Chum, you seem to have spent
In the company of Nietzsche
How else can I account
For this Dionysian revelry
Of roaming the streets of Bombay
With a camera (maybe a costly one,
Since you are indeed a man of some means)
Slung across your slender shoulder
Maybe with Ravi Kaza in tow
(What is that chap doing now
Whom I would occasionally meet at a quiz,
He being from All Saints High School
Though I doubt if he believed much in saints)
No sooner than your God-given eye
Captures something of delight
You are not satisfied
With the ephemerality of such a glimpse
Or your compassionate and social self
Wants others to view it
Through your eyes
Through your lens
And that is not the only reason
I talk about your Dionysian self
Knowing you now
Since those heady college days
Rumour had it that you smoked weed
And your Mohawk haircut
While at the Gokhale Institute in Pune
Added fuel to those suspicions
Odd that you managed to be so
While reading up Keynes and Friedman
And perhaps Samuelson was your favourite
Who all can drain your spirit
Of all that is worthwhile in life
Chaining your spirit to the Wall Street
And how can you deny your Dionysian self
When you are there in Bombay
In this season of the monsoon
Amidst all this, you can withdraw
At once from the eye
Travelling across the optic nerve
To land in the sweet spot of the brain, your intellect,
And hold forth with me
In purely an Apollonian spirit
Though dyed in your Dionysian self
And talk about compassion
Talk about the corridor of uncertainty
When it comes to seeking answers
To the enigmas of life
And rather intriguingly
You would rather date your questions
Than sleep with any answers
In your own good-humoured but sagely way
And unsettle me for a while
To make me fall into my own being
And question
The veracity of all my answers
(Long live the spirit of Nietzsche and Pramod!)
Know Thyself 