Postcards From Paradise

I was raised in a cosmopolitan spot, caught amidst the politics of men Where we sit, shit, frolic in dirt, smoke chronic herb and wish for things Picture rickshaws, gaudy with yellow and black trimmings Three wheels hydroplane, against the gravel Through overcrowded gullies, swellin' like pregnant bellies With monsoon rains, corrugated iron roofs, sway in the violent winds The sediment stinks, like rotten lettuce left since spring My ethnic settlements, evidence, decadence lives Brown folks nude playing, bathin' shittin' drinkin' prayin' Layin' In the same puddle, riddled with mosquitoes, the size of bald eagles Breedin' malaria, no vaccine, ain't no quinine We deep inside hysteria, outside of history On the fray, lost as a paisley patterned teardrop In the Arabian sea, off the coast of Bombay [Hook] Something like love, something like hope Something like beautiful, something I wrote But postcards from paradise rarely sent to me Postcards from paradise weren't meant for me (2x) Songs play, Ghulam Ali's urdu ghazals wailin' From a pastry shop, Buzzing with flies, over stale things A sepia hued veil slips over the sky 'Allah U-Akbar' a cleric's voice cries Atop the dome from a moghul influenced minaret Across the street from a temple where drums beat to shiva's steps Upanishad texts, holy men in tunics bless The destitute, prostitues, what's the cost of truth? A lucid clear eyed prophet sits on my stoop His brown hair locked in a basket like strands of joot The man's a mute, it's a wonder his mandibles move Hurling curses, reciting verses, they say he sensed a feud Of Hindu's murderin' Muslims and vice-a-versa Diego, my neighbor, got his neck slit with a sickle In the name of a sacred purge, yeah Later that summer, my cityside was swept with murder Religious fervor [Hook] Something like love, something like hope Something like beautiful, something I wrote But postcards from paradise rarely sent to me Postcards from paradise weren't meant for me (2x) So two gods can't live in the same alley, side by side Religious riots, firebrands scar a black night Flashback to a past life Fatehgunj Housing sphere's overlooking thatch and shoddy made dung huts Shantytowns sprout then, stick out like gout Politicians talkin' 'bout 'forward progress NOW' So these beautiful folks had their huts burned to the ground But genius lies in all things simplified They'd take cow shit, mixed it with grass, a few twigs Exposed to the sun, it hardened once plastered to a few bricks Add some sweat and you have a makeshift apartment Follow the stark stench of humans, fume and disease Where my peoples get by simply on ritual beliefs It's steeped deep in what the british did before they flee Left more than just English literature, cricket, whiskey and tea Psychological damage, famines, but we managed Cause even a rose grows through cracks of concrete And a lotus floats hope in the stream of the ganges There's love here, but hate too, for that you can blame karma And nah, we just ain't Deepak Chopra and our famed martyr So why would you wanna travel any place farther You can come-leave-reassured, your world's a safe harbor So here it is, the picturesque postcard you chase after Complete with Taj Mahal's, camels and snake charmers