Works of RK

Stay a while A wee bit more. Let this night collide With the might Of a bright summer day. Let it gradually merge Into its nemesis. Let us, you and I Pull this night through Let this darkness subside. There are stories from the time You and I were alive And lived separate lives. I want to hear them All over again.

Like a seed I can lie dormant Waiting for eons for the winds to blow in Clouds of thundering showers soaking Me unto gentle awakening. Like a pollen I can drift Across oceans and seas of despair Across the pathos of everyday living Over dead dreams and forsaken friends Over missed opportunities and love gone wrong Over strife and pain and hunger and hard times Until it is time to gently land Onto a loving caring Wonderland.

I have a picture of you looking into a one of those funny mirrors. This pic is a reflection of you in the mirror. You have one big grin on your face and this is the most beautiful pics that I have of you. I have visited that place many times later. I have stood before that mirror and made faces. I have even asked those who have accompanied me to stand before the mirror and smile. That mirror has never again reflected a smile a beautiful as yours.

I am aware that you hide my thoughts in far away places. Wardrobes that hold your old clothes and forgotten perfumes keep me company. I am in that stack of old letters and Google chats that you have archived. I am also the faint whiff of lavender that remains in those weeds you have hanged by your window. On a lonely Saturday midnight, when you feel like a holler, I am in the Teddy that you go to sleep with. I meander into your dreams, forgotten moments in time, etched into hard drives like a virus that you cannot clean, like a file you cannot find. I am the keyword you do not remember.  I am the red in your Gypsy blood. I will always re-grow.

Many have tagged along, but you, you have been there all along. All these years on the road, I have been through trails thick and thin. My travails have taken me to edges of reason. I have been insane for longer intervals of time than I remember. And all this time, you have hollered along. I wake up each day, fiercely alone, tragically independent. I go out into the world, as if each day were mine to consume.  I whimper back into the darkness of my nights, nursing the bruises from another day of living. And when the lights go out, I know that you are right there, coaxing me to sleep.  Death does not worry me, as much as life does. For a grind that comes to a halt once in a lifetime, why should I care? Living a life devoid of your shadows... How do I dare?

Long sentences Barely pausing Running into each other Words  Devoid of meanings When all is said This Life Withered wan undreaming Stretching beyond memories And lifetimes yours and mine   Will be unforgiving.

एक चाहत थी , पुरानी सी कभी सुलगती , तो कभी अधमरी । जब बारिशों   का मौसम आता था , पंखुड़ियों की चाहत होती थी जी करता था मैं भी भीगूँ और कुछ और बन जाऊं। जब ग्रीष्म प्रलय बरसाती थी , जी करता था मैं भी जल जाऊँ , अग्नी को सीने से लिपटाये मैं भी बस अब राख हो जाऊं। बारिशें आज भी होती है तपती धरती अब तक है पर ख्वाइशें अब कुछ बदल सी गईं , सदियों की इस बिछडन से उम्मीदें मर सी गयी है। फिर कभी तुम आ जाना यूहीं ईमेल या स्कूटी मैं थोड़ा परेशान और थोड़ा प्यार दोनों एक बार फिर से कर जाना उम्मीदें तो बैटरी है जब चाहे चार्ज कर देना। कम से कम एक कॉल फिर एक बार कर देना।

No. We won't be together for a lifetime. Lifetime is a word coined by poets. Waterman just borrowed it since it made their pens look more interesting. Nothing lasts a lifetime. Over the years, we will die many a deaths. In some we will be together; in most, I will die my own death and you will sulk somewhere in the dark corridors of souls silences and whimper away little deaths, many, frequently, soundlessly. The best I can do is trust you. Trust you to share with me the storms that will rise in your life. Most, you will weather on your own, for they are not storms of this world. They will be the ones that rage deep within you. Storms that rise from the strife of everyday living. And then there will be those in which you will call out for me. You will hold my hands and together we will thunder into the storms. Lord be willing, we will survive. The tango and the waltz that we do is not all of life. It is at best our weekend at the movies. Movies don't last a lifetime my love. No

I was all of twenty four then. There was this girl who lived in a house with a very big Tamarind tree. In the monsoons of Kerala, the house always looked wet and the gates always brown and leaky. There was moss on the driveway and the flowerpots looked as if they would crumble at the slightest touch. There was a grandpa chair that used to look desolate and abandoned. The old man who used to sit there passed away some years ago. They did not know what to do with the chair. She was one of the most beautiful woman I ever laid eyes upon. And on Sundays, on her way to the church, she wore the whitest Churidar  and Chunni that I have seen. She looked like an angel walking among the clouds. The skies would stop the showers and rainbows would spring across the horizon. Small kids will be playing with cycle tires and the cars on the roads will look freshly painted. Strife has a way of making ordinary memories extraordinary.

How long is life? Can we actually stretch the minute into years where required? Is there a remote that slows down a day that I don't want to end? Is there a repeat mode into which I can forever live in endless loops? Why do long journeys make me sad? Why is that the best memories are from times that are past? Is there no software that would help me predict the next best patch in my otherwise short and dreary life? How do I count blessings? Can I remember the smiles of all those wonderful people I might have helped in my own way? Can I store their joy and consume it little by little? Can I use it as my emergency energy bank? Where is everybody? Why do we, like the ever expanding universe, keep continuously moving away from each other? What happens between birth and death? I have been on this journey a million time before. My friends and my lovers have had the same faces. Even my grandma has come back as one of my neice. So there is a loop right? A longer one than the one I wanted. B