To walk through the kitchen without receiving anyone’s scowl
To have friends who smile with me when I embarrass myself
To hold nobody’s rage except my own (unless shared)
To tell loved ones, near and far, that I care
To wash sorrows at the end of each day, like dishes
To begin a day with the security of solitude
To watch sunlight dance in the corner of the room
To have a free heart free that lets
the sunlight in
the curse lifts.
the light falling on the road
reaches to touch you a little more.
The trees bending over from either side,
one frame of Delhi
the graffiti on the flyover wall.
The bob of a white and green chunni
wearing the woman in front of you
and the girl who turns, smiling, to her
calling across the crowd.
A baby’s small arm waves
from the adult it is sandwiched in.
All of it somehow appearing to glow
as if it’s golden hour,
even underground in artificial light.
there is a cool breeze taking you through the city,
a soft apology for the days to come.
you reach the destination of a friend’s house
as if on wings - knowing the moment
is the best sort in this life.
the coffee they serve you nothing short of
a miracle. how did they make it, you resolve
to ask next time, sipping its warm secret for now.
this is how it is when the darkness lifts
withering away its shroud
that had become a second skin
and everything tingles extra,
for another one
is yet to grow.
for these few moments
feel how painful the preciousness,
how dear the ordinary
you had nearly thought
gone.
chases itself
Through the hourglass of the day
A battlefield of chattering
A collage of broken coloured glass
What I'd say if the moment comes
In the future or the past
Slipping by with the hours
grain by grain
Years of thoughts in a day
finally confronted
with the page
not a single one
is left.
A jigsaw puzzle where the pieces aren’t made to fit
A bowl of dal microwaved, the bowl hot, the dal isn’t
A book where the love interest dies mid way and it’s too late to put down
The last lighter in the house and its fuel has run out
The point in the party when all the mixers have finished
Watching a film that keeps stopping because the internet is not willing
A national holiday falling on a Sunday
A week where every day is a Monday
Putting an alarm for 8 hours later but you wake up after 6
Something that seems like magic turning out to be a trick.
it looked exactly as it did before,
March sun falling on its steps
bougainvillea by the gate. Inside, I gravitate to your room. A rocking chair
sits where you would have been
and the room doesn’t smell the same
anymore.
The sky did not crack upon realising
These sights did not gnaw at me.
No columns of gloom hung over the house.
Your room a living museum
though many of your things have been removed.
Sun slanted quietly on the rocking chair.
I felt only the fond, sad pull
towards you, wherever you are.
to the park where we first met.
I had timed it wrong that day:
it was winter, late, only
a few minutes of light left.
It's early morning now,
A full day ahead.
Bad metaphors offer respite
In the slow wakening of bitterness.
There are always two voices dancing in my head:
sometimes, they are mine and yours
sometimes the preacher and the question
sometimes they are justice and despair
sometimes the eyehole of the self and the tsunami of the world
sometimes the moment silencing the hours.
I wore the rose-coloured glasses,
knowing I wanted to be
blinded but safe
when you showed up
red torch in hand
person in exclamation mark form,
perfect for the question mark loop of my days,
the comma-less expanse of nights
telling me
(like every other man)
"with you I feel safe"
and I think,
waiting for it to hit,
I'll feel it soon,
it should be
on its way
right?
I imagine you both “left
unsupervised”, children
after dark, flying on a scooter
through a warm Goan night.
Think of all the lovely things
that called you far away –
Clean air. Clear roads,
rent easily reached, kindness
much less scarce than this city.
Houses in yellow and pink and
blue, dance, drink till four, five nights
a week. without spending small fortunes.
When jealousy visits now,
it is not to pick fights
but to condole.
It has not much to offer
but its hand.
It sighs, presses,
says, “I know.”
Swore I wouldn't think about a hospital
after the small miracle of a morning bus, people walking on their two legs
in the window of the day.
Swore I wouldn't think about the hospital
and its population of wheelchairs
(let alone write about it)
released into the sudden regular pace
of a morning
being neatly cleaned by the sun.
Inside the hospital
bright light and time accumulate
in swathes. In waiting rooms,
in dark circles, fine lines
sitting uncomfortable amid
the bustle and sterile white.
In its limbo,
a memory hardened with bother
finally withers
and falls off.
People and priorities are pared
with a scalpel,
swift and precise.
In a hospital, gratitude pricks
and holds like stitches not yet dissolved
which gradually itch,
then begin to fall away
in the sun.
A glass of sugarcane juice
a stone's throw from the gate
helps wash them away.
Outside, someone has taken the joy
of coordinating purple shirt
with laptop bag.
Thousands to fleetingly glimpse
in shuffling card faces on the street,
the miracle of one's own irrelevance
and the certified recipe for diarrhoea
in a glass of sugarcane juice
which makes it not one bit less sweet.
A word unsaid
still crosses x distance on the map.
Its footsteps, however, are left
untracked. Finding nature
as enjoyable
with eyes and mouth closed
it discovers
no way back.