All Alone!

To go out into a vaccum,
When ringing phones are never picked up,
Where you order a single biriyani
To spend a friday night
And treat yourselves to a single chai in a crowded tea shop.
And top it with a gulabjamun...
All alone!

A Thin Film of Dust

A thin film of dust
Settles in my room.
On all the furniture,
Chairs, table,telephone, computers...
It devours the unused books and pens.
A thin film of dust...

Job Hunting

writing one more resume, for one more job...
publication, conferences and job experience
of an inflated self...
while i feel shrunk and shrivelled up...

sleeping through my holidays, without reason.

I Don't Have a Name to Call Myself

i don't have a name to call myself,
This small dot written in the vast ocean of words,
Painfully shy drop in the thundering silence of early youth,
Whore and elder sister of the fiery youth,
Sleepless poet of broken verse of my middleage...

I don't have a name to call myself.

A True Love Poem: To a Woman Friend

This day,
I dream of breaking the wall
Which we built, brick by hateful brick,
Between us
With one magical stroke of a single word -
The password to my heart -
Which is your name
My darling!

Ma'am

Teacher, advisor, Ma'am...
Wish I knew what to teach,
Wish I knew what to tell...
Wish I knew how to mother.

Haiku

A hurried, stolen drag
From a half smoked cigerrette
In the middle of a lonely, sleepless night.

Tonight (for Geeta Dutt)

Endless songs of sleepless nights,
Restless soul - who walked before me,
Your voice keeps me company,
Tonight.

End of Love

Illusion of perfect companionship
Why do you stink like an old murdered corpse,
Stifled in an aritight room without windows?

Curtained Room of my Maidenhood

Curtained room of my maidenhood
Harsh outside light filtering
The insides made soft
Taking the reddish tinge of the blinds,
Sleepy afternoons, soft music...
Never knew these were so priceless.

Nameplate

my name in golden letters outside an office room,
my space, my refuge...my little hole
to brood, to think, to work...to be.

Finally

Finally,
I am not ashamed of my nakedness,
My flabby middle-aged body.
Slightly funny; very, very sad…
I have come to accept you.
Finally…

Finally,
I am not hiding my words.
These gushes of sentimentalism and pride,
Slightly funny; very, very sad…
I have come to hug you.
Finally…

For Dostoevsky

You wrote of that very rare thing.
Talked about so much by everyone..
Cheapened by its absolute simplicity.
You wrote, about dark minds,
Mysterious doings, absolute helplessness
And undying human pride.
Surprisingly found them in thieves, murderers, gamblers, prostitutes…
The underbelly of last century’s Russia.
Feverish debates of the mind
Sterile discussions of the intellectuals –
Words, words, words…
All melting with this commonplace thing –

Love…

Sleepless Nights

Sleepless nights,
How grateful I am to you?
For all the ghosts of the past,
Who show so clearly in your moonlights,
For this unbearable heaviness in the heart,
Borne only by a night-awake sinner.

My Daughter, My Self

Sometimes,
Death comes as a relief for others.
Even when one wallows in the self-pity of a pre-suicidal mood,
It hits one –
“There is no one to cry for me…
But you –
My daughter.

I live in you –
My beauty, my wasted youth, my body, my anger…

I am sorry my darling
For bequeathing you this inheritance
Of unsolvable debts…
Of madness, hateful memories and stolen youths…
But, I am grateful
For the solitary mourning
In my abandoned grave.

My daughter, my self."

Evenings in a Single Woman’s Life

Evenings,
I open my dark flat,
Enter the furnitureless rooms
Boil milk (it spoils fast in these tropical summers)
Make a lonely cup of coffee
Light a cigerrette,
See its burning tip nibble the paper endlessly.

Produce? Reproduce?

What can happen in this one human life?
produce? or, reproduce?

meaning is derived only by producing.
but, security...
only, by reproducing.
when you reproduce...
it is a system, of exploitation, of pain, of misery.
when you produce...
you try to break it?
perhaps, perhaps not!

Motherhood

her misery made her cling to the relationship more.

but, she would steal moments away from the claustrophobic rooms of their love
To peek into the hard, male world of work, money and success.
each of her excursions left her exhausted.
his weak self fought with her need for anything other than his rooms.

to bring meaning to this meaninglessness,
she decided to keep the baby who had strayed into her womb.
to bind her once more into life, love and rooms...

Shame of Adults

yesterday...
my little one was hurt
by raised voices and changed expressions
she cried her heart out
in humiliation, in pain...
like an animal, hurt, bruised...
her anger evaporated into tears,
and i died with shame.
the shame of the adult,
the shame of the powerful.

A Room of One's Own

what i am losing is a room
where i can play my own music,
ghazals and blues for my dark moods,
rock for my intense times,
old malayalam songs for my childhood
shared with a distant brother
what i lose with you
my darling...
is that room.

Euphoria

To wake up -
With expectation.


To sleep -
With dreams.


To walk -
With hope.


To gaze -
With love.

Watch,Man

Old Hindi songs
Wafting from a ramshackle radio
To keep company to the night watchman,
He watches us with his shy eyes
Dark holes of fear and greed.
We drift past him,
Carrying vegetables, books, babies.
Our blind eyes, never seeing him.
Lying in the cold, winter nights
Away from his young wife's warm body
Left alone in his little hut
Away from our cagey, warm flats.

for Allama Iqbal

facing the end of love,
he sang of a land beyond the stars,
where love has more trials in store for us.

Seeing an earth divided by rivers of blood,
he dreamt of new skies
where you can spread your wings.

To Kamala/Amy/Madhavikutty

You said
You wrote with your spilt blood...
We,
Your women readers
See our own blood searing your pages.

Your limited 800 word vocabulary,
came handy in our limited world
of babyhshit, unwashed utensils
and tears.

Kamala, Amy, Madhavikutty...
Love never cured you, darling.
It became your disease.
Like it was ours.

Typing poems in lonely office rooms,
I bequeth these spilt, red wounds
To you...my mother.

Clandestine Love

These days I have a young man
Who comes home
To share cigerettes and long tales.

Our moments are clandestinely sweet
And forcefully platonic.

He reads my books, my eyes,
And sometimes...
My depression-laced voice over the phone.

I voraciously read the scattered pencil marks
In his dog-eared paper-backs
to get glimpses of his youthful loneliness -
dark, curtained afternoons of his recent past,
his un-naturally euphoric evenings...
when he is forced into silence
about his sleep-filled drowsy, tired days...

Reply to Robert Herrick

WHY I gaze at my wrist,
Where thou has't tied this silken twist,
I know, for, I am yours;
Your desparate captive, my poor heart.
You say, your heart too, my bond-slave is.
But, nay...I say.
For, this silk that bindeth me,
So soft and vulnerable to the eye...
But before my eyes, I see it turn
Into bricks, mortar and steel...
to build a cage to keep me tame,
Where you are master and I am slave.
so, dear, allow me to knap the thread
And, what can i do but walk alone and free...
into wilderness, into lonelines...
where we can never be...
together...


Original Poem

Robert Herrick
The Bracelet: To Julia

WHY I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this silken twist;
For what other reason is 't
But to show thee how, in part,
Thou my pretty captive art?
But thy bond-slave is my heart:
'Tis but silk that bindeth thee,
Knap the thread and thou art free;
But 'tis otherwise with me:
—I am bound and fast bound, so
That from thee I cannot go;
If I could, I would not so.

There are Many Ways to Die

There are many ways to die
Numb your senses with tranquilizers
Purchased from the nearby medical hall
Look straigt into the shopkeeper's lustdripping eyes
And tell him the name of the drug
Be careful - do not buy more than a limited number of pills
Then go to the next store
Repeat the procedure
Till your cupboard hoards
Sweet, numbing sleep.

Or, you can jump into the madness of a passionate love affair
Like a blind jump from the sevenstoried building of your past
If you are really mad...you can get him to jump with you
to enter the pact together
That would be dramatic and apocalyptical
People will remember you both
Mythical characters
Romeo and Juliet
But, you know that you killed each other
Rather than
being together in death

yet another way, which many women follow
is to slowly build your tomb brick by single
Smoke lonely cigerrettes in dishevelled bedrooms
Cry yourselves to sleep...
Or, just sleep...
Morning, noon and night.
yes...
there are many ways to die.


A Reply to this Poem

Another poem



There are many ways to survive
Block emotions by reason
Shield the heart which has done bad service with mind
Every time you feel you’re ready to believe her -
The beautiful lady which calls herself your fair fate
Shut the gates and grimace at it,
It should be fun to wait and see
its true face, when it gives up.
Repeat the procedure
Each time it gets to know
That there is another entrance to your heart
Be careful - it changes its delusive approach –
It could be pure like first snow, or tender like bud
It can show gentle and noble like yellow autumn,
and passionate like summer sun.
Or you can choose to have un-pact -
Conceive a child who will never know its father
May be people will remember you
As ‘challengers of society’
But, you know that you’ve stolen its life for yourself
Rather than,
Gifting it life
Yet another way, which many women follow
is to slowly scramble your way by single
Smoke lonely cigarettes in disheveled bedrooms
write a line or two to dream ...
Or, just dream ...
Morning, noon and night.
yes...
there are many ways to survive.