Works of RK

Life is mostly tiring. I have often looked out of train windows late into nights and seen trains hurtling past on the opposite tracks. It is one racket of streaking steel with lights forming long lines of lightning. I have wondered if some lonely wanderer like me would have been looking out of those windows as well, trying to make sense of this whirl of life. And amidst this terrible rush of everyday living, I have faced challenges that comes with the act of getting things done. Every decision I have had to ever take have come with a deadline. Either you take the decision within that time or the decision gets taken on its own. I am not sure which is better. Taking decisions or allowing life to take its own decisions. There is no data with me to prove that one is better than the other. However, I have always preferred taking decisions. Some augur well, while others are stuff about which stories of great failures can be written. I love it either ways. I love it when something works out a

Men's wallets are just as mysterious as those of women. Though smaller, they inturn have numerous pockets and pouches that are capable of safely tucking away many secrets. Mine is a leather wallet I go for a replacement every three or maybe four years. Every time I get myself a new wallet, the transfer of contents from the old one to the new is like a spiritual ceremony. First I empty all the contents of the existing wallet into a clean and empty table. Them comes the close scrutiny part. There are coins from Riyadh that my uncle gave when I was young, so they automatically gets into the new wallet. There are unclaimed bills from past expenses and hurriedly scribbled phone numbers, and then there are small notes or at times, a couple of lines from a poem that never had a name. All these go into the 'to be discarded' section. Photos of gods find space in the new wallet. So does all the plastic cards for credit debit insurance vehicle id voting reliance Spenser etc. All these

Raj, does heaven and hell exist? Yes Princess, it does. What is this between Hell and Fire? Why is hell always fiery? No idea baby, probably something to do with pain. I have heard that burns cause maximum pain. But Raj, how will you burn if you have no body, you are dead right? Hmm, good one. I have no answers Princess. Ok. Do you remember the time you were having this fling with that girl from office? Why bring it up now baby? No, I am just asking. Do you remember? I do. I used to be so jealous, my heart was a smouldering cinder. Do you understand what I mean? Yes baby. It was like hell for you. I love you Raj. So do I baby. Now you guess what I am thinking.... This is heaven Princess. Dog you are Raj. Bhou Bhou Princess.

If I could do a Neruda, You would have smelt of summer roses And Autumn pine. There would have been sheer love Of the kind that causes our hearts to ache And loneliness bordering the divine. You would have had so many secrets Welling up as in a girly giggle And so few friends who would hear them all. I am no Neruda I can't paint you a Summer breeze Amidst this long winter chill.

I go out into life each day I do on my masks, and I play Choose of me from the ones you like I am an actor, My worlds rarely collide.

Has anyone ever told you that you are almost impossible to manage? That you are grossly impossible of acting as if you had one normal cell in your body? You never tell me that you love me, you never wish me on my birthday and you never have time to take me out!! When was the last time you liked me on FB?, never! I have never heard you speak a gentle word to any adult. The only thing you are good at is your work and playing ghoda with the neighbors kids. Uff! Do you know how frustrating all this is to me? You should have been in Police. You don't have a heart. Why am I wasting my time, you are beyond listening as well! Are you there? I am. Is that aaaaaalllll you have to say? Twenty years and this is what you have to say: Aaaiiii Am? Did you as just say twenty? Yes goddammit. I have spent twenty years with you. Oh shit, I guess I am better than I thought! Thank you baby! ---------------- PS: Ghoda stands for Horse in Hindi.

Every time I close my eyes I see the green of Kerala countryside The dark greens of lumbering rubber trees The even tranquil green of silent paddy fields The light lemon yellow green from tender clover leaves  And then I remember your dupatta Deep red or possibly maroon Standing out among the Kerala countrysides.

It was a long distance call. I could hear the lines grumbling garbage. It sounded as if it were raining down on the window panes at her end.  There were long stretches of silences between sentences. She would ask me a question and then wait for eternity for an answer that would not come. I used to use this silence to imagine where she would be standing. I would picture her in the master bedroom overlooking the valley. I would imagine the dress she would be wearing, the color of her top, the color of her leggings. She had thunder thighs and I fell for them long before I fell for her. Are you there? I am asking you something... Why don't you respond? Her bungalow had those brass roof linings which channeled rain water from the roof to run through British gargoyles into a small pond. Some of channels used to leak from the corners. I remember the sound falling rain used to make on the tiled roof and windows. The noise used to be so loud that we had to shout to be heard. We rarely shou

Photo for representation only I have wedding album from one of my many marriages that did not work. Buried in there are smiling faces of friends and relatives who had attended the ceremony. Like many chapters in my life, this too passed almost a decade and a half ago. Today, I am scared of opening that album. Most men and women who could laugh an unrestrained uncouth villagers laugh are dead. They dropped out of my life over the years, without much noise, most without good byes. Every time I see that old photo album, I remember the laughter that I miss in my life. Most of my loved ones now stand forlorn, as coconut trees, untended, uncared for, in some corner of large tracts of land which now remains barren. We are now dwellers of large cities. My village postman could not compete with the Dominoes delivery boy. He too is now gone, but not before a final whoosh of laughter from his toothless creaky betel stained mouth. --------------- PS: As an ancient Hindu ritual, we plant coconut tr

It was difficult for him to act normal. For years, he had not had to wait for the right moment to say something. He was known to be blunt. He also felt too old for all this. The music was not the kind he was fond of. It was more of hip hop and he was a lover of good old rock. There were too many people, mostly the young crowd with the blush still on their faces. There was too much light. He could see his ridged and craggy hands, there were grey hairs on his fingers that he had not noticed earlier. For the tenth time he felt his breast pockets; the wallet was there. She said she would be in by 7, he was in by 5.30. There was this one waitress who had heavy legs. Oddly, she reminded him of Jyothi, his first wife. Tall, lithe but heavy in all the right places. He found himself looking at her more often. There seemed to be some connection. The waitress kept glancing at him every now and then and caught him looking at her. Her eyes were the eyes of a yakshini, deep dark and full. And just t