When you made me blind...

Met you once covered by the mist
Beside that feeling of rows of trees
And the unseen lamp post four
the stillness of the night might have then devoured...
Met you first like a runaway light
From distant star that dropped flakes of silver
And my eyes turned surely blind...
For I did see you through my mind...
O I felt you in pores of skin
And in the thickness of the air that leaned
Between us two...like a layer of glass
O I felt how your smiles passed
From your untouched lips straight to my nimble heart...
There must have been a shiuli on bloom
Somewhere very close to us...calm and sweet
Filling bit by bit my vacant rooms...

my autumn...

losing me in your sky
cajoled by your autumnal eyes
getting the smell of your perfume
and your lovely turn table tune...
sinking slowly into your folds
your beauteous form as I behold
your long long dark brown tresses
your mystic sweetness as my soul embraces...
losing me slowly and surely in you...
in your flowery deep cleavaged view...
in your sharodiya numbers...chiffon saree
in your glass of frosty bloody mary...
in your lips glossy dark red
in your unrealised dream evenly spread...
losing me slowly in you
as drops of dew I gather few
on my blades of unopened eyes... my autumn!you're such a lovely device...
I rise and rise to get forever you
losing all again in seamless you...

Being a tree...

The tree was strong and full of branches spread
Like a myth wide enough to cause
The moon takes a little nap perhaps
Tired as she was wandering about the cauldron of the sky...

And those little birds who with all fondness
Built their nests with twigs and twines
At the ys and xs of the branches full of solid wood thick
Must have gone to sleep...
And the sweetness of the mystic fog
Had long since woven with deftness
A curtain...around the tree...

I looked at her grandmotherly
Attitude...saree spread as if
For tiny despondent travellers
To take a nap or a yawn...
And sitting right there I got the feel of her roots
Deep deep into the earth...
Underneath I knew there were branches as well...
Going to different places...groping perhaps in the dark
In search of water...
In search of life saving elements...
That's the being I dreamt once
To imbibe...
The being of a tree...

Kaash flowers of the morn...

From the window when she saw
The kaash white on bloom ...on shine
Kissed by the first rays of morn so sublime
She forgot for the time being
That she had works in hand
She went to her girlhood land...

Twenty years ago...
She had such autumnal morn
Such golden kaash on bloom
Such white jovial hues filled her girly room...
And her dad...her dearest friend...would with a twinkle in his eyes
Ask her if she would love to run
Through those kaash flowers under the new born sun...
And she would just nod her tiny head
With round eyes she would just gaze
At the meadows...open field
Green dotted by whitest cottony things...
She would then take a jump and plunge
Into the soft wavy grass...she would lunge
- an animated sprint...so full of life!
Those kaash flowers waved then with supranormal delight...

Girlhood of those times are now gone
She now travels by car all alone...
Her father's white hair she still could see
In forms of kaash flowers waving in glee...

You...the diwali light!

Left you...almost abandoned you
Under the heap of papers...old files...dusty shape of negligence...
Discarded you thinking there was no way to make the light
Penetrate the cobweb...
And more importantly forgotten you...
Ah!
I am such a man of ingratitude!

You could have cursed me...
You could have left me with an irreparable scar...
A blemish right there on my soul...

Nay!
You're not so poor at heart...
You're not so weak...
To leave marks of skirmish...

You chose to pay me by blood...
You chose to give life out of you
To give me an inexpressible height of a dream...
You chose to put me in the highest pedestal...
And burnt yourself like diwali light!

hey kid! get rid of exam blues!

Wish to kiss on your lids of eyes
to make you feel the width of the sky
free from mcqs...overlapping discs...theorems...
cramming data to excel in worksheets lame...
wish to take away the mountain of books...
trailing satchel... bottlenecked knowledge on tenterhooks...

don't fret over exams kid
believe me...life is a celebration
not bound by dates of neolithic deeds...
don't chew your nails over a silly questionnaire
with your fingers you can strum the strings even better!

come'n! get rid of your exam blues
just tighten the lace of your naughty boy shoes...
and kick it hard...the best you can
life is just an upturned bottle of sand...

what is the way to love?

The pink stood by the creeper
like an onset of long devised winter
And seeing her in fullest bloom I wonder...
What is my destiny?

The procession of the tiny wishes...
Love stories in cursive hand...so cliched
What is the way to love?
To paint the sky with reddened gleam?
To whisper like the yellowed leaves
Falling slow through the airy sea...

The pink stood looking at me
By the creeper so lovingly...
And seeing her in the brightest splendor
I just stop a while and wonder...
What is my destiny?

leit motif of the incomplete...

some incompleteness
has the dream of completion...

a project taken chip by chip...
a drawing sketched incomplete...

a note left  on table unsigned...
a webpage logged in but not logged out...

a coffee mug taken but left not sipped...
a book borrowed from the library but kept half read...

a bite taken into a sandwich and gone-
to attend the chorus of a delirious dawn...

a Vesuvius bubbled but not erupting full
a song from a heart turning into a drowsy drool...

a car ignited by the turn of the key
but engine kept on idle under the shade of a tree...

a poem beginning to become a myth...
a kiss dying on the surface of lips...

some incompleteness are so still and stiff
like a frozen state...a leitmotif...

before the race ends...give me a spark...

Give me a blue mustang morn
laid straight across the noon day
before I take the pit stop...

Give me a race course with thirty five degree bank
liquid nitro guzzling where would my soul run
before I would be towed away to rest
By crane fitted car...flashing blue beacon...

Give a freeway to choose...
out of congestion
so that fiery trails would be left
by the smart control cruise...
before the race comes to an end...

Udita...to you...a dream...

Udita...
Wrote nothing to you
All these years
As time had not been in my purse
And rains here were really scarce...
Ten days of last month had been down
With fever...fret and frown...
The months before the last
Were full of dirt decadence and dust...
Finally this evening got the scope
To write a short version of what I thought most...

No...not specifically about you I thought all these days
But when this year the summer came
And a few yards away the thickets of bamboo grove
Got yellow from the green
I was reminded of the shot taken
By me in a garden of you once
Standing joyous
Probably in your white top and blue jeans
Puffy lips...
And long ear rings...
And  blushing cheeks...
And then the monsoon nights...
They came as usual with thunderous lights
Like flashguns burning for a moment true...
I had momentary glimpses of you
Sipping tea from your favourite tumbler
And sitting on the couch legs on fold
Newspaper opened unmindful
Flapping in the breeze...
That image me several times seized...
Like other ones...your wet toweled stance
Before the oval mirror combing your hair
Smell of shampoo,love and jasmine flower...
All these came and go...
Its a pity...Udita...that you then failed to know...
How thoses images wrought me up in bliss
How on bedspread I discovered your undropped kiss...
Then the autumn...festive glitter
Highs and lows in my barometer...
Mercury wrote your presence in graph...
I saw you breaking in wild laugh
In billboards...posters...special editions of magazines...
Your smart savvy days of teens...
You licking candy fluffy pink balls
Your face resembling mountain falls
Rapid...sparkling...full of life...
Lustre of diwali lights
In your hands...palms...and arms
You like a magic spreading charms...
On my every way of looking at things
My table...bookcase...runaway dreams...
In rhythms of drums beaten to offer prayer
To the mother like idol standing fair
I found the beats of my nimble heart
You...placing your fingers on left side of my checkered shirt
You biting ends of lips with suppressed desire
Full of wine...so intoxicating...yet bright
Udita...
O how I saw you in also wintry morning light...
You in red sweater upto neck covered
You thumping on my bosom...calling me 'coward'...
You walking through the flock of pigeons under the canopy of a provencial hotel
You unnecessarily pressing my doorbell...
You stopping in a misty wide open field
You taking a deep breath to get the feel
Of the new born marigolds that painted gold
A whole country side wrapped in idyllic mould...

Udita...
Wrote the short of the long one here
Next time I think I would make you a movie dear...
A big long one with choreographed trees...
And sea coasts exotic blue like a tease...
And hammock in swing with you on it
I would take long shots panoramic...
And there would be music...a lot...soft...ethereal
Music as rivers and fountains oft create real
As wind blowing through the sands...
Sometimes evolve into tiny strands
Of vision...
And music that emanate from caravans
Of nomads after the day dims into dark
Music of that invisible skylark...
Which once made a poet to erupt in joy...
Wish to put them all...
In that movie that would be shown in a private hall
Only for you dear...for you alone...
You would sit there and watch it...
On the leather sofa brown you would sit...
I?
Well...
I would be then in the projector room...
I would be keeping tabs from there of your smiles...gushes and frowns...
And when finally the movie would end
And the credit lines would appear
Rolling up from the bottom of the screen...
You would think of surely finding me
Somewhere in the hall...but you would not find me...
I would have then left the projector on run
I would have then another dream flown...

Caffeine...

Being fully drenched
With a coffee thirst went
To that shop...pushing in the glass
And at the corner thought would pass
The evening with smoke and drops
That put opaque peculiar shots
On the oval table top
And then your polished nail
Tapped...
Double red marquee on the wood
I glanced upward...and saw you...
Smile kind of slight...
A thin layer of moisture
On face...under the designer small but sharp light...
Enough for me to shift
From coffee smoke to take drift...

And a few paces away...
The whirling sound of a machine
That conjures the perfect brew
For like me the thirsty few
Signalled green...
certain signs with practised hand
were made on the choco cream...

It was still raining hard
Through the glass the city looked blurred...
And the coffee smoke from the cup
Before getting mixed with the captive air
Penciled a sketch...
Of a face...

Let the day wane...

let the day wane
the way it should...
with the homebound flight
of flamingoes true...
let the day wane
the way it deserves...
western front a riot of colors...
let the day wane
the way a novel long ends
with a commensurate line
A profound deep sense...

This day...

This day...so cloudy wet and cool
Is devoid of aging perhaps...
This day...so somnambulent
Drowsy like tired leaf
Falling from branches...
On roll from the cliff
Of incomplete sadness...

This day...so mystic
Full of meaningless myriad flow
Collapse all senses
To bring the insignificant show...
Of the thirst of flowers
Looking up to the sky...
Of indistinct hilltops
Upon which sun cast beams on sly...
Of blades of grass
Burdened by drops
Of last night's hopes
Upon them stopped...

Once again the night same...

'Phir wahi raat hain...
Phir wahi raat hain khwabo ki...'

Once again the night same
Came to me as cued by 98.3 fm
And I plunged into the dream...

Exile...sure...an exile sweet!
And into that exile away from the crowd
I slipped...

Unchanged...

'The town has changed...a lot...'
She said the first thing
Sitting on the grass
Looking around...
The towers were being erected
A few yards away...
Tall towers posing as threats
To the sky...
Over which a few birds at that moment fly
As if like a series of kites...
Reddened by the dying light
To the distant halo of the sun
Where afternoon to the evening will eventually turn...

I said nothing...
For me the change was slow and creeping
As if I am very much part of it...
So I did silently sit...
Waiting for more remarks and comments
That expectedly from her mouth should lend
The air of the day passing quiet...
With more of nostalgic flight...

'Only this particular spot
By the river has remained almost the same...
Remember?'
She started with renewed vigour...
Of her journey to this part of the land
Where she surely spent some days grand...
I waited for her to break into more
Of her girlhood frocked and ribboned green...her mickey moused door...
'Remember?...Once on a wintry evening...
We all gathered here...after our
Daily grind with books
Tables...piecharts...like compressed molecules...
We wanted to burst...
We thought to have a farewell party that would last
Till the next morn...
Decidedly when we would surely be torn...
From each other...sickled by the time...
We had songs and games and barrels of red flowing wine...
We sang songs that night...the whole...
Till the wine made a trance like toll
On us...we laughed...we cried...
On each other's arms we heaved long sighs...
And on the bow of the sleepy boats
We slept off with cracked throats...
Made hoarse by our foolish cries...songs and sobs...
And the next day...we were to be lost in the mob...'
She talked relentless...as if she had gone back
To that day when we had our last get together
When we all wanted the time to grow weak and slack...

'seriously...so many days have passed
Since then...'
I added somewhat sad...
Lugubrious... Like a man turned again a lad...
Young...hypersensitive...touched
By the long memory lane march...
'Hmmm...'
She stopped...
Looking at me with a searching glance...
'I could see streaks of white...
In you...like a sweet aging sign...
Like the town you also changed a bit
But like this evening...there is also a youthful street
Still in you where icecream vendors do come...
Where still play in a water tank colored fish some...'
She said...in a tone of observation...
'Now...tell me...what in me you see?'
She asked...quizzical looks
That me to the lost days took...
I turned towards her to get close
To see what changes left marks of prose
In her poetry which once me submerged...
I looked at her eyelashes large...
'You've changed surely but to me
Changes make no impression...you see...
For a river can never be old...
She can flow...flow forever...
And a man can never a river in his heart hold...
So...you are...flowing decent with time...
So you are like unuttered unwritten lines
Which occur to mind which inexhaustibly pines...
For perennial love...an undying sense...
You can't for me appear changed...'

With this utterance we stopped...
She bent her head on my shoulders...
And before us time seemed ceased...
As if the hands of the clock took a nap...
And a smile appeared gradually in her lips...

Can i betray?

If I have the desire...
To collect little drops of sweat
Which glitter mixed with rain
On your open bare shoulders
On my fingertips ...
As I do collect your stares
Unmindful of my eyes...
And the smell of your shampooed hair
Ignorant of my quest...
Will you call me a fool?
Will you term me a man lustful?

If so...then I have no issues
With those epithets...
For in you I have another of me met
A fool...a lovesick...a poet...a sage...
I have found me in different stages
Of my own development...
In you light of the whole world of mine if without any Eiensteinian work bend...
What am I to do?
Can I betray laws of science?
Can I betray my conscience?

Granny...my granny...

The smell of spices
Ground on mortar by wooden pestle
Evokes so much of love...
Of granny...
Her frail figure...
Betel nut red lips
White saree with border thin black...
And pickled winter noon
By the radio 'Akashbani' tune...
And evening ritual of a drool
Closed eyes...counting beads...
Countless pennies kept as seeds
Of memories...old black n white turned sepia gray over-exposed in light...
Granny mine walking silent head slanted on the left side...
And then stories told in a feeble tone
Of princess lost in a forest lone...
White horse galloping fast with his mane
Dancing on the move...hoofs ploughing fields and plains...
The prince riding turbulence strong
His scabbard glistening like a heroic song...
And then sometimes soft trebled voice
Cajoling consoling wiping my eyes moist
With the end of her saree-smelling betel leaves...
Love dripping incessant through her porous sieve
Of heart so weak yet so full of care...
On her lap childhood brimmed with dreams fair...
Granny...o granny mine so gentle almost like a feather...you come without fail...
Specially in forms of trivial things...
A smell of pickle...old songs...and in fairyland dreams...

Sunday is a marketplace...

Sunday is a big market place...
At long winding queues heels  cool off...
At the bazar full of teeming crowd
Domestic minds shopping spree brace...
'two chicken legs'cries a fellow morning bazar goer...
With a big shopping bag by heaviness lowered
Almost to touch the pavement...
Another orders kilograms of sea fish...
Weighed on scales -a silver dish...
The vegetables green sprinkled fresh
Housemaids in floral Sunday dress...
Talk about foods fashion and brunch at friends...

Sunday is a big market place...
The plaza opens at three thirty one
Glassy facaded...escalatored...glitzy mall beckon
Headphoned young man with his pillion girl
Hair loosy bound in air unfurls...
Movie tickets perforated and cut
Leather sofas filled with popcorns in paper buckets burst...
Jeans and tees low and tight
By oneliners teasing sizzle bright...
'its my life...'
Sound bars shriek...
Icecream sandwich evolved OS
Cellphones carry bluetoothed whales
Evening of hedonism dip in pitchers and pails...
Sunday is surely a big market place...

The moon game...

And then there were nights...
Cool...windy and by moon light
Soaked silver with long shadows of palms
Falling on the ground with strange patterns...
And we would play our 'omot nwaid'-
Our own moon game...
Someone would count one to ten
Turning towards the wall not knowing where and when
The others would hide...just evaporate...
In the air like ghosts perfect...
Then reaching the end of the count
One would start the drastic panicky search...
For others everywhere...behind the trees...bushes...walls...
Till one was to be found
The search under the silver light
Would continue...
Sometimes none was to be found...
Sometimes the massive search would yield null...
And the searcher would sit down
On the grass fully dull...
Then the others would come out
From places where they had hid
Like shadowy creatures only to bid
The lone searcher with cries and shouts
To wake him up from all his doubts...
And the game would start again...
One to ten would start the bargain...
Till night would become dense like fog
Till the trees would sleep off
And streets would be vacant of men and dogs...
And a mother would call aloud her kid's name...
And the drowsy intoxicated steps would be heard at the distant lane...

First muse...

There was a face once
Eyes down...always veiled
Had stones on the shiny forehead
Like three signs of divine grace...
And from under embroidered lace
A few disobedient streaks of hair would flow out
In the wind they would sing songs
In the breeze they would like dreams sprout...
And sometimes like tiny bells would chime
The long earrings for me soft genteel lines...
Full of music ambrosia induced
She was my first perceived muse...

Then at the sunset orangy scape
With more words I would be certainly draped...
Words hanging like loose scent of flower
Words would fall on me like unprecedented shower
But she remained always silent calm
Yet she dropped lines of creative balm...
Much like nature perhaps so  encompassing and holistic
She would just come there to stand
Infront of desperate me...
And by her nods..her unuttered words
I would jot down on pages white
Notes musical...so enchanting...
Notes of birds spread as benign light...

Bound for late night home...

This mist in the air-
a sense of a slight chill,
The moon soaked by the wet clouds
On the lonely road ghostly feel,
And the mild purr of the engine horsepower under clutch...
the breeze with nightly kisses of fairies from the sky despatched...
And the rapid run of the dots of lights
To the opposite direction...blazing flight...

I am just loving it...
Every bit of this return
Late night home I would meet
At the possible next turn...

I am singing a song way back home
Homeward bound as I am
I am awake running the road
While the world has fallen dumb...

O what a way it is to return home
Late...tired...yet gay and fine...
O what a way it is to see her on wait at the table to dine...

Doubly born...

To be lost in a forest
Enveloped by the mist and fog
Where cloudlets come down to rest
Their wings after the flight...
To be lost in the stories of the sleepy meadow
Where dewdrops accumulate on blades, bits of rainbow...
Is like savouring life
In its truest form...
Is like in single life
Doubly born...

Take me back to the womb...

Put me into a wrap
Of your long gown black
And bring me all the studs
Of starlets like newest diamond buds...
Put me into your lap
And the whole world so boisterous
Jarring spokes...flattened tubes...hissing down
Just by your flowing cover everything collapse...
Put me into balmy sleep
By your black hair in which glowworms peep
Send me rest...send me refuge true
Drop on me nightly mist and dew...
Take me to the time primordial
When chaos wasn't born to dictate the real...
Take me to the prenatal insulated state
When sounds and sights through liquid of womb me met...

Take me back...
Back to the womb...
Take me to the sack
Floating me where caught first the heavenly tune...
And sang forever silently closing eyes...
Take me back where only dreams of birth lie...

the archeologist...

The tiny drops of rain
Cried in vain
Clinging to the rails
Of the staircase
Of the palace...
So majestic ...grand
As if a white marvellous land...

But without people so empty
And standing at the feet
Of the flight of stairs
That rose up to the upper layers
Of the sky...cloudy with colors dark deep
He thought what for he had come there
What promises he had to keep
After so many years that glided by
After the terminal kisses and long drawn good bye...

Then he looked up the golden dome
And a pink floating form
Came to his sight
At one corner of the dome bright...
A pink saree's end perhaps or a flag
He his hypnotised legs up the stairs dragged
As if that piece of cloth aflutter
Beckoned him to climb the marble ladder
Of hopes returning again with force
For which he wheeled away several miles from his determined course...
For which he spent hours by the lake
For which needlessly he made too apparent mistakes...
For which the sky, the river,the trees, the hills...
All his mind only impressions sealed
Quite permanent...indelible like some ink
Painted on fingers which to his digressive paths him always linked...

So he climbed the hypnotised man
He climbed not knowing after that time where he would stand...
Only he felt he was there like an archeologist
To unearth history from the surface of marble and brick...
He felt by his spatula he would carbon date
What is the exact age of his pinkish fate...
So he moved up to reach the saree's end
To where his search to the non physical world bent...

What can i give back?

Since morn the rain has been
Weaving a pattern of love...it seemed
As if it fell on me being sent
By so many beautiful souls...
Living so near...
Some even traversed miles far...
I know...
Just like the clouds of late monsoon
Travelling acres of green...
And perhaps sands and snow...
I know...
O how much of love
You send...
This day...this moment...
Supercharging me...my every bit of nerve...my veins...
O how you fill me with a wonderous sense...
I cry...
And tears so happy
Never did I notice...
(And I don't unnecessarily lie...)
They come out flowing with so much of ease...
That I feel ashamed to wipe those drops...
I just let the rivery stream flow...
From my heart...to my toe...
As if I have been bathed
After a long gap of years...with the passion unsaid...

Now its my turn to give back...
Some thing at least...sure...
But what can I possibly give back?
I am turned such a debtor...
By you...your morning scraps...
Your evening pings...
Your noonday dreams...

And then I felt...
My hands trembled...
My heart throbbed...
From eyes water dropped-
In shapes of silvery beads...
And I know...
All these
Are just the rightest signs
Of giving you back all that is so far mine...

The metro girl...

The whiff of sudden air
Always let me know
You are there
In that compartment of metro...

Announcements made over address system
And the simultaneous automatic doors burst open
To let you out from the belly of the train
Reminds me always life's halts and stops
And how images underground pops
Out of busy city borne day...

And at the evening...
More and more crowd
Run up and down escalators...
Like columns of heads tired on return
To their favoured destinations...
I am reminded of you again
Your numbed feet...hazy brain...
Your forehead with beads of sweat
Your smudged up lipgloss...your flushed cheeks red...
Your dawn to dusk runs to and fro...
Your anxious stare at watch...your furrowed brow...
Your autorickshaw wait-
At the non scheduled spot...
Your phone losing charge...
You in traffic jam caught...

Everyday...day in and out
Metro trains remind me of you no doubt...
I can only admire this superwomanliness...
I gape awed seeing you running the life's race...

A tree like birth...

Felt so lost
And so tiny
In the midst of towering trees
Standing tall and strong yet aged right
With wisdom of the flowing breeze specially at night...
Which tell them tales without cease...

Stood underneath at the feet of them
Trying to grasp the meaning of living untamed...
To taste and savour how the beams of moon
Cause silver plating on them by loony tune...
Tried to fully understand
How they collect news in leaves from dust and sands...
How they assimilate opinionated claims
By their sap running like a column of liquid sense...
How they converse in whispers at night
Exchanging slokas of the brightest minds...
How they transfer every single bit of pulse
Of living to non living by being static cults
Of aging beautifully with a growth of knowledge...
As grow the souls of the ageless sages...

Felt so humbled...belittled...dismayed...
Being lost in the woods of trees so great...
Touched their trunks huge solid with cracked woody surface...
Felt how they all ravages of time witnessed...
As if they carry the crux of life...
As if they like stoic gulped down all the strife
And transmuted them into beauty and mirth...
Felt myself wishing to have a tree like birth...

A search...a reverie

Since morning perhaps
There the subconscious
Planted in him the wish
To make the visit...
To that narrow lane
By the canal
To that stop...
Where he was once born
And saw the first light of the day
Thirty years back...
He thought even before taking the turn
The sharp bent ...where the light hit
To the wall pretty straight
That he would find everything the same
As he had left thirty years ago...
With great anticipation he made the turn
Excitement ripping him apart
Within...
He thought there that gandharaj would be seen
Standing as she used to be
With white blossoms under the shadow dim...
He thought soon he would hear
Children in giggles...cries and tears...
And out of that double storied house
Soon his playmate would run across
And pull him by his hands
To take him to that meadowy grass
And that bank of pond...
Where tadpoles wriggled like a black cloth broad...
He thought he would with nature's innocence bond
There after thirty years he gripped by memories fond...

But nay!
That was not to be...
Rows of houses collapsed all memory...
The gandharaj was not there
Only a brick ugly wall stood
And an electric post like a shock
His foolishness severely mocked...
A curious woman from a door
Looked at him...with crossed brow...
Another stood at the window
'Searching someone?' was the unuttered look
He with dubious sad confused state shook
His head sideways...
And then muttered within clumsily...
'No no none I came here to seek...but only me...'