age’

I sing, “I am! I am!”

***

Bio: Vidya Hariharan is an avid reader, traveller and coffee drinker.  In her spare time, she wrestles with crossword puzzles. She enjoys the works of T. S. Eliot, Ranjit Hoskote and Sylvia Plath, when she is not devouring crime fiction. The family’s poetic gene jumped across two generations, as her great-grandfather P.S. Rama Iyer was a popular poet and short fiction writer in Malayalam. Vidya also teaches English Literature in a suburban college in Mumbai. Some of her narrative prose and haiku can be found on Muse India’s Your Space page. One of her poems “Beauty” has been selected as Editor’s Pick for July 2024. 

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Setu, January 2025

Poetry: Vidya Hariharan

Vidya Hariharan

Lost and Found

Hollow as a termite infested tree,

Stomach churning fear and anxiety,

Squatting on the platform

Head bowed, in her eyes a storm

Of regret, guilt, shame,

Chanting her son’s name 

Like a talisman, she clutched

At any stray mite of hope offered

By the khaki-clad, lathi wielding

Women, sisters pretending

For her sake that all will be well.

Feet like trunks of young mangroves

Passed to and fro without pause,

Looking ahead with sightless eyes

She ignored the words of advice,

Eat, drink water at least, they said,

Lost in the hell in her own head

She sat like a stone, unmoving,

Recalling her child’s face smiling,

A demonic howl rose inside 

Which the uncaring crowd pushed aside.

She cursed the day they left home.

A rush of hot blood filled her ears

Hearing “Ma” shouted near

Craning her neck, she leapt up

Saw her five-year-old step

Down from the shoulders of a man 

Into her aching arms he ran.

She hugged her precious load to her heart

Promised him, never would they be apart.

With a smile like the sun, she turned 

To thank those kind souls who helped

To find her lost child.

***

Foam

The gentle swell of the sea

Raised and dropped him rhythmically,

Nothing held him but warm salt water

All around for miles and miles.

Sunlight pierced his eyelids 

he held them shut, not wanting to look

to think, to remember,

all he had done, lived through

and suffered at the hands of men

like him but mean as snakes. 

A start-up was his business plan 

Wild success met his work

Sweated his guts to scale the top

Borrowed cash to expand 

They bled it dry in no time

Left him to gather the pieces

Friends deserted in hour of need

Wife left soon after

Love had withered with the treasure,

Life had taught him a hard lesson.

A scrape of something rough

Against the back of his knees

Turned his head to see 

A smooth black hump rising 

Below the waves of the sea

The creature swam closer still

He felt his heart beating fast

Would she eat him alive?

In a panic, he swam towards the shore

Vowed to start afresh once more.

***

Alone-ness

Golden-yellow light suffuses the cosy room

Full of well-dressed, beautiful, low-talking men

And women in warm pastel shades, holding

Flutes of champagne, ice cold, twinkling

Rings, raised to pursed lips, manicured

Nails, touch each other’s arm delicately

to make a point, pale mascaraed eyes 

searching for weaknesses in dress 

and appearance, in accessories and manners,

of guests carefully curated by the hosts,

(noted systematically by the retina),

to be torn into later, with partners and 

intimate friends, sharing the gory details.

In that social warzone, alone-ness

Is a carapace, each carries within,

Under the clothes of public duress.

***

Haiku

Memories

The waves recede

Leaving behind-

Memories.

Home

A bird’s nest

Tangled mess -

She oils my hair.

Traffic

One lane traffic

Heavy rush-

Of ants.

***

Bio: Vidya Hariharan is an avid reader, traveller and coffee drinker.  In her spare time, she wrestles with crossword puzzles. She enjoys the works of T. S. Eliot, Ranjit Hoskote and Sylvia Plath, when she is not devouring crime fiction. The family’s poetic gene jumped across two generations, as her great-grandfather P.S. Rama Iyer was a popular poet and short fiction writer in Malayalam. Vidya also teaches English Literature in a suburban college in Mumbai. Some of her narrative prose and haiku can be found on Muse India’s Your Space page. One of her poems “Beauty” has been selected as Editor’s Pick for July 2024.

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Setu, September 2024