Four Rubaiyat

The Soothsayer Sings a Ruba’i

 In this land where I sit with my nervous pile of cards

Either I’m in Rashomon or I’m a nervous ward

You ask for successes, battles won, hearts broken, and cities trashed

My fingers groping the smooth crystal find only shards.

The Wife Sings a Ruba’i

 Wish it were two amorous homes free and side by side

Us, meeting and loving at will, any woe denied

A sherbet glass at yours, wood apples at mine, and Megh Malhar tones

Is it not love’s best flavour picked and tried?

Brutus Sings a Ruba’i

From behind O Caesar, when I saw your trusting noble head

I imagined homeless folks, children and the old hungry in bed

Democracy raped, chasms deep in mind all around –

That sublime moment let my hand, remorseless, to strike you dead.

Shakuntala Sings a Ruba’i

If a ring were everything, a face, an identity

O king, should I call my luck all but serendipity!

Well, I too have now learnt to take a passing fancy at faces I wear

As talismans. Ah, the pleasure of possessing too many men in your city!