I am sorry,

We weave great stories to our male friends: of great adventure –

the risk of life and limb in the battles of the heart

endures,

over stiff whiskeys and cricket scores.

It takes a woman friend to chuckle – so much bluster

for a few honest words to match what the eyes and the frowns

already said using another grammar: Say it, say it to her.

If you are a coward, I will tell her.

No, but what would her neighbour, her friend, her mentors say

about this foreigner? And what would she tell her friend her mentors

about this foreigner?

Like in the book:

– Suppose we save this woman.

– Save the woman, Mr. Fogg!

– Why, you are a man of heart!

– Sometimes, replied Phileas Fogg, quietly; when I have the time.

Bravo and what a man of heart, a valiant prig

To save an Oriental maiden in distress from certain Sati!

Then, the strategies, logistics, whiskeys, more cricket scores.

The stuff of men

It would be vital to enroll Native help

Before storming the ramparts –

– Parsees or Sepoys my Lord?

– Say it, say it to her – pick up the phone and say it

No, says the Native Informer, bought for a whiskey

and a pat on the back, old chum,

I know her kind, in our culture there are always complications

Subtleties and untold dangers

Aha, the paraffin-lamp flickers – now we are getting somewhere

This is a risky business, not just for me but for all of us

Aha, timing is of essence, when the sentries are asleep and when

The tigers in the moat are fed

Yes, yes he says, when the proverbial darkness falls

When real men strut out

She is a Shradha and you are not her Manu. Boy!

She is the poem: “Oh Radha, Radha! Take this soul that trembles

and droops downward with a hundred thousand blooms

and in every bloom a bee!”

There is no sense of entering the struggle

Without verses of Gita Govinda on your lips

You are on the outside of the poetry my friend!

This is tradition.

She is the daughter of important parents

Studied in the best of schools

Good schools and finishing schools

beginners schools and Universities

And she was married off to

the amabassador to Britain

had tea with the Queen and scones with a Sheikh of Arabia