lets go to the wild...once again...

Lets go to the wild...once again dear...
Leaving behind whatever we did in between,
Just zipping 'em up in wastepaper basket...
And cleanse our past...
Cleanse ourselves...

Lets go to the wilderness...once again...dear...
Remember the way we caught salamanders from the creek?
Remember?
How we built tepee using our black waste bag?
How we light up fire...the most fragile thing, using frictional force on two bamboo sticks?
How we survived the roughest terrain and climatic conditions just using our intuitions?

O how blessed the times were!
O how good we spent the time in wilderness, dear!
How good!

I remember distinctly how once in a forest near the carribean sea...
We ripened green bananas by putting them into hotwater spring!
How we cooked our dinner, mere snails and prawns...
And how well did we survive...
In the wilderness!
In moist and heat...
In rains and the Sun...

As good as all weather friends...
Good forever...

the motorist...

'I swear by Wankel engine...
And if you ask me why...
The reasons are purely technical
Rotary engines are smoother than those piston types pumping in and out constantly...'
Saying these our motorist stopped
Cause he had more important business to attend-
His fag...

It was burning low all the way
But with him talking too much without attending to it;
The fag, being the most whimsical seeker of kiss...
Decided to die down,
Putting across a serious warning to our motorist
Reminding him sternly almost, in his symptomatic manner,
That he and all his rotational stuff will be seriously impinged by lack of the intoxicating air
That the motorist would die for...eventually...

So our motorist looked at the tip of his fag,
Which looked charcoal
Instead of being in its customary color-Red... as invigorating as a lipstick...
So...
He brought his lighter out...
Another rotary kind thing with external combustion...
No cylinder, of course, to help complete combustion...
To light up his charcoal fag...
To turn it into invigorating red...

Satisfied with his puffs
Turning the charcoal red...blazing...like a dot of glow...
Our motorist
Took up his pencil
And started to draw...
To explain things to people like me...

He put on paper his logic and motor sense
To make me convinced of his undaunted faith in the rotary design...

Me?
I just looked at both the engine types
Rotary and piston reciprocating one...
And wondered...
Does it really matter?
Does it matter really as long as we're driving and driving it fine and smooth...
Only the road matters...
The road...

Highway blues...

'Just another ride...
Though the evening is somewhat different this time!'
He thought...
As he rode through the Highway so straight...
The evening was filled with more mist...
Highway mist and highway illusions...
Headlights from incoming cars zipping past like screamers create the same maze...
'Only this time...'
He thought...
'I have no helmet glass to make things more illusory...'
He missed his bike but loved his drive still...
Driving down...
And the car seemed like an isolated room on the move...
So alienated...
Barring the windscreen showing him every moment
The passage of the evening...
The passage of the people, dhabas, deserted petrol pumps...
He kind of liked the passage...
Liked the passage of the car and his soul...
Down the highway...
So long and straight...
So long...

He kind of liked the localities whizzing past...
Buzzing as exceptions...amidst darkness and lack of human presence...
'Just like our existence...so peopled and so much lonely...sometimes...'
He thought...

Come'n! we are no bodybags!

Hey! why are we doing all these?
Ain't it too clumsy?
I mean the way we smash the window panes every moment if we find something going wrong around?
Why dear! why we go bonkers like that?
Can't we be a bit tolerant...
See...
Your blood carries the same what we call...O I forgot!

Yes! Something like haemoglobin!
Right?
So you carry haemoglobin in your blood...me too!
Now look at your heart...
It pumps the blood...
Your lungs?
They purify your blood...
Right?
Mine too!
We all are so same dear! we all are so same...
Then?
Why are we fighting?
Remember that young poet who died in the bunker?
Died...pitiless in a foreign soil...
With a blood sputtered note-book on his red bosom...
Come'n!
Let's be friends dear!
Let's stop pushing knives into each other's bodies...
Let's live...
Let's stop turning us into mere foolish, dumb, bodybags!

why you died? you ass?

Tell me...
Tell me dear...
Why the f...k you died silly?
Why?
Didn't you scream it hard saying ' It smells like teen spirit'?
And everytime I cried, you cried with me too..
From the jukebox old...from my dad's sunday lazy afternoon's radio shows...remember?

'Nevermind' you said...
'Nevermind bro!'
You jammed...all through...

Then?
Tell me dear...
Why? why you the greatest ass who actually went poppier and poppier...
Died that way?
You claimed you are getting happier and happier...
Getting removed from your angry days...
But still you died...took to death...
What a shit!
Come'n!
Take us to the Nirvana, now...
Take us!

Atonement...

He thought did it right finally...
Facing his destiny with no clenched fist and parched tongue...
Facing his roughened soul with a piece of cake, with red cherry toppings...
Facing her with all the smiles he had stowed away for a while...
After being sent for the gallows for no reason strong, but because of wishes and dreams never been deciphered by him...

He thought-
Sitting in front of the white marble tomb...as white as the wings of doves flying close stretched to the full...
He thought he had to sit there...in the tomb...becalmed by the serenity of divine blessings...
After making such a beautiful journey of lies and videotapes...doctored...

He thought...
Sitting in the blessed tranquility,
Is like getting closer to the Atonement...

moving away...

He took the loop and fixed it
On an open space,
Fixed...
One end, of the string that had no loop, of course...
And started moving the loop at an uniform speed...

He did simple tricks like that on open space...
Several times, in his life...
Moving away...
Moving away in the open space with an uniform angular speed
Itself has its own geometry!
Geometry on the open space!
Moving away at an angular speed, yet being fixed at one end tight!
'Wow!'
He thought...
'What a spiral motion I have become!
My God! I am an Archimedean pattern on the open space...A pattern moving away...
Yet being fixed at one end...'
He thought as he looked how the uniform angular motion creates a spiral...
On the open space-
 Multidimensional!

on a diwali night...

While she was busy lighting the diyas on the terrace...
So evenly panned out...like little stars dazzling yellow
And her face glowed by the light so soft...

He,
Just sat there at one corner...
Looking at the glow on her face
And the diyas...
So pure!
As if the whole terrace became an aisle of a church...so somberly eloquent...
Carrying all the talks of undisclosed hearts...
And the murmur of the last autumn leaves...yellowish orange...falling in ones and twos...
Left him amused...

He thought Peace was the only word he searched for,
Right from his cradle days...

Peace...
It was there when he was on the crib...
Peace...
It was there till he lost his innocence...
Peace...
He wanted to regain it...
On a diwali night...
Full of diyas...all around...
And incessant bursting of crackers as well, which created smog...

Peace...
He wished he could live by it...
Amidst the smog..
And the crackers...
He wished he could become a diya himself...
Facing forever her...
Lighting him up with matchsticks...
Peace...
He thought...
Was She...
And he a simple diya...on the terrace...being light up...
As autumn waned to usher in the winter...
And as the darkest night glowed with light...

She became Ether...

'Come on board the cloud...dear...'
He said oneday...arriving at her door...wearing a flannel white..
As if he had been a part of cloud for long...looking wondrously fluffy...just like a cloudlet himself...
'Where's the cloud?'
She asked...
'Why? can't you see? we're all in the cloud!'
He exclaimed;
'You got to be joking...'
She said, suppressing her smile, taking all these as part of his whims...
'Oh dear! just feel it...just use a bit of your senses...'
He pleaded, looking seriously overwhelmed by something...some kind of magic, perhaps...
But she just kept on looking at him...his clothes....flowing in the afternoon breeze...carrying scent of distant seas...

He...
The cloudlet smiled...
He...just smiled...benign...
He then mumbled, as if he is letting go of a secret...
'Dear...just close your eyes...and feel the breeze blowing...take in as much air as you can take at one go...
Then release it slowly...very slowly...and release it feeling every bit of its passage through your lungs...
Your airlobes deflating every second...
Just release it...as slowly as you can till you feel there's no air any more in your lungs...'
She looked at him, dismayed...

Then,
She did exactly what he proposed ...
She closed her eyes...
And a dark curtain set in...
A dark curtain...shuts her into a dungeon...

Then she felt the breeze blowing by her untied hair...
She felt it blowing by her ears...
She felt it blowing by her body...almost caressing every angles and rounded shapes of her physique...
She got a mild shiver...
As if she was being made a part of a foreplay...
She got goosebumps...
And she felt the air more...
She felt she was forgetting where she was...who she had been...
The Dark became a blue space everspread...
The Light blinded her...
She felt the light making her transparent...
She felt the Light passing through her unsexed presence...
She became a non-being...
She became ether...

waiting for your bus...

With the sky turning blue like the freshly painted canvas...
And the scent of shiuli reaching me every early morn...
I know, dear..
That you're on the way...
To meet me after so many months...
I can get the news of your arrival!

I know, dear, that you've already taken the bus from your place...
And probably the bus driver is amazed to see you walking into the bus so early
Wearing your favourite white knee length skirt with floral borders...
I know...
That the bus is virtually empty-
Carrying only you to me!

I can see you sitting by the window
And the mild morning breeze playing with your scented hair silky...
I see you looking out of the iron bars of the bus...
With your eyes being so eager to find me standing at every bus stop that lines your way...
I see you filled with so much of happiness
Are you not equally eager to relive the moments?

Well...dear...
I am eager too...
Waiting for your bus to arrive
Right at the stop with a corrugated tin shed rusty
Opposite my balcony...
I'm here standing right!

You might be confused, I know...
Seeing things changed so much here...
The big mahogany tree with its sprawling branches
Is no longer there by the bus stand...
So also the small park across the road...
They are all gone dear...
All gone...making way for the big apartments you see...

But still, as you're on your way to meet me...
I think...
The mahogany would return with its soothing shade...
And all the children with fill the space with their playful cries...
If you're on your way to meet me...
Dear...everything returns...
Me too!

at a village fair...

Riding his bike as usual...
Somehow he reached a village fair...one wintry evening...
Yellow lamps hanging from wooden poles gave the fair a distinct festive look...
And the village folk in humble dresses...oily heads...thronged every nook and corner of the field
In which several makeshift tents were set up...

He gazed at the wares being sold...earthen pots...simple wooden kitchen tools-wooden spatulas...
Wooden flat round shaped boards and barrel-like artifacts...used usually for kneading doughs and making chapatis...paper-thin...
Glass bangles in another stall...
Bangles as varied in shapes and designs as feminine faces, so varied and charming!
Bangles red, yellow, white, purple, green...
Bangles made of wood even!

He looked around with his eyes-
Not curious but full of curiosity...
How simple people of the village gather at a humble fair...with their children and wives and women...
Weren't they full of mirth and gaiety?
Weren't they pleased and wonder struck by simple things?

Then he looked at his expensive bike standing a few paces apart...
Two hundred cc engine...with all muscle power...
Switch-type ignition...
Oil filled suspension...
Digital tachometer...burning blue fluorescent!

Then he looked at his shoes
Branded, freshly bought from a mall selling brand equity...

Then he looked at his soul
Such a commodity, so cheap!

At the village fair...
He rediscovered his forgotten self...
He thought he got rid of hedonistic illusions
Which come wrapped in malls
In shapes of colored paperbags and designer elements...

Peace...

One hundred and forty thousand
For Hiroshima;
And seventy four another
For Nagasaki;
'Let's give Peace a chance, dear!'

'Let's give chance to Peace...'
Cried that bespectacled man with boyish charms
And a beard running astray-
With his wife by his side
And several hundred young Turks
Sitting on the pavement
So red ...so red!

One hundred and forty added
To seventy four more...
'Let's give Peace a chance, dear...'
And we shot that young bearded man dead
On the pavement so red...so red!

(This poem was listed up as an entry to UNO international social media page on World Peace,2011)

when u meet me...

Whenever you meet me...
By chance, on the street...
Or at that small bookshop round the corner...
I feel so happy inside...as if thousand flowers bloomed just then on my strangulated desert...arid...

When you meet me dear..
And your hazel eyes meet mine...
I feel so happy inside...as if I had chanced upon meeting my sole soul...a scroll...
Unwound by your breezy presence...blessed!

Whenever you meet me dear...
Across that dark alley...depopulated...
I feel so pure inside...as if I had chanced to take  holy dip in the Ganges...so mythical..
Ganges of my past...and my future...

When you meet me dear...
As matter meets antimatter
An explosion is always on the cards!
An annihilation of both of us!

the city...post festivity...

The streets still carry all the marks of revelry...
The city, my love, still bears on her body the bamboo structures
Which hogged all the limelight even a few days back!

The ball-chain lights still hang from someone's ceiling...
The paper cups of ice-cream and coffee are lying strewn unattended yet by the corporation cleaners...
And those structures which got so many clicks with flashbulbs blinding
Are now standing erect like some ugly puzzles made of bamboo and tarpaulin and jute mats...

Where all the people gone?
All those people who thronged for the last three or four days-
Making roads choc-a-block...
Where all those cars gone?
Those cars which a few days back stood bumper-to-bumper-
Like immobile serpent on the streets?

O!
How I miss those days of my city dear decked up for the occassion!
O! How I  miss her in her festive best!
O!
How I miss her sweet charms with new paints on
Of lipgloss and mascara...
And high heels, stilletos...
And ramp walks...
And rock songs emanating from cars whizzing past through the Redroad...

The city, my love,
Post the revelry looks so tired
So weary...sans the gloss...
Like that beauty of the lore, without her glass shoes...

The sine wave...

The moment he dropped the stone into the pond stagnant...
The point where the stone touched the surface of the water
Became a point of origin of the waves...of expanding circles...
Expanding forever...till the energy of the stone dissipated...
The waves came forth in uniform undulations...of water, which henceforth remained calm like the statue of Buddha...
Yes!
He stirred the water...
Created ripples and loved watching the ripples dissipating into the calm of nature...
So absorbing!
Knowing that he was actually creating a basic function of Time
Through the sine waves...
He giggled like a schoolkid, small...curious...
'Hey! I have created just a Time function on water!'
He cried within...
And thought of understanding the amplitude of the Time function...
Then his focus shifted towards another thought...
'How can I really change the phase of the Time function?'
He thought...
And thought...
Becoming a Buddha himself almost...deep submerged into thoughts that instigated his actions...

He soon realized the moment...
The moment...
When the stone touched the surface of the water of the pond stagnant...
Time was a big zero then...

'Just at that moment perfect...the oscillation was about to begin...'
He,the ascetic thought...thought deep...
'Life is just like that...a sine wave perennial...till the phase changes..and the moment of truth arrives...'
He nodded in appreciation...
And sat still...

Riding through...

His back was already having that typical rider's ache...as they call it in medical parlance...
A kind of an ache that occurs usually in the lumber region and...
it spreads out evenly to all directions...
Till it follows up the spine..
Sitting for long on the bike and riding through the mob-
One had to experience all those stuff as part of the ride itself...
Even if one's bike has a cushioned seat and even a backrest...
Sitting immobile for long physically with only your reflex working...
Is boring no doubt...specially riding through thick crowd...

He knew all that hazards...
So when the ache started to develop at his back...
And his fingers went stiff (effect of continuous pressing and releasing of clutches...)
He just felt he should get down somewhere...
But finding a lonely spot in the city street as crowded as a pen...
Was a tiresome ask...
Really tiresome and difficult too!

By god!
He found one at last!
A particular less crowded spot...
In front of a teashop lonely...
Only a man was at the stove...
And a kettle was on it...
And a cosy looking lonely bench was there too!
Too tempting!
Tired as he was...
He thought he should jump down there
And park his bike somewhere near...
And sit down on the bench first and light up his Navy cut...
And take a puff or two before ordering a cup of tea...
The time being after sunset and the winter being not far away with the chill getting into the air...
Making the ambiance kind of moist and hazy...

Aha!
He thought...of the prospect of having a cup of warm tea and a few puffs...
So he got down...
So he went to the shop...
So he sat down on the bench and brought out his white packet of fags with a typical 'anti-smoking warning printed in bold lettering' on it...
So he lighted the fag up
And took two frequent puffs...
And ordered a cup of warm liquor brownish-red...
'No milk please...'
He added...
Before he took another two subsequent puffs...

The smoke came out white as chimneys spread smoke to pollute...
Smoke came out in small packs...like small, not-so-dense fluffy cloudlets...
He smoked...
The tea arrived soon in clay pot...
He took two sips...

Aha!
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth...of the tea...the flavour of the warm liquor relieving...
His aches on his back and fingers...
Then he thought...
He saw a face of a woman bright...
Through his eyes fast closed...
A face of a woman...with...with a small round mole on her left eyebrow...
Perfect!
Like a face of his mother perhaps...
Or like that of someone in the crowd...
Someone's face...
With a small, round mole on left eyebrow that made the face so beautiful...
He thought...
He was not sitting in a teashop...
He thought he was far away...
He thought he had faced his Life...
He thought he rode through it...

what is love...dear?

'So...what is love,dear?'
She asked...
Hearing and thinking and recycling all her thoughts given birth to
By his incoherently soft mumblings...impassioned speeches...fervent pleadings...

'I donno...'
He said;
'Come on!'
She replied, feeling disappointed, for she thought she would hear another long story cut short, from her strange lover...
'Seriously? you don't know?'
She asked him again, trying to read his mind through his eyes...
He smiled...

'Now...now don't smile please...this smile of yours make me weak and crazy...please...'
She said, carrying a slight warning, knowing fully well how in the past his smiles made her budge...

He checked his smile and just kept looking at her eyes...her face...

Then slowly he stretched his hand to touch her silken hair brown...
'Now...now...don't do that, dear!'
She said, her warning tone still working fine;
For she knew well how in the past his mere touch ignited her body...

He took back his stretched out hand like a rubber band contracting at a high speed;
Then he looked again at her eyes...just stared...kept on staring...till-
The four pairs of eyes of the two, his and hers...
Went smoky...
They, the two children of god, felt smoky in their eyes
And a deep full cry rose alike in their throats...
A deep full cry alike!
They sat separated by the time...
They sat separated by the space...
But they cried alike!

Love?
Who said it exists?
Love?
It is non existent...
yet it makes u cry...

Waiting....

Waiting for her under the soft yellow light hanging overhead,
At the southern avenue restaurant, was a pretty exciting assignment...
He thought and taking the paper napkin started scribbling, as he had been doing for the last few years...
Waiting for her is like scribbling all paper napkins out!
The minutes passed by like water down the tap of the basin which can never be closed tight...
Water drips...like time...
He waited, nonetheless...
Waited...
The waiter came and went...heaving a sigh everytime, watching him lonely, scribbling on paper napkins...

Finally, as the clock struck eight...
After at least ten minutes of wait...or maybe twentyfive...
She came...the sexy siren...
Dressed to kill, perhaps...
Red saree...sleeveless arms like two beautiful branches of tree...
Embrace...
Hugs...
Kisses...
O the perfume!
Was it not lovely?
He thought he was turned the god...
By her sheer embrace so soft...
He thought he owned the whole of Southern Avenue...
The restaurant...the tap...the water dripping...the waiter...the paper napkins...the clock...
He thought he owned the Waiting!

mirror...

The child stood in front of the mirror...
And his eyes were full of wonder!
'Who's this guy? smiling at me...'
The child giggled, as he felt like giggling, seeing another in front of him...so much like him...naked...plump faced...
The child screwed his eyes
And the child on the mirror did the same...as if he was imitating him...
This made him angry...
'Who's this brat? imitating me? you kid!'
The child made a sound that expressed his angst;
The child on the mirror did the same, only the sound of a growl never came...
The child wondered...
'So u can imitate my actions...but not all...u can't growl like me...ha ha ha '
The child laughed...
And the child on the mirror laughed too...
Thus went the game...
Infront of the Mirror so cheat!
Thus the game continued...

the distance...

'So all u want a distance from me, huh?'
She asked, with her singed love and angst turning slowing into rage, self castigation and hate...
He looked at her eyes, burning like a forest caught fire...

He smiled faintly, as if he did not know how to answer her back...
how to cope with fire and spite...
how to soothe the tempestuous soul, the morbid heart ...
'I demand an answer!'
She barked, losing her cool...
'Now, dear...don't be so...stormy...cool yourself off...'
He tried to speak, feeling hurt by her recurrent outburst...too frequent qualms...
But her eyes...
They were teary...
They were...weary...
So, he started to elaborate, saying-
'Dear...You and I are like different particles...attaining different positional vectors in an open space full of other particles as well...with different positional magnitude...'

'I don't want your physics...I don't want your kinetics...I don't want your philosophic gibberish...'
She cried, crying all the way...
'But...that's a necessity...to understand life...life in motion...life-kinetics...'
He tried to speak, being weary himself...being soft...benign...
'Okay...Carry on...lemme listen your views, your excuses...your ways of building walls...boundaries...'
She spoke, still her spite taking full control...on her deserted soul...her torn heart...her fragile body...
'As you promised, just listen with patience...giving patience a chance...'
He uttered sadly, uncertain of the effects of his talks on her;
'Okay...okay...'
She said, impatiently...
'As I said we are just like two random particles...like millions of other particles...thrown into an open space called Life...now...if you are particle A and me particle B, then in this open space your position is rA=(xA,yA,zA)...while mine is rB=(xB,yB,zB)...and your distance from your point of origin is [rA]...
which is naturally different from my distance from my point of origin, i.e; [rB]...cause we are of different origins...our magnitudes i.e; [rA] and [rB] are different...Our magnitudes are so different dear...so different...'
He said, saddened...yet happy...for being finally able to put things in concrete mathematical terms...
She just sat there, silent...tears drying up...thinking...thinking hard...

hey u crazy...(In memory of Steve Jobs, Founder, Apple Computers,)

'u r crazy!'
They said...looking at his lean, withered face ...longish...
'u r an egoist!'
Cried some others...
But he the man with a self professed love for the cloud and the memories embedded...
Stood on the podium, under a small spotlight focussed on him and the giant screen at his back...
He carried himself that way, oblivious of the people's comments and passing remarks;
Then he took a recluse
Torn with with body's fluids vaporizing, perhaps...
But he broke that to reappear only, aplomb!
He broke that...
He broke himself...
He was a madcap, we all knew...
But a man with a half eaten apple,
Can actually afford to be a madman...
A man with the cloud in his brain...
Can afford to be so, really!

city at the dawn...

Driving down the vacant streets of the city
Still wrapped under the quilt, cozy in bed...
Methought I saw her peeping through shyly
As if to guide me through the mist and the smog of the dawn...

She knew that I am no good navigator but still I drive...
She knew I am a bad driver as well!
She knew it all...my morning Sun...shy...veiled...like a babe...
I looked at her pinkish face
And thought now that she had shown up
I will never lose my track...
Methought I will never lose her...
As the smog will soon be made to flee...
Methought I saw the brightest day...
Sans all the darkness...
So early...
As the dawn broke through two towers of concrete...standing like vanguards...
Right there on the empty street of the city...
The city that still slept...

Escape velocity...

Sitting jacketed and tied up on the white cushion
In the belly of the machine with a wingspan of 23.79 metres and the length of 56.14 metres and travelling
At over 17000 miles per hour...
He thought he would just die being tied up...harnessed...

The speed was horrific...
Stupendous!
Wonderstruck he tried to open his fast closed eyes a bit...
To look through the thick metallic glass cover fitted at the nose of the cabin...

What he saw, made him dizzy...
He had read all about the experience...
He had seen the videotapes...
He had heard astronauts speaking about the experience at length...
An experience of a lifetime!

But nothing matched what he himself felt...
He felt like a shooting star...
Being shot upward with an unimaginable speed...
And the airdrift was magnanimous...
And the buzz still made his ears ringing, despite he wearing earplugs strong and the helmet with phones embedded...

He thought he should not look through the metallic glass for he thought
That might make him mad...
The ordeal was long...it was long enough to give a rise to his blood pressure...
And then suddenly...
BINGO!
All the tugs and pulls and the air resistance gone!
Yes!
All pulls and pushes became absent...
All tensile force gone!
It was like being plunged into a calmness...
It was like being part of the calm...
Silent...ever spreading world...
And the mother earth looked so tiny...
Like a blue colored watery ball...
A ball full of gel...
A mere ball!
Suspended miraculously in the void...
Miraculous suspension of beauty and disbelief...
Strange!
Gosh!
We're so tiny!
He thought...
We're just tiny creatures of a tiny ball...full of gel...suspended in the void...

gnothi seauton...

I know dear...
I know fully well that I'm not Pythagoras...
And there's no Phemonoe around to stir up me with her myths...
And there's no temple of Delphi to write the mind on...

But still, tell me dear,
Is it not fair and fine to delve deep even when we apparently think we're deep enough
To challenge the Mariana trench under the ocean?

Tell dear...
Can't we be more deep...
Not like a captain Nemo, dying under twenty thousand leagues...
But like the polyp and the corals colorful...
Adding color to the depth?
Or those starfish...
Or those seahorses...
Roaming free...under the depth of the ocean blue and green...
Knowing ourselves...as creatures of the depth...

this festive season, I see you...

This festive season, I see you on the streets
Cutting across the crowd, wearing your best clothes-tempting...
Plunging neckline, deep navel show...so sexy!

This festive season...
I see you on the bikes...speedmachines...
Looking like the perfect hunk...muscular, speedy,
In your jeans and tight vest...like the hero of the movie...tattooed...
So sexy!

This season with the arclights spread far and wide, lighting up the darkness...
I see that old man on the bicycle in dusty dhoti and rusty frame...
Riding down the lonely road...alone!

This festive season, I see  the urchins of the street...
In gifted clothes...shiny on their crumpled haggard faces...
Playing with the thrownaway garbage...plastic bottles, beer cans, cellophane wrappings...cheap
So cheap...

This festive season
Is so full of contrasts...of economy, mind and health...and age...

BORN...

Wandering across the streets and the busy traffic...
Being a part of the mobile vulgus...
Got a feeling I've been there always...
As if I am born with all those memories, bright!

Straying away to the fringes of the city...
Meadows and wastelands...
Got a feeling I've been there too!
Being born with memories so true!

The flowers, the trees, the roads-populated,
The traffic signal lights blinking, horns, smoke, dust and diseases...
All are part of my memories perhaps...

Being born with memories innumerable
Is like being born with a prophecy...
Being born...
Is a prophecy by itself...

at the pub...on one wet evening...

The evening was wet
It was drizzling, and if it drizzles on the first week of October...
And if you're in a pub with bottles of potions sparkling...
You must get into the act of drinking smooth honey!

That was what exactly he was doing,
Sitting on the high stool, near the bar tender's counter,
Admiring each and every subtle movements of the tender's hands...
How she mixed one potion with another with perfect ease...
How she shook the lemon chips and soda and coriander leaves in steel shiny shakers
As her whole body gyrated...

He sat there, looking at the potions on display...of different hues...
White, black, orange, red, green, brown, blue...
He noticed how the water drops made maps of unknown continents on the glass panes...
He noticed how three coated honchos argue and altercate, drunk...
He noted down the sad eyes of that woman sitting at one corner
With a colorless potion lying idle...

At the pub...
One wet wet evening...
He, noted everything...the people...society...competition...love won and lost...
At the pub...

the cup brims over...

He thought he grasped exactly what it meant really,
When the cup of mind brims over...
He thought he had experienced that feeling before even... registered somewhere in his hotspot of cranium...
The feeling of the cup brimming over and overflowing...
Inundating all and sundry,
Flooding him and her,
Flooding his books and pencils and keyboards...
Flooding his walks and runs and rides...
Flooding the streets and the roads traveled and yet to be traversed!

The feeling of the cup of mind getting filled and emptied by default!
It overcame him...
It came over him like silent dream...
It came over his solitary existence like slokas chanted by the priest...
It came pouring like the Great Inundation!

The flight...

My flight was always due
I knew that within...always...
Probably the moment I was born the flight of birds left me bedazzled...
Probably Icarus heaved a sigh on my nimble heart...

So taking the flight, for me,
Was like fish taking to water!
I had that fore knowledge
That fanciful flights are great scramblers...
They could scramble my existence even!

But still, I thought, the flight should I take,
No matter what pulls me down-
Sarcasm, hate, irony, pains...
I knew the flight fanciful cheats so well...

But still I had those sighs of Icarus, heaving on me, all the time
Icarus and his molten wings...
Icarus and his fall...

I knew all those beforehand,
I knew all the pangs n glories...
But never felt attracted by any of them,
For only the flight was important for me-
The Flight, and nothing else...
The light of the sun falling on my tiny existence...
Because of the flight...
The heavenly tunes running through me-
Because of the flight...

I knew what I would be termed as-
Madcap, eccentric, whimsical, frenzied, emotional, cruel, inhuman...
The list could be never ending...
I know the list myself!
But tell me,
How can I miss the heaven and the blue sky?
How can I miss the angels with wands of poesy waking me up every morn?
How can I possibly miss the flight?

the listeners...

For the last few days...
They are not talking...
They just listen together-songs...
Not songs proper even-some kind of music, instrumental...
They just listen, without talking, as if they had turned speechlessly silent;

For the last few weeks they listen the songs of the birds, the call of the wind, the rustle of the leaves, the rumble of the river...
They hardly talk...
For, talks are so mundane, they've realised after talking so much over the years;

They just listen
For they have become The Listeners true!

like a feather

Sitting by the pedestal fan, buzzing just by my ears, unplugged...
I felt, like a feather...light...as if I simply don't exist...
As if my being has become non existent...
As if I have become a mild breeze myself,
Blowing away...
'so blown away by the gust of wind...like a feather...like a leaf, yellow...'

Sitting by the wind blowing so hard into my ears and my soul,
I felt like being blown away to far off lands...
Where only peace prevails...
Where the seagulls fly enjoying every bit of their flight...
Where the unknown calls...

choose, dear...choose...

He told her oneday,
Distracted, looking at the blue sky and the distant cliff, snow capped...
'Choose dear, for life is a matter of choice...
Choose...only one request...
don't choose it unhappily-like a life going haywire...
choose dear,using all your mind and nimble heart...
choose, with all that you are bestowed with...
choose...as life chooses beauty;'

She just kept silent, processing every word and syllable spoken to her by the vagrant man;

But he was still unperturbed, as if he was looking the distant snow capped hills
And he was in a trance;
He muttered:
'Choose dear, as morn chooses the day,
as the road chooses the traveler...
Choose dear...
with fervour and gaiety...'

THE PATH

He got down from his car,
Just where the road bisected into two...
He just dropped down from his car,
And asked the driver to leave him there;

The driver was curiously dumbed,
For he never saw the man getting down from his car in a bisection..

One road was fairly peopled, festive, crowded, noisy...
And the other road was almost vacant-
Only an orphaned boy, a widow, a hermit and painter were there...

They were all walking,
 silently, but with happy faces...calm, bright...

He looked thrice to the crowded road, boisterous,
And thought:
'why me not be a bit brave to walk the silent but happy road?'
So,
He took the path-
'Of course less traveled by',
And
After traveling a few paces,
He realised that the path went up to a cliff...
And as he looked up,
He thought he saw no path!
He could only see the cliff, covered by snow and frost...
Those who preceded him to reach the very spot,
From where the path actually disappeared,
Were seen getting scattered...
They were busy searching for a path up the hill-
Each, in his or her own way...

He thought
He should also try
Now that he had chosen a path
And the path had been so silently invigorating!

don't cry, dear!

'Now that the new born sun is smiling through the curtain of cotton cloud...
Don't cry, dear!
Don't be such a baby...
Cause I love you dear!
I love you more than anyone else in the world...
I love you more than your parents...your brothers and sisters...your wives and husbands...
I love you like your kids and daughters...little bit emotionally though...
I love you all the ways possible...
I love you as nature provides happiness to worn out saddened hearts...
I love you the way the beauty of the dew drenched deodars on solitary cliffs soothe ...

Don't cry dear!
As love has come to you so pure and divine
As love has bestowed upon you such an amount of elation permanent'

the woman of morn...

Riding along, as usual, I thought,
It was time to stop somewhere,
Tired kind of,as I was,
Hitting the wet bluish black road as early as the pre-dawn...

So I stopped,
And noticed a tea-stall clean
As clean as the open slate of mind in the morn...

And there she was making tea...
Her black hair untied, oiled, shiny,
Falling over her shoulders,
And I looked at her face...calm...but full of love unrequited...
I sat on the wooden bench
Being just another thirsty traveler...
She handed me warmth,
Cupped in plastic...
I stared at her curious eyes...
And ...
I lit up the first fag
Leaving from my mouth slowly the white airy poison;

Then suddenly she asked:
'So...why you've come here?... missed the path?'
I said nothing but looked
At her face full of warmth...
And shook my head as if feeling sorry for being a jaywalker into her place;

Then

I dropped a few coins on her open palm
As if I dropped a lot of my state, jaywalking, waywardness...
She saw it all with her intent shiny eyes...

'Please do come again, missing your path...'
She said, her face having half smile...
I felt pained...
I felt helplessly agonized, knowing the tears that filled to the brim, my seagull-heart...

As I descended from the wooden bench
And got ready for the long ride again...
She repeated:
'Do come again, even if you come confounding your destined route...'
I just smiled,
With a candle burning inside,
And the molten wax melting forever...inside...

are we living it good, dear?

If you have that twinkling in your eyes, believe me, senorita,
You're  alive!
If you can shed a tear or two from your painted eyes,
For that kid who gathers dust all over
His dark and blistered feet;
You're living it good, senorita...
If you can hold the hand of the stranger in your soft hands tight,
Without even being thinking about the futurity...
And have the courage to be the true,
You're a queen, senorita!

Believe in,dear,
For living a bit for others,
Is like living good forever...
Forever young and mirthful!

despite...

Despite me showing you the path of light dear,
You chose the wrong one...
Perhaps that was your way of making it even with me...
Perhaps...you chose that path of dark to enlighten me...
Who knows?
I'm not a judge of things
No human can perhaps with all our own shares abundant
Of frailties and follies and foibles!

But haven't I stood for all that was good?
Haven't I been the lone traveler always?
You just chose, perhaps, to be a fellow traveler for a mile or so
Of my umpteen untrodden miles...

Despite me showing open
The redness that boiled...
The twinkling of the pearls on eyelids bright,
You chose the sand and the slush...
Perhaps that was your way to teach me a few things more-
Of the hardset lesson told in the most unheard manner...

Perhaps that'll give you all the hopes...
And glories so unreally bright!
Well...
I wish things were good for both of us
And the memories were the truest...

Hope you live the way the best you can,
And I do mine!

Believe me, dear,
Coming to the end, is like a new beginning!
Coming to the climax,is like loving the past...
Coming to part, is like forging the newest ways!

idol maker's dream...

The lump of earth dumped near the haystack,
Just outside his shanty,
Kind of kept him restless
From the moment it arrived...

Last night, when it rained,
He jumped out of his cot,full of vermin...
And ran outside fast
To cover the lump by a plastic sheet
For he was afraid that the earth might get washed away...
He covered the lump neat, putting weight on the plastic,
To prevent it from being carried away by the whiff of wind blowing...

After covering it, he almost caressed the lump,
As if he was caressing a new born dressed in plastic!

This morning,
Even before the sun woke up,
He woke and uncovered the mound...
And kept staring at the lump, moist, for sometime...

Then like a priest, he readied himself for the occasion,
He bathed, he prayed,and wore his blessed apron, mud stained...and streaks of color here and there;

Then he touched the mound...
He touched the cold lump
And thought he was going to transfer his energy and soul to it...
He touched the lump
As if he was god, providing life to the lifeless,
As if...
He was the eternal lover
Sending across the passion of love-
To ignite passion the same in the coldest thing on earth!

He loved the mound...
He caressed it...
He poured his all
As the day waned to become the night...

And when the sun got set finally,
He lighted a taper
And touched the woman mound ...
Now he thought, he should make the woman beautiful...
He imagined all the beauteous forms on earth-
The perfect physical beauty of a woman,
Divine, pure, virgin...
He dreamt of an angel in her simple nudity
Standing in front of him with all her beauty shameless...
He just dreamt...
As he worked, sweaty, muddy, tired,
In the impregnable darkness
Slightly modified by a taper,
Flickering all the time...

The evening became night,
And the chill in the air set in...
But he kept on working...
As if he had only one dream to long for...
And a singular journey to make;

He shivered a bit by the nip in the air,
He, of course, felt hungry and tired,
But who can prevent an impassioned, lustful man from his art of pleasure?
So he worked till the darkness waned even...
And the morning arrived slowly like a graceful charm,
Making the taper redundant;

When he finished,
He just looked at the beauty
-Standing infront of him,
And smiling perhaps,
As if pleased by his burst of passion...satiated...

He just looked
At his woman,
The woman he made...
He felt
Sleepy and terribly hungry
And remembered he hadn't eaten for several hours...
He thought he had become the divine lover...
He thought
It was time, finally, to sleep...

Searching soul...

With the sky being blue as ever
And the wind being breezy...
He rode out of home early
As he wished to retrace the path;

He had just the kind of wish that a son, having spent long in alien land,
 Has usually...
To return
-to innocence...
-to forgiveness...
-to sleep on his mother's lap after a journey across seven seas...
-to take refuge...

So
He rode down the streets and the roads
-His second home...
Searching all the time for that gentle smile,
And soft end of white cotton saree
Which he used too often in bygone days to wipe off his tears and sweat...
He rode...
He rode through the town
In search of his mom
On the very day he was born-
Some three decades ago...

the greatest gift...

Holding a copy of the book freshly printed and bound and delivered right at her doorstep,
one morning by the courier boy,
She turned amazed and speechless for a while...
Then she softly turned the cover page
As if she was running her nimble fingers on a new born baby,
And came to the dedication page;

On the page was written:
'Dear, I tried actually to write a love song for you...
But, it was so pervasive kind of heightened passion
That I wrote and wrote...
And it became a novel...
Sorry for presenting such a cumbersome kind of love, expressed in so many pages...
But as I believe my love is true and good,
Benign and deep,
Light and flared-up,
Beautiful and sublime,
Flavoury and unsavoured hitherto by any mortal, (barring a few, of course!)
I believe you'll just fall in love with the gift...
And keep it close to your ravaged heart;

I believe you will be the book yourself, just like me!
You'll be true and good like love itself...'

Reading the lines again and again,
She just wept...
As a child weeps in joy...
As a daughter weeps for her distant father,
As a son weeps for his long lost mother...

The messages

I get your messages
All the time...
They come to me
Just like the way
The dewdrops fall on leaves and petals;

Your messages, dear,
Are like the autumnal breeze blowing
Through the craters and the crevices,
And through the sand dunes perhaps-
Shaping and reshaping my desert sands all the time;

Your messages
-They keep pouring in
All the time
Even when you forgot to send them!

The flight of the day

'Ready for the flight?'
The male flamingo asked his fairer counterpart one day;

'Why? aren't we flying down the ages?'
The female said, sitting tired and somewhat amused by her partner's whims;
'Yes we are, of course! But...'
'But?'
'But...today is the day of a different flight, dear!'
The male bird uttered in a sing-song manner, as if he had a stream of happiness flowing within;

'How come this day is different?'
The female asked, curious,
'For today...the sky is so blue...and the sea is so green!'
The male flamingo said, and unfurled his strong wings
And took a long heave...
The female bird looked at him with surprise and fun...
She felt fun everywhere
She felt fun in her partners wings,
Fun in the trees, the sky, and even in the breeze...
'Okay!'
She laughed and joined her partner;

They flew far
They flew wide
As sweet dreams fly
Making the harshest the coolest!
They just flew
Enjoying every bit of the flight...

They flew over the lakes and the valleys...
Over hills and plains,
Over big cities and small towns,
Over seas and ocean...
They just flew
Being happy for being in flight,
Being proud of cutting across the resistance of air,

Thus the day also flew by,
But it made them realise fun,
The flight , they realized, made their day...
A day to remember...forever;

the enchantress

She came and sat
Just where I was sitting,
Quite silently though...
Only the smell of fresh lavender
Brought her in to my senses-
Busy as I was in my own world
Of dreams and hopes
Of pleasures divine;

She didn't ask me anything
But there was always
A kind of restlessness in her
That made me aware
Of her inner disquiet-
Disquiet caused , perhaps, by being sought after
By every discerning male gaze;

I felt
She needed help
-So I shrugged off my restive state of mind
And looked at her
And at once I knew
I was looking at someone desperately insecure,
Someone being chased all the time,
And Someone made tired by the chases...

Then she smiled, weakly,
Not keeping exactly with her lovely face
So luxuriously decorated;
And I looked on
To get full hold of the lustful lips so red!
Her physical reality so poignant!
But...
Her eyes...
Were they not moist?
Wasn't she a refugee?
Weren't her sorrows lying deep, too deep, under her beautiful facade?
I thought
I shouldn't be distracted by the too apparent...
By the glitz and the glamour...
So I chose the deep,
The morbid eyes...
The moribund soul...
I became the enchanter instead!

clandestine!

Feel like talking to you all the time,
But never ventured out-
Knowing that you have got no tree trunk by your side to lean on;

Who will bear the burden?
I?
I have been a strange man-weird, vagrant...

How many women can put up with the agonies
 Of being a true paramour?

If I flee from you
You will be dumbed, for sure...
And for certain the drops of rain will drip
From your lotus eyes...

You need a strong trunk of a tree-a strong trunk...
To act as a true saviour...
Someone who could just extend the glass of cold water
With a mighty heart...
With a heart of a saint, perhaps...

But is there any tree like that, really, dear?
A tree who could wrap you up in the wet, monsoon nights
With warm coverings of sleep and dreams?
Is there any tree trunk like that?

So...
I keep concealed
All that are clandestine...
All that I wish to share...
A kind of perennial wish staying concealed forever!

mother

Just after the sweltering heatwave,
You brought the clouded afternoon,
And made me soothed
Helping my tired, sweaty soul;

O how many times
You, the grand ol' banyan,
Shaded me from the sultry noon;

I just try
To gather as far as I can
Much like a silkworm,
Weaving and weaving
All that you left for me...

I discover,nonetheless,
How many seeds failed to grow up to become plants-
Fulfilled,
Despite the earth-so moist and fertile!

He the same, she the constant...

'Tell me,dear,
Has the time made us bankrupt?'
He asked, one wet evening,
Looking straight into her glassy eyes...

She said nothing,only kept her head down,
But he was kind of desperate...
So he repeated,
'Tell me, dear, please...'
And he went near her
And held her hands into his rough,stubborn hands...

'Don't know...'
She murmured...kind of absentmindedly...

'Please, don't be so inconsiderate...'
He almost pleaded,
Then suddenly he was gripped by fervour, unprecedented,
'Time has given us everything,
It has changed us for the better, forever...
It has made us all the more wealthy...we are so rich!'
He almost exclaimed, trembling like a string of a violin,
Upon which someone's fingers played a tune alien...

'Is it you?'
She asked, doubts and fears all over her...
'Is it you who asked me to walk the path through the desert?
Is it the same you?'

He just sat beside her,
With her soft hands into his rough, stubborn hands...
He said nothing...
He just sat there,
As silent, as the silent morn bereft of any blemish...

memories...

The moment my eyes fell on her
Something stirred wildly inside,
As if a mirror broke sending a ringing noise...

And, unwittingly, past life came rushing
And I almost forgot where I was!

The rattle of copper triangles,
The buzz of patient nonagenarians beside me,
The screeching of fans,
The stern faces of clerks at the teller counters-
All went blank, as if they never existed!

I only saw a beautiful woman in the prime of her youth
With scented hair, black and curly,
Telling me stories of life...

I saw her standing before me in her half dress,
Washing the child version of me,scolding me in fits and starts...

I saw her in wedding dress
With dots of sandalwood paste on her forehead
Smiling reluctantly
Through the window of a white grumpy car decked with flowers and rose petals....

'Hello!'
The clerk at the counter called me awake,
And the clatter of the bank crept back
And ,
I lost her...in the crowd
Once again...

encountering Satan...

'How are you feeling,son?'
My boss asked,
Watching me with his insatiable energy and vengeful thirst,
Now that he had thrown around me a huge conflagration
That inched towards me every passing moment
With its tongues red, yellow and hot...

I felt the hairs on my skin
Getting into little mounds-black;

'Still want to be the God, son?'
My satanic boss asked
As sarcasm dripped through each and every syllable...

'Yeah! still! come'n!'
I cried out of pain, of anger,
As I smelt something burning...
My rubber-soled shoe and my skin;

The boss laughed
Seeing my pitiable state
Bereft of vigour
Awaiting the doom!

Every moment seemed like eternity
Never ending...stretched to infinite...

Just then methought
Death had arrived to give me life,
I heard the boss cry:
'Stop!'
And then the conflagration stopped,
It just vanished,
As if it never existed
And I regained my losing sense...

'Hey! why you stopped that?'
I asked him, feebly,
(For a man who had seen death,
and the most inglorious and hellish one,
Being feeble and meek was the only option... )

'well!'
The satan said,
'You've got awesome tolerance,
You persevered more than I had expected'

I stood up erect
And pulled myself towards him
To plant a kiss on his cheek...
out of no gratitude, no fear...
Out of love, perhaps...
And the satanic eyes twinkled
He just stared blankly for a moment or two and muttered:
'God! I'm so pleased to be the God, at least to one...'

I thought
I saw the Lamb in him;
I thought
I saw Him-The weeping child;

The taper and the flame

Walking down the winding road
On a beautiful spring morn,
Just when I gathered
The smell of colored blossoms
I thought I met my woman...

My woman
Who brought the taper of light and love
To my mind, soul...
Her face was covered though
By a canopy of cloud,
Hitherto unforeseen in any spring morning;
But her youthful hue
Coupled with the passion of love,
Made me weak on my knees...

I stopped
Drooping perhaps
Always being thirsty of love...

She gave me all,you know
Even before I needed them,
As if she was destined to be mine...

She turned me man
From a wanderer kid,
She turned me old
From another youngish brat...

Spring turned to summer
And the summer to monsoon...
She was still there beside me-
Turning all stones to flowers,
All deserts into meadows...

And I fell
For her only...

But then,
On one autumn evening,
Under the red sky
I met a flame;

Methought my eyes got burnt,
My flesh goose-bumped,
For never a man witnessed
Such an opulence...

Methought I met a fire
That singed me with lust...
We plunged into the caverns of a play,
That took all fantastical stories to their supreme best...

We played, all through the nights,
Nights after nights...

Autumn gave way to winter,
Letting the flame die...
By the spring the following year,
The fire died,
And there were only ashes of sinful nights...
Ashes, all I had,
And the flame gone...

Only then I realised,
I lost my taper too!

good morning

The moment I saw you out of my window,
I shrugged off all my future and the present...
I just raced back to the past...

So I jumped out of the drowsy bed,
Putting on trousers and shirt, in a terrible haste,
For you called me,
Sort of beckoned me by the morning smile of yours-
Spread across the blue blue sky,
Like balls of cotton of different hues...

I rushed to my bike and sped towards you...
The ten kilometres looked like two hundred miles
And I raced faster, thinking all the time that I might
Lose you by oversight...

The road was lonely
Only a few kids
Walked gaily to school,
With bright faces of the morning...

I rode for several minutes
Till I reached you;
You've changed your attire by then,
From the varied riot of colors, to
Blue and white;
But I know I love you in every dress...

Finally, I got down from my bike
And stood before you
Like I used to do
Even a few years ago...

You just smiled as if,
You always knew
I would come;

You just kissed my forehead
And played with my hair,
As I stood still-
Enveloped by the eternal feel of a lover...

I just stood calm,
I just stood blessed...

single in the city...

Just when the sun hid behind the shopping mall,
He came to the balcony of his tenth floor singular existence in the city...

He looked down to see tiny toy cars moving fast
As if they were thrown down the road of the toy-land by some angry brat;
He kept on looking down the tiny trees, the tiny traffic guard standing like a small robot
Performing some kind of motorised arm movements;

He looked around...
And an eagle swooping down at great speed caught him,
It was coming down quick,
As if a fighter jet losing height...
But soon it gained a level
And after keeping with the level for some time,
It took a upward flight-
'Great job man!'
He cried aloud
As if he was cheering a fighter-pilot
Performing the riskiest manoeuvre;

Hours went by,
And he kept standing on the balcony,
 And images kept coming and receding...
Images varied-
Of female garments hanging loose,
Of sizzling bottles of potion arranged neat,
Of smoke coming out of someone's mouth,
Of psychedelic lights jumbling up shadows,

Evening turned to night...
He still stood still,
The toy cars of the road below became less frequent,
The robotic traffic guard sat down at its kiosk,
 And the moon peeped from behind the cell phone tower...

Images came rushing to him again...
No female garments
But a caressing hand,
No bottle of wine
But a candid smile,
No smoke with brown tinge
But that of an incense stick...
And the light glowed within
And he noticed...
Someone in a white robe and long black hair,
Coming to him, walking unbelievably on the thin air...
Just like a fairy with a wand!

The sea...

He was standing on the beach
Before the endless, lucid sea
And the waves lashing relentlessly on his feet...

Each of the waves receded to create a kind of something slipping away,
Under his feet...
And he felt perhaps he would just sink into the sands of the beach;

The blue waves with greyish white toppings came to him
Almost endlessly, as if he was part of the eternal design of being a witness to their movements...

The sky, being overcast, suited perfectly to the ambiance-
An ambiance of serene melancholy...
Of  a mild but grave murmur of waves...

He thought he did not just happen to be there,
Instead he believed himself to be a part of the whole picture...

And he looked up to the sky,
Trying to find a meaning in the shapes of the clouds,
For once he noticed a simple face of a dragon,
The next he discovered a candyseller with his cart...

He looked on
And on the western front,
Which had a reddish glow,
He saw the face of his beloved,
Red...as if vermillion smeared,
And the darkest streaks resembling her  unruly hair...

He forgot how long he stood there looking up
To his beloved's face in the clouds;
But the rain came,
First in ones and twos...
Then in torrents...

He just stood there,
He just wanted the salt,
He just wished the salt to be rubbed on his freckled skin...

The next moment
He thought,
He was deluged by a sea of tears...

Forsaken

'After living all these months , dear, with you, day in and day out,
I'm leaving...'
He wrote using his favored black pen with pointed tip
On a piece of paper, handmade,
And folded the paper twice-horizontally once,
And vertically next,
And stealthily kept the note under his pillow,
Looking cautiously, for the last time the face of her, calm, ignorant;
And he slipped out of the room, silently,
Knowing well that she would wake up soon,
Not finding him by her side, in her trance;

Outside the dawn was just breaking,
And the milkmen had started cycling up and down the street;
And the pigeons from the ancient attic of the old building across the street,
Had descended on the empty street, in search of grains perhaps...

He walked down the street till he reached the arterial road,
From where he could cast his last glance to the first floor balcony overlooking the pigeon-filled street,
The same balcony which gave birth to his life and poetry,
The same windows from where she could see him arriving or going out,
He looked up till his eyes reached the top of the building...


He couldn't believe what he saw-
For there on the terrace, he saw her standing looking straight to him, from that distance,
Her hair was afloat in the morning breeze;
He squinted his eyes to get a better look of her face, from that distance...
He could not get the better view...he tried nevertheless...
'Was it a smile or a frown?'
He asked himself and kept staring for a while,
Before the blaring horn of a state bus brought him to the ground...

ek purana mausam lauta...

'Ek purana mausam lauta,
Yaadein bhairen purbai thi...'

He hummed while busy packing his backpack
For his mind was far away from his home adopted;
He remembered how the rains kissed him from top to toe
And the naughty wind sent mild shivers down his drenched hair...

He knew that the road, dressed in its best attire-the darkest blue
Was waiting for him, all those years;
He knew he had to leave his home, adopted and shared,
For his mind had asked him to leave the memories bitter and sweet;

'How very cruel!'
She would say,
Seeing him packing up his bag,
And humming Gulzar all the way;
He knew all that-the nuances of cruelty and indifference...
He knew he was not doing anything unjust or wrong,
He was just slipping away, into oblivion...

'But its humiliating for me, isn't it?'
She would say, desperation pronounced all over her body and voice, trembling...
He would not answer,
He would just stare blankly for a while...

'I'm not evicting you...I'm just opting out'
He would say,
And Gulzar would nod, with assertion...

The Artist

'So many people write letters full of love...why can't you?'
She told him one day,
Her voice had that thing which had crossed that thin red line of expectation and fervent wish...

He returned home and thought hard,
Pressed his pen's nib on the paper and tried to write something beautiful,
Something so fascinating that, he wished, it would just remove all her wishes,
Once and forever;

He tried hard,
To become that artist with a magic wand in his hand,
That would make the world colorful,blessed,tranquil, serene...

O how much he tried,
To be that bard...
To be that lyricist...
To be that musician...
To be that painter...
To be that sculptor...

He worked day in and day out,
To present before her the greatest work of art...
He erred,
He slipped,
He fell,
But he had that grit to carry on...

The summer went away and monsoon came,
And the rains went away, and Autumn ushered in,
And came the winter...

He carried on,
Like a perfect artist,
Forgetting one day why he was doing all that...
Forgetting the very purpose of his hard work...
Forgetting that he had been someone's man...

Nailed!

He looked at her tearful eyes
And felt so sorry
That he wished to jump to her feet and ask for forgiveness...

'I never wanted to make you sad...did I?'
He pleaded;
But she just gave him her hard glare, teary eyes, fallen chin, broken heart...

'O Tell me how can I make you happy again?'
He asked, desperate, ruined, stung...

Her lips quivered and she spake:
'Get thou removed from my sight, forever'

He heard the words
And thought to leave her forever...

But how could he?
His feet were nailed there, firmly,
And he couldn't move an inch;

'Let that be your punishment, just!'
She spake
And moved away,
While he remained nailed with love.

You've remained blind...

You remained blind,
As blind a deaf man can be in his dark world,
Devoid of senses...visual or auditory;

So you missed every bit of life-
The way the girl next door was raped by your henchmen,
The way the spooks counted money and filled their sacks,
The way falsities spread taking your name like oath sacred,
The way the sickle lost its shine, and the hammer its glory of toils;

You remained blind, deaf, and stupid,
And tried to build a world for yourself, away from the real,
Like an aged emperor, destined to rule forever;

Now that the winds of change have charged at your doors,
And swept away your all golden treasures and self love,
You appear so pitiless and naked,
Sans everything you thought would outlive the generations...

the bride of spring

You come dressed in red
Like a new bride, flamboyant, coy,dazzling,
Privy to all my secrets,
And I look at you, endlessly,
As if it will take me hundreds of years to understand your beauty so immense;

O you the bride of spring!
You come to stir my mind,
Your face covered by that red veil of blossoms rich,
Your slender body ageless,
Only makes me gape;

You're like the queen young,
Ascending the throne of nature,
Bringing forth all the ages of my whims, dilemmas...
Of love won and lost,
In Springs, autumns, winters...

O you! the bride of spring!
Bring once more,
The cool canopy of your shadows,
Save me from the heat of summer hurrying near...

The storyteller...

She calls me too often
To tell me stories she conceived every day...
She tells me stories of severe ramifications,
Of people she met across the street,
At the bus-stop, at beauty salon,at the eateries,at a public loo,
On occasions equally varied-
Early in the morning, at sunset evenings, at frosty daybreak, on a wet afternoon...

She calls me to tell stories
Every night,
As if she had been part of them ...

And listening to her ramblings,
I believe I'm also there somewhere,
In varied shapes and forms,
I feel all her stories involve me...
I believe I am the book myself!

Mirrors-you and i

You put me in front of a mirror, every time,
Naked, sans ego...
And I discover the workings of my mind and body;

Bodily we meet, like grooves,
Cut to perfection to match;

Mentally we're like two kites  
Flying in the sky, carried by the breeze of the day...

Bodily we entertain each other
Perfect playmates...

Minds of ours float
Like boats downstream...

You put me in front of the mirror,
And I be mirror sometimes...
And we both discover our ways of mind and body...

in slow motion

I saw the drops of rain,
Falling incessantly from the sky as mere tiny wet balls,
And the moment they fall on my face, they burst
Spreading coldness and moisture,
I feel so happy, inside...

I saw the balloons being released one by one,
And they move up and up
Till they become colored dots,
And the curious eyes of my little kid
Follow the dots while I follow his eyes,
And I feel so blessed, inside...

I saw her coming towards me,
Her dupatta aflutter,
And her hair tossing like black foam,
And the smile pasted on her lips, suppressed,
As the world moves by, ignorant;
I feel a sense of belonging, inside...

I saw three friends jumping in the air,
Making them look like the poster-boys of a soft drink ad,
I saw how their legs turn upwards and their heads spin,
I feel so victorious, inside...

There are some rare moments
When I see the world in slow motion,
And I feel so good that I scribble,
Lazily on papers, and almost
On anything I put my itching fingers...

The Racer

He knew exactly how to enact the foreplay...
He knew it by his memories;
So, he moved dodging playfully the forests and the valleys
Of the world known so well like a gritty explorer;

He knew he would never lose his way
As his memories were strong...

So, he sped up and turned and slowed down at each bent
Only to gather speed at the rightest moment-
A practised racer as he,
With a GPS navigator embedded into his memory...

The race was intense, warm, exhilarating,
Full of adrenalin pumping out at every delicate move;

Finally,  he pressed on the brakes,
Seeing the checkered flag being waved;

'you're a game, aren't you?'
She said, when he was about to start the victory lap;

Just then, he thought,
He wasn't a game...
He was just a naive,
For even after several laps,
And trophies,
He finds the race useless!

park street, 24th december,

It was the Christmas eve,
And Park street was  madly crowded...

There were black heads all around,
Screaming with joy, gaily dressed;
Even the policemen looked happy...

The cars whizzed past merrily, 
Blaring car stereos...

The bar doors were flung open every minute to let in and out
Stream of men, women...

The cake shop was choc-a-bloc
With the counters brimming over with demands of chocolates and pastries and truffle...

Just then I noticed,
A woman  in black trousers and grey pullover,
Standing at one corner, a few paces away from the crowd,
Her back was rested on the wall, as she stood,
Her face was bowed a bit,
Smoking nonchalantly,
As if there was nothing to cheer...
As if Christmas would never come!

the goatherd of Timbuktu

As the sun finally went down behind the distant cliff,
He started to walk his weary ways,
He the goatherd...
And the flock of his favorite goats walked and ran
Before him, making shrill cries, homeward bound;

The dust from their feet rose,
Just like a maze,
Enveloping the tiny huts not far away,
Which looked like the refuge sought time and again by people like him...

The goatherd and his goats of varied color patches on their coats,
White, grey, brown, black...

The goatherd walked towards his hut,
At the end of just another day,
But he knows within,
The next day will be a new one;
He knows
The next day will bring him to another desert of Timbuktu...

the purple dream

I looked at the stream
Standing on the bridge,
And the dusk fell
On the water's ledge...

The stream looked velvety
Like a purple cloth
Spread in the wind
As waves flowed;

I looked at the sky,
As if a dream,
Immobile earth
And a lovely stream;

I thought I should,
Stand on the bridge,
And wait for the dusk,
To lay complete siege;

Just then my eyes fell,
On a cottage afar,
And someone standing,
At the door, left ajar;

But how can I leave
The velvety stream?
Even if its unreal,
Just a purple dream...

the little mother

I looked at her curious eyes and curly hair...
'Who are you?'
She asked, looking up to me...

With tattered clothes and blood all over me,
She might have taken me for an evil, I thought...

But her curious blue eyes,
And floral frock...
And innocence...
I just mumbled-
'Don't be afraid ...I'll cause no harm to you'
And I tried to smile, a friendly one,
But my jaws were broken and it pained
Even to flash a smile to a little girl...

She came near,
Probably she felt pity,
Seeing blood oozing from various spots of my body...
'Wanna have a chocolate?'
She stretched her tiny palm
And I at once noticed a violet wrapper of friendship...


'Are you a soldier?'
She asked, seeing blood and the huge back pack;
'No...A traveler...'
I said;

'How come a traveler be bleeding so much?'
She asked, the little girl with blue eyes;
'Cause I have been plundered on my way...'
I said;
'But...are you not strong?'
She said, looking at my young face and vigor still left in eyes;
'Yes I'm...'
I said...

'Take it'
The tiny woman gave me the chocolate,
I put the whole thing into my mouth, starved as I was...

'Want some more?'
The little angel asked...
I don't know what were there in her eyes or her voice...
But I felt, I've found my mother...
I nodded and my eyes became vaporous;

The little girl ran towards her home
Through the cornfields, the meadows, the marshes...
I looked at her two small braids dancing as she ran...
I started to cry...
I thought I found my little mother;

the danseuse

I was sitting at her first floor hall
Beside the big glass window,
In a cloudy evening,
Waiting with the hot coffee mug in my hand,
While she sat before me,
Bottle green saree wrapped around her...

I noticed how her red stone studded earrings swayed
Every time she moved her head
To nod or just to smile...

I looked at her posture,
Sitting like a swan,
Majestic..
 Her eyelashes were long,
Her eyebrows were pruned,
Her hair was braided with some kind of ribbon...

She looked so much homely,
Like those women of yesteryear,
Who spent most of their lives in kitchen
And labour beds,
The rest of their time on either chewing betel leaves,
Or listening to the radio...


Sitting infront of her,
I thought of those women
Of bygone era...
Red sindoor  on their forehead
Dazzling like a sacrosanct mark...

But then,
Suddenly the rains came pouring,
And saw the homely woman removing leaf by leaf her conventionality...

She opened the window
Put her head out,
Closed her eyes...
And the rain fell on her as if to bring out her self
That had been kept confined for ages...

She let herself drenched
While I, shamelessly watched,
The swan turning into a peacock...

Then...
She tucked the aanchal of her saree into her waist,
And removed the ribbon from her hair,
To help the black stream take the fullest fall,
And...
She started tapping her feet on the marble...

The rain turned violent,
The windows rattled,
The long coconut trees swayed...

And she took the centre of the hall,
Her eyes bore the joys of life,
And the cold moist wind moved into the hall like gusts of sea waves,
Spraying little jets of shiver...

She started dancing...
I sat there still,
And watched the peacock in full flow...
The thunder and the lightning
Only gave cadence to her work,
And her whole body glowed
With indescribable energy and light...

She danced while it rained...
And the sacrosanct mark on her forehead,
Took the shape of a tilak...
A long red mark shiny,
As if it proclaimed victory...

The mesmerizing victory of a danseuse

Musafir

'You seem to visit some places quite often...'
She remarked, seeing him standing at her door;
His dusty clothes and thick beard
Bore all the marks of being a Musafir ...

'Yes...its like gravity... they pull you in...'
He said, standing at her door,
Uncombed hair, muddy shoes...

The salty air of the west
Kept running through him
And he looked at her,
Simple in her housecoat,
And blue slippers...
And the long black hair pin peeping from behind her bun...
And a face that looked pleasant and happy...

'Won't you come in?'
She asked,
And he was ushered into the house...

A neat living space with shiny glass wares on the big oak table,
And the carpet on the wooden floor as new as those in the stores,
And the big plasma thing on the wall,
And plenty other signs of well being...

He did not move much,
For he was embarrassed of his wrong shoes, full of dust,
And the crumpled shirt and soul...
He just stood there;

She had gone indoors,
To bring something for him...
It might be the drink for his dry throat,
Or something else...

He thought it was time for him to go away,
The way he arrived like the bolt;
He felt he was not supposed to be there,
In that neat living space with couches tempting;

So, he turned to the door again,
And he would've gone-
Had he not met himself on the photo frame...

A Black-n-white boy in baggy trousers and the smile on his lips,
Standing by the woman ten years younger;
(Who has gone indoors,
To bring something for him...)

He looked around,
Pushed the photoframe into his hip pocket,
And ran out...

He ran and ran
Till he reached the yellow cornfields...

He ran
Till he couldn't see the door...

The paperback writer...

He writes the whole long day,
As if he was born to write,
All that came to him,
The flowers, the trees, the broken heart, the flimsy shadows on the wall...

He writes,
Like the determined clerk on his desk,
Piles of paper strewn across  his bed,
On the floor, on his body, on his mind...
Papers all around,
White, pink, yellow, black...
Papers of different shades and shapes...

He writes,
About memories real-
Of child and women,
Of men and villians,
And the unreal-
Of forbidden treasures
Of Divine temptations...

He writes,
Like a man dispossessed of earthly warmth,
A pen on his hand,
And a mind on flight...

He writes...
The death wish once,
The love story next...

He writes,
Like a man blinded by sombre darkness;
He writes,
Like a man who has just seen the sunrise...

Last night when the Northwester came...

Last night when the Nor'wester came with the petals
Of yellow and red,
I was only thinking of you dear...

I saw you coming to me with the smell of rain soaked earth,
Dressed like the fairy,
With tiny leaves stuck carelessly into your flowing hair black,
And the pollen grains all over your slender body,
Yellow and red...

I saw you walking across the fields green,
-Those play fields of my childhood,
Where many rainbow afternoons we spent,
Under those sprawling trees with dark trunks,
Gazing up to the canvas of the sky
 On which someone painted the riot of colors...

I saw you standing at the gate of the temple by the river,
That temple ground where many evenings we spent lying on the grass,
Smoking happily away our indulgent time;

I saw you bent down on the rails of the jetty that went far into the river,
Your head suspended in the air,
As if you were planning for a jump into the turbulent waters;

I saw you on the Avenue,
Walking past all those little insignificant spots
Of our nocturnal rendezvous;

Last night when the Norwester came with the petals
Of yellow and red,
You came dear,
Like an ethereal lover,
Covered with pollens...

Last night...
The Norwester came,
And you came thereafter...

The Bus ride

Finally it came,
The last bus of the night,
For me,
Like a monster- one eyed,
Ugly dents all over his body,
Bearing marks of his careless sloppy movement,
And the radiator grill with broken teeth on display...

The monster stopped
Customarily where I was standing...
And I hopped in,
And collapsed on the grumpy seat
Which shrieked every time the monster jerked
As it ploughed down the uneven road of the night...

Tired as I was,
At the end of just another usual day
With usual share of usual nothingness,
The eyelids of mine were heavy
And they were about to be closing down
My vision for the night...

Just then the air brought in a fragrance
Not keeping with the late night bus,
For it reminded me of spring mornings
Of flowers and bees,
Of birth and creation...

I opened my sleepy eyes
And saw the bright sky
Draped in autumnal blue,
Seated just before me,
By the broken window;

The passing streetlights
Cast an intermittent burst of hues on the sky
And I saw how the blue turned green, yellow, red...
I looked at the change of colour...
And...
Goodness me!
All of a sudden,
The one eyed monster, carrying me within its belly,
Started gliding on the road of the night,
Like an automobile of the future,
With no noise, no jerks!

 I lost my sleep,
I was wide awake-
Witnessing the bus ride of my life!

8th march

I never wanted to see you that way
Dancing as you are, 'babelicious'
Embracing the pole ,
Paints all over your face
To woo the gaping men like me,
Full of bestiality...

On eighth march,
As you go international,
I am pained,
To see you on the billboards in skimpy clothes and lot of paints...
You don't need all these false adornments, dear,
For no one ever heard of goddesses wearing mascara or lipgloss!

A still picture

I could see her walking through the woods-
Swampy, moist, green, invigorating,
Staring at her brought relief
To my tired, burnt eyes of the city...

Blue jeans, backpack, white tee, sneakers,
Move away from me bit by bit;
Following the trail,
I move,
Amidst the woods,
Stretching my ears to get to the tune
Of the white tee and blue jeans humming all her way upfront...

The road was narrow, uphill,
Full of the adventures of the wild,
And of trees of unkown smell,
Yet so calming...

And I moved slowly,
Unaccustomed as I was,
To the region and the trail...

At one point she disappeared
From my sight,
I looked all around,
Only to see the trees standing like
Ascetics buried in deep thoughts;

I thought I should call her by her name,
But the trees...
They stood firm,
Like philosophers from the past,
I felt it would be a sin
To call her from behind,
To break the wild beauty of the place;

So I stopped
And forgot to call,
I just stayed back,
I just left the trail untouched by my feet,
I just waited...
For I knew that it would be a sin,
To create a furor,
In the midst of silence so pure...

the eighth year...

There you are,
Dressed in golden,
Resplendent under the flashbulb,
So happy and near,
Just by my skin,
The picture of perfection,
Smell of sweet flowers in the air...

Eight years have gone by,
Eight long years,
Eight short years...


Ninety six months,
Or, sixty nine thousand one hundred and twenty hours-

Of love and separation,
Hugs and slaps,
Tears and laughter,
Kisses and bites,
Eating and starving,
Acceptance and denial,
Enmity and friendship,
Truth and lies...

Ninety six months...
Eight years...
And still a poem for you...

An empty empty world

Sitting by the side of the flowing stream,
Reddened by the last rites of the Sun,
He was reminded of the emptiness all around...

Empty boats anchored to the bay,
Empty trees standing like phantasms with branches set across like frail fingers of the starved,
Empty land with no sign of human habitation...
An empty broken pot lying desolate...

He looked up to perceive the sky,
Cloudless and bereft of stars,
Spread like a low canopy of darkness,
And he heaved a sigh,
For within him he was ground by the void,
Within him there was a black basalt stone pressing hard,
As if it would lead him to asphyxia...

He felt the unnerving void engulfing him from all directions,
A 'void' of being loved till death by someone,
An emptiness filling up him from within,
In an empty, empty world...