my son, not quite seven, said

It was a bad day at school
Six children cried

Why? Were they sick? Did teacher scold?
Which six?

Trinanjan
Ishita - two times Ishita!
Arjun
Jatin
Actually, three times Ishita!
I can't tell you about it

Why not?

Neha started it
Rahul and I ran away
It was a madhouse!

A madhouse? Viraj, tell Amma, please.

You'll scold me. It was in the break
Teacher wasn't there

Okay, don't tell me! You don't have to tell me.

They were talking about
Love.

Love?

My not-quite-seven son looks sheepish, then mulish

Yeah, love.

But why did everyone cry? Love is nothing
To cry about! Love's a happy thing
Viraj, you know that

dear god, how we lie to our children
my son, named for procreation

amalgam of wild Aryan rituals
my son, the first Vedic man
stares at me

his glowing rhesus eyes
full of candour, of trust

my son says

Neha said Trinanjan loves Lori
And then Trinanjan started crying
Ishita loves Subir. Everybody says she loves Subir
Even Devika loves Subir
And Ishita cried

Actually, Trinanjan loves Lori, but Lori
Doesn't love Trinanjan
So Trinanjan cried

And you, Viraj, whom do you love?
You know.
No, I don't. Who?
Neha.
And Neha? Does anyone else love Neha?
She loves me.
That's lucky. How do you love Neha, Viraj?
Do you play with her? Is she your special friend?

No, I just love her.

Viraj, why didn't you cry?

I was brave

yes you were brave, Viraj
you don't know just how brave
you'll have to be

it's a lonely business - this love
you were the first man, you ought to know

and then I think how primitive
this thing is, how old
what fires have burned for it
what fantailed dances it inspires

schooldays
neatly segmented into periods, subjects
Hindi, Maths, English
and something mysterious called E.V.S.
but all that method, that learning
those iterated aisles of desks
rows of little chairs
then come to this -
a break at high noon
at recess

Love breaks into that gap in the day
it holds its own classes

Erich Segal, sentimentaliser of a generation
you knew love was about crying, Ryan O'Neal
had to love Ali McGraw, if it was really

Love

you knew about the accusations, the guilt
but you had no inkling that all the schmaltz
the romance, begins with this instinct
for pairing
with recitations, incantations
encirclements
spells

Ne ha began it. It was a madhouse.

Trinanjan and Lori, Viraj and Neha, Ishita
and Subir, Subir and Devika, have they all
entered the madhouse?

Love

is not never having to says things
it is to say things, show things
over and over and over again
with all the desperate jazz at your disposal

see, that's Romeo on his bum guitar
and that's the moon, shameless mauve
riding the tide - and Neha
you can make out Neha
stirring her amateur brew

O Viraj, step back, step back
from the red-bottomed langur turn-ups
from the aggrieved jackal cries
from the kingfisher's Dionysiac blue

you are too young for a tragic hero
too young to die of natural causes
O Viraj - you are just too young for words!

words, even words
can tear you apart -
if those are all you have

but today my son Viraj, not quite seven
is indifferent to danger

he is brave

merged with the brilliant sky, the earth's
dark quilted bracken
he has become his first self -
three thousand, twelve thousand
a billion years old . . .