love in the time of cholera

conversations with a textured wall 
are so finely layered, 
perfect for winter evenings.  
though after a tiresome day 
the shades of the others
often suffice. 
laughter rings around 
a room of furniture
mellow in a yellow light
and dancing in the eyes  
that read its cause
in the breathtaking beauty
of words that couldn't 
 have found each other  
except in an engulfing book 
 with a flaming red cover
settle on lips  
that still need to whisper
to comprehend love.
tea for one is made
everyday,
brewed in the same utensil
poured into the same cup  
from the red plastic strainer,
each washed and ready
for the next round
while the rest of the kitchen
looks on.
the cane chair in the balcony  
relishes the winter sun
and comes back in at dusk.  
its companion chair chooses  
to be a clothes rack  
without complaint.
the bed for one  
neatly laid out
lies unruffled
through the night.
mornings usually find
a crumpled sofa 
heady with pillows
and the stench of cigarettes.
 
solitude is beautiful.
but incomparable 
is the intimacy  
of loneliness.

a winter afternoon

eyes that burn with smoke
from fierce memories
of love "gone all to hell"
seek in warm tears
hands that could soothe
the despair of painlessness.
a quiet house
with all things in place
letting in bright sunshine
from its windows
that breaks into crystals
on a glass of cold water
soaks tenderly
the chaotic noise
of a mind in its senses
yearning madness.

winter afternoons
can never be leisurely again.

longing

a longing sometimes
has names
and things to tether it
at other times
it is a wild flap of wings
unsure of the skies
they crawl under
for flights and fantasies
want names and things.

and yet there remain
longings
neither one nor the other
a sprinkling of both
(not enough to be them)
warming themselves
by the first fire ever made
in an ancient cave
with dancing inscriptions
long before language
could rationalise desires
under the watchful gaze of bats
and the music of rustling leaves
in a perpetual winter.

that is where i find myself
when i think of you.

everydayness

a plastic moon
hangs outside the balcony.
i look at it through nets
that used to have strings
of light on it once.
in the distance
an ambulance rushes.
it won't make it in time.

the fragrance of molten plastic
will have lost its sting
by morning.
water will drip
in patient droplets
from the overhead balcony
like any other day.
and dead cigarettes
will be swept away.
this will be another story
forgotten
in the traffic of everyday life
and the day's work
will go on
as it must.

the dark

what do you see in this blackness?
why did you call it beautiful that day -
does the story make it so?
was it what they called
the "generosity of your spirit"
or was it your own obsessive fascination
for things darker than your soul?

the gaze spirals outward
in a centrifugal perpetuity
and you and i stand.tall for other eyes.
waving.smiling. appeasing those eyes.
and when they are gone
come back to customary stillnesses
and evocative silences.
and find each other
night after night
in the dark loveless chasm
of centripetal drowning
unto infinity.
 
the depth of emptiness
can be measured after all.

the ritual

in a little corner
of an unknown room
where flickering lights
filter in through broken windows
and bring with them
the smoke
of someone else's memories
and faint remnants
of forgotten festivities
you lie wrapped
in a blanket
waiting
for a reluctant young dawn
that wants to sleep in.
it protests and holds on tightly
to the twinkling cloak of night
that must recede.
cold feet shuffle,
rub against each other for warmth
and find themselves in a losing battle.
it will end the way it always has.
dawn and you shall greet each other
with the strained comfort
of resignation.
and seek solace
in the inglorious bastard
of your unholy union.Work
shall carry you to evening
where this marriage of convenience
can once more find rest and refuge
in little corners of unknown rooms
wrapped in blankets.

keeping time

days stare at you
from the calendar.
you look at your watch
and it gazes back
time wants to know your plans.
wait for it, you say.
through sunrises, sunsets,
out of season rains, ephemeral time
gives you eternal moments.
which in time you will forget.
it shrivels up like a prune
in the winter of your heart.
calendars pile up. And wind up
with a grateful scrap dealer.
one by one the clocks grow weary
of you, your indifference,
of not being etched
saved recorded remembered
cherished loved hated feared
hoped for, against -
and end their struggle.
timelessness could be
as much a prison
chimes the last one.
tick good
tock luck
silence.

homing birds

the house has fallen silent.
don't flatter yourself.
it does not miss you.
its a house after all.
brick and mortar.no heart.
the fan creaks as it did before
darkness dances, peacocks cry,
mosquitoes buzz
and leave little love notes
on bare arms and dust laden feet.
cars pass by, the fridge is stocked
and everything is
as it was.as it has been.

the guitar in the corner
has given way to autumn dust.
stuffed to its brim.
clingy. with a sky full
of clouds of spider webs
the cluttered dining table
is reduced to its glass bearings.
not a trace of the comfortable mess
that had become its identity.
the balcony's famed monument
- pillars of emptied cigarette packets -
rests in the trash.or did, till yesterday.
the trash can is empty now.
the clock has once again
started telling time.
but now it goes backwards
retracing in perfect asymmetry
the days we spent together.
the feature wall has turned
a deeper shade of blue
if you would believe that.

the inconspicuous whisperings
of the walls are louder now.
but the house has fallen silent.
perhaps that is the way to go.

songless

it starts with a song
whose unforgettable lyrics
that you hummed two days ago
evade your eager lips tonight
that in desperation mouth
words that do not belong.
you start again .
and again.
okay, one.more time
you tell yourself.
but memory's winding roads
divert you to other unrelated
endlessly straight ones
and the song must rest
incomplete.uncompleted.
on the verge of forever's cliffs.

and you wonder
if it went the way
of all of those other loves -
friendships, coffee places, novels,
triumphs, laughter, autumn evenings
- you have given up on.

you search an empty horizon
for those lost stars
nowhere to be seen
on this moonless night.
and you pick yourself up
in a benign resignation
(how light the body feels now)
back into the house
whose walls and shelves
have come undone
without the hooks of memory.
as they fold up in their uncertainty
you walk to the innermost room
and fall onto a mattress, into a sleep
whose depth can never match
the emptiness around.

tomorrow the house will have
resurrected itself in morning glory
the windows will be opened
for new loves to waltz in
perhaps with a once known song
and the night's reverie will be
but a pale blue dot at the centre
of everything you see.

for the love of the sea

an old man.a fishing net.
a basket full of dead fish
and dying stories.
dogs whine in the distance
petted by strangers,
bribed with glucose biscuits-
the cheapest in the shack
that makes tea with the same tea leaves
all day.flavorful.
when the day's work is done
and the boats have dried out
and it is time for the old man to go home
the shack lit up by a single bulb
burning on stolen power
from wires hung low
feeding those who can afford
television sets and fresh fish
temporary lovers will find a refuge
just like them
having lied at home
about being at tuition
they live out their lies
sprawled on the sand
gazing at the stars
because some movie told them
it was romantic.

the old man will return next morning
and find a paper boat
nestled under his wooden one.
he will float them both
out into the sea
hoping at least one would come back.
the tea stall will keep a stained cup
ready for him.
elsewhere
someone is giving out
last night's leftover fish
to his wife.

rendezvous

i should like to meet you
if only in a mirage
of a hallucination
in a dream,
and then
i would very much
like to let you go
(you would have a say,
if you were to insist,
in the whole matter).

perhaps sanity will be ours then,
yours and mine respectively.

but then again,
it might all end up
in a continuum of reality
warped by illusion.
we might find ourselves lost
in the haze of a desert storm
on the twenty fifth floor
of a greyed skyscraper
where you and i
are indistinct
to time’s sensory perceptions
and meanings drown themselves
in their own chaotic underpinnings.

ash and dust

the things we loved
and lost.
the things we never loved
but lost.
the things we loved only
once we lost.

so many things remain
but a memory of loss
through whose nostalgia
love finds its way.
achingly.

so many things carry
the sticky reminiscence
of what was once love
before loss settled on it.
casually.

and all we remembered
was the haze of a city smog.
and all we felt
was a wheezing allergy.
and all we did
was scrape and scrub
that putrid clamminess
from our hands.
(at least we tried.)

Life. Love. Loss.
Longing.
It is what it is.

wanderlust

solitude contempt
boredom yearning
mourning peace -
the varying shades
of companionship
in the wanderlust
called silence.

measuring up; measuring out

who is to say
what your life is worth.
how will you measure it?
in friends or lovers?
in tears or death?
where shall we go
looking for meaning?
long abandoned
divorced, you had said.
something about
irreconciliable differences.

meanwhile people gasp
and grasp at straws
crawling in desperation.
not for them your cynicism
your ingratitude.
they had aspirations and grief
they had sunrises and star lit skies
and lost them all.for someone else's whim.

elsewhere you continue to sit
in sanitised walled in rooms
blithely watching news
of autumnal shedding
of another kind.
you hear of expected ends
to unconventional stories,
loud proclamations of misfortune,
and unthinkingly go to bed.

but for once as you sleep
you are like them.
with neither dreams nor tomorrow
to look forward to.

matrix

cradled in the infinity of darkness
is the possibility of everything
in the warm embrace of nothing.
light distinguishes form.
in the silence of the night
i am one with the universe.

autumnal

you float away
from my heart
like the yellowed leaf
parting from its tree
knowingly.
but without goodbyes.
just a whiff of a breeze
a touch of a memory.

ashes to ashes.
dust to dust.

the tree stands bare.
at its feet
a rangoli of loss.
a story of longing
in shades of amber.

the autumn of love.
the season of hope.
the beginning
of a beginning
after all
must be an end.

musical chairs

she played a song for me
and asked me how it was.
did i tell her my heart exploded?
i just smiled and went home.

there is something about
the ashen confetti of lost love
that rains down on you
hanging above your heart for an extra beat
in the solitude of rooms with history

life has come down to borrowed songs
and images of b grade disaster movies.

meanwhile somewhere on a terrace
littered with the day's dust
the moon looks down in a drunken haze
and bats flap their wings in ecstasy
something sinks.stinks.
blinks.and goes on.
the stillness of the air
tires of itself.concocts a breeze
stiller than the night.and smiles.

a dream will stay.just a moment longer.
a now familiar song will guide you there
promising love and confetti
and hues of unknown hopes.

i will see her again tomorrow.
and smile and tell her its a great melody.

eavesdropping

What is this compulsive need to create heroes?

“But you must have heroes! For isn’t that how you can be more, do more? Or perhaps, look at it the other way around. So you know that being heroic is possible. That it is not for a select few, destined to be “great”, but that there is the possibility of extraordinary in each of us.”

Why? What is this hankering after the extraordinary, this whole making the impossible possible? What is this craving for more? This dissatisfaction with what is there?

“Life cannot be lived in the ordinary. It must have a goal to reach for, a better, higher ground, an ideal that makes you stretch yourself, surprise yourself and emerge better, stronger, and everything in between.”

The purpose of human life is evidently charted out, spelt out for each one of us to follow and aspire to attain. To be the best version of yourself. Who defines this “best”? Not you. For that matter, who defines this “you”? You have history, philosophy and ideology to instruct this self you identify as “you” towards roads worth taking. Is it ever just your journey? What about everything that attaches itself to you, even in your desolate isolation? The singularity with which you define yourself is undeserved and in many ways factually incorrect.

“And yet, I am one. One with all, but distinct. All this philosophizing is great for discussion. But do you want to be (wo)men of thought or action?”

Are they exclusive? How can they be? And what is so wrong about conversation as an end in itself? Why must that be relegated to academic circles?

“Because life is not lived in words, darling. Step out, experience it. You might finally understand what it is all about.”

And you say that is the only way? That the infinite possibilities of life need to be chopped up into little tangible recognized conventions and followed to be made the most of? That if we wish not to be doomed, we must confine ourselves to conformity?

“Of course not. That’s precisely what heroes do not do. They break away, they question, they create their own paths, and walk on them, often alone, but undeterred.”

So we need multitudes to follow a given way so that one among them can discover his own and then be hailed a hero?

“Not quite. You misunderstand. Once again, you are giving in to thinking too much. Empty your mind of all this nonsense. All these silly questions. Just remember – we need heroes. For without them our lives are meaningless.”

Can I be my own hero? What is more daring, indeed nobler than trusting oneself and being comfortable in mediocrity. Ah, how that word pricks. Such an insult. Abomination. but when everyone is rushing after achievement, not joining them can be heroic, can’t it?

“Oh my poor child. How lost you are. You have got yourself all tangled up. All of these are ramblings of a confused uninspired mind. What you need is a hero.”

What is this compulsive need to find heroes?

“But you must have heroes! For isn’t that how you can find you, be you. Come on, enough conversation. Let us go find you a hero.”

nights like these

Clutching on to the remains of the day, you sit here unwilling to beckon sleep, even as a familiar bed known to lull looks on. It is not the fear of tomorrow. Nor the remorse for yesterday that holds you here. A moment of reflection stares back at you from the looking glass. This face needs washing. It is jaded. The mirror wants a new face. The face wants a new mirror. But they are what they have. And the possibilities they hold. A needy derision. That heartening despair.

This strange hour of silence reaches for unlikely corners, and so it is that you walk to the most functional part of this alien space that you call home. The bathroom. Never to be invested in for more than its purpose. Books and newspapers have found their way there despite elderly diktats. But tonight, perhaps, an elder will not stop at incredulous looks. Tonight, when you sit on the floor of that damp pit of a room with a book and a cup of coffee. Somehow, that feels like home. The mind goes back to that moment in the past week where you talked of the shadow lines of national and international boundaries, and asks itself – don’t we like to make borders and boundaries for everything? Breaking everything up into neat functions and identities? When the TV shifted to the living room from the sacred bedroom after years of wrecked sleep cycles and newspaper laden bed dinners, there was joy. That is where it ought to be. A place for everything, everything in its place. Respect the purpose, and adhere to it. Wisdom lay in understanding these lines we draw, or which perhaps were drawn long before us. Understanding here meant acceptance and obedience. Don’t cut your nails at night. Lovely adages one has been careful to follow, not to question except in moments of utter necessity, and there too, privately. You haven’t broken the law so long as nobody else knows. Or you could break it and gloat to similar minds that often live their lives vicariously. Like you have, on so many occasions.

To have spent over three hours sitting in the bathroom and reading your second favourite book would be the highlight of the day for you. Which you will secretly smile at. You will realize those three hours were your least lonely. In so many hours that made up your days – days of smiles, people, laughter, dancing and ease. So when you reach that last page, you sigh. Is this it? Time to go back? Should you call it a day? And what a day at that! Leave it on a high? Like things are left very rarely in life. Or shall be it another book that you started ages ago but couldn’t find a space to finish? One more attempt at forging camaraderie? Recovering lost spaces in lost time?

The sudden thought of bathroom libraries makes you chuckle. Perhaps in your own house you would have those. Giant but bare bathrooms and books. Just for that moment, you float in the secret pleasures of things never to be. Like this night stretching to infinity. It will end. Birds will chirp and announce happily the beginning of another day. Many nights have found meaning and solace only in the thought of that twitter. Not this one though. The sun will rise, as it must, as it always has. So shall you, though not as punctually perhaps. And get on with the business of life. Once more the mind will mire itself in purposes and functions. To give it meaning. To give you meaning. You are what you do. This is what you are meant for. They tell you. And you find it rewarding. Tomorrow, groggy eyed, you will curse yourself this indulgence. But for now, stop thinking. Stop writing. Take a book. And go sit with your back against the wall and read stories that make yours seem unimportant. Allow yourself the luxury of not thinking of yourself for once. For a change, obsess about something else. It might be fun. And in any case, you have tomorrow and the day after and the days after to be the centre of your dilapidated worthless world.

nights

there is no one to see
long summer nights
balancing themselves
on moonbeams
in the quaint backdrop
of midnight canine howls.
behind drawn curtains
and closed doors, you sleep
in soaking oblivion.
acclimatized to mad mornings
and the perfect chaos
of overzealous days
nights can mean nothing else.
so while you negotiate
the slippery terrain of day residue
the spectacle of a summer night
whips up a delectable serving
of what dreams may come.
Ah. but you will never know.

remedies

frames of memory can be
wiped clean of you.
the mind can be persuaded
to be forgetful.
those people who saw us
laughing together
singing, dancing,
walking together
and clicked souvenirs
can be left behind.

"people come and
people go. Life goes on."

didn't we spout such "wisdom"
to gullible strangers all the time
nestled cozily in our cynicism?
where did we lose our naivete
where shall we look for it
now when we need it most?
then again, maybe we won't.
mornings will find reasons
to drag into lousy afternoons.
evenings will find books.
nights will find pills.
you will be gone.
everything beautiful
as before.

all i need now
is an antidote
for dreams.

birthday

days follow blindly
entanglements of memory.
life dances
to now familiar knells.
love wakes up
to nefarious truths.
hope writhes.wrenches
in restless sleep.
blank ceilings stare
at limp bodies.
blood invades floors.
slowly.sneakily.
and phones ring on.tiredly.
unanswered.unanswerable.
this birthday would mark
a beginning of another kind.

the masterstroke
of midnight.

monsoonal meanderings

i thought of you
in the unperfumed stillness
of a sticky monsoon evening
filled with mosquito bruises.
love was a breezy affair
that danced between leaves
of bright laburnum trees
promising eternal spring.
now clouds hang ominously
determinedly unwilling to pour
and peacocks cry hoarse
walking desolate concretescapes
with their trailing burdens
gathering dust and ashes.
soon they will chance upon
the winter of discontent
and all will be as it must.

ever after

the heart tingles.
shivers.laughs.
dances to the tunes
of the pines
that pricked it
once upon a time.
swims playfully
in the depths
where it floundered
once upon a time.
flies teasingly
into the abyss
that was its core
once upon a time.

once upon a time
will dawn again
tomorrow.
like it has so often.
for now
let the heart flutter
and find its happiness
without the crutches
of ever after.

hush

it crept in silently
years ago,
slipped in with love,
longing, regret
uninvited, unnoticed
hid in dark corners
stealthily building its empire.

seasonal monsoons
outside the window
remind her
of the perennial cloud
in whose shadow
a fearful heart breathes.

its not all over though.
words rise
in brazen rebellion
and quiet discontent.
so long as they dig tunnels,
scrape through trenches
escape and/ or attempt to escape.
a faint heart
will live to fight
the tyranny of silence.

purpling

i am going purple.
people are noticing.
one can explain a black eye.
and hide a black heart.
but this purpling.
how do i tell the world
(or even why
-as if they'd understand)
of you
coursing through my veins.
"I am not coming in to work
from tomorrow.
Sorry for the short notice."
a few abuses later,
the world moves on.
and i look up colours
on good old google
to find a name
for the shade i am turning.
three hues to black.
now two.
the countdown has begun.

all the same

laughter rings
as old friends meet.
the inconsiderate heart
goes on sinking.
in a haze of smoke
the dying sun
sputters the promise
of another day.

says an emboldened mind
to its drowning counterpart -
dont worry my friend.
you will be wrangled out.

and adds as an afterthought -
in any case
the deep waters you live in
have corroded all hope out of you.

crossings

i meet you
in awkward phrases
from days of love
long past.

the silence
we had negotiated
on those last few nights
over alarmingly easy sessions
of looking away
finds its way
to old conversations
every evening
(or alternate perhaps)
and cuts them up
into bits of incoherence,
lives out its contract.

at dusk sometimes
i still meet you
in awkward phrases
but i am not sure
what they mean
anymore.

flights

don't flap your wings so much
let the breeze carry you
(you neednt be the eagle)
fall into the warm embrace
of a dancing tree.
enjoy a stray cloud's shadow.
soar above rush hour madness.
spend a cold night
in the dark despair of the abyss.
surprise the sun in the morning.
go, give it a peck.
find a friend.fly alone.
play hide and seek.
forget to be found.
dare to get lost.
give yourself to life.
bon voyage.

promises

everyday promises.
every day promises.
keeping them
was always
the responsibility
of another day.

dante's peak

i saw you the other day.
unforeseen showers lashed
the city of my heart.
faded colors of the past
came alive
and i have been walking
on rainbows since.

book of life

your silence haunts me
from the deepest dungeons
of the mind
where your memories
dance. unchained.
a word from you
will set them free
and all hell would break loose.
the choice
of the lesser horror
isn't mine to make.
who is writing this book?
i know you can hear me.
take a break.plan a vacation.
monsoons in the mountains
can salvage us both.
pack your bags.trust me.

walled in

he said.she said.
the walls listened.
as they had for years.
and peeled off
bit by bit
in silent protest.

giving up

the tenacity of my words
finally breaks down
and surrenders to your silence.
this heartbreak
will never be spoken about.

leaving behind

the whispered unweaving
unknotting of a love
that had come together
on a thunderous evening
many monsoons ago
needed this downpour.
steady.but quiet.
in its onslaught.

it has been drizzling
for days now.and through nights.
i have gone back
to the terrace without fear.
so much has changed
about it.and us.
 
for the first time now
in the life i had made mine
when i go back drenched
dripping with lovelessness
i would have left you behind
in muddy puddles
on that uneven terrace
for the sun.
and i know it won't disappoint.
tomorrow morning's forecast.
sunny.with a chance at life.

nostalgia

visiting revisiting un-visiting
known places
with just-getting-to-know faces.
laughter.
full throated.half hearted.
weighing scales
measure past and present
and find one wanting.
life finds meaning
in quantifying
old proximities
and new distances.
love will have to wait
for a promised
uncertain future.

incompatibility

seeking solitude
in crowds of strangers and others.
a deeply held sorrow
punctured by uncontrollable laughter.
travelling the world
within the confines of a windowless room.
numbing oneself anew
with continous shots of old begrudging pain.
singing songs of freedom
and painstakingly reinforcing prison walls.

Sigh.
to be incompatible
with oneself.

secrets

the flies seem to know it.
when they sit on you.
in hordes.
its the rain, the humidity
you tell them.
flail your arms around
in a string of abuses.

the rot inside
is easy to hide
under laughter
and conversations.

walking dead bodies.
the secret of this civilization.

tedium

i am tired of you.
i think you are tiring
of me too.
this love lived in circles.
where beginnings
feel like ends.
or some such.
you at the centre
drawing out my periphery.
me reaching out
from unspilling edges
to a fixed you.

youth allowed illusions
of endless beginnings.
how we blushed
at the prospect of eternity.

but age is demanding.
it wants linearity
novelty finality
proximity.

one fine day
the circle will find itself
unfinished
and all the love
will seep out.
sluggishly.but surely.
and you and i
will breathe free.
once again.

lost

lost
in deeply closed conversations
in comfortably closed spaces.
there is laughter.
noise enough to drown
the heart's silence.

numbed limbs
feel a sinking
every time doors open.
dancing leaves
outside the window
beckon.
gaze averts itself
to furniture.

life is a prison
of one's choice.
the truth of freedom
lies
on the other side.
walk out. if you dare.

landscapes of life

My dear friends - you want to address them - don’t reduce the landscapes to pretty backgrounds for your pictures. Where is your sense of wonder? Look around. The solitary boat in the middle of the sea. That’s what life can be like. Or perhaps is. Maybe Donne was wrong. Maybe man is an island.

Maybe we are these crows. Hovering around. Scrounging around for food. We, with our voracious appetites. Our hunger is not merely physical – our minds, our souls - seek nutrition. Can the senses satisfy this/ us? As eyes devour breathtaking scenes; ears listen to sounds – laughter, waves, love, sparrows, friendship; as olfactory senses are rewarded (and occasionally punished) – fresh grass, sea, tea, cigarettes; the tongue relishes sugar cubes, bitter coffee; and the skin feels the warmth of the morning sun, the vitalizing touch of sea breeze, the melting glow of borrowed passion.

Even as the constant chatter of shattered dreams plays out in your head; ‘time for new dreams’ – you tell yourself in the odd moment of quiet. That doesn’t last. And you go back to gazing at the sea. (feeling at sea). The lone boatman out to catch dreams with an old tattered net. The sheen of optimism on the surface of the sea dances and entices him. But he knows dreams inhabit the dark and the deep waters. Treacherous. He knows. The glamour is for that crowd sitting by the shore marveling at the waves, living out their lives in sugar cubes and sachets of tomato ketchup. He is part of the glamour for them, his rickety vessel skipping about as an epitome of an ideal life. Perhaps they have their own struggles. Perhaps the idealism of life is possible only from a distance.

Meanwhile crows peck at litter boxes. More cups of tea and coffee are ordered. Conversations and silences fight it out. The sun becomes oppressive. People seek shadows. The boatman finds company. Or competition. Waves crash into rocks in fierce passion or hateful contempt. Lovers sitting by them get drenched in the moods of the sea, their own stories indelibly coloured. Crickets and flies make home of sticky afternoons which you saunter across in a state of blissful homelessness.

Where is home? Apparently, home is where the heart is, or the other way around. Perhaps there are times when heartlessness is the desired state of being. Not cruelty, not blinding self obsession, not a lack of empathy (though these may be empowering in themselves). A certain sense of freedom, of opening oneself to unimagined vistas of the mind as well as the body, to go beyond the comforts one sets for oneself, to feel at ease with the scorching sun, and the rain, the walking in and out of unknown terrains, exploration, getting stranded, oneself – in all the choices one makes, to constantly question and be unquestioning in final acceptance, to acknowledge shallowness and depth with equality. Perhaps equanimity may be too much to ask for, perhaps we like prejudice – isn’t there a warmth reserved for loved ones – family, friends, etc? Trust and love as their well earned legacy. And then there is the alternate narrative that embraces all. You sit on that fence between the two beliefs. (where else could one have found you?) it doesn’t amuse you that you have chosen the fence once again. There is plenty to play with but you find a strange comfort in the discomfort that is the fence. Maybe that is what homelessness is about. Or contentment in the state.  There is no place called home. No yearning to return. No Eden. No paradise. The nostalgia of the brick building is gone. The people who first made up that sense, and its need are still here. They mean much but are free from a bondage where success is measured against the ability to create such a need.

You have not quite got to the stage where the world is your home or ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the world is a family) – for doesn’t that subvert the purpose by privileging the very idea of home and family that you are endeavouring to normalize? And so, to be sure, you venture out. You meet strangers. Have conversations made up of half hearted lies where you step outside of your own self but stop short of the many interesting people you could be, the lives you had imagined to lead, the possibilities that might have touched reality in you. But an unknown fear holds you back. An old fear. That has pushed you to inaction. Made you wary of life. Weary of/ in life. And there you go seeking comfort zones. Brick walls. Coffee house. A book. And you look out at the lady who stares out of the painting on the wall. It might have been an audacious gaze. Cherry lips, the red hibiscus tucked in her chignon, the fierce eyes. But strangely, the eyes are lowered. Why? What made her do that? What could have forced her to tone down her fiery passions? Or was it her choice? Who could say? You finish your coffee and head out. Into the sun. A random thought crosses your mind at that moment – what if you were looking into a mirror? You hand reaches out to your hair knotted up messily. No flower. You heave a sigh of relief. You dare not look back across the street you just crossed. If you had, a wilting hibiscus might have caught your attention. Or not – getting trampled under oblivious feet preoccupied with rushing to someplace or the other. If the pace of life could be measured in trampled flowers, we might finally begin to understand ourselves.

summer evenings

soaked in smoke
eyes trace a timid breeze.
leaves rustle in the distance
even as the skin cringes
in the decadent stillness.

a bird, familiar
but unacquainted
calls on its friend.
time to head home.
perhaps.
the phone rings.
and silences itself.

the taste of onions
(the lingering memory of a torrid lunch)
warms the breath
and leaves the trail cold.

summer evenings
are ill suited
to the heart’s loneliness.

the small hours

in the end
thats what you remember.
the small hours.
you remember
sitting alone
staring into a pitch dark
unwilling to swallow you.
not comradely.but unthreatening.
a happy accident of time.
like you.
the fellow traveller
who gets off at the bend
where red and orange shades
emerge.

lost by day, 
this self
seeks the comfort
of dark mountains
on sleepless nights
to spill over defined edges
become indistinguishable
and be whole again.

mist

burnt out selves
living in embers
speak in ashen whispers.
a sky full of stars
cozy in cottony blankets
promises a cloudless dawn.
misty mountains
greet a life
lived in unopened bottles
and sleepless reverie.

days bathe themselves
in dewy hopes
of the loveless.
while nights dance
to the feverish pitch
of temple chants.

time makes up
its own meandering meaning.
and ticks on.

life

i watch
dark and brooding
like the mountains.
you come in
quiet as the dawn.
life stirs
in the sleepy hamlet
of my heart.

view from the top

pockets of inhabitation
vying for space and privacy
within themselves.
uglied blotches, relics and modern,
new high rises
stuffed with ticking time bombs.
barren lands all around-
infertile, unsustaining,
thrown into permanent disuse,
and yet beautiful.
undemanded.undemanding.
patches of green
from days of yore.
evergreen.but threatened.
a river used to flow here.
choked by the peopling
mindless.impulsive.
it stands in muddy pools now.
there are roads - kuchcha and pucca
traffic flows unceasingly through some
and others, more beautiful
remain deserted .
one could lose oneself here
but just as well be found.

the aerial view
of my diseased city
reminds me
of my own heart.
(tap.tap. all is well.)