Works of RK

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

Yes, I can walk back in time and join our lives together into one. I can make two rivers merge into the same sea. I can make both of us lose our identity and become strangers to ourselves. And then we will fall in love again. I can help you and me crawl out of our skin, each using the other, and grow new names and new identities. I can paint this sky crimson and plant 8 birds of love who will continuously flutter their wings for you...flying nowhere. I can. I can erase your memories of strife and loneliness. Of fights with your papa and nights of sobs in your attic. I can help your dog live longer so that you don't have to see him die. I can babble as you drive me into the night and light you a smoke every time you feel like it. I never fall asleep. I am God. I can do miracles.

In me I harbor a cold winter chill. Each day I wake up with prayer on my frosty lips that this long winter of discontent should give way to warm summer breeze. I go out into the cold and trudge through winter gloom. I collect firewood from trees that have given up their greens years ago. My breath turns to icicles and merge with the white below. Every now and then, I come across birds frozen cold. I hold them close to my ears, almost believing that I will hear their little heart beat. These are the times when I am most afraid of snow. The frost has a way of getting into places inside you when you are not looking. And then, in a lonely silent cold winter night, I hear my feeble heart beat. I believe.