in memoriam - phillip hughes

it has been two years.already.
not that i have thought of you
in these two years.
or that i knew of you
before that.
it was a fleeting rendezvous
with the idea of you.
(as it is with all rendezvous)

you were born five long years
after i was,and the script
placed your exit
three days before
your twenty sixth birthday.

(i remember feeling then
that my twenty sixth
was the year of fatalities
of another kind
from which i haven’t since recovered.)

I don’t know your story.
(except what they built
over twitter and other eulogies)
does it matter?
you were there. and then you weren’t.

two years later
there is a small report 
in an online newspaper
on the other side of the world
that has found time and space
to spare for you.

And i remember,
i had cried then. at my workplace.
stolen away from sympathetic voices
that discussed you over coffee.
what a tragedy, they had said,
with the customary sighs
before moving on
to the gorgeous earrings
of one of the mourners.
at home i had kept replaying
the scene. on youtube
and in my head.
trying to make sense
of this script that was giving me
more screen time.

two years. to the day.
loss finds me again
(but it is not yours, chimes an afterthought)
and staring at that news report
i am not sure what to do.
i look at your picture - twenty six
would have suited you.
perhaps i should look up
what i was like
at twenty eight.

(whirring in the background - the playwright must have had a plan.)

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.

a thing of beauty

a bright yellow butterfly
stands perched
on the door of a
public restroom.
a picture of
delicate gossamer rebellion
against its unworthy mothness
(the spiders don't care anymore)
holding fort
under the lone flickering light
that throws rusty shadows
of the unnameable.
ready for flight.unmoving.
its gaze is turned towards
the floral wallpaper
whose hard to believe
initial radiance stands
expectedly dulled,
corrupted by occupational
hazards.
(Would it have noticed
that the lily has petals missing
or that it is not the season
of chrysanthemums?)

meanwhile the licentious room
open to varied onslaughts
throws them back karmically
on suspecting and
unsuspecting visitors.
virulent vileness
greets abused senses
flinching in perfidy.
uncensored bawdy encounters
scream from walls and
sometimes cabins with
broken latches
unstymied by the rattle
of an exhaust fan falling
off its grimy hinges.

in this wholesome frame
of equivocal hideousness
a spot of beauty can be repulsive.
but the bright yellow butterfly
does not understand.
and holds its ground.
pasted on the door.
ready for flight.unmoving.

muddy water

did they see you
come in with glazed eyes
your heels in your hands
uneven folds in your dress

did they suspect
the nature of your consent

did they wait
for the morning
to unleash their questions
made of stone -
those incoherent barks
of dogs in heat

or
did they corner you
in the dim light of the street
barely reaching you
before you could shut the door
to what needed
to be left outside?

did they whisper
judgments meant
for you to hear
that sounded eerily similar
to what screamed from televisions
and laughed in twisted emoticons
on whatsapp humour?

now that you are home
sleeping a disturbed sleep
with legs closing themselves
tightly, arms occasionally flailing
then falling
and a pain that has not left
your face since you came back,
i wonder if i should have asked you
about tonight.

for now,
i will lie next to you
and let my gaze travel
from you to the yellowed moon
outside the window
in the backdrop of
other closed doors
behind which i know
what people are saying.

third eye

blank spaces
don’t always need filling
there is a quiet in the void
that
like a lone feather
separated – by will or force (who knows)
from its herd
falling through the sky
in a breeze less elegance
is uncertain of destinations
forgetful of origins.
a pair of eyes
follow that nameless flight
that is but descent to them
what does it matter
how graceful it is
grace cannot undo
the sinking .
and so they float back
those eyes
to appealing heights
lending themselves
(a little too) comfortably
to successful conclusions.

in the distance
a third eye
an inept embankment
of life’s griefs
blinded by greyness
finds itself shorn of the luxury
of a universe colored and peopled
and fills the spaces
of its autumnal memories
with the melody
of dissipating smoke
(in a reverie of its own making)

origin story - a poem speaks

This is my question for you -
Is there a story, the story?
Do you actually remember how it all started?

Who am I ? Where did I come from?
Packed in neat little boxes,
my ‘stories’ have invariably been written
in black ink. Times New Roman. Font 12.
Glossy white paper.
Do you notice though
'About me' is always an about you.
Or is it the other way around?

'Fascinating stuff', that scrubby fellow had said.
the one who visited yesterday.
not to me. I doubt he could hear me.
the one who has the rights for your tell all.
about me. And some others.
(without my consent. or theirs.)

You told him over lunch,
how you looked for me.
in sweaty armpits of lovers
as much as strangers on the bus.
the jostling went on even after i came.
(You greedy bastard.
Always wanting.more.)

i could have been the midnight miracle
that headlined the out of print magazine -
or that forecasted monsoon
responsible for this year’s drought -
perhaps a temporary respite from boredom
crumpled and hidden away
when your company arrived
at the coffee shop.
(did you throw me away, and 
then come looking in
the desperation that only hope can muster
among filthy quarter plates and rotten food?)
was i the hurried patchwork
of discarded limbs and sinews
from all sorts of places
put together in slow painful deliberation
and then declared ‘functional’?

Oh, how you have boasted about
those fantastical adventures .
when you met me in kubla khan's dome.
wrestled me out of an alligator’s mouth
just in time.
dug me out of the grand canyon.
recognised me in a lost & found ad.
or was it the missing persons one?
 
Always playing to the audience.
Always playing me to the audience.
as if i were your personal whore
pimped at your fancy.
just like that.

and I travel
from one fine print to another
unsure whether you are my albatross
or i am yours.