Daljit Nagra is a poet Giving Voice to South Asian Immigrants in the U.K. 2013

An extract from Daljit Nagra's verse-novel, Ramayana

(Publisher Faber & Faber in October 2013)

from Prologue  Get Raaaaaaaaaavana!

The Gods seek help from Vishnu after Raavana, having won great powers (boons), becomes destructive.

Lord of the Cosmos, Vishnu, 

was brought back to heaven

from a stellar meditation

by many gods now stooped at his feet.

Said one, semi-stooped in the saffron light,

'O Lord, whilst we in thousand day prayers 

for peace are bent 

Raavana is bishboshing our kingdoms!'

Another god butted in, 'O Lord, with only a 

wink

he splash even our oceans into a coma.'

No wonder the gods were gurgling with collywobbles -

Raavana was toasting 

their earthly and galactic worlds!

By soaking the energy from everything he nulled

Raavana was now a supreme being becoming!

But who was this scallywag, this goonda?

Lord of the Cosmos, Vishnu, flashed

umpteen visions to the gods 

that showed Raavana's path to glory.

In the first flashback, Vishnu displayed Raavana 

being born with ten heads 

and ten pairs of arms!

Then he showed Raavana, the teenager, on a hillock,

meditating

for so many non-stop years

that smoke was issuing from his head

and dulling the heavens!

The gods were constrained and had to grant Raavana

with great mental and physical powers

known as boons.

So many boons empowering Raavana

that he could fly through the air

on the power of a thought alone!

Yet Raavana hankered after more boons, 

so many boons that even Vishnu, according to the laws of nature,

had to hand them over.

Vishnu showed Raavana earning these boons by

fasting 

atop a mountain

dining only on the air's moisture

for a hundred years!

Boon-packed rock-hard Raavana was

now shown standing on a toe

without shifting a muscle

through heatwave or

whirlwind! One

tough-nut

toe

whilst simultaneously

reciting Vishnu's beloved mantra

ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

for nine 

hundred 

solid years!

No surprise, in Vishnu's next vision, Raavana was losing

his mind

and was holding a blade 

to cut off his own ten heads.

Vishnu, from on high, stopped him by asking 

what he is wanting.

Raavana boomed back,

'Am I not a worthy King of the Universe, Lord!?'

Vishnu must have hoped Raavana would become 

pure shanti, a bit like himself,

yet soon as Vishnu's divine engine

touched

across each Raavana atom

in a somewhat unparalleled way

              Raavana went bonkers!

His ten heads, his ten sets of arm, trapezoid, rump, knuckle 

and whatnot 

juddered tsunami-volcanically

into a hardcore fierce firming-up!

His every milli-inch was muscling -

pinnacling with indestructibilitiness!

Roaring Raavana 

simply leapt through

a spatial portal and 

pegged it straight down

deep into the seventh

and lowest underworld, 

the Swarga Loka, 

to break free the bulk

of his raksassy race!

Vishnu's final vision displayed Raavana

and his raksassy chums 

lording it from an earthly island.

The gods pitched in chaos, chorused,

'What is to be done, Lord?'

Vishnu revealed a loophole in Raavana's boons.

It's true Raavana sought immunity 

from demons and deities but he never

sought immunity from mankind.

So who's to say a man

can't make him meet his maker.

Daljit Nagra talks to the UK Guardian's Rachel Cooke 

Hilda Ogden is my muse

Daljit Nagra's vivid tales of immigrant life and love are electrifying the world of poetry, says Rachel Cooke 

For full interview go to: Daljit Nagra talks to The Guardian's Rachel Cooke