A blessing and a curse

It often occurs

That the definition of life

Can never be woven in a tapestry of words

Because words always betray

The deepest of emotions

The deepest of fears

The deepest of the shame

That you've kept hidden

For years

From the world

From the eyes and ears of the ones who truly matter

But it also often occurs

That the true meaning of life

Can also be counted on fingers

If only one could be brave

And objective

And patient

And see through the numbness that the cacophony and madness

That adulthood, with all its responsibilities,

Makes of life.

To see that every man is given both a blessing and a curse

That truly defines him

And the two are interwoven so tightly together

That the act of pulling them apart

Can sometimes take not just a lifetime

But also life.

So strange

It is so strange
That I find it so much easier 
To write my thoughts in the form of poems
Rather than sentences.
Sentences are so rigid,
It forces you to think through,
Like you are going to be judged.
While poems let you think
One thought at a time
And gives you an excuse
To make reckless grammatical errors
While still sounding
Nearly profound

Little Sanity

And when I needed the answer
to the question that haunts me
I'd look at you in anticipation
but u were so lost in your madness
it made me cry
and I groped for ages
to find a lost fragment of time
where everything was perfect
where innocence pervaded dreams
and I look at you still
hoping you'd show me the way
but will it all go down
and the answer
to the question that I was looking for
will forever be trapped
in the bottomless oblivion
of broken homes and mutilated memories
the question of "Who am I?"

The bombs blew away the city
but it did not hurt me
it annihilated a piece of history
but I let it pass,
they left a million homeless and burnt
but I still forgave the God you believed in.
But when
it took away in its fury
the little sanity you had left
I couldn't help hating your god.
I couldn't help feeling
He is as weak as me
and then it struck me
like a damned epiphany
that the answer to the question
was burnt in your head too
and i ll forever have to live
a stranger in his own body.

Bright Shade of Consciousness

A collage of images scattered on the walls of memory,
Lost,
Just like I
In the labyrinth of time
Trying to find a place
In the middle of an incoherent maze
Of solitude

And you are still out there
On the horizon
Counting the many suns you see rising
And watching the shapes they make
On your eyes
Unblinking through the light
Ignorant
Of the shadows they cast
Upon a soul you left to dry
On that cold winter night

New Wave Utopia

This is the new wave utopia. It is our arm around the future's shoulder, walking together like friends. Our surrender to fate and the victory in that surrender. It is our helplessness wrapped In a sweet coat of innocence. Coming to terms with a future equally devastated and forlorn. And finding comfort in its company. Like long lost brothers' chanced meeting as prisoners of war. This is the new wave utopia. A black hole shining at the end of the universe.

It's complicated

Silence tears you blind.
And if i say a word, you'd say i said too much.

The Argumentative Indian: A Review

Open publication - Free publishing - More amartya sen

The Perfect Day

i open the eyes and there's just too much silence, unbearable piercing silence cutting through ages gone past and the centuries to come. i breathe this toxic pain of life one breath at a time, and counting the clouds crossing across the sky. a thought comes and goes, and i listen to the quiet whimper it leaves behind.
there's too much darkness and the earth is still, breathing slowly, and waiting for that perfect day. and here's to everyone coping with reality that only the unfortunate see. and i, stuck in this cycle of days and nights, wondering, waiting, hoping, for that perfect moment, the end of time.

The Idea

Thoughts flew around
looking for a place
somewhere
in the sky;
bored of gravity

Sick of You

HOPE
i am sick of u
for being there like a ghost
haunting me like surface
while remaining a vacuum

DREAM
i am sick of u too
for chasing me down
when i thought i'd escaped
from your naughty deceitful lure

TRUTH
i am sick of u too
for being bitter
and remorseless
and slapping on the face
always a little too late

LIFE
i am sick of you too
for just being there

Of Dreams and Nightmares

Its hard to say what it is that we dreamt of when we were kids. Is it this life you are living. Is it something u cant imagine being in. or is it something out of this world, where your mind cannot reach now, with its rotten old pictures of reality. Hard to say what will become of you 5 years from now. Your rarest of rare dreams, or the nightmare you were always afraid of finding yourself in. or will it be both at the same time. Was your dream also your nightmare, disguised with angels where death once stood. In this life full of dreams and nightmares, why is it that we can imagine our fears so much better than our dreams.

YOU and I

You chose your path and I chose mine. We turned our ways and never looked back. I'll walk this road and think about you sometimes. You'll walk your road and probably think of me sometimes too. And we'll live our lives and do our own sweet things we like. You chase your dreams and I chase mine. And if we ever meet again, on some fateful crossroad, let us blame it on love.

Lonelier than ever.

Lonelier than ever,
I walk this piece of earth
Wanting
To be left uninterrupted
by fate.

catcher in the rye revisited

salinger is not a master story-teller in a way a rushdie or a marquez is. he is shaky, nervous and... digressive. what is it, then, that puts him above the rest, arguably even against the rushdies and the marquezs. it's his honesty. 'catcher' is a tale simply told. without pretence and without ambition. without the stamp of graphomania. it could well be a diary, a memoir, a mere scribbling of an adolescent unable to find an ear to relate his multitude of troubles to. and this adoloscent trying so desperately to find an ear does not expect sympathy. he wants no remorse. he wants just that - an ear.

holden caulfied may or not be a portryal of the author himself. but we sure as hell hope he is. and we are evil to hope so and yet we are forgiven for being evil. because as flawed and imperfect as caulfield is, he is equally adorable. even as you detest the hypocrisy that he personifies, he is bound to instill in you sympathy and pathos alike. even as you call him the worst role model of our times, it is this very fact that draws him closer to our hearts. in his hypocrisy, we've found a place to hide our little secrets. in his vulnerability we've found a place to reflect on our fears.

yes, caulfield is everything that we've not wanted to be but are cursed to be. and so we love him beacuse we love ourselves. the side of us we hate to admit. we love him for being human. we love him for simply knowing him.

(the last para is gay)

Successful love of not-so-successful lovers

'death is not sadness or happiness. death merely is. it is free from morality and judgement. it is free from love and hate. it is not an event but a chain of events tied together in a single indivisible fragment of a moment. death is like universe - expanding, and by virtue of which constantly moving away from us and yet always around us. death is the sum total of our fate and hope, of our ego and shame, of our mundanity and prodigy. it is the culmination of our belief and our ignorance. death is naught.' she concluded, when she knew she was close.

'death is us' he muttered, and jumped from the bridge and fell on her body, lying majestically, shining in the mid-day sun, waiting for him to embrace her in her ultimate moment of glory.

she smiled in her sleep. she knew he would not fail her.

Realization

And still, every morning, he wakes up with a realization - 'She had deep brown eyes'

she floats past the memory
of dotted lines and broken hearts
severed nostalgia and untied chains
of freedom and wet grass

she sits in that lonely hut
with kittens and old newspaper odor
twisted logic and maddening music
with sick lies and creepy murmur

she lives within the wall she has built
of surrealism and oblivion
she lives behind that thing
we used to call
'psychedlic mirror'

The Night

the night is sinking. we're trapped in a maze of darkness. 'there's no road ahead darling'. i spoke and she heard. she left bubbles from her eyes. floating misery of life.

we chanted the stories of our dreams. of childhood realities and forgotten memories. we smoked in the chamber where light seldom passed.

we were out of time, dear, we were marooned in our nightmares. you couldn't kiss your mother and i couldn't hear her cry. 'there's power in silence' she had said. silently.

we're lost dear, we're lost and forgotten. we're trapped in a maze of darkness. the night is deep. you can hear her sleeping.

A Wandering Idea

We were walking straight
Our thinking was curved
Direction and daydream
Were jumbled and confused

So we decided to turn to tomorrow
And forget everything about the right
But our fate was such
That yesterday blocked our way
And what was left could never be imagined

She said we ought to stop at this thought
'We might be headed to maddness'
I smiled and said
'No dear, just ponder over this path
This road does make sense'

My Politics of Inconsequence

Maybe it had to come to this
That the only thing that would drive me
from this moment to the next,
The only thing that would free me
from this ever rotating skies
That thing on the tip of your mind's tongue,
or perhaps also
Mindful of your tongue's tip
Would hide in the part of your body
Where you ate your own words

Fate: A Revolution

That night, when he slept on her palm, he became her fate.
Next morning he was no more. She searched for him in the cupboard, behind the curtains, within her entangled hair, inside the pages of her book, everywhere. She finally found him on her palm. A tiny line originating from where her life line did. Tiny, yes. But there. Unmistakably.

He used to come to meet her every night. There was no definite route or channel from where he came. But he came, nevertheless. Unfailingly. Initially she used to avoid him. But when he started telling her a story one day and did not finish it, she became curious. She waited for him the next night, and then the one after that. Curiosity becomes a heavy load. She started waiting for him every night.
Once, while she was on a beach, he came beneath the rolling waves and crashed right in front of her and continued his story he had left unfinished last night. She interrupted him suddenly

"Your story does not make any sense" she said.

"I never said it is true"

"But even a lie should have a reason"

"Reason, you must understand, is itself a lie. Perhaps it is the most perfect lie" he replied, leaving her confused as he lay on her palm, awake, staring at the starless sky; and she, at the meaningless night. He did not continue his story that night. When he was about to leave she said " I wish you didn't have to go. I wish we never had to depart. I wish we could live together, forever, inspite of all the world." A faint smile had crossed his face, then.

Now, when she looked at her palm she realized he was only fulfilling her wish. In a way she could never imagine. In a way she could never begin to understand. And even as she continued to live her own life, a part of him was living inside her too. And growing. Because a week later she found that her own life line was fading and the new line of fate had grown much longer. But it was not replacing the other. Indeed, it did not even curve but was headed straight as an arrow - upward.

She was melting into him. Gradually. Dissolving into a parallel life which was really her fate. Which was also him. The two lives kept merging into each other; overlapping, from the ordinary and mundane to the extraordinary and insane. So much so that she was now talking and acting like him. Even thinking like him. For now she did not make any sense either. Her whole life, the whole universe ceased to make any sense to her. In fact the only thing that made any sense now, if at all, was his story.

The Story.

"But when does your story end" she heard herself say, sometime in the past.

"My story does not end" he replied.

"Why?"

"Beacuse I am afraid"

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid of losing you"

"That is ridiculous, I am not even in the story"

"Yes you are", he said, "You will find out soon"

Later at night she noticed her life line had faded out completely. And the new line had touched her line of heart.
The transformation was complete

That night, when she slept on his palm, she became his fate.
Next morning she was no more. He searched for her in the cupboard, behind the curtains, within his entangled hair, inside the pages of his book, everywhere. He finally found her on his palm. A tiny line originating ....

A Magician's Tale

As she read the last few lines of the letter there was two things she noticed about it. First, ink had blotted on parts of the paper. Second, it smelled of tears. Real tears.
She put her head down on the table. A muted shriek tore out through her eyes and crumbled into an affectionate pillow, dampening it.

First time she had seen him cry was the first time she had seen him ever.
She was seated in the first row when the curtains unrolled and the magician appeared from behind a cloud of smoke. She noticed his eyes. Unfathomable, yet captivating, as he peeped into her's in a gaze that lasted for more than a second. He then asked the audience to keep their palm held open in front of them. The show began. A few drops of tears, like cannonballs, shot out of his eyes, took two rounds of the auditorium to the sheer amazement of the stunned crowd, came back and circled over his head creating an incandescent halo of mist, and completed its trajectory dropping right into her open palm. The stupefied crowd was dumbfounded as he spoke:
'Smell it'
'Rose', she said.
The crowd went hysterical.
Later, when she had met him at the gate and asked him if the tears were real he had simply said
"Magicians don't cry. At least not in reality."

That was the first time. They met several times later and each time he left her entranced with his tricks. On one occasion he created a rainbow across their foreheads and she had to cut the illusion with scissors lest they'd remain forever attached through their foreheads by the colourful arc. On another occasion he had made the gravity so low that when the rains fell, its descent was so slow in that moonlit night that she was convinced that she was Eve and he his Adam in an enchanted paradise.

Once, when she couldn't hold it anymore, she confessed what had remained concealed within her, and waited for his reply.
"Magicians are not capable of love". He smiled, indifferently.
He drew out a hand from the pocket and made a heart that hung in mid air. From where she stood, she saw a perect heart - red, and beating. But when she tried to see from where he stood, she saw nothing. Vacuum. Absolute emptiness. And when she tried to touch it, an unbearable pang clenched her own heart. She knew it. She was hopelessly in love.
"Then make me a magician too" she pleaded.
He walked away across the hanging heart, almost killing her in the process, as he replied:
"Magicians, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed."

That was the last time they had met. He left the town soon after, and nothing was heard of his whereabouts until his letter arrived. While she still lay dug in his memories a strange aura of calmness enveloped her. And she realized this was not a time to weep but to rejoice. For the magician had finally fallen in love. But she knew she was mistaken. The epiphany finally struck her. She smelled the pillow.
"Rose".
She smiled.

Trapped

He was trying to invent a formula to connect seemingly unrelated fragments of memories into an inextricable thread. As the glimpses of the past flashed before him, he tried to delve into each of them, reliving them in their entirety, to extract its significance in the events that were to occur. He started one day at a time, moving backwards. He immersed himself so completely in this endeavor that eventually his past became his future and his future, the past.

Months later, he still found himself trapped in that circular day he had found amnesia.

psychatrist : When was the last time u acted yourself, i mean really yourself?
psycho : umm this is confusing.... er i may be wrong but it might be now.

Phone Call

is it ok to hit on the wall before the wall starts hitting on u?
yes, as long it doesnt hurt u it's fine.
no u dont get it. it's not hitting me, it's hitting 'on me'.
really and what does it do
it flirts with me when i'm in no mood and even seduces me at times
oh this is a grave problem (now i sense the sarcastic tone)
not only that, it threatens to fuck my life up if i dont give him a good time.
shit you're crazy man.
hell, i'm serious.
oh really?? then why why dont u lodge a complaint? (sarcastic)
i cant
why
it's my ego man the wall
dude i'm dropping the call
no wait i have a solution
what?
i guess i'll just shag on him.
(he drops it)

Dream of Another Ridiculous Man

insomnia had plagued him several times in the recent past. but none as torturous as this one. for it was accompanied by dreams. it was on one of those nights that he woke up in a frenzy only to realize he hadn't been sleeping. indeed for the past ten days. when i met him a week later he looked terrible in delirium. and even as he spoke of the dream, speaking in past tense, he never blinked once. it seemed as though he was still living the dream. here, now.
'it was a beautiful evening. the best i had seen for a long long time. the sun was just shy of winking from behind the horizon and everything seemed perfectly in place. i was even happy. almost insanely so. as if in a dream. and oh yes, this was dream. quite certainly it was'
he paused for a moment, a look of perplexity hanging on his face, before he continued, after discarding his momentary musing
'i was a walking back home when i suddenly felt the urge to eat. i wasn't hungry though. and so i stopped by at a bakery and asked for a pastry. and it was then, something happened. the sun vanished and dusk covered my earth. people turned first into silhouttes and then mere shadows. voices grew loud and more and more dissonant. but the sounds drowned in a chaotic hurry when i saw a dog emerging from a dark alleyway and approaching me. and when he reached me and was standing next to me there was absolute quietness. it was not as if the voices had faded away, rather it was as if there had been no sound in the past at all. and it was the most wretched and visually disturbing dog i had ever seen. he had his tongue stuck out and wagging in hopeless desperation. i was convinced that if i kicked and drove him away all the gloominess would dissapear and be replaced by a new dawn. but before i could do that i did the unthinkable.
i looked in his eyes. and a fear almost inexplicable in magnitude overcame me. i was more scared than even the time in my childhood when i had fever and dreamt of a growing ball of dough falling on my face. more scared than the thought of being caught in a cyclone. for he had deep yellowish eyes. it had everything i had imagined sadness to be. a galaxy of melancholy shrunk in a finite blob of white. and i was afraid it would rupture through the yellow lines and a white scum would start seeping out from it. nothing of that sort happened though. something worse did. a thought occured to me. 'what if we were reborn as dogs?' a cold chill run through my spine. i knew it was time to wake up. but i found myself helpless. i was enslaved by my dream, by my own spiteful morbidity.
i always knew i was my own death. the horrible finally happened. i could evn call it funny. only, i didn't feel like laughing. in fact i couldn't. for now i was standing on the other side with my tongue stuck out and wagging in hopeless desperation. it seemed to have grown unusually long and thin. and the pastry that i'd held in my hand uptil now was in someone else's - my kid sister phoebe's.'
this quite shocked me, but i let his possessed self coninue
'then i knew that i never should've done it. that we were born with no purpose. no fate forms our structure and no premonition tampers its constitution. that we were born merely to live and no more. nor less. but it was too late. because now she was kicking me mercilessly driving me away in a fit of rage even as i tried to tell her in what came out more as stifled cough than a bark that it's me phoebe, me, your own brother, the very one who saved all his chocolates for months only so he could share it with you and the one time that he did have it how the overwhelming guilt almost killed him. but when i saw the look of remorseless disdain in her i fathomed the futility of it all. and so once again i found myself retreating from it all, turned a blind eye to all the splendidness of the world to find refuge in the silent corner of my origin, the solitude of the dark alleyway from where i'd emerged.'
for two complete minutes there was silence. then i decided to break it.
'but your sister's name is not phoebe' i said.
he looked at me in confusion and all around the room, startled.
'oh' he chuckled, 'no wonder.'

poem

i've crossed the lines too many times
erased them and drawn them
over and over again
like a fish in fish-bowl
i've forgotten what it stood for

i've spent too much of my life blank,
staring at the needless roof,
contemplating the inevitable
and savouring the ungettable.
and somehow i wish it'd last forever,
the sound ot water trickling from the tap
beats incessantly in the ear
only louder, more than ever.

hallucinations and day-dreams
i'm a character of a play
the protagonist will die over and over again
till he never remembers death.
or life.
and he'll wake up each morning
dreaming his own death
'who said u cant do that? freud?
tell him i'm the protagonist.
tell him i dont live on chicken cunts'

thoughtless ranting

and apart from that dream there's not much i can remember of the night. you're laughing your eccentric idiosyncratic laugh and i'm trying to see through all the smoke and darkness that has become a part of my vision of late, and yes, there's true smoke and darkness here. there's a loud background music playing the kind of music i cant stand but since i'm pouring beer into your mug i cant wait to see you drunk and i'm all happy cuz inspite of the smoke and haziness all around you still look wonderful tonight. i'm so desperately hoping that this not be a dream and i'm almost into tears when it strikes me that this IS a dream and that you're still miles away and only a fragment of your mesmerizing memory is what i can grasp in my waking life. but i quickly gain control and tell myself this is not a dream and that you're here, and you're here forever, to be loved and more importantly love me. and as your laughter becomes louder and cacophonous it drowns the noise of the lunatics singing along the god-forsaken band that's playing relentlessy and remorselessly into my deafening years and i love it cuz your voice is real, as real as it was on that winter afternoon in the park where you rushed up to hug me and tell me once again what you'd told several times that week while your cheeks blushed red and soft and your eyes had twinkled diamonds against the shy sunrays piercing throught the crazy clouds. yes, your voice is still the same 16 year old voice which has not yet smoked cigarette and your face is still that prettiest thing in the world and i'm blessed to remember your face so vividly and i thank my dream for reminding me once again of how lucky i'd been to have an angel so close it's almost death though i know i'll lose you in your entirety with the morning cup of coffee.

i m tired

there's a song of happiness
sung by the birds of distance
its sound, like a lullaby found in debris
like smoke fumes high, dissolves, and dies
songs in the distance
by birds clipped wings of happiness
this perpetual fear is killing
of tomrow being same as today
there's a song in birds,
of happiness distanced by time
but my pillow is too small
and i am so sad tonight

A Story(Left Untold)

when the last of the guests had left, he closed the door and shambled his way through the unkempt room; the unmistakable smell of whiskey reluctant to fade away, and into the room which awaited his desolation in greed. he thought of the young boy who accompanied his uncle. the boy had curious lofty eyes that saw a hazy picture of the gruesome future that lay lurking just around the corner. he thought of the boy as he drew out an old family album from one of the drawers. he turned the leaves without once making an attempt to stop the train of memory that ripped past his inebriated head nonchalantly. but he had to stop, he knew that. it was his 10th grade farewell photograph.

he stands amidst a group of 16 year olds, their hair nicely groomed for the occasion and their faces outshining the spotless new suit they wore. he is standing to the left of the class captain sachdev who, as always, is smugness personified. to his left is rajany, his girlfriend, and the only thing in the world he could feel proud of, the only thing which placed him above sachdev.

soon the photograph session will come to close and the party would begin.

seated on the wicker chair and blinded by the mirky uncertainty of what could have been and a contrast it held against what is, in a figment of pang-filled moment, he realized there never was a party. only a postcard of derailed imagination.

a jerk of emotion overcame him as he fought the tear that would refuse to be held back. for once, he let go of it. he let go of himself and his bruised ego. for once, he did not think of what sachdev would think of him in this pityful state. 'soon there will be a morning craving for me and i dont have to care'.

he thought of the young boy again and how he submitted demurely to his uncle's orders. it disturbed him immensly. he banged his fist upon the table. a few photographs flew up and floated in mid-air. the others lay concealed in his heart-shaped box.

The Elusive Girl

When she danced with the breeze, she was fire. And if i touch her flame, she would recoil in shame.
When she danced on my palm, she were a butterfly, And if i ever open my eye, she can never again fly.
When she danced in my dream, she was an angel. And if i tried to make love, she'd never dance again.

Optimism - A Paradox

And yes, there's light in everything you found dark, hope in everything bleak and shallow. a petal will bloom in your garden of misery, when you wake up to the blue skies tomorrow.

And while the bell is still ringing i will battle till the very last, for i'd rather drown in a sea of uncertainty than live an embodiment of holocaust.

A Hitchhiker's End

his end was the least dramatic. and the most obvious. people failed to understand why.
he was a hitchhiker. a hitchhiker of thoughts. hitching from town to town, country to country. Lately, he often landed in places he never knew could exist. he was used to the easy traffic of a somnolent town. he had grown used to watching the world from windows, none of which he could call his own. each window, he had realized with time, had its own shape, its own dimensions. the windows could change shapes and sizes with the sight of beauty and grotesqueness.
on the last day, which no one realized was his death, he was run over by a car with no windows.

in one of his post-death dreams he saw his grinning self driving a car with no windows.

Damnation

she walked in my enchanted nightmares
i in her's
we reached places unknown,
untrodden
saw fears hiding in its shell
protected from light
and then,
we reached the crossroad
where our nightmares met
and we woke to our damnation.

The Burden

As the truth dawns to the dusk
A shadow behind my shadow creeps
Speaking voices incoherent,
Incomprehensible
A soul seeks redemption,
Insatiable

New Millenium

A moment of righteousness in a century of apathy, door-handle to what walks into a hideous dungeon, the first footsteps of an early adoloscence, breaking in through prophecies that bring ghosts on the temples, temples cracking with the furrow of time; i greet the new millenium.
A little too late, as bukowski would say.

Almost Sober

things that life dont teach u. things u'll never remember. things that've been lost with time. things that've been lost IN time. things that breathe. things that live. things that'll never see tomorrow. things that'll reach apocalypse. things tied in a jar of freedom. things immured in the head of religion. things liberated from the world. things that'll hit ur head hard. things that'll carress ur soul. things u'll never begin to understand. things that'll cling to your memory. things that'll cast a shadow. things that see the light of day. things that u'll wait for, all ur life. things that'll befall ur path. things that'll leave u jaded. things that'll ripen ur fruit. things found in debris. things that've been abandoned. things u'll never want to know. things that u're cursed to know. things with which u grow. things that're hidden from ur sight. things exposed to broad daylight.

there're plenty of things in this vast wild mad beautiful filthy wasted world.

Warm Wetness

On a sunny winter afternoon, a drop of sunlight fell on her lap. Its warm wetness reminded her of him.

She could fight the tears but she could not drive away the wave of nostagia. She could not forget the time he wrapped his arm around her neck in a moment of eternal bliss. She could not forget his eyes staring unblinking into her's, a picture of pre-mordial calmness. She could not forget the magic in his smile, an ecstasy lost in centuries of uncivilization. She could not forget the gentle clasp of his hand, the unfathomable love.

Caught in the web of his memories she tried to forget the night when he'd slept on her lap. And wetted her sari. Its warm wetness reminded her of him. She had fondly named her son 'Surya'.

Surrealism

"Enchanted" she said.
"Enchanted" I was.
Winter fog, smog
I leapt into her arms,
Forgotten histories
I swam in her skin,
Endless solstice.

"Evanescent" she said.
"Evanescent" I was.
Falling dusk, lust
I melted in her heat,
Plunged nudity
I fumed in her breath,
Defied gravity.

"Phantasmagoric" she said.
"Phantasmagoric" I was.
Raging skies, twilight
I slept in her dream,
Distorted paradigm
I murdered the goddess,
Somnambulism.

This One Goes Out To The One I Hate

last time i spoke to pinni was an year back and though i dont remember how the conversation went, i do remember we abused a lot. 'fuck you' filled in for all the awkard pauses. and with every 'fuck you' another argument started. this is one of the nice things when you know you're breaking off. i mean it's better than having to listen how she couldn't have her morning cup of coffee because the milk was spoiled. Fuck, can you beleve that. i mean, for godsake, get another fucking packet man. there're worse things in life to crib about.

but before i go off track let me tell you i miss you. sometimes i feel like giving her a call (yes, i do have her number). not because i want to patch up or something, no. we're far beyond that. and i guess she has another guy in her life now. afterall she was no ordinary looking girl. i just want to let you know i still hate you. and this hatred creeps up in every conversation i have with any girl i meet. not that i meet too many these days, but hell, that's another story. and inexorably they start avoiding me. they probably think i'm still hung up on you or something. probably they just want to avoid me anyway.

and yeah, if you're reading this let me tell you, that name of yours 'pinni' is the funniest name i've heard. if i ever have a koala bear for a pet i'm going to name him that.

you know nothing satisfies me anymore. no number of songs, no books, nobody.it's not like i long for you or something. i can never be with you again. the thing is i want to find a girl who's exactly like you in every way except the ways for which i hate you. but more than anything else i want to forget hating you. yes, that's exactly what i want. forget hating you.

Few Nothings

Nothing hurts more than love. Except the lack of it.

Nothing screams louder than word. Except silence.

Nothing lives longer than life. Except death.

Nothing is faked more than happiness. Except memory.

Nothing is loathed more than an enemy. Except fate.

Nothing endures better than strength. Except time.

Nothing obscures like failure. Except success.

Nothing disillusions like magic. Except reality.

Nothing bares more than nakedness. Except shame.

Nothing frustrates more than hope. Except a mosquito.

A Madman's Idea

I can write a 1000 pages tonight with no thought no meaning no song. i can write them down with the vehemence of a wood-cutter with blunt rusted blade. until slowly insidiously the words eat into my brains leaving a starved larva in the midst of incoherence. i can write about the statue of death i stumbled upon right in the middle of the lake and how it refused to answer when i asked 'why do people always stumble upon you. why dont they simply embrace you'. yeah, it refused to answer but i think i read his expression. it went something like 'they hate my smell' which very frankly shocked me. 'they get used to smells' was my defence. and the statue stood speechless there in the middle of the lake. i did not speak anymore i guess it was trying to avoid me. perhaps it was just shy. i could also write about about how the statue of life stood with broken knee in the desert a few further miles down. it seemed eager to get into a conversation with me as i passed but i avoided it. perhaps i was just shy. it gave me a nasty glance as i went past him holding on to the last 'real' thought i'd once held on to as it continued to chew on what seemed like chocolate-coated ignorance.

Liberation

He was born to be a painter. But it was not until her death that he took up painting as a substitute to living. As he walked back from the burial ground on that rainy day, he decided to hide in the veil of imagination to escape reality. And pull out a thread of reality from the burden of imaginary.

People said there was magic in his hands. When he picked up his brush he created near impossibles. Each stroke on the canvas brimmed with a spark of genius. Each blank spot was adroity placed. Each blank spot spoke of poignant silence. They said he had an ability to create life with his art. And he knew it. Yet, he felt there was a tinge of non-existence in all his paintings. A lurking vagueness in the midst of vivid ingenuity.

Next morning he was stroking vigorously on the canvas, treating colors with utter disdain. His hand moved hurriedly across the canvas. Then, almost as if waking from a frenzy, he stopped. He could not paint the summer breeze. He tried every possible combination of colors. Yellow and orange. Blue and pink. White and almost white. But nothing could create the exact shade of a summer breeze. After an hour of futile attempts, he placed the brush back. He moved closer to the painting and held his head against one edge of the canvas. With a gentle blow across the surface, the greens smeared beyond the edges of the leaves, the browns freed themselves from the confines of the trunk and the blues crossed the forbidden horizon. It was there, in that precise moment, that he smelled her. Smell of a living woman covered in rain drenched mud carried by the summer breeze. He shut the doors and windows, and savoured the day.

Confict

Split between a girl and a story. Like a conflict between sun and rainbow.

Disaster

In each letter he wrote to her he filled in flowers and leaves. When she read the letters she could smell the frangrance of leafy words. She revered its freshness. She kept the letters in her garden.

One day in one of the letters, in stifled words, he wrote 'I am struggling..... to keep......... these spaces............ alive.' She rushed to the garden. The pages were turning blank. Words from the letters shed like autumn leaves. She struggled to find blindness.

Labyrinth of Time

There stood a mirror that split time. He decided to walk right into it. As he stepped in he turned back to look at the mirror. He saw himself walking in.

After he had walked a mile he turned back again. He saw millions of himself with their head turned to watch the man walking into the mirror.

Concealed

Her skin was ether. In the shallowness of her skin he felt his shadow drowning. The depth of his shadow spilled her soul.

The Bitter Truth

In his dream he saw broken mirrors of her body scattered on the road. Each piece reflected a part of him. The eyes, the ears, the nose, thrown in disarray. He picked the pieces and put them back together.

And amidst the sun-filled sky, his blinding reflection shattered his dream.

Deja-vu.

He dreamt of waking up. It was deja-vu.

Dear Girl

Dear Girl,
The lights and color we bathed in, still lingers around the corner of my eye. It floats casually and wanders feistily in all directions. I'm afraid to turn my head, lest it eludes. I let it fill my my room with open arms and closed conscience. I let it stain my shoes and tie. These colors are butterfly and rainbow. The butterfly often moves. The rainbow just smiles. You'll be happy to know they still think of you the same. You'll be happy to know I am happy in their company.

But tomorrow they will open the doors. The colors will fade away and the light will be shrouded by death. Till then i will bathe in its serenity.
Kisses.
Him

An Infinite Tale

His only fault was to try and find meaning in everything. To grasp the faintest hint of smoke rising from the remains of obscurity.
But it slipped away.
Like mercury.
Like time.
Like ego.
He could forsake everything but THAT.

Futility of Words

she was putting her things in the bag. he stood by the door, his eyes sleepy. she did not turn around to look at him. she knew he was there. she could smell him coming. she could even hear his heartbeat. but she did not turn. and he did not speak. he could hear her listen the unspoken. he could feel his silence ring in her ears. but he did not speak.
and the moment endured.
stripped of thoughts and vision
drained of consciousness
the dawn of perpetual darkness
And as he spoke she turned. his voice crept into the cracks in the walls, his voice exploded in the stillness of the air.
she saw his eyes. the sleepy eyes. the unsurmountable misery. a faint lost bubble floating the sky. rising high. out of reach and beyond sight.
oh! this inevitability of fate.
oh! the futility of words.
she hurried away.

TV vs DREAM

lying awake at quarter to two
watching the tv as channels roll on
a boy says he'll wait for his girl
she promised she'll reach before dawn
another man says its so naive
to look for meaning in a song
a third thinks its not alright
to kill a man before he's born
fourth channel shows a man with wife and kids
he should be happy but his face is long
fifth shows a successful author praised
but his expression seems withdrawn

i switch off the tv
and close my eye
and soon images in dream
like channels go rolling by

I Am Only But A Man

i am only but a man
not good not bad
just the way i was designed
less for myself, more for the others
who look at me stare at me
yell at me
for the mouse who roams my house
squeaking fearlessly
cuz he's grown so many years with me
i'll not let myself harm him
as he runs room to room
feeding on my decayed poetry

i am only but man
not sad not happy
just the way i was designed
less for others, more for myself
and i reach out to things beyond my reach
to grasp the fruit hanging mockingly on tree
it snickers as i jump
one inch away but a millions miles anyway
it will probably stay
eluding me till the end of time
but i think it will drop right into my open mouth
the moment my death arrives

Lost and Found - Disdain and Mundane

into the green river
i slipped in grief and sorrow
haunted by the ghosts of tomoro

abandoned by the hands that held
it let me go before the time
but no one will ever find

sleepless in the nights like now
gripped by ungrateful guilt
i stare at the wall that i’ve built

gaze out of the window
of that endless wall
i see a helpless child call

and i m so far away from u child
lost in the labyrinth of me
but i’ll pray for thee

for u to see a better next life
dissolvin in the unforgivin smoke
rid of the cycle of fate and hope

but when i come back home
exhausted and crying
i see ur sardonic smile

i weep and laugh
eccentric and flaky
i see u are me

there are worse things than being with the wrong person...but nothing...nothing compares to having missed out on the right one.

she waits for father every night
till 12 maybe till 1
because her mother says he'll be back soon
anytime

and after she sleeps
she rushes to the toilet
and weeps
while he's sleeping in the arms of another woman
she feels him touch her thighs the lips
and hear him blowing softly into
the ear of another woman

she takes vow to make her daughter
strong
'if thats the word' she wonders
she'll tell her of how cruel men are
how ungrateful and filthy

but somewhere inside she knows
that one day
the daughter will take the same vow
in the same toilet
weeping
for a man who sleeps with other women
the man she left her mother for

Is it enough for a MAN

She left me stranded with no message
but is it enough for a man
to live merely on beliefs
to feed on on goodness of men
and the ignorance of a woman
to fight for what he'll never lose
to die in an attempt to never live
i ask this time to time
is it enough for a man
to be a master of the world
but a slave to himself

What Fury Hath Time

I m lost for the past few days
but i dont have a reason to grieve
and i grope inside me
for a child with a reason to cry
a reason to die
a reason
to say good bye

Gallons of White Rum

drinkin gallons of white rum gulping them down the throat
with ferocity you talk psychotic gibberish of a man u once knew.
you walk along the shore the waves they hit your knees but you dont care
you say they dont hurt you anymore.
what with the inebriated head hanging loosely on your worn out
shoulders you talk talk and talk
as if the only thing your parents never asked was to seal the tongue from the heart
and soul from the mind.
you bare yourself of your secrets that kept seeping
out of the nose the ears and things you never dared to reveal
except to the man you talk of
some 20 years back
the man who was just like me
you say.

and with the breeze hitting hard on my cheeks
and moonlight flaming up yours
i listen to u intently
with no awe just prudence, the calmness of a man who's seen it all before
at least read it in some heads of strangers walkin beside him and thinking loudly
of their incensed pasts and drunken future.
i listen to you and i pity you.
and you pity me
for the same.
because i am not like him and you are not the same.

past perfect

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
-Oscar Wilde

sittin by this computer and staring at the screen
the soft spoken words spoken not so long back
and images that come flashing by
not so near yet so clear
voice that resounds in dreams
face that lights up the night
a baby smiling by her side
the hair rubbing the shoulder
wrinkles in the eye a sight of delight
bubbles from the ring
colurful shining bright
the smile of hope
to swallow her grief
to see me by her side
brushing against the arms
the nails and the songs
loudly singing in chorus
with a fixed glance
on me or something she could see
a saviour in the moment of grief
the magic in the smile
to heal a thousand souls
and it was all me
swept by an emotion so unreal
so fleety and free
no boundaries it could see
a delight landscape out the window
a hand so light it could freeze
those things they call paradise
in the arms of a child
a lost world, a lost time.

wrong number

she had been waiting impatiently for his sms for the past 2 hrs as she cut the onions. tears rolled down her eyes inexorably. 'its the onions' she told herself. he had told he would msg when he reaches home. 'he must have reached by now' she thought. 'but the traffic in bangalore!!'.'yes it must be the traffic' she consoled herself.
minutes went passing by, the knife came down furiously upon the onions. she glanced at the calender on the table. each day was marked with stars. it had become her habit to mark days with stars. llike a movie review. five stars meant an unbelievably good day. single star was a hopeless day. yesterday was marked with two stars. two stars always meant a confused day. three star was just about 'okay' day where nothing too bad had happened but nothing exciting as well. but two star was worse than that. it left her perplexed as to what the day was really worth. yesterday was one of them. he had messaged her 'sorry dear, i have to go for my uncle's wedding anniversary' but she was not convinced.
when she ran out of onions but not the tears, she got up to mark the day with a single star. pen in hand, she approached the table. but the phone rang. it was an sms. thrilled, she ran back to the bed and picked up the cellphone. it WAS from him. it read 'my mom found your bra in my bag. why did u leave it there last night'.
she did not pick up the pen this time. she did not turn to the calendar. there was no need.

fast and furious

there's nothin that could have changed my world the way this has. in such ways i m scared to speak about myself. trapped in the god knows wat of the society of and the tradition and evrythin they think r sacred to them. and i ve broken it. now i loathe it. u talk about love. damn u think u know a bit of it.wats this this thing u r talkin bout do u evr see thru from from a window striped naked of evrthing u ve presumed u have been? this society the custom. neutral milk hotel watever they meant when they sang 'how strange it is to be anything at all'. how true, how absurd, how inexplicably devastasting and healing at once. dont read between the lines it ll kill me. i m already half the way to death. i thought i knew evrythin, in deed i was convinced. and now these visions blur. i m enjoyin this ignorance of sight as long as it lasts. probably for ever and this is wat i fear. i m so trapped inside of me i m afraid might implode into myself if i dont let some air push me around. damn i m such a fuckin pervert. pervert?? u sure u really are? or is it something far beyond being pervert. an understatement? i hate myself for but wat can be done. and the whole thing about 'god is a place wher some holy spectacle lies, god is place u will wait for the rest ur life'(yes, milk hotel again). why's it all comin back to me. is this the point i ll wait for the rest of my life. and the holy spectacle? wats that do i understand it or am i tryin to convince myself that i dont. hell, things r pulling me apart and i m still waiting. i dont even know wat for. i dont even know wat i want now. im so confused its threatening to say the least. why did i ever get into this. why?


but i m not gonna talk to god anymore. he's given me evrythin i wanted until this point but from this point forward i dont know wat to ask for. let him be him and me be me. but then again who m i? dint my existence really mean only that one straw. THAT SAME STRAW. wait m i gettin too close.

this one's by a bastard

When a raven crows in the morning
Someone's going to die by nightfall.
Today too some old sixty year old
Fucking a young girl, and dying on her belly.
In his mouth, gaping red
A gold tooth glitters under the mucus.
His shorts, thrown in a corner
A butterfly set free by the girl.

When your lace breaks in the morning
Someone's going to die by nightfall.
Today too some queer
Fighting over a man
Grabbing a knife, a military march
A black and hairy leg, the Adam's apple
Drenched in the blood that spurts
Flowers that bloom beside his mother's grave.

When a mouse cries at night
Someone's sure to die by morning.
Today too some butcher's wife
Killing herself with a young toy boy,
Her chipped manicure, dyed red again.
Forty chains until the morning
Until the morning starving bodies
Killing someone so they can live
The only destination, the chill of handcuffs

six word story

inside his pants. diamond. a miracle.

an enemy

he held a pen in his hand. a white sheet of paper waited languidly. for breathing life. but there was something twirling all around him. taunting him. torturing him. even to the point of haunting him. he tried to shoo it away but it kept coming back. swirling round and round, and round. words, things that he had once enslaved, now eluded him, mocked into his face with a sardonic smile. he couldnt stand it anymore. quietly, very quietly he dropped the pen. and with one loud smack the mosquito sank down to the floor. the paper was watching.

the wait

he had waited for this morning since ages. he slept early last night. it would bring morning sooner. but restless on the bed he stared at the cold sunlight that reflected off the moon. but morning will be here soon. with gleamin warm sunlight piercing thru reluctant moisty leaves. turning the earth we call home orange and red. and he'll step out. he'll smile facing the semi circled sun his face will be orange and red. it will shine on his forehead. and then, then he'll stretch out his arms and run on the road headed to the sun. for this one moment he will touch bliss.

a fresh page

neatly, he turned over to a fresh page. he stopped to think. held his pen against the paper and wrote a poem. he loved the sound it made. the friction of the paper against pen. the romance. pages upon pages words flow in uninhibited vehemence. words come screaming out dancing in merry, weeping in pain.he finsihed the last few words 'for all that was me'. he looked out of the window. children played in the streets. they shouted they hollered they made unintelligible sounds. he turned back. tore the pages. he mused at himself and turned over to a fresh page

there were faces on the walls he'd seen before. in dreams. perhaps sometimes in the sky. two crystal eyes trapped in a whirlwind of confusion and hatred. two crystal eyes gazing at a distant land. nothing else but the eyes. he could not stand them. he punched the wall. he broke the mirror.

she lay him to sleep and walked out the door hoping he'd wake up, stop her, hold her tight, swallow her tears.
but then she stopped, walked back in, picked the knife, fell over him, and hoped she would never hope again.

i dont know who this she is

stones gathered in the backyard
fallen from trees
ther's a light that shines through mist
or is it your blinding eyes

snow in the mid summer
trickling down the window pane
yellow stains it leaves
reminding how we went insane

clear clouds in the clear old sky
a bird's swayed flight
like guitar strums on your wrigggling spines
tears the silence of the night

drops of water on your forehead
they trickle down ur nose
the cheeks they smell moisty green
your tongue a fragrant smoke

goddmait why i wrote this

often i've wondered aloud
in my dreams n in my thoughts
in the pages that i ve torn apart
in the deafenin silence of my heart
was it ok for her to die before i was born

often i ve heard a voice
speakin softly to a coming child
speakin softly in her waking demise
speakin softly words that apologize
softly, ever so softly the words go flying by

often i've seen lights dance
with the blueness of sky
with the bleeding tongue inside
with the fine white foam rise
fine white foam in rain drenched snow

often i've curled up in bed
hoping to whip these thoughts away
hoping i'll see her another day
hoping to never hope again