Fancy...you are a cheat!

You...fanciful image...
You look so gorgeous...
In your knotted blouse red and green lehenga saree...
A designer one, I guess...
So breathtakingly beautiful!

I look at the peacocks dancing at the middle of the lehenga...
They dance all the way...
They just dance...from your lower abdomen to your feet...
And I keep on looking at you with unabashed curiosity...
I look and try to realise your beauty within me...
Try...to become a woman, by bent of mind...
Effeminate!

You...the peacock-
Maketh me one...
In my bewildered state...

You...the fancy...
'Cheats so well...'
And God knows-
I love to be cheated!
I love...so well...to be forfeited of my senses...by you...
And I the man, become a woman...temporary...
You ...fancy...you're just a cheat!

knowledge comes coupled... with ignorance...

Knowledge comes intertwined
With ignorance...
Sometimes...

I don't know what you did last summer...
I just don't know...
I don't know where you actually stand after walking so many miles...
I just don't have that precise knowledge...
But as the earth revolves...
And rotates...
I know...
We'll meet...someday...
In some foreign land with a big blue ocean by your side...
And a desert by me...
I don't know...
When...we'll meet...at exact what hour...or at what exact moment...
I just don't know...
I just don't know...dear...

regrets...

Regrets...
That I gave you pains
Regrets...
You gave me pains too!
Regrets...
You shooed away all the goodness that came from me, inter fused with insults and injuries, for sure!
Regrets...
You hinged all of you on my tiny fulcrum which screeched like a rusty thing...too rusty...
Regrets...
That I dipped my pen and wrote and dipped and wrote...not minding how the process emptied gradually the inkpot!
Regrets...
I spent you...
And you spent me up...
Regrets...
You can't let go of past...
And I can't live in future...
Regrets...
I drank tears
And You didn't drink wine!

virtual coexistence...

We co-exist, don't we?
Though, you live at a place near the salty sea-
Far away from my town...

If my hometown has krishnachura and radhachura painting the streets red and yellow in spring...
And sheuli blossoms...strewn all over the green grassy lands like white cotton flakes in autumn...
And smell of chatim filling up the dense air of winter like perfume spray...

Your town has the coconut leaves falling off everyday...
And salt salt sand sand air!
You live with them...
As I live with mine!
Still we coexist..
Aren't we?

I know...
you know the same...
So when I see you at your living, arranging the white lilies in the copper-pot, following a particular ikebana pattern...
You see me also...watching those flowers shiny and spreading grace to your living room and to you!
I know...
You know the same...

Last night...
I bet you saw me throwing that cigarette end out of my window...
You saw it...didn't you? the projectile of my fag-end losing energy and falling on my neighbor's roof?
You got irritated for sure then! seeing me doing school-kid stuff!
But dear...
At that point of time why you kept your sash-bahu soap on?
I mean... if you are really enjoying watching me doing things like that, why keep that television burning energy?

Don't do that...
I assure you-
Next time around, when I'll throw that fag-end, I would be bettering my aim...it would never fall on my neighbor's roof!

So...
We live...
We coexist...virtually though!

surely! you've left me a legacy...of Love!

You left me a legacy...
Really...
A legacy of images
Of dreams...
Of memories...

And I am just holding on to that legacy...
Of your rich and sublime presence-
That evoked so many and varied burst of passions...

I bear that image of yours-
Working at my kitchen...
Wearing that yellow cotton saree with light green borders...
Your rear-view from my study...
Your long braided hair dancing at your back as you move so restlessly with ladles and spoons and dishes...at my kitchen...sweating and working and singing a song of love...

Then another appears...
Another image bearing your legacy to me...
Of you putting my soiled jeans into that white chamber of washing machine and setting the knobs with perfect elan...
knowing exactly what should be the spinning time and what amount of detergent would my soiled jeans take...
And curiously as you did all that...cleaning and washing...you murmured your womanly chit-chats...as if you were wondering 'what particular muddy field he had tottered about...'

Then another appears...
Another image of your legacy of love and affection...
When I recall how you used to take away that empty coffee mug from my table and replace it with a filled-up one!
How...through your every moment of staying with an idiot like me...
You left me more and more dependent on you!

Surely!
You had left a long legacy of Love...
Love dripping still like water drops from a tap that had been closed tight!
A leaky water spout...leaving drops of love...

pink pullover...

The other day I saw the pink pullover
Paired with blue jeans
Standing at my door!

The hours of the day were early...
And the sun was just kissing  the earth, lending his warmth...
The pink pullover and blue jeans arrived unheralded!
I was not prepared for the sudden visit...
'You? here? so early?'
I asked...
Looking at her shiny face...moisturizer-ed...
And her thin lips carrying the smell of strawberries...

'If you call...how can I stay back?'
She replied ...sweet...
'Sure...sure...but I gave you a call...the day before yesterday...'
I mumbled;
'Yes...I know...I'm late...but will you not forgive me?'
She asked...
I looked at her shiny face
The dewdrops on her eyelashes shone like jewels...
And her face had that pinkish glow...
I at once forgot all causes of pains and agonies...
I chose to forget all causes of estrangement...
The pink pullover and the strawberries done me in...

God and His protege

God...
Serving for all
Down the ages...
Took a break...
But left the world to His protege...
A young man with a heart of gold...

This young man was delighted by the task assigned to him by no other than God...
He took the helm of affairs with an element of surprise...
But within moments
He was approached by a beauty...
She requested:
'Hey...young man...now that you're God...please let me live another day...for the earlier God had limited my stay to this day only...'
The young man was softened by the mellowed voice of the beauty...
And thought of listening to her story...so he asked:
'What have you done?'
'I sinned...I cursed the earlier God for He took away pride...He took away my Mirror!'
The young protege of God thought that the God might have been too harsh on the beauty...
So he extended her stay by oneday and smiled...
The beauty smiled back and even kissed the young God's feet...
The young protege of God was amused...
He felt a kind of shiver...unknown...

The God Himself...
The Omniscient...
returned soon after the break...
And He smiled at His protege when the young man asked Him about his role for the brief period as God...
The protege insisted on an appraisal from the Almighty...
Then...
He...the omniscient replied:
'Well...you did well...really fared well...only your sensory perceptions are yet to be numbed...you are yet to become God...'

'Why?'

So...
You've taken the crudest path to apparent triumph!
Probably you wanted to be that danish warrior
Who took the bid...and became a true victor!

But dear...
Knowing that you are incapable of listening to me...now...that you traversed the long road...
And met your destined horizon...
Still...
My god!
Why?
and
Why?
and
why?
and innumerable 'wh' questions play...
Between you and me...

You traveled  through your path...and you got every reason to be on that path...
I am not in any way posing a road-block...
I am not by any means slowing you down...
Only...
Only there remains a query...
A single one...
A singular kind...
'Why?'

a view of a room...(a narrative)

'My god!
The room is so beautiful!'
I exclaimed within, trying to be at ease with my amazement and bedazzled state
Entering her room...
So perfectly decorated...
She ushered me in and opened the big glass casements (for me?)
The rising sun rushed  into the room (for us two?)
Through the white curtains hanging like some princess' flowing gown...
The bedstead was neat ...white bed spread...white pillows soft and silky!(for he and she?)
The bed side table had two books...(one by me! My God!)
The ottoman was there too! big! cushioned to rest any tired soul( for he or she or me?)
The glass cabinet had exotic bottles...(Perrier-Jouët!Chardonnay!Pinot Noir!Cuvee!...all french! for both of them? for guests like me?)
I was stirred and shaken...both...by the view of her(their?) room...

She understood my discomfort...my unease...knowing me for years...
So...she just hang loose around me,keeping a curious kind of smile on her thin lips...
'Hey! make no mistake! I'm really kind of flustered...if you see what I mean...'
I murmured...not trying to hide my ill-at-ease state;
She giggled...
She giggled like a child, as if she had not yet grown into a woman proper!
'Why are you laughing? at me?'
I asked, irritated somewhat...
She still giggled...
'Look...as you asked me to come...so here I am...but where's your partner?'
I asked, looking around (as if I am to find him hiding somewhere in the room! me the idiot! curse me!)
She stopped giggling...looked at me...
'Sit...' She said...(as if she was ordering me! so easily!)
'No! I mean...I need to go...I need to attend some other works...you see...'
I protested;

'Okay...go...'
She said, nodding...(what a woman! come'n! ask me to stay dear!)
I looked at her...(me... the idiot!)
'Okay...bye bye then...take care...'
I said and started walking out of her room...
'Wait a minute...'( so? now you're calling me from behind? good!)
She said;
I stopped...
(God knows I was always willing actually, to stop and stay for a while....)

'Take your novella...its useless!'
She remarked, handing me a copy of my first published work...
I stood like a statue...
The book fell from my hand...
On the white marble...
Somewhere a cuckoo cooed...
Somewhere a linnet sang...
Somewhere a violinist played a tune of mourning as well...

stresses and strains...

She came to me oneday morn...
Her hair was not combed, unusual, very unlikely of the lady who loves to be neat...perfectionist...
'Hi dear! you look kind of disheveled this beautiful morn...'
I remarked, thinking of a session of banter and fun...
But she looked distressed...severely distressed as if the whole world had fallen down somewhere and she was part of the Fall...
She upturned her upper lip which looked beautiful still...sans lipgloss...
She furrowed her brows...which looked like the bow beautiful...though not marked or lined by the eye-brow pencil black!
She fumbled for words...though I knew exactly that her face carried a wordless cry...
'I ...I... lost my all hopes...I'm ruined dear!'
She cried out suddenly...as if a tumult had left her into a wreckage...
'what happened?'
I asked...looking at her salty eyes...still dark as the black night...still shining...with a different kind of passion...perhaps...
She looked at me...a plain look...however...it had deep pathos...pathos never to be revealed...pains only to be understood...unspoken though...
I always knew she was an introvert...
I knew that she loved me once...
I knew she deviated because of me...
I knew I was the cause...
So...I sat still...looking at her eyes...deep...pained...teary...
She was trying to surrender but how could she?
I declined her once...she could never let go that...
She shouldn't!

I decided to jabber...then...just jabber away her stresses and strains...
'Look...dear...life is a liquid and we are just like wires dipped into it...If you try to pull your thin wirelike existence out of life-liquid...tensile forces will surely be at work...don't force yourself...just let it happen...feel the dual pulls...the surface tension of the liquid-life and the surface energy...be good...cry hard...shout harder...let it go...don't suppress...'

She looked at me...
Her eyes were fixed, but her lips were trembling...
She was going to cry...
I moved a bit forward...
Gave her my shoulder...
She caught me like a straw...drowning...in the flood that broke...

love-bugged...

'Bitten by love...dear...
I got wings...so I must fly...'
He said, reclining on the sofa, putting his left leg on the arm rest...
And the right on the mat...
Me...his friend...looked at his posture and the sweet smile on his lips...
'God! she had turned you into a poet...almost!'
I exclaimed...with a bit of sarcasm unrevealed...under my tone and tempo...
He did not mind...
He was flying...
He...was love-bugged...
So he kept staring at the ceiling...
And I bet...
He was thinking of her...
'Hey! you!'
I tried to bring him back to the wingless world...real...harsh...stony...
'Yes...'
He replied in reluctant manner...bitten he was...by that Bug that had a long history of instilling frenzy...
I remembered Romeo...
I remembered Majnu...
I remembered Othello...
And even Stephen...
And so many of them...
'Hey! what's her name?'
I asked him...
'Don't know...'
He answered in a same lethargic tone...
'You're an idiot! don't know her name even? don't know her name whom you love?'
I asked, amused by his bugged stature...
'no...she could be anyone ...Aphrodite...Venus...Laila...Juliet...'
He, my love-bitten friend replied...still lying on the sofa in a precarious manner...
'Darn! you're an idiot! How can you love her without knowing her name?'
I asked, sort of irritation working up in me...
'I have no need dear...I have no need to know her name...I care not about her name...her father's name...her family's history...her gene codes...her blood group...all I care...is that her eyes spoke to me...
Yes...her eyes...they told me her love...they told me all about her passion for me...her presence...mere presence...made my day...and that is all about it...that is all one should really care for!'
My love-bugged friend replied with a sudden rise of tone...as if he was getting theatrical a bit...
I said nothing in response...
I just looked at his lit-up face...his throbbing veins on his temple...
His reddened ears...his inflated nose...
And I knew...
Then and there...
The disaster had already taken place...
The quake had already happened...
All these are aftermath...

on the place...where once one stayed...now deserted....

Looking at the ill maintained building with chunks of plaster
Falling off like dry leaves shaken by the autumnal breeze-
Revealing teethed existence-so meaningless...
He felt pained...
'Pained'-will be an understatement...for sure!
He felt...ruined within...
As if chunks of his own memories were falling off-
Irresistibly,
Rage inter-fused with melancholy and contempt gripped him...
As he looked at his residence of childhood...
Now lying vacant...uselessly vacant...dilapidated almost!
He stared at his play-field of childhood
And thought of his youthful adventures as well...
Days of standing at that balcony...now weed covered...
Days of sitting on the porch...now dust filled and unkempt...

There...
In front of that worn down, mossy building...
One would find him every other day...
Standing stagnant...
Be seized by memories...
He would surely be found...
Standing ...like a coconut tree...bereft of leaves...blackened, burnt...
After all the lightning crashed on him as well!

she...and he...

She...
Comes to me in forms so dissimilar!

Last night...
When she came, in her red chiffon
She just bowled me over...
My god!
She took me by my hands and helped me to light fire in her...
And be fiery myself!
She knew how well...
How to touch the string
And bring out the tune from my jarred guitar-so off-tuned!
She danced
To take me to the kingdom of satiety!

The day before yesterday...
She was all thorny...
Pinching salt over my bruised heart...
She knew how well
How to make me cry
On bended knees
She was a hard task master...

Last Monday...
When I was feverish
And the digital numbers showed heat within me rising...rising...all the time...
She came and sat by me...with that worried look that drove me mad!
She came and touched my parched throat and singed forehead...
Dipped cotton into ice-bucket
And cooled me off!

She...
Comes to me in varied forms...
Benign, heartless, raunchy...
Deity and the enchantress!

He...
He comes to me with his wild loud laughs
Resonance being created in the empty hall
By his growls...like a tiger almost!

Then he comes...
As the mighty hearted strongest man...
With muscular arms...lifting me off my feet!
He comes as true dad almost...security...assurance...
Reminding me of my dad...so often...

He comes carrying Old spiced shirt
As if he had returned home after a long battle and got freshened up the first thing...
Fresh...clean...joyous...


He comes...
Like that jerk also...
'Jailhouse rock!'
Ear-plugged...spiked hair...


He comes in varied shapes and forms as well...
Like a child almost...oneday...
Searching lover...
Groping in the dark...
For a drop of milk!

Writing...with blood......

I write with blood, dear...
I write using my drops of redness that provide me the oxygenated heart!
So dear...
Leave me at my desk...
If you find me buried in thoughts...or somewhat bizarre...with a face not seeing you-
Coming to me with your best preserved look...
Please...
I write with a lot of wine in my soul dear...
You know...don't you?
As you found me on several occasions mumbling within me like  possessed man...at eerie hours of the night...
You found me...
Walking absentminded...on streets so glitzy...
You found me sitting at the restobar...
Sipping the potion...with hazy eyes and blurred vision...
You found me dear...
Haven't you?
Last winter, you recall, how I rode away for a night trip to the forest...
Trying to find the way by the headlamps blazing...casting semicircular glow on the asphalt...
That moved straight into the abyss of dreams...

You saw me doing things like that...over the years...
For I write with blood dear that oozes from me all the time...
You know that, for sure!
You know ...
Don't you, dear?

Remember Maenads?
Why can`t you be a Maenad?
Come dear...
Let us be followers of Dionysus...
Let us be...

the tale of my ragged jeans...

I have got a ragged jeans...
It bore several marks of strife and tears...
And lipmarks too...
Marks brownish red...
That of a smooch perhaps...
College days' hangouts...
Carnival days...
Days of sitting together with friends...on highway dhabas...
Of loitering around aimless...
Days of makeshift tents outside a big stadia...
Days which came and went like flipping of coins and fate...

My jeans ragged and torn at ankles...
Bear it all...
Stories...of love, lust, venom and wine...
Of roses and thorns...
My jeans...
Tell me stories...

at the end...

The crimson red...
Fell and spread like a satin cover before them...
He and she...
As another day of peaceful silence came to its legitimate end...
'Sometimes...it is so wonderful...'
She murmured unconsciously...
Speaking for her own self, perhaps...
Watching the sunset on the ocean...
He said nothing...
He was incapable of even mumbling for the beauty arrested his senses...benumbed...
He stood looking at her face and the ocean vast as seen on the major portion of the frame-rectangular!
He saw her side face and the waves lapping up...and the sky red...and pink...with a touch of blue on the upper side of the frame...
So enchanting!

'Sometimes...the end becomes so sweet that we tend to believe it to be good...but...'
She continued mumbling...
Half conscious of the evening setting in like a curtain, slow-drop...
Slow curtain... in theatrical parlance...
Soon the audience would stand up from their feet and a big applause would break...
Clapping of the multitude would be heard...
The end of the play as enacted with perfect synchronization should be always clapped hard!

'The end is so sweet...that we forget that the play has actually ended...'
She elaborated further on her mumblings...
He nodded...in silence...

But the hall erupted with applause!
'The end' has begun!
Credit titles start appearing...on the rectangular frame!

a chance meeting

she looked at me...half-glancing...as if I was part of the moving world...of which she was also an element!
My eyes met her the moment when she just stopped from walking briskly...
On the other flank of the road...
She wore the onion skinned garment...
And the golden blouse...
'Still looking so good!'
Methought
As I slowed my pace to gather hints of the past from the moving picture...of simple love...so childish!
Probably I was gaping...
Seeing her on the other flank...
Walking beauty
For her eyes quickly looked the other way...to the green grocer selling brinjals and tomatoes and cucumbers...freshly delivered...
She looked the other way...
I looked at the onion colored saree and the brown hair...
And the simple leather slippers with thin black laces...
And the brown leather purse on her right hand which had a sparkling gold bangle also...

And methought...
A car stereo sang by at that precise moment-
A familiar tune...so familiar...
But...it seemed so alien...

remembering her...

Sitting on the couch,
At her palatial mansion so peopled...
On her birthday party night...
I saw her chatting with an enemy, in the black suit and pointed shoes...
I saw her
busy talking to her friends, as I was left forlorn...on the couch...

Methought it was raining outside at that point of time-
When my scanning eyes fell on her...
O god! it rained within and without!

I looked at her ears with perfect lobes bedecked with long drops...
I looked at the tinge of pink on her unkindly cheek...
I looked at her heaving bosom, wrapped under the veil...
I looked at her happy spot on her swan like neck...
I tried to gauge the valleys and the hills...
I tried to take a plunge in the lakes...

Methought it was raining then as I stared at her dazzling presence-
Oblivious of me...

Sitting on the couch,
At her palatial mansion without people...
Methought I saw her open and unclothed...
It had been raining that day as well...
Methought we entered the heaven of bliss...
On the couch itself
Upon which now I sit...
Forlorn...

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...