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Showing posts with the label A Diaries

Clarity

I have looked at myself From the edges of reason And discovered That both my sanity and insanity Springs forth like seasons Out of my distances from you. Realizing thus I have allowed the outer rims Of my diffused sanity To fritter away into crumbs Of misplaced memories From my time with you. I have often found myself being unreasonable When I am away from you. And generally insane When otherwise.

Ageing

When I was young, maybe 10 or so, I remember jumping from the attic box-room to the floor below. In my mind, I was a superman, and this could be achieved. The excruciating pain that followed reminded me that Superman also experienced pain when trying to achieve extraordinary feats! It was only yesterday that I lifted you off your feets and swung you around, your hair forming a circle in my little room. I love the shreik of surprise that you let out, and the tantrums you throw when I don't put you down. I would love to do this with you all my life. That hint of a sprain in my lower back tells me that the Superman is still alive in me, it's just that you, probably, you should hit the gym more often.

Nicotine

I can snuff you out Like a cigarette butt But the smoke that gets into my eyes And the nicotine that stains my heart Will eventually Kill me.

RED

There is a certain Red Let me describe it for you. It is a shade darker Than your blood Spilt When I broke your toe nail And a shade lighter Than the dark cotton robe The Dalai Lama wears When he snoots a finger At the Chinese With no sense Of geography And a lot of money. That Red Talks to me. Published in Lakdi Ka Pul-II

सकरात की शाम

आती होगी ना उनको भी अपनें कटी पतंगों कि यादें जो उड़ गयी क्षितिज में और फिर न लौट आएंगे उन पतंगों की यादें। मुझको तो है याद मेरे दोस्त वो बत्तीस रुपैये कि लटाई वो मांझे की सरसराहट और हाथों में तुम्हारे नए लाल हरे चूड़ियों की खनखनाहट। चलो एक बार फिर मिल पतंग उड़ाएं तुम चकरी संभालो और हम ढील लगाएं इसी बहाने हम और तुम सुनहरे आसमानों से हो घुलमिल फिर संक्रांति मनाएं।

If you had loved me...

If you had loved me, Half as much as I love you, That would have been quite intolerable, Even to myself. If you had ever looked at me, with the intensity Of my hungry stares, I would have probably felt My soul clench within My migrant heart as well. There ought to be no justice In love As in life And as in life A poetic pause Need not always precede The sullen cry Of the unloved.

Did you think of me just then?

It was a long day. Just like any other of my dogged working days. There was nothing in it that stood out. As my fingers worked on the keyboard, I could feel the words on my display suddenly blur. A shroud like silence stealthily climbed over me, surrounded me. The laughter at the workplace dimmed, the phones lost their ring. First the words of what I typed and then the screen fogged out. I found my hands quickly moving to cover my eyes, as if hurriedly cleaning them of some imaginary fruitfly. And as they misted over, I could feel the warm rush of my tears welling over. I looked around, and found that the other bay was empty. Thank God for small mercies, I thought, as you, suddenly, without notice, and without tact, deluged me, again. As I slowly tried to crumple myself into a discarded page of my poems, I found the whiteness of my handkerchief funny. I remember I had used one of these to tie your toes once. And as the tears fell without restraints, I  allowed myself to slowly and ge

Separation

I have worked on many scenarios in my mind. None of the scenarios actually ended up with I having you in my life. The glaciers will have to melt someday, and so you will say. The ocean floors have to heave now and then, sending unforgiving waves crashing on to unsuspecting lives. Gravity, you would say, is the glue that joins parallel universes. And universes keep falling into each other all the time. Time is fluid. It is not a linear variable. Time is a different thing to a fruitfly and to a child on her winter holiday. I have explored all your definitions. Not one defines closely, how it will be, when you are no longer with me.

Death and Rebirth

I have looked far into the winter mist. At the heart of its cold grey despair, I have found shimmering undercurrents of hope. This winter derives it's darkness from my longing for you . With the first flush of my unbeing, you will be born again. Allow me this death for I need you to be reborn.

Fading Away

How many memories can my mind retain? I have seen clouds up close. They are really filled with nothing in them. Their undulating form of fluff is made of my memories of you. Their white comes from my happy thoughts of you. The greys are my desolation, the black, a drape of your absence, falling like velvet and drenching my soul. Such magnificent shapes you make, scattered through my once clear blue sky.

Of Warts and Moles

I think about you constantly. I wake up with your thoughts playing in the foreground. I clench on to you as sleep invades my world and drowns me, one thought of you at a time. The melange of your thoughts continue in my dreams. I dream that I have been in a crash and you come to visit me at the hospital. There is a recurring dream in which I keep crying because I broke your toe nail. There is also this dream of you taking me on a long drive across a ravine, the car chasing the clouds and your hair smelling of wild lilies. There are other dreams as well, the once I cannot write about but you would understand. There was a time when I used to be extremely perturbed with having to constantly carry you in me. I would often pray for a one-time memory wash. My soul would often be heavy from my burden of you. I would often cry myself to sleep, hoping that some bit of you would probably drift away through those tears. I have cried for my grandma too. Earth shattering hollers so that she can hea

The Music in my Life

Do not ask me why I miss you.  That answer would come to me, eventully. Some day sometime in the future I will find myself not thinking about you.  And in not thinking about you, I will end up thinking about you just like that. All stories are my stories, but I am not my stories. I am yours. When we are older and our world is quieter than it is now; I will be in those intriguing tales that your heart spins to give you company. Do not ask me why I miss you. That answer would come to me when it comes to me. Why hurry?

Moving On.

I open my door and almost see you sitting there, angry that you could not get the air-conditioning on. Is that small speck of red on my yellow tea cup a stain from your lipstick? I ride my car and I can see you sitting next to me, glaring at those jealous guys staring at you. There are six strands from your hair that I saved from the last time you were home. A green elastic band sits lonely in my bathroom shelf. A bindi stares at me from my dressing room mirror. So much of my memory is stained forever. I am no longer what I remember. All I remember is you.

Rain in the Morning

It rained this morning, The sky that was dark and broody All these days Broke into tears With a loud clap of thunder. The earth let out it's pent up lust With vapor floating Over black tar roads And tin tops. I had washed my car a while ago. Raindrops, Bouncing bubbles bursting And dancing Would have drenched it All over again. Everything I know Follows some weird rules of its own. It rains when it rains And takes no notice of me. Everything that happens around me Everything that surrounds me Reminds me So much of you.

Half of you

I am sitting at this airport somewhere and I see a girl who looks quite like you. Something that she did caught my attention. She was almost as tall, almost as fair and her hair, it was just as straight and shiny. The way she looked into her bag for the boarding pass, the way she held her head high and her gait graceful and stately, reminded me of you. And then she looked at me, and the way she looked at me, I knew it could not be you. She did not look at me the way you look at me when you love me, nor when you hate me. Only you can look at me, the way you look at me. 

Oceans' longing for the Sea

What if I did not have this phone? Would I have so longingly stared into my empty spaces just as well? There are times when the noise of your silences, deafen me with its roar. It's almost as if an Ocean has come visiting a sea. I am home, and my home is missing me. I write, but my words are not me. I try to force meanings into memories, but my memories, they deceive me. How much of me over the years, have you taken away from me. And how I wish you would take away,  the little that remains as well. This ocean so desperately longs for its sea.

On Your Side of the Shore

I call her once in a while, and make idle chatter until she brings up you. I don't want her to know, that I think about you. I think about you constantly; but she is important too. And when she talks to me about you, I feel like you are standing on the other side of this endless shoreline, watching me watching you. It's one more day of living without you.

Redemption

I look at her and she reminds me so much of you. I know that she is another, but I like her not because of herself, but because of you. She looks into my eyes and find me staring at her all the time. Sometimes she asks me, why do you stare at me all the time? I am right here next to you, but you look at me as if you are seeing me for the first time, all the time! I look at her and I hear you asking me to stop staring at you. I look at her and hear you asking me to grow up. For her to live, independent of you, I have to let go of a part of me that lives with you. And whenever I have tried doing that, I have discovered that in losing you, I lose most of myself too. And whenever I have tried doing that, I have found in me a stranger who goes by some other name. I cannot have another name, for I have not answered to any other name than the one by which you called me, the last time you called me. Death may not bring a closure to that which this life could not sustain.

Silences

Once the cooking is done The dishes Stain free Stare sullenly  into the darkness That surrounds A kitchen awaiting it's master's Return.