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.)

spillovers

The sun is about to set. Let ink spill. To fill the page that has been blank for too long. Too many words could have gone on it. Not nearly enough to do it justice. Can it find meaning in its barrenness? Perhaps there is purpose in being bare. And yet the compulsive need to fill all spaces. And in fullness find an anchor for the hollow heart that sinks in its own emptiness. The old junkyard you cleared out and are unsure what to make of. Meanwhile, the dark void makes space for nought.

As evening colors recede from the sky, the old fear of the night strikes the heart once again. The quiet punctured by dogs barking, presumably at the ghosts of the past that stir forth and peep in through the windows, entering through the tiniest crevices that you could not shut or stuff. It will be past midnight by the time they settle themselves in, to watch you sleep and then invade your dreams. If you actually manage to sleep, that is. Most nights, sheer terror makes you lie awake listening to recommended music. The playlists are created anew with never before heard songs that the ghosts would not recognize. And yet these unknown numbers form themselves into stories of your life, part experience, part imagination, unsure where the line is drawn. There is cheer across the room, and you can feel their movements with your eyes closed. How it happened would be worth a thought, if you weren’t trying to keep still, holding back tears that paid no heed to you. A few more hours you tell yourself, clutching the cushion,not daring to turn off the music for fear of silence, and praying that the phone’s battery lasts till dawn.

Sometime around 4 you think of the sun rising in some part of the world. Not yours. (Shift eastward). You sit up. The shadows are scattered around the room. Fading. Mellowed. They don’t mind conversations at this time. As if old friends meeting over coffee reminiscing good old times. You have your share of 4am coffees, and you can tell no one about these 4am friends. You lower the volume now, but the music is necessary, even in the background. Silence, crickets and the wheezing of your uninvited guests can be a lethal combination. It often means you miss the bird’s first chirp and the rooster’s call, but you have sought their forgiveness, time and again.

Finally at 6, when your phone has given up, and all sorts of alarms ring out in the neighbourhood, you find yourself alone. There are no farewells. You know that the relief is temporary.The effect of the painkiller that is the morning will eventually wear off. You allow yourself an hour of restful sleep. And you wake up without an alarm, telling yourself – Carpe Diem! Fill out the empty heart. Paint the canvas of the day with the brightest shades. In the midst of it all, an optimistic heart finds a moment to sink, in the background of a faint yelp of the homeless dog that spends its time chasing its own tail and duelling with fleas. You tap your heart and remind yourself - Seize the day. For the night will come soon to seize you.

turnings

The obsessive need to make meaning must be given rest. The labeling is the undoing of experience. And the experience of the label. To just be, to do, not think or rationalize. Before or after. To not build a narrative. To quell the story teller within. To tell her to look elsewhere. Or perhaps to resign. Retire. voluntarily. Why wait for it to be forced? Which in the mind’s world follows no temporal rules. Or spatial. Everything is in the now that has slipped into the then in the saying of it. Or the experiencing. Ask her to travel, look around, take in, but keep it all there. With nothing to spew in hypocritical false sounding high falutin vocabulary, borrowed jargon from acquaintances in high places. Originality could finally be there. In silence. It doesn’t matter if someone got there first. Its worth a shot.

She may argue. Or protest. Or as is more characteristic of her, agree, and do as she wishes. Much like you. But so unlike you. A life of turning, and turning. A deaf ear. A blind eye.

You. Dancing to folk songs in your aviators with a tee and a dupatta wrapped around as a skirt and osho chappals, with the village mela amused by you, you laugh. Walking barefoot along manicured gardens of the urban rich, braving the summer sun and the guard charging with a lathi for trespassing, you laugh. Desire, adventure and laughter are your constant companions. And music.

She. Yes, there is music, and adventure, and desire, and laughter. But misshapen in their mirrored state. For she must think. And then some more. The silence of the nights is hers. She feels lost in the frenzy of daylight. She hides from the sun but shadows you. She collects the bruises and the kisses you gather through the day, and by night she knots them in an entangled mesh of pain, regret and lovelessness.

Every morning she expects you to give in to her stories, but you pick up her work in ecstasy and hang it around the house.

Unknown to you, the nights have become difficult for her now, surrounded by her works. As you sleep peacefully, she hears screams that paralyse her and as her own works come to life, she finds herself unknotting her last piece. Lying in a corner with her ears shut tight, she sees the kisses flying out and knows you will rejoice in the morning dew. She sees the bruises go up to the stars and heal themselves in a winter night’s breeze.

You wake up and find her gone. You wonder, but the possibilities of a brand new day quickly take your mind off your worries.

Meanwhile, she had walked out by herself in the soft morning sun. Unafraid. She had looked back to twilight when sitting in a corner thinking about kisses that couldn’t hurt anymore and bruises that could heal, knotting up her fingers without a story, she had found a sudden tedium in the thinking. Thinking that was the means to an end, and the end in itself. The journey and the destination. But could she weave stories if she didn’t think? Who knew? She didn’t. She had set out, in a rare moment of un-thought, and started walking. As she walked, she drank the dew off the leaves, and decided to let go of the stories. Let them be with who they belong.

The neighbours don’t find the lights on at night now. They see you every morning stepping out in the sun, shadowless, drinking the morning dew, opening your arms out to the breeze. They don’t see wall hangings in your rooms through their windows anymore, and find themselves at ease to come over for tea. You are inundated with invitations. Life is good.

She is traveling. She does not weave anymore. She occasionally buys postcards to send to you, but gives them away to children she meets. Letters are stories. The neighbours wonder at her quiet. Some wait for the dam to break but she knows there will be no rushing waters if and when it does. It flows. At its pace. The river of life. And thoughts float away in little paper boats. She still lies awake through nights, naming countries and cities alphabetically. She doesn’t make plans. She resists the urge to read. She dances sometimes when she is by herself. She sits down to write, allows herself to pen things down. But excessive thought makes her dizzy. She lets go, steps out and sleeps on the fresh grass. Life is good.

Turning and turning, meaning making must find a new address.

wishful thinking

i want to think of heartbreak but a bird taking flight distracts me.

i want to brood over old ties come undone but 

the neighbourhood is rejoicing in the birth of my neighbour's daughter.

i want to read old diaries but new poems are pushing me to stationery shops.

I want to float in memories but am drowning in the possibilities of the future.

I want to sleep and be lost to the world but the damned doorbell  keeps ringing.

i want to look for you but all over am surrounded by mirrors.

i want to.but dont need to. or the other way around.

when night falls and i switch off the lights

there is only me.and you are fading.

guwahati diaries #2

Old stories come to life..an old self surfaces over the currents of the present and shows itself on the banks by the comfort of which the new one sits..the past washes up and leaves a glaze on feet too afraid to venture deep. In the nightly repose of oblivion it shines with the soft luminosity of beach sand, coarser to the feet that leave it behind with every step but fail to let it go in its entirety. It doesnt wash off even with soap that made great promises. Hands try to rub it off only to be saddled with it. The shine as much as the coarseness. A dark corner could be found but it glows. There is light ahead. Perhaps the blinding present unconcerned with meaning might dull it. But the body stays limp. Unmoving.

Conversations occupy centre stage that from the distance of a plugged out existence reach out as a boulevard of broken dreams. In these shadows one lurks summoning a courage that stands in the limelight laughing at one's cowardice, beckoning in a playful dare knowing one would never pick truth. Truths pick us and question the ease of our being, this dance, this theatre of the absurd we course through in the safety of rickety boats unwilling to take the oars in our hands and steer the way, going with the flow to avoid the stagnation that rots us deep within.

It will be morning soon. One would have shed the past by then. Or the other way around. But the sinking feeling in the heart, ever so constant, will take a tired mind and a pair of eager feet back to the river...to watch time float in currents visible and not, to see it wash up to the shore and reach out to limbs crippled by fear. One will carry a bit of time back, and see it fall off in bits and scatter on the paths one takes, rub it off in futile desperation, watch it glow on the bed in the dark of the night, look for it in the new dawn with grateful regret. Taking away. Leaving behind. Going back. The circle of life. The journey goes on.