Walk Alone

Lost you

2008-09-13T11:43:00.002+05:30

Lost you, that rain splashed night
Turned back, a painlashed sight
Dragged out, with all my might
Never looked back, to face your fright…

Baby mine, oh baby mine…

Lost your smiles,
Lost your tears.
Lost your tiny little wiles,
It sears…

Baby mine, oh baby mine…

I see your face in crowded ways,
Speeding days,
Or, burning rays.
I see you stepping in delight
Or, screaming in true, deep fright.
Day and night, oh, day and night

Baby mine, oh baby mine…

These songs of mine
These strings of pain
This searing flesh
This blinding rush
They see you now
They know you somehow.

Baby mine, oh baby mine…

Searing Your Way

2008-06-07T13:53:00.008+05:30

You have grown into my skin
Seared your way through tears
Songs, words, looks.
When you lived with me
You just meant a skin-deep touch
Now, you mean, a livid pain.
As memory.
Which cannot be ignored.

You have stalked your way
Into my existence.
And, remain there,
To stay.

Suicide

2008-05-01T12:59:00.003+05:30

End the day
With remembrances of things past
For these memories of hurt and longing,
Clinging and stifled screams
Will never be remembered again.
Remember also those quite evenings of loneliness
When the splashed colours of the sky
Emptied itself into an orgasmic end
And then settled into ash brown solitary evenings.
Also remember
The small and irritating
Voice within you
Always unsettled, worried
Ready to fly…but, never able.
End the day...
Like this…

A Poem

2008-05-01T11:23:00.007+05:30

I wanted to write a poem
On wildness today.

Yet, I find penning the reasons
Why I am bound.
I tied myself up for you
My friend and enemy
I tied myself up for you…
I tied up thinking
You will like me better.
I tied up thinking
The hatred in your eyes would wane.
I tied up thinking,
Oh, I am tired…
Tired of wildness, tired of myself.
Tied of the threat I seemed to always pose
For you…

Now when I untie myself..
Again for you
I see your face.
Mocking me, playing with me,
Never, loving me…

Separation

2007-12-22T10:50:00.001+05:30

Our love was shaped
Like the marriage ring
Grown into our skins
Tight...hurting.
We wrench it out
And gaze at the
Hidden skin.
Exposed to light
After years of secure binding...

Bondage

2007-12-06T16:01:00.003+05:30

His pleasure came in her bondage
The erotic threads which tie her self to him
Giving him absolute control over her passivity
Like a hesitant master, he needed that reassurance
Of a delivered slap, once in a while
Which she had to receive
In the true pose of submission and pleasure.

Braided

2007-07-21T11:36:00.000+05:30

Through thoughts
I have braided
My life with yours.
With your silence
the knot only entangles more.

you can unbraid us now,
Only with those brutal scissors
of coldness...

Flowers

2007-07-14T18:35:00.000+05:30

You sent me flowers
White liles of your solitude,
Tumba flowers of your early childhood
Thorny rose bushes from a wild youth
Blood red shoe flowers of hurt times
You sent me so many flowers
Every day...

Sudden Silences

2007-07-14T18:29:00.000+05:30

Distance hurts
So, we bacame close
At the pace
Of two colliding locomotives
Without breaks.

Now we know
Closeness hurts more.
So, we draw apart
Peeling each other off
Like skins covering burnt flesh.

Shadow

2007-06-05T19:41:00.000+05:30

These days,
A Shadow walks with me,
I smell the faint perfume of its body
When I turn around in an
Everyday crowded bus.
Sometimes, it overpowers me with its presence
When I bend to pick a fallen petal on the roads...
And, it whispers lullabies to me
At midnight, when I switch off the light
And turn back to sleep...

Life

2007-06-05T19:36:00.001+05:30

Today...
A red petal
Blown by the wind
Touched my face
Lightly for a second...
And, was blown away...
Again.

Two Friends

2006-11-18T10:05:00.000+05:30

You were the wild one,
Me, the wall flower.

You had colour,
Me, stability.

You were manipulative,
Me, cold and prudish.

You had razor-sharp honesty,
Me, confusion and patience.

You came from a place
Where birthday parties would be celebrated
With cakes brought on mortgages

Me, from another planet,
Where weak, old hands searched for a single grain
To save and hoard.

Shifting Houses

2006-10-20T19:44:00.000+05:30

It is only when you shift houses
That you know
That your self moved in certain corners there
When you drag old dust filled memories out
To pack or discard
That you know
They existed in those particular nooks and crannies

It is only when you shift houses
That you know
You did own certain corners of that place
Where your things, like your signatures
Were cumulated over years
Leaving dust marks on the floor
When wrenched out.

Floating Through Life

2006-09-24T22:52:00.000+05:30

The evening light spilling over a liquid earth
I float, beetle like
Through a fragile pool of self-taught meditation
Here, the next moment becomes the most important thing,
The next breath, the next step,
So that, i forget what awaits me at night
When i unlock a dark home,
Enter in, to cook a lonely meal
And get into a fitful sleep
Keeping half-awake for that late-night doorbell.

Bubble of Peace

2006-09-24T22:47:00.000+05:30

peace is that fragile bubble,
which you inflate day by painful day
of repeated chores
till it bursts
spilling
hatred, frustrations, dead hope.

Memory of a Past Life

2006-09-17T10:03:00.000+05:30

"Tumhara intezar hain"
Hemant Kumar sings
With his nostalgic voice
The old cassette which you pushed
Onto my willing arms
That day...years ago
Had those whistles of the heart
I heard them again and again
for days and days when you went far away
Bonded slave of your mad imaginations
Those sligtly muffled voices
From the past
now, resurfaces like memory of a past life.

Smelling You

2006-09-15T14:00:00.000+05:30

I keep smelling you
In that old T-shirt
Which you peeled off
And made me wear
That rain-soaked day.

Logbook of Lovelssness

2006-09-14T09:09:00.001+05:30

We each have one
Calculate, add, multiply, enter
How much have I done?
How much have you taken?
We scribble in our minds
Tick each entry with a countercheck
And then, leave it,
Only to take out
And nurse once in a while
From the almirahs of dustfilled relationships.

Conquests of the Mind

2006-09-11T12:14:00.001+05:30

We play games of conquest
We conquer minds
For some short while
We need to fill ourselves within others
Or, else we fear,
We do not exist.

The game includes short scraps of accusations and insights
Left carelessly in another’s mind
But, both understand the absolute planning
that goes into that appearance of nonchalance.

We are afraid
Of emptiness
That fills our mailboxes
That fills our mornings
Our sleepless nights
And our generally meaningless existences
We have to fill it desperately
With thoughts, words, our selves…

What do I Want?

2006-09-11T12:14:00.000+05:30

I am not so sure
Of anything, anymore
What is the kindness that I reserve
For a stifling, clutching hand?
What is the hatred that I feel
For my own insecure mind?
What is this feeling of power
Over the powerless?
And absolute weakness
In the face of empty power?
Why this silence which spreads over my tongue and self
In front of a loved one’s razor sharp hatred?
Why do I reject?
when what I badly need is to give myself up
And forget my existence?
Why do I clutch desperately and humiliatingly
When I can actually stop my tears
With just a small cut of the tattered bonds.

The clash of histories

2006-09-11T12:12:00.000+05:30

The clash of histories
In your deliberate ignoring glances
Where another one has been
Installed with the same gestures
that was reserved for me two days ago
I remain quite, and give up
For, you say that I fear failure.
Well...if one fails, there is no need to fear it anymore
And, I do, precisely that.

yet one more evening

2006-09-10T18:34:00.000+05:30

yet one more evening
where i go out with you
into yet another family
where the woman has shrunk herself
where she and i, both smile
like dead japanese dolls
where men drink wine
and talk politics
where she and i
sometimes take a fag
the only remenent
of our tattered independence!

A Household

2006-09-10T12:21:00.000+05:30

" A household, in fact, with its meticulous and limitless tasks, permits to woman a sadomasochistic flight from herself..."
Simone De Beauvoir (The Second Sex)

Morning Sight

2006-08-25T14:33:00.000+05:30

A small bird
Builds a nest
In the mango tree
Near my balcony...
I sip a glass of morning water
Seeing it carry twig by tiny twig
To weave it's minutes, days, and life.

Learning to live

2006-08-25T14:29:00.000+05:30

Learning to live
Like a baby
slowly walking,
seeing the world
Details,
web of connections,
colours
open up before me,
slowly
So, there is a rhythm
To my days,
my nights,
my wakings,
my exhaustions,
my relievings.

Everyday Life

2006-08-24T22:02:00.000+05:30

Whirling through a dark maze
Of misery and numb silence,
One reaches a small island
of little things, everyday smiles
small deeds like cooking a meal
walking together, sometimes parting ways
without hurtful,abrasive words
Sometimes, finding each other again
unexpectedly, in a turning.

Goodbye

2006-08-15T18:45:00.000+05:30

Packing all my bags of frustration
i move on to my next destination
wrapping years of flooding tears
i have to now leave you, dear
tying up my never ending boxes complaints
i have to build a new nest
brushing up my old, rusted dreams
i am getting up slowly
to rediscover my old ways
where i used to smile and sometime even laugh.

A Dementor’s Kiss

2006-07-31T20:40:00.000+05:30

Fantasy world of children’s words
Where the character which oozes death
Does not kill
But, draws out life
With one single kiss.

A Tranqulizer Named Death

2006-07-31T20:26:00.000+05:30

Time is my eternal tranquilizer
Where, I stand still
And watch life move slowly
In absolute slowness
And has no direction
No purpose to achieve
And…
Where death almost touches me
With its long, idle fingers
And, it does not matter.

Sleepwalking through Life

2006-07-31T20:20:00.000+05:30

Sleep,
Sleep through your youth
Of passive death
Where enemies crash down as expected
And friends hit out, surprising you
Each time with the virulence of attacks
So much so that,
You hardly distinguish between both
And,
Walk through life
Sleepwalking
Alone
Still with death…

Hard, Rocky City

2006-07-29T23:06:00.000+05:30

This deccan city
Is hard, rocky,
She felt she could melt the hard volcanic rocks
With her effusive emotions
But, hit the bottom
With a loud thud
Of rejection.

Poisoned Morning Tea

2006-07-25T09:22:00.000+05:30

The hot cup of brewing tea,
Mixed with daily doses
Of complaints, frustrations
And a small lacing of intense hatred,
"Just a little, yes, Thank You"
And we sip it on the terrace
In cain chairs,
With the breeze
Outside our happy home!

Decision

2006-07-22T21:39:00.000+05:30

I have decieded,
Never to give love,
Then..
I do not complain
To myself,
Of never getting love.

Blanket of Matrimony

2006-07-22T21:35:00.000+05:30

A tussle of egos,
Where I repell
And he clutches,
Both in disgust,
Desparation and misery.

A tight knot of resistance
Which finally loses
And releases itself - numb
While he comes
Tired and sad and alone.
Yet, emptily clutching his
Mark of masculinity,
Of meaningless conquest.

A hurried turning back
Where I face the wall
And he, empty air.
We, united by a common blanket -
marital hate.

Violent Breaking

2006-07-19T08:38:00.000+05:30

The young black boy
Stood waiting in the dark
He watched the rich woman arrive alone
With her white, fleshy arms,
Slightly sagging breasts
And middle-aged flabby body,
He watched her jog
Her breasts moving rhythmically
As she receded
He saw a world moving away from him,
Not noticing him, not aware that he stood there
Pulsating his youth,
Dark upon dark, invisible.
He realized the distance between the two worlds
A touch could perhaps break this brutal world
It could happen... violently.

An Evening

2006-07-19T08:25:00.000+05:30

It was an evening unlike any other...
Her man had gone out for a short spell
She assembled her forgotten women friends
They resurfaced like her vanished youth
with their loud laughters, thoughtless gestures,
Relaxed bodies, irrevarent jokes,
Her baby played with them,
Laughing with them, imitaing them,
Listening to them, sometimes mischeviously
Not listening to them...

Days of Forgetfulness

2006-06-15T10:54:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was the day I forgot...
Yesterday was the death day ...
Of so many things.

Of pretending to be happy in settled love,
Of telling myself that what I need is secure control.
A base from which to grow
little babies and probably vegetables.

Addiction to Fiction

2006-06-12T14:12:00.000+05:30

I devour word after female word,
Written in pages and volumes
Of life stories of my land and far
I see my youth, dreams, songs and tears
In world after world of womens' stories.
I ride these waves
In fear of loneliness
This piece-meal of mental peace
This fragile web of pain and meaning...

Depression

2006-06-10T09:19:00.000+05:30

Life in slow motion
A Black and white picture
Of crowd scenes
You see everyone
You see no one.
The moment before you black out
From numb pain
Of incessant tirades
A procession of blurred faces
A glint of light from
Today's selling face
Peering at you from the latest hoarding
As you walk along
With your heavy baggage
Into your dark train.

Domestic Violence

2006-05-28T10:10:00.000+05:30

Sleeping fairy tale girl,
Enchanted in evil magic,
Passive, closed lids,
Numbed with daily chores
Habitual love,
She awakens for a quick second
only with the whip of an occassional, slapping hand
And then the chant begins anew
Of protestations, endless love,
and blame.
Which lulls her back
To her dutiful sleep.

Divorce

2006-05-04T01:40:00.001+05:30

Since my love was never enough for you
My time was demanded as compensation.

Since my self was always lacking for you
My life was demanded as payment.

Since my life looked out of control
Ropes were bound around homes and hearts.

Now, when I bid adieu,
I am panicking about what to do with my own time

Now when I shut the door behind me
I forget the existence of my own life.

Now, when I learn to walk alone
I see my own feet bound and helpless.

Tonight I am Wrapped in Grey

2006-04-22T12:57:00.000+05:30

Tonight I am wrapped in grey
While flames of desire
Dance around me in flourescent reds.
Colourful processions of passion
March past me - watching grey eyes
'Nice' next-door flower-on-the-wall...
Me...
Tonight, I am wrapped in grey.

A Simple Pair of Scissors

2006-04-17T16:42:00.000+05:30

In the shower in a hot afternoon,
my man busy in his mental world,
which he jealously gaurds from me and others.
me, busy with material life,
both mine and his...
Water, cleaning, bathing...
I realize i need help
I cannot go on alone
I need a pair of simple scissors to cut open the packed secrets of my life
we need to do it together...
To clean me, to wipe me shining, to comeout fresh
I cry out for help...
"I am busy,"
Is a reply i have heard before,
is a reply i will keep on hearing
I drip tears in the wet bathroom
I know that I will never be heard,
I know that i will die without help.

Envy

2006-03-29T16:14:00.000+05:30

I had cursed you...
I had cursed that golden evening light
That fell on your joy of being together.
I had cursed
That look of love that crossed your starry eyes
When he came as a night visitor.

Waiting in the lonely darkness
of the security gaurd's room,
I saw you both drifting past
Unaware of me, unaware of the world,
Unaware of my curse.

Exiled by your joys to my faraway homeland,
I watched the monsoon rains splash
Into my heart,
Searing those open wounds.

I could see the distant earthquake
rock my little world with
just a single kiss he planted
On your waiting lips.

Can I say "sorry" now?
Now, when the world has changed?
Now, when the dust has settled over the quake-hit town
and fresh blood has flown
Through the same old cities?

Can I wipe away
the curse that issued
From my parched lips of yesterday?
Does it matter now?

Instead of comment on a peice called "Envy"

It was true and beautiful like the nature itself
I might have guessed: it was not forever,
But I could not resist loving that beauty
You know he was too beautiful to be unloved.
Didn’t he say ‘love you till eternity’…?

You taught me not to be scared of passion,
I recall I score the highest in exam?
And more…I threatened others becoming one!
You know I was giddy with love
of yours, of his, of the whole world…
It pour on me like the same monsoon rains splash?
From the moment I stepped into your door…
Didn’t it?

It was later, when
I saw your tired eyes, I did.
I even read your curse through the door, you wouldn’t open,
but never disappointment.
I felt something was wrong, but never thought.
You know, drunk that I was, with a blind love
for a man… it didn’t let me to...
“It” doesn’t let you be sober most of the time
Does it?

But I always felt: whatever happens,
You will not stop loving me.
- A confidence resembling a belief in parental love.
You knew I fell asleep with your notes on my hand,
- Pink, sometimes yellow scraps of paper stuck on my door
Didn’t you?

Than,
You left, he did too, than, I had to.
A long-time healing wound …
with shape of a triangle remained.
Didn’t it?

My dear scar...
Carved by hands of an old experienced surgeon
which teaches a world, crashing another one.

Game

2006-03-29T16:09:00.000+05:30

we are playing games right now
Do you need me more? do i need you more?
we both know...
it is a game that we play.

you think, you win...
when you keep away
And, don't hurt yourselves.
and,i admit, i lose.

i think,i win.
when i delete you from my contacts
and, stop waiting for you calls.
and, i see you admitting my vicitory.

but, darling...
we both lose anyway.
as a hurt singer sang, long ago...
the match was fixed...

Hide and Seek

2006-03-29T16:05:00.000+05:30

he rings the bell...and hides,
to see my fear mingled with surprise.
testing whether i can take his sudden surprises in my life
whether he can knock my door and leave without a trace
and, i can take his disappearance well...
or, whether i can bear his sudden closeness.

A Parting of Sorts

2006-03-29T16:01:00.000+05:30

We parted ways,
In quite a dramatic way.
to hide the drama
He just walked away.
I had my backed turned,
As casual as possible.
As if it is an everyday parting.
Or, ours was only a casual meeting.
"Nice to meet you" was uttered
Even more casually.
And, no reply was given!

Signs of Love

2006-03-29T15:57:00.000+05:30

When in love,
you start looking for signs
to see your loved one,
Who is absent...
your brain becomes so active
in scanning for footsteps left unawares
a perfume which only you and he knows
an innocently parked vehicle
a complex telephone number which you byheart in no time

When in love...
you are always getting premonintions
An engaged telephone
Sends you the shivers...
that it will not work out
A locked door will mean that you are locked out of a life.
one single, cold look could mean death itself.

Diellema

2006-03-29T15:50:00.000+05:30

"I want to be close to you." He said.
We both had traversed,
the difficult distances,
of unscalable mountains in no time.
We had swum
Through dangerous oceans
Without drowning
Me from one end, he from the other -
We both wanted more and more and more
Closeness.
But then
We encountered the glass wall
And realized we could either go forward...
For that we had to break something -
Break the fragile glass between us violently
And pretend to come together in the blood of our mutual passion.
Or else...turn back and leave...
Softly, closing the door behind.

Secret Love in Public Places

2006-03-29T15:28:00.000+05:30

He had a naughty wink
Like sharing a secret with me
Like bonding with me, without letting the world know
A smile which I had never noticed before.
A light touch when I passed the glass to him...

Homosapiens

2006-03-27T11:57:00.000+05:30

We had climbed up the hill.
Eager travellers, lovers.
Gazed at the sparkling city
Above and below.
Thought we were gods
Strayed into this world,
Darling, remember
It was night
And we couln't see each other clearly
It was a moonlight night
Of wonders and surprises
Yes, we actually drank deep from a mirage
But, never quenched our thirst.

It is bright sunlight now
And we are back in our lonely rooms
Enclosed four walls
Which reeks of human sweat and craving
Desparate clutchings which never yield

After all we are just animals
Biological name -
Homosapiens.

Veins of a Grass Flower

2006-03-27T11:56:00.000+05:30

She walks with windy steps
Collecting all the colour around her.
She steps by to see
The tiny veins of the one-petal lotus,
Which we trample along,
Laughing loudly at her unceasing witticisms,
Dark, pathetic and rich with sorrow
Yet strangely amusing
That we laugh till our sides ache
And love her still more for it.

To My Grandmother

2006-03-27T11:55:00.000+05:30

I go down to sleep with grandmother
Frail with age, a web of wrinkles
I can't bear to think of old age sleeping alone,
Compainonless.
And, she can't bear to think of my lusty youth sleeping alone,
Companionless.
I go and hold her matchstick hands
Which feebly encircle me
I hold on to time,
Feeling the sea snatching the sand under our feet.

Saint John

2006-03-24T12:17:00.001+05:30

Magic light hour in the hills,
People, tiny and sluggish,
But suddenly bathed in generous, gold light,
Your dark face bronzed by the setting sun,
Your hair,flowing like a river
Eyes, fastened to the dying god's face
Our moment of togetherness...
Only we existed, only we...
The grand performance ,
Luxury and splendour of a whole universe
Unfurled for just two measly souls
Tired, bruised, still laughing hard desparately,
Like a peasant in a king's party
Trying hard to hide the tear in her clothes
But,
Breaking the moment, yet capturing it
With one swift blow,
You pointed to the setting sun and said:
'That bastard is in full form today.'

Death of Pain

2006-03-24T12:17:00.000+05:30

She was the proud mother
Like the hard tree
Suddenly surprised,
Overwhelmed
By the appearance of tender leaves
All over itself,
She was swept off her feet
By the new birth.

She cuddled the baby
Held it close to her
She had felt it pulsating
Growing inside her,
Filling her whole being
With nothing else
But itself,
Smothering her,
Rending her apart,
Tearing her flesh into shreds,
Anointing her with pure, sacred blood.

She clutched at it,
Esctatic in her agony,
Proud of her pain.
She clung to it,
Adamantly believing in past springs
When she could no longer do so in winter.
She held onto the dead body,
Carrying it proudly
Waving it like a flag,
Loud advertisment of pain.

But the dead body shrivelled,
Decayed,
Changed its chemistry of appearances
From greenness to emptiness,
And one day,
She realized the death of pain as well.
Shattered,
Leaving the ashes,
She emerged,
With a bowed head,

Humble.

End of Love

2006-03-24T12:16:00.000+05:30

We filled our silences
With words-
The weather, other people,
War and the woman who came to beg.
We filled our words
With silences.
That rattling silence
About the pain of laughing
Being normal and easy
When lips were twitching
Hands shaking
And memories,
Flashing,flashing, weighing

We were very clever dear,
No one else would guess
That we had a festering wound
That had bloodied our words
They were so nice and smooth,
Elegant as polished china
Holding cooked meat.

Meticulously we kept out
The hungry beast aside,
Temptation to just flash
A sharp, hurting word at the other.
To drive it into the soft flesh,
Just a little,
And feel the thrill of yielding flesh,
And then give way to it
And then drive deeper and deeper,
Till we both cried together,
In sheer esctacy of
Binding pain, drawn blood,

But no...
We kept off.
We parted,
With curt goodbyes
Like perfect strangers parting
Cordially,
With just a twitch of a lip corner
Which only you and I would notice.

Futile Waiting

2006-03-24T12:15:00.001+05:30

The sound of boots
On the polished floor
Trampling on a lonely girl's
Beating heart
Into flutters of excitement
Approaching, receding
And then...

Dying.

Intimately Desparate

2006-03-24T12:15:00.000+05:30

Time stands unruffled
In my cloisterd room
Into this still pond
You enter, stealthily,
Touch, as cold as an icepiece,
Distant, yet all encompassing
Your face, a mask of unknown feelings
Yet, we touch intimately...

Almost like lovers!

Touch, Skin-Deep

2006-03-24T12:14:00.000+05:30

A touch is
Written desire
Desire of loneliness
Crying out like
A wild animal caged
Desire of the ancient forests
And their great fires
Desire to know this
Mystery universe
Through another's lonely desire.
A touch, my darling,
Is precious.

But,
After all
A touch is one skin contacting another.
It is skin-deep,as they say,
The waves of friction
When skin swims on skin.
it desires nothing but forgetting.

For a Friend

2006-03-24T12:13:00.000+05:30

Your one-petal lotus
Hidden in ordinary grass.
Should I thank you, dear
For pointing to my steps
Trampling tiny veins of soft pink?

Adolecent Refusing Fantasy

2006-03-24T12:12:00.000+05:30

I don't need you tonight
Familiar matinee idol
To spring suddenly to life
From a two-dimensional glossy poster
And press yourselves into
My sterile dreams
To rake it up,stir its muddy depths
And then put me to a drugged sleep.
No, tonight let me be fully awake.
And listen to the roar of the great wind outside.
My small closed room
Where life stands still
like stagnant water.

Don Juan Speaks to Woman

2006-03-24T12:11:00.000+05:30

It was years ago
That I lost my name.

Caught in the midst of mad, young lust
A mere child, a weakling
Their little brother.
The garage door which slammed before me
Along with all the roads my young, male body would have taken.
The humiliation of rape on a frail, young body.

'Woman, you and me are one.' speaks a crushed boy mind
Fear, blood, gasps for a little air
Penetrating erections of sharp, male lusts.
I want air, clean, clean,clean...

Woman, I clutch you, I cling to you, then gasp,puke,
Vomit, vomit, vomit...
Then I leave you
For another clutching, another clinging,
another gasping, another puking.
'Woman.' I cry.'I don't want to be you.'

Yes, now i have a name,
A neat name.

'Thankyou'

2006-03-24T10:47:00.000+05:30

You thanked her
For a night of unexpected love.
'Thanks' for what?
For being a 'sister of mercy?'
Who opened up at the first knock
Unfurled her full body
To your lust
Generously showered her passion on you
And stopped caressing you
when you were spent on her?
Dear wanderer, beggar?
'Thanks' for all that?

Love or Lust?

2006-03-24T10:46:00.000+05:30

Wild before us
Rose the magic land
Of mystery and body.
Maenads rose out of water
Covered in seaweeds
Fragrance of slimy earth
And fertile sea beds,
Murmurs from closed rooms
Of frustrated women
Vanish like wiped out alphabets
The earth becomes
A shower of gems in the moonlight
Glitter, sparkle, fragrance, music and silence...
Perhaps dear...
I did know lust!

Devastated

2006-03-24T10:45:00.000+05:30

Experienced man,
I am a proud woman,
I will not show that
I am defeated.
I will march with flags
Of victory.
Fluttering displays of
Detachment, Forgetting,
Exuding pure pleasure.
Never turning back
Marching like other proud women.
But dear...
i am vanquished, defeated, crawling,
I only have a flag of
Useless detachment
I am helpless and crying
Like a child.

In Hate with Goodbyes

2006-02-28T18:45:00.000+05:30

Written by a friend who shared her love for Saqi with me in those days of playfulness and pain...)

Oh Saqi, I need your assistance tonight,
Filled with sorrow, my heart needs your jug by its side
You should save me, if grief tries to hold me too tight
Oh Saqi, I need your assistance tonight.

Oh Saqi, you were there to share my joy,
You were there when I had to dance off the night
You had taught me that laughter belongs to the right
So Saqi, I need your assistance tonight

Oh Saqi, you were there to share my fear
You were there when I learnt running a kite
You helped me to trim off the fear and fight
But Saqi, I need your assistance tonight

Oh Saqi, will you help me to get through the storm?
Are you here? Think we can sail on with no sight?
Please make sure the jug is full through the night!
I better sink in it, and rather drop out of sight
So Saqi… I need your assistance tonight!

My Reply to her

Darling…
Let me hold you tight…
For…
Today your cup overflows,
Not with wine, but with tears.
There is only one rule in this game, my love
Hold on tight
To your cup
Drink deeply whatever it holds
Then…
Wine tastes like tears
And tears like wine.

Love and Equality

2006-02-28T18:20:00.000+05:30

She did not love him.
Yet, her sorrow was making her cling to him.
To keep him from leaving her to face her deep loneliness
She was uncovering her womanliness
Dazzling him for a quick second
Catching him like a prey.
Knowing full well the futility of playing woman
She was still performing that old story.

Yet for him...
She was drawn to him
Like a moth into a flame.
He remained, the powerful watcher
The male animal
Who waits, watches and then pounces...
At that moment
A record of all his conquests
Would replay in his mind
Giving him an empty feeling of power
While...
It would make her feel drained and suicidal.

After the night of empty conquest
Both returned to their respective loneliness
He to the silence of his power
She, to the silence of her humiliation.

Yet...they both pretended
They were equals in an unequal world

Families

2006-02-28T18:19:00.000+05:30

Families are places
where words spill out
like old, festering wounds
they reek out centuries of vomit, spit, semen
And…of course…Blood.

Rejection

2006-02-25T01:52:00.000+05:30

Years ago,
Her youth loved his vast, expansive maleness
Which had roamed the world
Known it, tasted it, and retained it
In his lilting walk, and blazing eyes.

Today,
She was experienced
With many sorrows
That had sedimented over
His rejection of her
That happened
Years ago.

When ever he saw her
He relived his youth
Its foolish and brash power
To reject.

That moment,
of absolute power,
of rejection and abandonment,
Would replay in his mind
For years and years...

She became a mythical figure in his mind

For...he knew he was being cowardly
He knew he could not take her,
Her sharp gaze and her sharper tongue
Which was fragile in front of him now
But, which could turn to hit him hard...

Thus...he had taken the power which he did not feel
To return her gift of herself.

The Laughing Woman

2006-01-25T14:17:00.000+05:30

Her laughter was loud.
Like a man’s laughter…
Her mother had always told her
“Women never laugh loudly.”
People used to turn away embarrassed
They pretended she did not exist…
For, her loud guffaw would reverberate in their closed rooms
where good women moved quietly
Weighed by gold ornaments
And absolute obedience…
But…
She only laughed more.
For herself, and for them…

She started laughing
To hide herself.
To pretend a confidence that she did not quite feel
To tell the world she did not care.
In a world where she met other laughing women like her
She felt the suspicion finally…
That she was accepted
With her guffaws and loud entries.

Yet…
She knew deep within.
That, it was not a pure laughter
Her irony was the cloth that she clutched
To cover her naked desperation.
Her guffaws were only there
To hide her sentimental tears…
She had inherited the fine art of convoluted speech
From the dark side of her suicidal family
Where...
A smile meant revenge
A tear, victory!

Home

2006-01-25T13:36:00.000+05:30

A music strip
Binds the brother and the sister…
Through an alley of their common language
Of childhood tunes and forgotten memories…
Where, you wandered
Thinking you were alone…
But, discovered each other
Just before you turned
To finally reach home
Together…

Mortality through Text Message

2006-01-25T12:32:00.001+05:30

The text message which flickers late at night
Waking me into a dazed world of alphabets.

It was him…
The untold words between us
Flood the short message
Peeping through the tiny window of the cell-phone

His words are all about his lover
Whom I have never met…
The imminent death which waits the corner
For all of us…but, for her, now.

I let the insistence of his message
Rest for the night.
Not wanting to hear the need behind it
Not knowing what to do if I hear it.

Working Women

2006-01-21T11:40:00.000+05:30

The Whore and the hijra
They shared a seat
In the early morning bus.
Going back after a night of tired work.

They were both speaking animatedly.
Friends meeting after so long,
Grabbing, savouring that moment of respite
After the labour of the night.

The Hijra wore cheap gold-plated ornaments
They dangled against her glistening, black skin.
The whore looked dishevelled.
She was not more than twenty.

They must both have blotted out from memory
That previous night of desparate gropings
Where time sucked rhythmically
Their youth away.

That night...
Like any other night...
Of sweat, labour, police whistles
And hard-earned coins.

Male Autobiography

2006-01-18T10:27:00.000+05:30

The woman in his life
Appeared before him
With her spread out legs
And cavernous black hole
Trying to fill her interminable vacuum
With his sprouting seeds.
Stifling, smothering…like water around him.
He would surface once in while at stag-parties
For that breathe of fresh air
But, like a water animal
Would soon crawl back home.

Once the young ones started coming
He felt strangely relieved and relinquished.
For the first time
He understood the emptiness that she felt till then.

With no one now smothering him
He tries to sleep alone.

Being a Teacher

2006-01-17T14:50:00.000+05:30

The everyday hostile mob
Hateful looks, sneering laughter,
Questions which do not demand answers
But are asked only for approval from behind
Displays of pride and arrogance
Where wealth and its words articulates...

Peace, Hard-Earned

2006-01-16T09:03:00.000+05:30

The light winter sun
Filtering through an early morning window.
A lover bidding a reluctant farewell
A piece of hard-earned peace!

The Body Remembers

2006-01-12T10:35:00.000+05:30

The body has ways of remembering.

While massaging oil into your scalp today,
That careless knock on the head
When you bent down yesterday
Resurfaces again,
Surprising you with the memory of a wound long forgotten.

Wiped out by daily life and nagging chores,
The endless cigerettes of loneliness and pain
That you lit long ago,
Breaks into cancerous nodes inside your tongue today
Surprising you with its ferocity in keeping your past.

Comicstrips and Peotry Writing

2005-12-25T16:42:00.000+05:30

The ten year old girl
Used to hide in the ancient attic
Where sunlight used to filter in
Through the single glass tile on the roof
Creating a square patch of slanted light.

Bending in the strip of filtered light
She used to devour volumes of comic strips
Mandrake the Magician and Phantom, the ghost who walks
Passed through her universe of absolute solitude
Undisturbed by screams and shouts from the world below
Where relatives arrived as hordes of judgmental comments
Where her mother’s endless demands
Were finally reduced to her being shown off for a single moment before them
And then withdrawn with embarrassed laughter
But, the cruel looks would by then judge her to be deviant
Some of them even squeezed in one or two disparaging comments.

At thirty five
She came home again.
To confront her tired parents
And still-thriving relatives.

Like before, she still escapes through words...

Numb

2005-12-23T21:18:00.000+05:30

First came sorrow
In uncontrollable gushes of tears
Which soaked her lonely pillows.

When she realized
That tears were worthless
Not even worthy of a second glance or a forgeteful hug
They stopped.

Then came anger...
It burst out like a long sleeping volcano
Jolting her with its violence and force
After the flames and the lava drained out
Destroying whole nations in its wake
The embers settled and the ashes covered the floors...

Then came numb silence
Which she had seen, feared and avoided
In both sorrow and anger...
It finally came...

A Glimpse in the Morning

2005-10-26T09:28:00.000+05:30

The open window
Behind it
The silent man.
A glimpse of a woman
which takes him
Into the morning of work, books, libraries...

Blanket of Words

2005-10-14T10:48:00.000+05:30

I weave a blanket of words,
Under which I shiver in desparate nakedness.

Growing up to be a Woman (Savarna)

2005-09-30T10:24:00.000+05:30

I remember the early years of my childhood.
it was so difficult to convince others that you are an individual
you are a citizen with rights
which includes the right to privacy.
your letters are "your" letters
they cannot be opened and read and commented on by everyone
your time is "your" time
it cannot be pried open and demanded for public display.
i remember the days and months and years it took
for my family to just leave me alone.

by then, i had read feminism.
i had understood
it was really difficult for a woman to be an individual
and
being a person with rights? - a citizen?
impossible!
by then, i had a name to call myself...

a woman in patriarchy.

then...
after years of discovering women's friendships and the cracks within them...
After years of silence and madly running away from all that i had learnt.
trying hard to unlearn them...
after discovering that my freedom could be other women's rejections
my space could mean threatening for other silent women...

I ran into the arms of my father's waiting home
Where kithen utensils were to be cleaned endlessly
Where the time you spend in folding a soiled sheet used by another person
Is time spent, unacknowledged.
Where, I learnt to enjoy cooking different recipes
Though it was hardly noticed before being consumed.
Where, I became more accountable than my earlier self
Where some time spent with a long-lost woman friend
Came to be entered in the ledger-book of liabilities
That you had to pay off by days of silence and nights of lonely tears.

I realize...
i am facing the same situation
That i used to face as a child...
All families are alike...
Yet...
I had escaped apparently once...

the painful years when i spent in utter loneliness
in a women's hostel in a far away city
were also exhilarating years of freedom and exploration.

now...freedom is a word of disrepute
my freedom means his hurt and humiliation.
my rights mean his utter degradation!

but,
wasnt it the same for my father? my brother? even my mother and grandmother?
they left me because
finally, i was a woman.
someone who will go away.
as long as i don't express freedom (which was loose sexuality, for everyone!)
under their noses
their tattered respectablities would be intact.
and, i left them!
i cut off from the everyday negotiations that were necessary by simply walking out.

I think I will have to walk out yet again...
this time i am not saving his respectablity...
in fact, i can do that only by being bound.

but...
I knew what I was saving before...
my self...
Now...
In my shameful confusions and cowardices of middle age,

I am not so sure.

End of the Honeymoon

2005-09-30T10:13:00.000+05:30

Only in moments like this
Did her life become clear to her.
censoring ...
her gazes,
her words,
her laughter,
her movement,
her thought,
her "self"
Covering her body...
Covering her mind...
so that others finally understood her
As an insipid, dead person.

Life and Writing

2005-09-30T10:10:00.000+05:30

"Life itself has never been enough. It became real for me when I fashioned it into stories."
Murasaki a character in Lisa Dalby's The Tale of Murasaki"

A Quarell

2005-09-10T15:21:00.000+05:30

We had a quarrel…
About the fragrance on the way
To my room
He said they were guava flowers
I was positive they were the heady smell of the pink and white flowers
Which lacks a name in this foreign tongue.
Finally…
We both turned out right
We saw the guava trellising the creeper of the pink and white flowers…

New Habit

2005-09-10T10:05:00.000+05:30

We had finally understood
That we will go on like this
Without talk, without love,without tears
And more frighteningly...
Without hatred too!

Yet,
I have developed this new habit of late,
I weep incessantly...
Loudly, embarassingly, crudely
When I read any cheap romance of grand passion
Picked up from the roadside.

Peace

2005-09-10T10:01:00.000+05:30

We have finally found peace,
The peace which settles on a loveless marraige.
The peace which understands
That our lives will always run parallel.
The peace when the eye still fills with tears
Yet, one takes care to wipe it out fast.
The peace when one is awake alone
And composes her tiredness
in interminable poems.

Marriage

2005-09-10T09:59:00.000+05:30

Resounding silence of a tired relationship
Surrounds me in lonely, married evenings.

Time for Myself

2005-09-10T09:56:00.000+05:30

This ten minute gap between two rushed buses
Spent in a strange, untended park
Filled with middle-aged morning exercisers
And beedi-smoking homeless young men
of this vast, lonely city.

Marital Rape

2005-09-10T09:52:00.000+05:30

My past was pried open violently,
Petals of an unopened bud
By insecure male hands
which tore out long hidden memories
in gushes of disgust mixed with relief
in that night of separation and togetherness.

Madly Reading

2005-06-23T19:10:00.000+05:30

I devour words of others
because
i cannot create them anymore!

I have tied my mouth shut
for morsals of doubtful love.

Life's Gifts by Olive Schreiner

2005-05-29T14:43:00.000+05:30

Life's Gifts

I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift--in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!"

And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!"

And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."

I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.
by Olive Schreiner

A Child is Born

2005-05-29T14:42:00.000+05:30

Are children ever born in love?
Or, are they products of adult confusions?
Decisions to create children...
Are they taken in mutual understanding?
Or, mutual desparation?
Tied to "family responsibilities."

Powercut in Hyderabad

2005-05-29T14:38:00.000+05:30

It is a powercut
In the summer-blazing evening of a deccan city.
A woman weeps in the corner of a dark, lonely home
Where doors have slammed shut on her face
Where a useless fan hangs from the cieling
And days crawl past, dragging her youth along

The First Showers of Summer

2005-05-24T13:19:00.000+05:30

The night of the full moon...
We saw the abyss into which we both had drifted...
Me...Away from your stifling and secure arms
You...into a private world of grief and illness.

We could never come back together
Lying in the steaming heat of a Hyderabad summer
Midnight birds, the only company in a strange land
We both came together in a shower of tears and embraces
Where forgotten secrets of the past
Were dug up and displayed
To quell the doubts of today.

After stifling us for hours with the crippling heat
Suddenly the night decieded to change colours.
The full moon shone from the early morning trees
Which we saw between silhoutes of branches and cigerette smoke
The wind was passionate and all embracing
It rocked the leaves and pulled the trees in its pent up fury...
And we both watched a new dawn and the first showers of summer
In each other's arms...

That Evening in Cantonment

2005-05-24T11:56:00.002+05:30

We entered the magic land
Aware of our outsider-status...
We were entering the gates where we should not be...
Me, a settled woman,
You, a young exploring man.

We cycled through the setting sun,
Aware of only ourselves.
We walked into the deer park
Our hands clutching at each others selves,
Desparately, beautifully.

We knew that this would be our only evening together
The darkness which came into us
Enveloped us with a motherly blanket
Of forgetfulness and sweet sin...
It dragged us into the land of dark woods and frustrated passions...
Of guilty minds and clutching hands....

We watched the setting sun together
On top of small hillock
Which we both climbed with bated breath
That evening in the cantonment.

A Broken Relationship

2005-05-24T11:55:00.000+05:30

What is a broken relationship?
To you, it is a break of trust.
To me,it is a broken space.
For you, my time with my self…is an assault on you
For me, it is a fragile moment which requires looking after…

These Words are All I Have…

2005-05-24T11:53:00.000+05:30

These words are all I have…
These words are all I clutch…
There is a spot in this wide, wide web
Where I pen my life into words…
Where I shirk myself to fit the world
Where I survive, in spite of repeated attacks
Of ignoring or humiliations…
This spot…these words…

What Happens in a Divided Mind?

2005-05-24T11:43:00.000+05:30

What happens in a divided mind?
Any touch reminds you of what you miss.
Your mind becomes a parallel processing machine.
A walk in the starlit night with your man
Who supposedly shares your life
Ends in uncomfortable silence after you
Both have exhausted the roll count of
Vegetables in the fridge.
Yet, you remember what could have been!
That you both could have just looked into the open sky
And seen the single star blazing down upon you.
This is what happens in a divided mind.

Major Decisions in Life

2005-05-02T13:27:00.000+05:30

Major decisions in life
Are taken in lonely restaurant tables.
To give up identities...
To submit for life.
Because, he understands
Love only as submission.
To give up the flighty mind...
So fragile, so precious...maybe slightly mad,
To bear down with responsibilites...
Of adulthood and womanhood.