'cultures of protest'

so you detest
and choose to infest
certain cultures of protest.

I am painting my body
The shade of your ire
The bruises you gifted
Spell freedom in dull black and blue.
i doubt you can read it
But can you feel it throb-
a determined pulse in fiery red
that writhes resolves and revolts?

your fingers still clasp my arm
where i have Angelou tattooed-
'Still i Rise'.
Do you know her?
classrooms and libraries
seminar halls echo with the voice
of that phenomenal woman;
all you hear is someone's mann ki baat.
But can you see me rise and
walk up to you unafraid of the mob
you always seem to need with you?

I heard you on tv today-
What makes you so angry?
(I read somewhere anger stems
from low self worth)
There is also a saying.about empty vessels.
What are the chances you would have heard it.
But can you hear the voices
(of those who teach right from wrong)
dignified in their words
as much as silences
telling you your time is up?

Wake up. Smell the coffee.
We can organise tea if you so prefer.
Come sit across the table.

(Though your lathis and bricks tell me
that the room for discussion
has been demolished,)

Leave your saffron clout and un-reason
at the door. Bring your reasons.
Lets talk.

For otherwise
You are nothing more than
incoherent ramblings of fear
and insecurity seeking an ego trip.
Sorry.your flight has been cancelled.
Here take this shred of decency.
(it lay unclaimed outside college.
Must belong to one of yours.)
And walk away.

Too much to ask?

P.S. - Be afraid. Be very afraid-
You say.
Right back at you.

happy new year

The oranges disappeared
in the famished rush of midnight.
the fragrance of their
flowery rind remains.
takes you back to warm afternoons
many winters ago, the picture of
a sweater knitting mother
sitting on the terrace
checking lengths of arms
and torsos every so often,
as you munched on peanuts
carefully mined from stubborn shells
that rose into quaint mountains
by the side of the bedspread
and indulged in the comfort
of bountiful laps filled with dreams.

A sneeze unexpectedly
breaks the reverie
and pushes a new agenda –
that picture - did that happen
or have we invented more pasts
for ourselves
than our journals and monochromatic
kodak pictures contained?

Soft snores from another room
separated by a wall blue as our nostalgia
declare that this would be
one more night of
uncertain memories of definite things
that the morning will shrug off its shoulders
like we dismiss deaths
in faraway cities tucked in
other continents.
distance can confound
your sense of reality
lulling you into the consequentaility
only of the immediate.

Meanwhile
citrus is the flavor of this last day of the year.
in its lingering zest,
the new year promises
many more scented yesterdays
that may or may not have happened.

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.