overview

But what is there to lament.
So we loved. and they turned out as expected.

We grew mistletoes on sycamores over
graves of loyalty that we had dug

even as we commiserated.

We stole furtive kisses. And castigated infidels.

So we missed the midnight shower
cooped up in an air conditioned room
surfing the net envying holidays others could afford.
We slept in. and chose the reality of books.

 
We laughed. and got mad
And never spoke again to best friends.
We cried. and got mad
And never talked of ourselves again.
We left time to its machinations.
We danced in the solitude of summers
Bathed in our inadequacies.
And sat under invisible winter moons
listening to vinyl records.

We made light of our losses.
and spent days not getting out of bed.
We pretended. We pretended to pretend.
We fell for fallen heroes.
We fell. We made excuses.
We took the high road
and found ourselves in shifty back alleys.
We let fear overcome necessary action
and courageously backed bad decisions.

We nailed hypocrisy.
We choked on our own morality.
We traded old friends for random acquaintances
we met in shady places.
We made our own gods and then desecrated them.
We blamed others.

We travelled with blinders.
We sat eavesdropping on other conversations.
We lied about ourselves. To ourselves.
We bought the dagger and played victims.
We preached what we were too lazy to practice.
We followed rules. We made exceptions.

We did much. We did nothing.
For all that
What is there to lament.

It is what it is.

aging

it was not a meeting of old friends.
by strict standards of temporality.
(they would have met
thrice before,
each a carefully plucked opportunity
from a universal conspiracy of plans.)

conversations flowed,
occasionally lingered,
lilted, and sashayed,
easing around, sometimes jumping over
boulders of silence, experience, ignorance,
much like the mountain streams
they had sat by and relished
long ago.
 
a year ago, trudging across knee deep snow
they had seen
what the scorching sun did to frost,
much the same happened
in that room with a beautiful view
between laughter and their hearts.

by 3 am, they were cracking up
just looking at each other.
they signed off at pre-dawn
with a cup of tea,
 
and when all was finally silence
in the backdrop of the calm breathing
of transient youth,
the view from over the hill
seemed less daunting.

coffee love

the after taste of another day
is a saccharine bitterness.
piping hot.
in a porcelain mug
chafed at the edges
that tells you
to live. love. laugh.
sipped to the crystal clarity
of the next ticking second
the watchman’s whistle
late by an hour,
and your own laboured
caffeinated breathing
that has once too often brewed
into a melancholic cough
rattling a chest
heavy with its own emptiness.

for the second time in the day
you feel alive
and as the last of the drops
trickles down an upturned porcelain mug
cracked at the bottom
you finally find the courage
to close your eyes
to the day that has been
now rendered memoryless
reassured that another 
two hours twenty-five minutes away
the dawn of a new day
will find you
this time with a steel tumbler
(and similar intentions)
floating with the strong aroma
ready to taste
what the day has in store for you.

photographic memories

sepia tones remain fashionable
the indelibly happy places.
that you yearn to revisit.replay.relive.
experience tells you
you can keep going back
the same light. the same camera.
the same models - old friends
mossy fences, corrugated loves
the same pre monsoon stickiness
(or winter drowsiness).
 
autofocus. click.
there you go.
got it.
you are seven again.
or sixteen. twenty-four.
at the closed gate you jumped over
for a midnight snack at the hawkers.
on the highest rock
of a lush campus never yours
looking out at the deserted open air theatre.
any one of numbered memories.

but when the picture develops
in that little dark room
at the far end of your mind
accessible only through a sulphurous tunnel
whose bend
(that may or may not be its end)
finds no light
as you immerse the paper in the solution
that holds the key to your own grayscale hopes
unexpectedly but unsurprisingly
what will emerge on that once blank slate
will be an original.
a clear descendant of its predecessor.
should you be so lucky.
but all too often
unburdened by that legacy.

at that moment you will find yourself
retreating unwillingly
unwittingly from that dark room
exposed to the dense realisation
(without a trace of nostalgic remorse)
that the lens has changed.
you have changed.
and that has altered everything.

cataract eyes will blur all you once knew
and the present will always be
a watered down image
of the past you struggle
to revisit.replay.relive.