Shadows and Silhouttes

It is not about her, but maybe it is about her.
December shivers
And shadows cover the sunlight.
And she fights.
The tears singeing the corners
Of her eyes
The phantom pain
Of her broken heart
The unfinished goodbye
And incomplete end of a beautiful start.

Oh! she fell
She fell and broke the wall
With her bare arms.
The fortress is broken, she is out in the open
Trying to hide behind the smile
Of deception. Of affection?

The burden is all hers, or maybe she forgot to share
And as the day draws near
Her words are unclear, unsure
Are her quivering thoughts
As she holds on to the last rays of hope
Of love that was hers.

The unknown face

When i heard those music notes
my heart flew by, my eyes were lost
it is the tune i hum and hum
sometimes with smile
sometimes in hurt


we were so close
and yet so far
the crowd had swum
he stood afar


forlorn my eyes looked at my star
and sang the song that held me there


i charged on now
to try once more
it was right then
some stranger called
he led the way
and made a path


i was right there
now face to face
swaying by the strumming notes
the stranger there now heard my laugh
and laughed with me, an open heart


i stood and swayed and sang and danced
and when the last note died down
i moved away and left the town


and now i sit and think aloud
i wish i knew the stranger's name
and say thank you
for that moment spent...

To Forget

I wish to forget
The smell of Barista mochas
And kulhad wali chai
The turns of Connaught Place
And the long auto rides
The bells of Kali Bari
And the silence inside
The mosquito bites in the dark dark night
And the jump through the gates
And crashing delights


I wish to forget
And I shall start forgetting
little by little
Like I forgot your smile
The one with the twinkles
Like I forgot your phrases
Till someone did something incorrigible
Like I forgot the words on the small piece of tissue paper
That had all your wishes noted down
Like I forgot the prophesy of the astrologer
Who made me a mother
Like I forgot that your favourite song
Was mine too
I shall forget
I shall forget soon
Just the way
You forgot me

Sojourn

Note: Wrote this for Black Coffee in 1st year

Dawn…

A new day begins, while another comes to an end…
The darkness had not receded, though the birds had started chirping somewhere far away in the distance.

"Coo…cooo!" The koyal's sweet call permeated the damp dewy air around me. I lay on the lawn, looking at the faint shadows of the last few stars left on the blue-grey sky. The smell of morning was all around us.

It was the same place where we had met for the first time. The first look was a mixture of shyness and excitement, apprehension and hope. I don't recall the exact words though. The bursts of laughter seem like a sound from a far away land. The soft songs waft through the mind's

maze…and there is this hazy picture of dance.

It seems just like yesterday, and yet it's been so long now…

"Let's go for a walk…"

"Umm hmm"

Our walk…

The roads used to be a maze in the beginning. I would always get lost in the way, asking people to show me the right route to take. At other times, I would just follow the ones ahead of me, hoping at least they would be smarter than me. But through the weeks and months, this was

our route, an unsaid, undefined road which we took without giving a thought.

The cold pebbles under our feet were soothing and smooth. I held my slippers in my hand. A breeze was moving the tree tops, and gently caressing us as we took our stroll. The bela flowers' fragrance intervened into our thoughts.

"Ding! Ding!"

Someone was at the temple. I could not register a name to that face though. The shuffling noise of his slippers moving against the ground was the only conversation that one could hear between us. Who would know the conversations we had without using words. Our silence spoke

so much more.

Thoughts. When you try to put them in words, it makes sense…but it misses so much that can not be put in words. Its like a kaleidoscope, you turn around a bit and the image changes. You miss out a few words, and the feeling is lost.

The guitar was being played with the beating of the drum while the synthesizer went on with its tune. Three different instruments, having different tone and a music of their own, and yet when they came together they had a character of their own.

"You want to go and listen to them?"

"No, it's fine here."

Sitting near the tyre swing we sipped a cup of black coffee, as the sun was lightening up the horizon behind Silver Oak. All those days of fun, of riding on the chhakra to FR, of late night arguments on the suitability of a 12 size font of Calibri and not 14 of Times New Roman, the chilling water on the birthdays and taste of chocolate cake on your face, the triumph of pulling through a show at the shortest notice given, the fights and cold wars, the sarcasm and wit and

lifelong friendships.

The day was about to begin, we could see the sun's blurry rays lighting up the sky…a new day, and the end of a lifetime.

"Coffee's over. It's time to go"

The Burial

Its been 2 years! seriously!

Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play...sometimes slow sometimes fast forward....

The dry drooping flowers in a vase whose water has gone stale stare down at me. "We stink within a week of death. The stink stays for a few weeks, the patchy stains for months...but its been 2 years. The stink is gone. The feeling is dry and numb. Now let go. There is no recognition. Just give it a decent burial."

But they were real, alive, full of life...with a sweet scent and vibrant colours. It wasn't the showy plastic ones with forced sticky dew drops. They changed with the changing water...or perhaps the stem were not long and strong enough...

How do you pick up the pieces of dust, which brings water to the eyes, irritates you at times and sometime hurts you inside...? Like how? And what about the dried thorns? They still pierce deep and make you bleed.

So i look at them yet again, pick up pieces from here and there, unable to throw them or keep them close to me...wishing to find the right undertaker for this mammoth task...

And the burial comes back to haunt..

Why didn't i burn them? And end all physical connection. Not a coffin stone, 'cause the coffin gaped open at the first jolt of the earth, and it came back to the top.

Go away! Just go now! Leave me to myself...let me not burn in this fire...let me not get charred...

Friends, Indians, Countrymen

Lend me your ears

i have come to bury it all...

and here it ends

no ashes remain...

One of those mornings...

“Coffee ready! Come over now.”

The day had begun with the right smell from the big black cup. The ruffling newspaper, the humming noise of the fan and ringing puja bells in some neighbour’s house permeated the room. Weekends have a different tinge altogether, the room seems cozier and the sofa softer and time seems to move lazily in the morning.

Aise jaagi re mai raat, koi neend ko tarse neend nahi…

“What’s the POA?” “Nothing…you tell me.”

“Movies?” “Naa…nothing interesting…”

“Hmmm…you wanna meet xyz?” “Nope…”

“You wanna shop? Go some place?” “Don’t feel like it.”

“Then say something that you want.” “I know what I don’t want as of now!”

And that’s how most decisions of life have been taken by me. It’s not based on what I want but by removing the things that I don’t want and staying with the remaining. Life proposes, and I dispose it off.

I don’t want to be an engineer. I don’t want to stay in a small city. I don’t want high heeled shoes. I don’t want over protective people around me. I don’t this, I don’t that…

I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known…

“Where you lost? The coffee’s really nice.” “Yes…it is beaten to perfection…”

The funny thing in these phrases is that they reflect a lot of things. Beaten to perfection…but who decides what perfection is. So many of us are beaten into becoming what we never thought we would be finally. We continue to question our actions even after the rest of the world is no longer concerned. Socialised, internalized, and trained. Spontaneity is also something we have learnt, and nothing comes naturally. I wonder what I would be like if I had not been told to do the things that I was told. What would I be like; if I had not met the people I met. They touch your lives, and their marks stay even after they are no longer there around you.

Like this cup of beaten coffee, which I had learnt from her, long back, somewhere in that historical part of me…

Now I am living in your afterglow…

“Feel like just catching up with myself. Guess will pick up some book and stay home.”

“Hmmm...ok...then I am off to my movies.”

Thhodi ankahee sunni sunani hai…

Conversation

It was a time warp: the same silent pauses and trickling thoughts and images. You could hear the laugh resounding through the hall with unfinished desks and chairs. And also feel the swaying dance on the collection of English songs. The whispers and the rush of blood to those cheekbones, ending in long conversations on the phone.

And us. At the very beginning.

“Sing a song.” “Now? You want to wake up the world to throw me out?”

“It was there…wasn’t it?” “Yeah…it was…”

The comfort of being silent and yet saying it all out, of reading the mind and the heart too, is difficult in today’s world of constant communication. You know, not the awkward silence, when there is nothing to say and you keep thinking what to say next, or hoping that the other person would pick some topic, or just leave. But the silence which you enjoy, where you are yourself without having to explain who you are and you wish that the words were lost forever and no one speaks again. That delectable silence was with us, around us, enveloping the real world.

“I still have that…” “What?”

“The last one you wrote…” “That was poison…throw that away…it can only hurt.”

“Yeah…it hurts the most…but I can’t let go of it…”

You would think why keep the last one, the one with the worst thoughts, the hatred, the anger, the hurt…when I threw the sweet ones away, the ones that would give the smiles, and lessen the agonising pain, the ones that would make me believe again…where it still was a fairy land.

But I can’t…it’s like the marks on the moon, or the thorns of the roses, which keeps reminding how it was not perfect, nevertheless beautiful in its way…it played its part in making me the way I am…and I surely don’t regret that.

“Wouldn’t you have written the same things?” “No. Never.”

“You can’t feel what I did.” “I can.”

Are we fighting? No we are not. There is no point in fighting now. There is no weight left. Time a healer? May be, maybe not. May be forgiving is the best way to alleviate the pain. When you can’t answer the recurring questions, and the questions hurt more than accepting things to be the way they are, like suspension of disbelief…I m going to literature again, using it to serve my purpose…

Or I am just being an escapist.

“It’s late…” “Hmmm…”

“Good night then…” “Ya...’gnite”

Trrrrrup Trrrrrup Trrrrrup <engage tone>

Left Behind...

and there he left again..
the he changes,
but leaving continues...

to love and define
to care and cry
to hold but not too tight

numb and frozen
hurt? whats that?
just rambling on...

words have no meaning left
alphabets with no thoughts
the walls are growing stronger
a fortress of isolation

i sit here
life moves on....

Metamorphosis...long back...

A hush in the room
Broken by the jingle
Bangles dancing, anklets tinkling,
The dawn was breaking.

Smeared kumkum, droopy eyes;
Like rising sun across the sky
Rumpled sari, entangled rings
Waking up, to feel her dream.

Hair cascading, dark and long
Scented jasmine on the floor.
Her man beside her
A smile on his lips.

The cool water, running down
Recalled her senses: it's THEIR room.
The mirror had changed her world around
Was once a girl, now a woman had born.

Not now! Not here!
Intense, so deep…
Hey you! Stop there!
No more, no more
My heart can bear.

Don't pull, it pains
My soul is chained
Enough! I said
I am no slave.

I played, I know
I wronged, accept
Guilty of crime
My life is gone.

Stab me to death
Remove my shame
My tears don't fall
They drown my soul

I gasp for breath
It burns, it breaks
I shiver, I cry
But where to go?

Release, don't stay
This cage do break
No more I said
No more to bear…

Kavitha...

was it the eyes?
the deep dark ones..
was it the smile?
that was pure radiance..

was it the laugh?
childish innocence..
was it the glance?
shy yet piercing...

was it the never ending
chatter? like rippling waves..
was it those large tears?
soaking the heart with pain..

was it this or that?
that made me love you
more and more
now n forever...

So it was…
As a poem written
And forgotten
Fought over with passion
And emotion
And left unsung…

Musings of an evening
A long walk
A ringing laughter
Few children’s song
Warm cups of coffee
Of smiles galore

And a flurry of unopened pages
Fly through…

An autumn wind
Blew it all
Baring the tree, left its
Barren soul…

And it stood
Tall and stern

A paradise lost
And regained…
(Or so it thought)
With its mighty fall…

As summer came
It felt its loss
A hollow case
Resides its heart

It burns in hell
And feels the pain
A paradise held
And lost again…

Broken

Clinks of ice filled glasses
Danced through
Danced with me
As I was dancing with the
Soaring waves on the shore…

Cry now not and tears
Don’t splash…

Let it go and it shall go from you
Like empty glasses on a shelf
Of a half closed bar…

Night was passing
Slowly into dawn’s arms
And here i was
Splayed on the cold floor
A blur of it all…

Broken.
pushed to the wall..

It was a blur…
A blur after all…

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it was playing tic-tac-toe
When it found the traffic light green
And there was a zebra crossing
“But why should zebras have all the fun?”
And that was how the rebel was born.

Across the road it saw Santa Banta fight
One global man, one local drink
The kings of jokes and Happy times
“To rule the country was their birth right???”
It wanted to bridge the gap ensuing
But London Bridge was falling down
Falling down, falling down.

It was the country’s future’s stake
And not some Punjabi jokes to play
It drank the Banta from the MH gate
And sang to Santa the carols eight
Decided it was time to take the plunge
And there we hear the revolution song.

The chicken did not chicken out
It crossed the road and shouted loud.
“I am the cousin of Chicken Singh”
And we all know that Singh is King
It drew the drums and lollipops
And wings of flesh, tandoori rocks
Its eyes were blue and lovely too
Pink Chaddi’s pet, now you know who?

The hens were shocked
Cocks’ heads were down.

The Chicken crossed the road that day
And that is where the story stays.

Diet fight

Conversation 1:

M: What did u have for dinner?
A: Fish curry
M: What with fish?
A: Err...fish...
M: (Long silence) Translation:What happened to all the days of nice rice with fish!! All my years of feeding her gone waste!

Conversation 2:
K: "she is on a strict diet"
R: "Health tips!...diets are bad!"
A: "I EAT!"

Comments previously:
M: you are getting so fat!
K: Once in job you will start gymming (FORESIGHT!)
R: You want to lose weight...then do something about it!
X,Y,Z,L,M,N,O,P: you have added SO much weight! (rolling eyeballs and shocked expressions!)

People diet. i question not.
People eat. i watch the show.
People follow religion.
i like my unsure tag.
People are people after all.

Angry. tired of justifications.
of rejecting temptations.

when i follow they push away.
and if i don't they laugh n smirk.

People are people after all.

Why do you follow your faith?
Why do you not eat flesh?
Why do you like the guitar?
Why wait for the marriage bells?

Justify. Explain.
I fight for the simplest thing.
Not for them but for me.
And yet i cant fight back at times.

They push me and i push back.
One against them all.
People are people after all.