Works of RK

May The sunlight in your eyes Sparkle and lend light To Anaars Phuljhadi's and Thousand lights. May the anklets you wear jingle and spread baby smiles. May your loved ones be with you As you celebrate This festival of a billion lights .

Will you come with me To those far off places in my mind Where beautiful memories of long journeys Of trains, steamers, boats and the countryside lurks. When I see you I remember My life from some other lifetime The time when the sky was golden And there was sunshine. When my grandma waited at home For I and my little sister To return from the lake With our puny catch of fishes for the day. I was a good man then And it was a good life once You remind me Of my forever times.

The next time we meet, I shall ask you to walk with me. Walk through the paved lanes around Hussain Sagar and sit on the mildly moist grass with me again. I am beginning to forget the last time we did it. There is some distant memory of warmth and cuddle, of some relationship that used to make me laugh in my sleep. Let's explore if those people live within us still. Let's sit by the lake side and watch the kids. Hand in hand, let's sit still.

The roads are long and winding, the rails and girders keep going on. The milestones that keep me company seem to go on forever. When I started off years ago, I thought I will conquer the world, I thought I will run these roads down and from where they end, I will build new roads to places unknown. I wont say that I was wrong, maybe just young and a little foolish. The road seem to be winning and I losing. Maybe if I had you with me, I would have tried a wee bit harder, and lot longer. Lend me your dreams will you? It will help me fuel my run to places I have never been. Share your dreams with me for then they will become my own. I will have dreams to ride home.

The roads on my part of the world are long and winding. They pass through mountains and valleys, through straits and passes. Sometime it snows, but mostly it drizzles round the year. But when you come visiting, I feel like the autumn in my life would give way to spring. Sullen clouds scurry for cover and then there is sunshine. The drizzles bursts forth rainbows and the earth under my feet is once again solid and safe to tread. I can walk again! I love my life, and when you are with me, I fall in love with it all over again.

That sun silk hair of yours always had this amazing property, it made it seem as if you were gliding through everyday life. And when you spoke from behind those coal-black eyes, a hush would surround me, and even the flames on candles would stop their flutter and pay attention to what you would say.  Most times, it would be nothing, and I love nothings. At other times it will be about your villain boss and Scooty escapades! I loved them as well.  And now that you don't speak with me no more, faintly falls your whispers on cold cold snow. It is getting to be cold, and I never loved the snow.

I keep my belongings very clean. My house, my car, my laptop... all of them are generally clean. Each day I wake up to my regimented living and go about cooking, washing and doing the dishes as if these were the only things I care for. Maybe they are, I am not sure of what the answers are. And then one day you asked me why I have this OCD to cleanliness, and I told you... I am afraid of fine dust.  Each day that I wake up, I dust every corner of my living, every piece of instrument I handle, and every space I populate. And I will do it every day of my life. I am afraid of fine dust. I will not allow it to invade any corner of my being. Whatever I do, wherever I am, I need you to live in me everyday, just like the way you lived in me the day before. No haze shall take you away from me. No dust will ever settle on any memory of you in me.

I remember throwing a 5 rupee coin into the Godavari. It was a long journey and it was a long bridge. Everyone around me threw coins, and I did too. The moment the coin left my fingers and hurtled into the big river, I missed it. It was almost as if something very dear was suddenly torn away. Do you know what I had wished for? Remember the time we were out for an evening at the handicrafts park, the one that had a huge swing? You are crazy about swings, and you are crazy about sands. This place had both, and you loved swinging in the twilight, hair let lose, your dupatta catching the wind. I wished for one more evening at the Park with you.

There was a time when time stood still When time slowed down to a trickle And floated around you and me like pollen grains Each full of promises of destinies untold Full of stories yet to unfold Then you spread wings And flew into the summer winds Time moved on Faster than ever before As if it were trying To make up for lost time. Seasons have come and gone And you and I have caught ourselves different boats But far ahead I see the sea And there again some day We shall together be.

Yes I know. I have heard this said before. Everything that has a beginning has an end. Beginnings and ends are two sides of the same coin. They go together. But hey, so what if that which there once was Is now no longer there My lines are not for things dead and past It is for things yet to start. This is for New beginnings Whatever be the end.

Dear friend,  I know you have been busy living your life. I know that in your busy living, you find little time to think about all those people who might think fondly of you. Ever so often, when the clutter of living reaches a crescendo, I take a hike into myself. I close my shop and go into my gullies and basements, I move into my dimly lit attics to collect the best of my memories… and gather strength from them. Wherever I go within myself, I find you there. I hear your voice, sometimes a crib, sometimes laughter and at times your favorite holler that used to bring down the house. I see your face, smiling at me through photographs and mirrors. I see you smiling at yourself, and I see you everywhere. The roads of our lives are winding. It is difficult to figure out all those alternate destinies that each of our turns have in store for us. Remember, of the millions who tread their lonely lives home all over the world, there is one who never treads alone. It is I. I tread my life with y

The arrow of time hurtles forth forcing All in its wake to stumble along Running chasing hurrying Trying to keep pace With all that is ever changing Mindlessly evasive There is no escaping. I too run along desperate Holding on to my memories of you ever closer Holding on to fleeting fragrances To thunderclap reflections frozen dew. I close my eyes but sleep won't come For what if there is a turn ahead And with me, you don't run!

I am not a painter, have never touched a canvas, never splashed colors on to white space awaiting life. But had I been a painter, I would have drawn you crossing the street, catching light, long burgundy hairs catching flight. I would have painted your smiling face looking up to the skies, your jingling laughter floating around the floors, while you chat on a telephone. I would have painted you in your thoughtful moments, deep black silent eyes poignant, your entire frame frozen, waiting, for that one one moment of clarity, and then the sun would shine again. I would have painted you riding your bike, your face covered with a shawl, a terrorist on trawl. And I would have painted you looking at me all confused, not knowing what to make out of all the stupid things I say, giving up, and letting be. I am not a painter but a writer. And it is you I paint, in every written word of my life. Also Published in Muse India, Jan-Feb 2017 issue

I need no occasion to wish you luck, no special date on which I remind you of how precious you are to me. As you tread into 2012, I continue to wish you peaceful mornings, busy afternoons and love filled nights. I wish that you will always have a place you would call your own, a shoulder you can lean on and always, always, someone to drive you home. Dream on, for your dreams are my fodder, live life like it would last forever...

When you smile, it is like a brilliantly candlelit chapel by a dark and lonely road side. For when you smile, you sustain hopes of peace and happiness, you sustain hope for Life. You would never know, how many strangers take delight, in those little lights you spread, just because you smile. Someday, if I were to find a frown fret your brows, I would call in the Spring warriors, storm the ocean doors. I would talk to the fairies and the gnomes, I will call in the summer winds for support. And around you I would weave, your favorite dream. I would go that extra mile for I so badly need you to smile :)

Always in the shadows,  Never showing up.  Fragments of unclear thoughts,  Heard but never understood.  Not remembered,  but never forgotten.  A shade that reminds me of your hair Some lines that reminds me of your lines Some days that reminds me of days with you Some pain that reminds me of your anguish Some jingle that sounds like your laughter Some scene that reminds me of your tears. In the phantom memories from my yesterdays,  You live on.

Yellow lights blink red. Life comes to a standstill at familiar cross roads. The soft hum of the engine and some song playing on the stereo unhinge thoughts from where they were at rest. A soldier martyred, a nation in trauma and a world waiting for the Republicans to sneeze. You have a new profile pic, its beautiful. There is much work ahead, it will be a long day. Nothing makes sense. I am a seeker. The lights turn green. I drive my thoughts.

There was once a time when what I was was not contained in time. When I knew you and my knowledge of you was not bound by a frame of reference. You were not outside of me and I did not have an existence outside of you. Coiled into each other like serpents intertwined, we lay for ages motionless in each other arms. In losing you I have lost that wonderful silence in my life. More@ Life in a Multiverse

Sometimes I wonder what I can do?  To someday, get another hello from you.  And while I figure this out, I want you to know,  You dont have ever think twice,...  I am always, connected to you From Life in a Multiverse

When It Rains and it is Night  The street light catches falling rain  in a yellow sulphur glow,  I see a kid holding on to the window sill  and looking out into the rain.  A car drives down the quiet night,  Its wipers sounding like loud heartbeats.  It is a silent night...  And I am reminded of you.