course

Imagine a course.
Would you like to run it?
What if you chose to walk,
with thoughts coursing by?
Imagine that it rains just then.
Where do your thoughts go?
What happens to the course?
Of thought. of action.

scholar

Scholar. Educator. Citizen.
Suspended on the hinges
of a trepid in-betweenness
held together, in solid precarity.
What do your books say? What
solace is there in others’ words?
Tell me, what do you want to believe
about yourself, and this new calling?

verse for wear

This halfway house used to be home.
Rendered half, I seek in jagged pieces
the peace we had once known, lived.
but yesterday is so much more distant
than memory’s hand can reach, and
remembrance is seditious. Much like
Junaid’s skull cap. The Constitution.
And Gautam Navlakha’s spectacles.

scholar citizen

Will this do? you ask.
When government is nation,
democratic protest a conspiracy,
when voices are silenced through
algorithmic collusions, and realpolitik?
In drawing rooms, families applaud
“Serves these Maoist anti-nationals right!”
Is this thinking enough?

long walk home

home is far.
the feet know their way
but they may not carry.
is it that easy
to cordon off my hearth?
unlike you, my home
keeps its doors open
dissolves its borders
in my heart.it remains
the lullaby my two year old
Tara closes her eyes to,
at night when the streets are empty
and the dogs lie beside us.
i look at her.and then at the stars
to guide me.their twinkle jars.
the morning sun is all heat and dust.
like i am to you.perhaps, tomorrow
you will wake up to me.
my little one atop these
tired shoulders will still smile
at you through the hunger
on her face, that you mistake
for dirt.and maybe you will
let us pass.or give us a ride.
it is my destiny to remember,
yours the luxury to forget
that i am the cement
of the citadels that
you look down from.
with pity and disgust.
i can hear your tv blaming me.
i hide from the sirens, and
from infected gazes.
i am not the affliction.
there are no buses.the train
we came by six years ago
stands deserted at the yard.
my cracked lips cannot
afford even a wry smile
when my Tara asks-
'even the train is home,
why can't we?'

walking into the night

in the distance
a blurring moon
bears witness to
the weight of silences
pressing on the heart
of the solitary traveller
shrivelled in the cold
that cradles his dysphoria
in a lullaby of discomfort
that was not his legacy.
clouds cloak shy stars
and all is dark.
the road ahead, a mire
from yesterday's rain
still drunk with tears
of hollowed promises
that have settled into
crevices of frosted grass
with no strength to
even crackle underfoot.
who will speak up,
and for whom?
as the traveller lumbers
in a muted rage
of restive vacuity,
the witness blurs some more.

tonight is a protest of silence.
and the universe stands
in reclusive solidarity.

musings

are you willing to bare
your gnarled, shy body,
leaving the gold clothes
that cover you in mock beauty
to rot on the ground beneath
trodden upon by strangers
admiring of your nakedness?

would you, without shame,
or pride, accept another ring
round your trunk, another tyre,
one more stretch mark, left
un/measured, un/judged by
worldly and monked companions,
standing by your lonely, tired side?

will you be able to take comfort
in the strength of your creeping soul
that grounds you, reaching into
the moist warm earthiness
that sustenance is made of?

as the cold winds blow under
greying skies hiding a weak sun,
tell me, are you ready for the fall,
can you face the autumn of your being?