kashmir

k is a recurring dream
that i can never fully recall.
it stays with me in snapshots.
sometimes it is
the image of a bleeding eye.
corroded silver jewellery.
sometimes it is
the fear of forgetting my name.
an abandoned poem.
they fight over it
on national television.
k faithfully visits me those nights
and pulls me into
a tug of war at the end
of which both of us lie
fallen in swathes of blood.
(I don't wake up then
bathed in sweat and fear
like in the movies.
nor run to wash my hands -
"out, damned spot".
I usually hope to sanitise
it all, us, with local disinfectants -
an old song, a childhood picture
with the right sepia tones,
a faiz couplet, the whiff of saffron -
if i can help it.)
I have also come to predict it.
book nights, autumn evenings,
sunset skies
days of lingering solitude
have a dedicated space for it.

But never in so many years
has the dream been
of that picture postcard
on whose one side is
a dewy valley lush green
from days of love
and on the other
in your handwriting
slanting like the sunshine
the words -
'paradise is a dream.'

you took away the paradise
(though it wasn't only you)
and i burnt the postcard
(though it wasn't only me)
now the dream remains
an ashen legacy of crimson.

a moment

in the middle of the day
a little before
bored office goers
break for lunch
and the air reverberates
with the joy of the city's
children at the end of school day
silence prepares
for its victim.

and among many crevices
finds him suspended
precariously
in the space between
a written and unsent whatsapp message.
at that point
afternoon traffic becomes tone deaf
unsure thumbs stay frozen
just a moment longer
and in the din of everyday life
as the right thumb
reaches out to discard the message
And the right hand takes the phone
and puts it away in a back pocket
or a sling bag
or throws it on the bed
 
- unknown to you
in that whiff
silence has caught you.
and the words that will find you
in a minute from then
will never be able to make up
for that moment of silence.