Testosterone - The Bangalore Kingfisher Beer Festival 2009. Poem by fon tuma

Testosterone - The Bangalore Kingfisher Beer Festival 2009.



A sickle moon of dirty yellow was plastered to the sky,
as rows and rows of parents, children, lovers,
friends, professional drinkers and drunks converged
to the sound of the band playing Hindi covers
merged with the Zinc-like music of electric guitars.
The Fair fairly breathed with life of its own
as men came to feel the touch of other men
came to bump against one another,
to witness and prosper in the soothing thought
'I am not alone and this is proof, this multitude
of living hearts beating, crowded about me here and now'.
Upturned faces brown, yellow, white and black too
- the brown overshadowing the rest - all sweating,
facing the stage, the genesis of the musical noise,
lip-synching the words swaying and whooping
arms in the air clutching the bodies of bottles,
when Kingfisher decided to gift her clients
granted them a soothing irony of self-respect,
'Here' it said, although you are addicts to me and mine,
'here feel appeased, for I too can be generous,
I too can give freely.' But really, what is free?


We left home early that evening, six men.
Who tired too of seeing our self-same faces,
journeyed to that open feild of drink and dance;
split in two as to accomodate the three man rickshaw:
there was Gael, Ferez and Nelson to one,
Fon, Dejon and Kevin to the other.
And two hours later after the heavy adventure of traffic
re-converged outside the gates at 'Palace Grounds'
to buy tickets.
Then it was on: bets were placed amid confident smiles,
'Who'd be the first to bulk under the weight of of drink;
Who'd cease, too drunk to move - testosterone you see.
People poured in, bored faces, laughing others,
some just shambling by. All with a thing in common:
each clutched a can or a perspiring plastic cup
crowned with bubbling froth, sitting above the golden glitter
of a Kingfisher.


Three hours later and the children are gone,
that bored look inhabiting mostly brown eyes is passed.
Now there is only merriment as the liquid has taken toll
now there is wild laughter, now people stumbling and failing
instead of the zombie-like shambling of before.
Make-up on the pretty faces are not so fresh. Most
have been smeared across these faces(not so pretty anymore)
and there is that beautiful woman in a short white skirt
batting her eyelids this way and that.
a confident 'bella' for the macho-world to see and breathe
deeply wishing in yearning, whispering and thinking:
'just half an hour with those faultless legs,
I swear to make her speak in tongues,
in languages unknown and unlearned' - testosterone you see.
Kevin won the bet: 'Dejon will go down first, unable to speak'
he'd said. And there was my friend lying face down,
clutching the ground tight. A few passersby concerned,
curious ask 'Will he be alright? Will he be fine? ' We know
in the affirmative and quel their worried stares with smiles
and nods 'He will be okay, He does this all the time.'



Another three hours go by and the DJ thrills,
spinning this way and that, calling the crowds to him.
Legs are flung this way then that too, hands are dangerous
shooting like arrows in dance, only to be recalled
and then shot out again. We are a throng of five (minus Dejon) ,
jumping and drinking, drinking and dancing, falling while drinking.
in the middle of the tight dance-space of gyrating bodies
- packed like in the worship-place of some ancient god of Song -
freely sweating in the giant tent constructed to harbour,
those unthrilled by the Hindi band and guitar music.
That band doing its damndest to thrill the 'loyal-less crowd'
who now move towards the rhythm of the tent, towards the beat;
Where the crazed DJ, ear glued to shoulder nods the music to life;
where the crowd exuberant and without inhibition, just immaculate thrives.
And in that sea of brushing bodies, glued by sweat,
some new developement arrives to thrill.
A group of white tourists danced in that
haphazard way that is theirs, untimely ticks and movements,
fun and almost lovable to watch. Theirs was an island like ours
- only different. And that sea of brown people which
like any crowd had thought of its own, a mind, a brain,
coherent speech too surrounding both.
I see one of the eight girls in the group go down,
someone screams but the music is up and men are drunk.
Few care, most do not even know. She goes down blonde and
almost frail, she falls at the feet of jumping men, drunk
and breathing hard. The weird thing that makes me laugh,
and would later go on to explain with good humour was:
as I come to see, she'd not fallen by a twisted ankle or
by an excess of of the golden elixir (like Dejon snoring outside) ,
she'd been felled by a group of brown skinned boys,
eager, young, and horny. Had that crowd been absent,
had her posse not immediately retired her;
that woman would have been ravaged there and then
for as she rose blushing, shocked in righteous wrath
I saw there had been five atop her right where we dance.
Five who had to be pried off and shown the door.
The booze some may say, years and years of sexual repression
others too. But those who really know the cause will articulate
of almost four hundred years of dominant doctrine,
hammered and drummed into defense-less heads, what said:
'The white is right, the white is power. Thy native flesh is stained
thy clolour and flesh tainted by dirt'. But my head too had
responses and reasons of its own, it whispered and not unloudly:
'It is testosterone, testosterone our everyday Nemesis'.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Ying Escalona 29 October 2009

great festival....perfect elaboration..great news

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