what a day...

Getting release from work midday
With he never anticipating it...
Gave him a sense of newly found joy...
A kind of joy which floods the school children if they get a mid day break all of a sudden!
A kind of release from the usual mundane existence of running ten to five- abiding by the clock...
A kind of sudden rays of freedom falling into the darkest cage!

Going out of the cage...
He felt light and free...
As free as a truant boy almost...
Not knowing exactly what he should do with his temporary bliss...
He thought he should have his own day...
A day fully owned by him...
A day for him...

So...
He pressed on the accelerator
And rode down the busiest road of the city...
With a song ringing in his ears...
He rode with ease...
Taking precise corners with elan...
As if he could drive through all hassles effortlessly...
It was his day he felt...
The day was perfectly his...
The sky was blue as ever...
The stray leaves were falling like feathers on the road...yellow dots...brown dots...scattered on the road...
And he drove...
With the song ringing in his ears sweet!

viewfinder

I was on the road again...
Every time a car honked from behind, I looked at the viewfinder...
'Objects might be closer than they appear'
I look at the cars through the glass...
And often try to gauge their speed and movements behind...
Surely drivers do that, I believe...
But...
'Objects might be closer than they appear'
This oblique watermark printed on the glass 
Put me in great confusions sometimes...really...
Once I thought I was ahead enough to escape collision...
So I pressed the brake paddle softly
Only to be rammed from behind!

God!
Viewfinders are really deceptive....

After getting a dented back and several scars on the bumper rear...
I simply don't rely on the viewfinder...
If  I,  hear honking...from behind...
I roll down glasses...
I peep out like the baby out of the crib...
Curious...agile...

the flower girl...and the city

I saw her this morning...
Just happened to meet her on the road...
Walking blithely carrying a wickerwork full of flowers....
Flowers so beautifully vibrant!
Flowers of different hues....an assorted collection of joy and perfume...
Joy and bliss emanating from her as if she was born that way...
Happy...So happy by her shiny face...dimpled cheeks...flushed lips...

I saw her, the flower girl...
Selling happiness and warmth...
On the chilly morn...
 On the busy street-peopled...
On the street so noisy and baffling...
On the street of the city...
With people walking mindlessly...
People and cars speeding like traffic...
Reminding me of Lois Lenski...

the cigarette lighter...

So you roll your thumb...
your right nicotine-smelling brownish one all the time on my rollers...
I see your ignited face bright all the time...round the year...for years...
I have remained a witness to your days and nights ...your works on the table with litter of papers...your workless dumb existence...puffing...
I remained a mute spectator on the rainy nights when you searched for the last fag in your closets, pockets of coats...trousers...
You miss me...lose me oneday...you discover me another day...
You lose me...
You find me...
And you need me...
Not as desperately as you need fags of course...
Fags have become inseparable to you...
Not me...I know...
Cause you use matchsticks to fire your fags...sometimes...when you find me out of fuel!

Feberge` eggs...

Look...
you are no 007 codenamed super smart...
And not enacting in any Octopussy, right?
So why?
So why you run for the Feberge` Eggs?

Yes...yes...I know...
You're obsessed with its beauty and splendour...
After all Kamal Khan fought for it...
And Alexander III and Nicholas II possessed them...ain't it?
So you love to possess it...
So just love to hold it in your hands
And like Narcissus, would spend several springs by your swimming pool...
Looking at the reflection on water you holding it in your hands!

Good!
Only one information...
Nicholas II was abdicated...
His family got killed...
He actually wanted to possess a few more of those eggs...
But the year 1918 was unkind to him, his family and the eggs...

language...

Though he and she were different linguistically,
Apart from being different in sex, race, religion, caste, creed,blood group...and numerous other factors...
They went out one day for a ride...

They went out...
And came before a beautiful lake...
So blue with the clear sky above
That both of them were dumbfounded...
They just stood near the lake placid...
And enjoyed the calm of the place...
They stood watching the beauty so wide and incomprehensible in magnitude!
She asked:
'Te kaneis?'
He replied:
'I love the sight and the sound...of the place...'
She looked at his eyes for a while and said:
'min me afisete'
He could not understand what she uttered...
So he got closer to her...
She extended her palm...
He held it...curious...
She uttered smiling:
'I tha prepei na echete'
He held her hand and tried to grasp the meaning of undelivered words...
He just looked into her hazel eyes...
Just looked as time elapsed imperceptibly...
They stood there, hand in hand...
Beside the lake placid...
Under a blue sky which had a curious looking cloudlet passing by...
A speck of white cloud...
Which strangely looked like a smiley!

the player and his notations

He stood still almost like a bust made of stone, save, his hands ...
They moved all the time...fingers those of the hands...
They move to make the hands move...on the fretboard...on the woodwork that often found photoshop editors' joy-when the editors turned the wooden frame into a woman's back...so beautifully poised...hourglass! perfect!
A model...almost!
So he played his fingers on the model...played them nimble, soft...
Sometimes played singly on a particular string, repetitively, jarring the senses of both his own and the audience vibrantly cool...

His plectrum
 moved
     moved
          moved...
then
              moved back
moved back further ...
   
       moved away
providing gaps...
With his taps on the board...
Minors mingle haply with Majors...
So merrily like couples dancing...
Waltz...
  F
    o
o
    t-
       t
  a
p...

Following you...

I know by the wind that you are here...
I know...
The wind from the north carry cream that moist your skin...
The leaves say that you've grown a bit older...

Last year, when you came near me,
The lone swallow on my window twittered your arrival...
And even before the door bell sang...
I knew you were there!
I knew...

This morn as I sit at my typewriter
And press the metal on the ribbon...
I know ...
I am just following you...
The path you left for me to tread,
The light you left for me to shine on me,
And the songs you hummed into my heart...
So unknowingly...
I know...
I follow...
You...

just...let it go...

Just ...let the world of cares be gone dear!
Just leave all the crooked eyebrow-business be gone for a while from your face, dear, just for a while...
Instead come...we look at the yellow moon on the sky...floating like a balloon...
Think of the moment slipping by through our hands like a water stream from the tap of Time!
Just let go...
Let go of your captive heart...
And take a plunge...for a moment dear...
Just for a moment...
Come!
We dance...to the tune of the spring!
We dance like the lemurs there...see!
How happy are they dancing under the spring...cleansing their spites
See?
Can't you?
The yellow moon turning up...
Like a balloon of joy!

Teklanika river there-
Of Alaska, is waiting for us!
Can't you see that pier?
Come!
Let's take a jump from that thing...straight!
To the blue...

when he came one night home...

when he came finally one night to her one roomed home with a tiny passage linking her
Bedroom to the loo...
He was drunk...out of wits...to be precise...
She almost carried him with a lot of strain...
As if she was bearing a heavy load upon her...
So she took a bit of time to gather her lost breath reaching her one roomed flat...so clumsy...
'Coffee?'
She asked him...
Her long lost love...
Who just batted his eyelids not knowing what he was doing...
He looked groggy...
His eyes were closed almost...
Then she undressed him...
And helped him to lie down on her cot...so small...
He lied down and started snoring almost...
Intoxicated as he was...
She thought she should call him awake...
But his pitiable state hindered her from doing that...

She just stood by the bedstead for a while-
Looking at her lost love...
Snoring hard...ignorant of her presence...
She undressed herself...
And just lied down on the small, uncomfortable bed...beside him...
She just lied and took his sleepy hands upon her...
She played with his unkempt hair...
And smiled silently...
She just smiled thanking her fate...
She thought herself to be the luckiest girl of the world...
Finding him alone on the street one night...
She smiled awake...
And tears rolled down her cheeks...
While he snored hard still...
One night when he came home...to her one roomed flat...

the last chance...

He knew that it was his last and final chance to stick and get stuck to her...
Tensed, as he was always inside...
He stopped chewing when the movie was on ...
The darkness of the auditorium deterred him from making mistakes...

He kept himself on the screen showing Dustin Hoffman roaming like an old man with irregular heartbeats...
And Emma Thompson...So tall and rustic!
He imagined...
To have one day a cottage in Spain and to live a peaceful life with a writer like Kate...Emma...
He imagined so many things but never let `em out...
His own irregular heartbeats prevented him to become adventurous!
He just sat tightlipped almost...through the flick...
Showing love going across the continents...
Showing chance meeting turning permanent...
He recalled so many faces...
So many faces came and went...like the frames on the screen...

Thus...
He moved in and out of the screen...
He moved to the past before he came rushing back to the present...the auditorium...with heads all around black...glowing by the cinemascope!

The movie ended happily...
After his hero returned from the hospital
And arrived by the river Thames...
The lights got switched on...
The darkness gave way to light...
He squinted his eyes...
To see her eyes squinted too!
He took a half glance to her...sideways...
And to his dismay...saw tears too...on her deep dreamy eyes!

to whom who sat there...

Last evening, when I was about to wind up for the day...
Leaving my unburnt fags on the silver ashtray glistening under the light...
And through the glass window took a pre-departure customary look on the street outside...
I saw her...
She...
Wearing a dress so flambouyant...
Sparkling ear-drops...
Brownish lip stick...
Colored hair silk...
Pinned up elegantly opening her beautiful neck-adorned by a gold chain...
Only...
Her eyes were not keeping with the tune of the place...and her dress...
She looked absent
As if far away from the street eatery-joint...
So uppish...
So full...with people of the city...busy people spending lazy hours talking
So much of life!
Only...
Her posture was down...
Her eyes kept fixed on her nails manicured...
She was thinking something...
Her eyebrows revealed her fixed mind...on her nails...on her thoughts...

I felt the coins dropping on the salver somewhere...
I heard someone calling his girlfriend, lying blatant...
I heard the soft words of passion flowing nearby...
Only...
She sat there...
Looking at her fingernails red!
And I...
thinking of the street outside...
On the other side of the glass window...
Flowing so indifferently...
Flowing like a favoured song perhaps...

my father...

He had survived the hails and the storms of the most unholy kinds!
He survived like a big banyan tree spreading his branches out...
As if he had that only job assigned by the God!
He stood steadfast on his grounds...
Facing the cruelest part of history books- the violence...the bloodshed...
He bled...
He bled profusely sometimes...
But he probably had that memory of a banyan tree...
Which he had as company in a different geographic location...
So he took all the challenges...
And stood still...
Holding on to his grounds;

A man with jewish origin gave him joy
And filled him with wonder...
He ran after the man's works...
Just ran...
Giving the run his greatest physical energy...
Like a negative atom running towards the positive one...
Laws of attraction took him there!
Simply!


Time glided by...
As usual;

He is still running his own way...
May be stumbling a bit...
With cough and cold...and the sugary blood...
Still he's on the run!

The jew died long ago...
But he left his books! luckily!

the swan...

Have you ever seen her?
When she took to the lake blue...on the mist filled winter morn?
Have you seen her white playing about on the blue blue lake that took the gradual shape of a stream to heaven?
Have you?

Last dawn...
Like a memorable dream
She came to me that way...
Taking the form of a pure swan...so white!
She came with her neck bent smooth on me
To nudge me out of my sleep and dream...
Nudging me with her moist beak to give her company
On the lake so blue...like a dream...reaching the heavenly stream...

I followed her as if I was under her spell...
A kind of complete submission...
A submission which my heart longed for!
I followed her to the stream of heaven....
Blue...so enchanting...
Blue...so cool...
I followed...as if I was blinded by the beauty...
And we took to the stream...
That the lake had turned into for us two...
We swam the whole morn...
Till the mist covered us from the world that passed by...
Till the shadows of the bushes kept our swimming undisclosed...

I fell for the swan...
And the swan fell for my dream...

the tattoo...

The dragon took the pose of a sprinter on her shoulder,
The big spout was open like half opened, hinged, scissors...
And the dragon was spitting fire!
Fire...red and yellow...coming out from the flame gun...
It spread across the whole right shoulder of her...
She was dancing hard...
Oblivious of the dragon on her shoulder
That she carried so fashionably!
She carried it throughout the evening...
As she danced to Santana who was jamming his lovely guitar on the deck...
Her backless stringy halter helped the dragon to roam freely
On her shoulder...spitting hot...

The evening worn down to become  night...
She got weary a bit and settled on a couch for a sip or two...the potion...
The blue potion upon which the bartender just played fire...
She drank the first one quick...
Meanwhile Santana cleared the deck for someone more fiery...
Who did no jamming...
Who just unplugged steam straight!
But she the dragon bearer was a bit tired, as you see...
So she just tapped her heels on the wood...
And sipped her second, followed by her third...

By the end of the first half of the night...
The dragon on her shoulder also stopped shooting the flame gun,
For one could see it not running like a sprinter...
It was lying there...like a harmless creature...
Sleeping after a lot of hard work...
Sleeping hard...snoring!

the saree...

'She must have left in a hurry...'
He thought as he entered the room...
And perceived distinctly her saree on the bed...
Lying there crumpled...almost thrown down...

He got closer to the saree...
It had motiffs of the moghuls at its border...
Moghuls...sitting whiffing rose...
Moghuls on thrones...peacock thrones...
Moghuls...spreading empire vast...upto the extent of the whole saree...
Silken routes...
He took the saree up and felt the silk...
Felt the intricate weaving...
So intricate...details to the point of making it a silken canvas almost...
He got the scent of her as well...
Scent of her taking him away to past...
The route was silken then...so smooth...

They had arrived at the grand store with red carpet and glass panels...
Full of sarees unnumbered!
Sarees cotton...silk...muslin...rayon...linen...carrying so many names...
They got all the shapes and styles and prints and embroidered ones...
She then took the moghul one...violet and purple and black...
So enchanting!
As if a riot of colors took the centrestage!

Touching the saree...
Was like touching her...
Was like going back so many years...
In a lightning pace!

The saree
Spoke volumes...

the defector!

She had never been still...stagnant...
One moment if I see her standing on the rooftop, arms akimbo...
The next moment she's gone!
Search ...search...
And I find her cycling down that alley fast...
Head bowed almost on the handlebar...eyes sharp looking upfront...
Gleaming!

Once I saw her chasing that ruffain,
Her muscles sweated...
Her body hugging tee spelling doom for the beast!

The next day...
I found her at the pole!
Dancing like a poledancer quite!
She looked half russian...
Half-greek!
She...
My god! the defector!

Until yesterday...
I never had the idea that she...was a defector...
The ex-FBI!
Now working(sic) for an arms dealing conglomerate!
God!
Give her peace...
God...
Let her realize there's no light at the other end of the tunnel through which she runs!

my friend's last notes...

Tall, dark and handsome...
That was my friend...
He had been my friend since our tricycle days;
We used to do things crazy and simple in our school days...
I remember...now...more poignantly as he had left me with his bunches of papers...
Printed ones...
Printed words black on pages...

I recall...
How we ran around our compound with toy guns...
Trat-trat-trat-tra...
Shooting at imaginary foes...
We were G.I Joes!

Then we grew in height and width...
We just grew,
To smoke our dad's pipes...
Secretly, sitting thrilled behind the garage...

We grew more to see more in women...
Earlier they were our friends and friends' sisters only...
But we saw more in them...
We fell in love...with our friends' sisters...cousin sisters...
We grew still...
In length and width...
We grew...

We soon realised our love was just an infatuation...a passing phase, in the annals of man!
We grew more to become pros...in drinking and smoking...
Pros...we were!
Knowing exactly how to roll leaves and put the flakes into them...
Knowing how to open bottles with teeth!
Knowing our wayward ways...

We grew...
We grew to know more...
More about life and death...
Death came first as a dream...
Then it became a terrible foe...taking one of our friends away, forever!

We still grew...
We grew to become fathers...
We grew to become husbands of our girlfriends!

We still grew...
We grew to become trees by ourselves...

Now...
With my friend's last notes in my hands...
I feel...
Our growth curve is good...
We grew...
Keeping things steady...
Through the tides...
We kept heads above the waves...and swam the ocean good...so far!

on the terrace...

She discovered him sitting happy on the terrace...
Two legs flung on two sides...kind of riding on the iron rails...as if he was a horse rider...
'Come on up! if you're brave!'
He teased her, from there...exotic smile pasted on his face...
She looked up...
She the cellist...
Just coming out of the concert hall...captivating the audience...perspiring, excited;

She climbed up the iron stairs...
Her white gown was a real problem...
It was hindering her steps on the stairs narrow and slippery...
She got hold of an end of her gown, tugging the flowing thing up a bit...
Revealing her soft white thigh...
So sensuous!

She climbed, teeth gripping her bated breath...
For she wanted to be there, desperately...
On the iron rails...
She wanted to sit by him on the rails...just like him...the nonchalant horse rider...

The moon was brightest of the season...
The night was the coolest one...
And from the top of the building they could see life passing by, ignorant of the two
Sitting on the terrace fringe...
On rails...

Then, breaking the silence of the night,
He started the interlude of his favourite song...
'And it seems to me that you lived your life...'

'Hey! Am I really a candle in the wind?'
She asked him softly, swayed by the night, the moon and the eagle's eye view of the city...
'Yes! you're...dear...you are!'
He murmured, absentminded...

Then they embraced...
They embraced each other...
Balancing their bodies on the rails...
A tricky thing...risk-prone...
But they still did that...
Bound by the night and the moon and the eagle-eyes...
On the terrace...

the birth...

She knew all those lil signs...
Something...err...someone moving inside her protruded belly...
That had been quite flat even a few months back,
Now looking like exactly a balloon...
Inflated by the existence of someone moving...

Last night...
When just the dawn was breaking as the east took the color of the pinkish red...
She felt someone there hitting her with its legs...
She giggled
And sitting up on the bad... touched the spot with her palm...
Closing her eyes, she just mumbled a few words, as if she had already become the mother...
'Come'n kid! don't throw your legs like that...are you hungry?'
Then she got down from her bed
And opened the can of biscuits...
'The kid likes them for sure...'
She mumbled as she chewed on the biscuits, softening the bits
By her saliva...
And she looked at her belly again...
A wondrous balloon...filled to the full...ready to get burst almost...
She thought of the seeder...
The seeder was not there...
He might be sleeping hard somewhere...in a hotel room...
somewhere in the western part of the country-
The seeder is on office tour...

She thought she should pick up the phone and call the seeder straightaway...
Call him up from slumber
To let him know that the seed had turned into full grown tree finally and knocking hard on the wall...
To break free to see the light of the day...
She thought
She shouldn't call as that would be not pragmatic...
Pragmatism...
The word stopped her from calling the seeder then...

Exactly ten hours after that hard kicks on her belly...
She brought home the baby...
She gave birth to dreams...

Only the seeder missed them...

she, the traffic post....

'Sometimes it is good to be back...
To the usual ways after a drift...
It so good sometimes...to be back on the road...
Hitting it hard with all muscles raring to go...
Speed man speed!
It is good to rev up the engine strong
And speed through the road...
As lightposts whiz by like lightning rods glimmering for sparse moments...
And the stray leaves blown away...
Blown away by the gust of exhaust...
And the silence being broken by the purring of the cylinders running incessent
And faces going away so quick...'

He thought as he sped through-
Till  a traffic signal, which forced him to stop...
A traffic signal red...
A traffic signal with blue tee and black jeans staring curiously straight into his eyes...
He looked and smiled light...
The curious pair of eyes did not smile back...but they scanned him and his machine...
Scanned and scanned...
Till she grew tired of scanning;

He moved right his handle bar...thirty degrees...thinking to navigate her and the post...
But the signal was still red and she was still there...
Looking at him-
Asking him a question...
Leaving him a cue...
'Why?'
'Why dear?'
'Why you move so reckless? don't you care for life?'

It took him exact 4.8 seconds to realise the cue...
At the 4.9 th second he nodded...
He nodded in affirmative, as if he was submitting...

Just then the signal went green...
Green...

Affirmative...

O my black night! my love...

O my black night!
I love you so!
Cause you are the only one so pure and unconditional...
You're the One!

O my darkest day!
You're my heart's joy!
Cause you're the only One
Who come to me everyday!

O my bleakest thought!
You're my favourite...
Cause you come to me
To remind me of the brightest ;

O my singed heart!
You're the blessed one...
For you show me the shore
Where beauty and Love galore!

O my wildest mind!
You're my estranged love...
Cause you make me do things
Which no one can!

the Guru...

So, by chance I met him...
Near the river Koshi...sitting cross-legged as any sadhu should entomb oneself...
Eyes closed...
Palms rested blithely on folded knees...
I looked at his face...calm...
As calm as the river flowing by...
Calm with little ripples...
I looked at his face...same eyebrows...same lips...same square jawbones...
He appeared a bit frail though...

The last time I saw him...some ten years back...
He had worn a pair of jeans faded...
And in all probability a fag was dangling from his lips...then...
He just nodded me farewell...
I had  heaved a sigh perhaps, adjusting my dupatta over my heavy bosom...
I had flashed a faint smile perhaps...
Perhaps I had checked my tears...
Only my black eyeliner got a bit smudged...I remember!
But I had hidden all my sighs...quite efficiently...under the garb of my dimpled smile...
He had stared at me for a while perhaps...
Stared hard...
I had remained impassive...outwardly... though God knew...how the storm had raged then...within...
How my two unruly arms had tried to defy my orders of brain...
To embrace him hard!
To hold him tight over my empty bosom!
O! what a pain it had been-
To let him go...
To let love remain unrequited!

Now....
After ten long years,
I, by providence, discovered him...
And on the very first glance
Realised that sadhu under the tree by the river was my known man...
The man who  had left me giving no pains external...
The man who left me flooded by dreams and unforgiving memories!
I thought...
I should pounce on him and wake him up from his deep slumber!
I thought I should jerk his unconsciousness out!
I thought I should plant a kiss on his thin lips...full of my pentup lust and love...
But
I just thought...
Never garnered the courage to face his eyes opened...

Me thought...
I should click a photo of my man sitting under the tree by the river Koshi...
Without jeans and cigarette...
In an orange loin...and bare chest...

the violinist...

She stood up like a swan...
Her hair was caught at the nape...
She stood under the arclight white..
Her black flowing gown looked like a curtain flying...
Then she took the bow and rested it delicately on the strings...
Just like a feather touching a harp...
She closed her eyes...feeling each of the strings...her companions for ages...
Her friends of sadness and beauty...
She knew how to touch them alive!
Her bow...her strings...
Her wooden violin polished...
Then she started playing with them-
Playing as if she was born to play!
Playing as if she knew exactly how to bring senses to strings so taut!
She played...
And I could see her
Almost stirred up inside...
Her eyes closed carried all of her mind and heart...
Her sweet eyebrows twisting up and down with every move of her hand and the bow...
Her whole body became a song...
I saw her...
I saw her through...

why so?

why so dear?
Why we become cats when we can actually be lions?
Why?
With the Nature, being the most benign mother, smiling at us with all her beauty so gloriously presented-
For us to be engaged with...
One can only be lions and roam free...
Understanding every bit of one's freedom...
Delimiting oneself from being mere copycats!
We are all lions and lionesses...aren't we?
Bravehearted, fearless...
Or we might be like THE TYGER
Of Blake!
Even better...than a lion...
The Tyger....
God's creation...'fearful symmetry'
And be the Lamb as well...
Standing for all that is meek and mild...
And be the Tyger still!

walk...

After slogging so hard for days, dear...
Come...lets go out for an evening walk through the boulevard...
Come...
Just hold my hand...giving me your warmth and taking from me my moist soul...
Let us walk...
As if we are out to kiss the earth
And let the earth kiss us back...

Come...dear...
Let the walk be our only talk...
Holding on to each other's hands...
We just walk
Through the boulevard so absurdly beautiful
In this evening...

We just walk dear-
After slogging so hard for days
Missing several hours like these...
Just we walk and never talk...

on Dali...

He stood before the gigantic frames capturing moments of the frenzied painter's artworks...
'How unnerving!'
He thought and looked at the Persistence of Memory
'So liquid...the Time...almost slipping off from the edge of the table and that tree branch leafless...'
He thought and strolled to another...
'My god! Young virgin...so deconstructed?'
He asked the empty hall which echoed back his words in no time;
Then came to view the best of the lot...
At least, he considered it the best,
Though he was always aware he had never been the best of art critics...
Infact he felt belittled by the gigantic works-
Reaching up to the ceiling of the hall...
Spread as wide as a big projector screen...
Jesus on a three dimensional crucifix...hanging light in the void...

He looked and looked...
Till he thought he was just one of the minions
Standing at the feet of the God...

the Time...

She had never felt tired of running round and round...
She had been doing that for the last few thousand years...
Running with perfection unattainable!
She knows that she is invincible...
The undefeated champion of everything...
The most experienced of all...
The wisest...
The coolest...
The luckiest...
The bravest...
The most beautiful one...
The best thing ever conceived of...
The truest form of moments, so fleeting...

She knows what preceded whom...
She knows by her hands, so easy!
She knows-algae was born on earth at 2.08
And the first sexual reproduction in the truest form had happened exactly at 6.08...
And how the Homo sapiens and Homo erectus came to rule the roost...
And that too at 11.58.43...

She knows all the facts...
And fictions too!
She knows how the poet next door fell off to slumber at his desk, leaving unfinished work on pages...
She knows how the little girl giggled when after a long time she saw her pet dog getting well...
She knows...
Being the most perplexing kind of dimensions accountable...
Being the Time...

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;