A pulse is writhing. It hollows from inside, and reaches the darkness outside. It boils on my skin, spurting blood in the air; infecting the night. Corruption throbs and spills from my guts. More, more, and still more. The guilt fascinates me. It encloses me into its familiar comfort. Jump, run, fall. Do something. Pouring idle thoughts on crutches of leisure is a consuming hobby. Once you're addicted, you can't stand up. Is it a tragedy to not belong anywhere?
I could have been your shiver,
could have been your luck,
I could have been the signpost,
on the highway to your home.
I could have been the sugar,
in your morning tea,
I could have been the sun,
in your yard growing trees.
I could have been the bubblegum,
sitting on your tongue,
I could have been the sweater,
that you never wore.
I could have been the music,
that plays across your street,
I could have been the dew,
could have been it true.
I could have been a stranger,
could have been a face,
I could have been something,
anything but this.
This pavement,
this grime,
mate in wild agonies,
to ferment hope.
These people,
their sweat.
For infinite asphalt,
some lives are meant.
These insomnic lights,
this snarling tide.
These naked rocks don't stand a chance,
they crumble and fall, in the helpless night.
This deceiving moon,
this black sky swallows.
The lonely star,
glooms at the horizon's dark shadows.
This pagan spleen,
tethers on a melting rope.
Of daisies and fairies,
that love once spoke.
Time will move,
and I will be damned.
But this sand, this wetness, this eternal struggle,
will remain a legacy of the land.
She.
Moans like a girl,
Moves like a lady,
broods like a saint,
but breaks like a woman.
She looks away,
and I stare.
I smile,
and she knows.
I think,
but she says,
I listen,
and she has her way.
She breathes,
I stay awake.
The ink flows,
and the dawn breaks.
It's an open sea,
and the quest for a sign.
She'd light a candle,
but there's too much moonlight in our eyes.
We wait for something,
to happen astray,
but don't we forget,
tomorrow comes today.
Jack has a gun.
He shot himself everyday.
woe, irony and loss in his barrel.
He has a quick hand.
He is still a boy,
has delusions of romantic grief.
He does have other thoughts,
in the grander scheme of things.
He can' be beaten on his day,
he is a showman,
he pulls out the gun,
and shoots the world down.
His smile has the razor's edge.
He jumps out the window,
lands square on his cigarette.
Tips his hat for those who love him,
and rides his horse to the sun in the distance.
Today is different,
he will always be a boy,
His grin meanwhile,
is here to stay.
And then,
you find,
what you want,
in front of you.
And that grisly hollowness approaches,
for the first time,
Loss is at hand.
Respect,
is lost.
Love,
never meant for me.
Who is in my thoughts,
prefers another,
I never knew what that meant.
Now, devil; leave the others,
take me with you.
I am a vessel,
of sorrow,
I am taken along,
but given nothing in return.
What is mine,
I cannot own,
the paths are crossed,
for a brief journey of lost hope.
The tears,
that trickled for me once,
are not mine anymore.
Where there should be envy,
is a raging calm.
I dreamed of a ride,
where everything would be left behind,
I dreamt alone.
I lived it alone.
Now, I must lose the dream alone.
And the night is over,
there is no sound,
no bells chiming,
no skipping heartbeats.
The breeze is dry,
I leave behind,
Fading footsteps,
and a sense of loss.
And this world will end,
this muck,
hopes, dashed.
failures, smile.
Despair never ends.
This quicksand earth,
these heightened ambitions,
I am not a man,
I was never man enough,
To deal with triumph.
You people,
leave a corpse be,
you've played with my dreams,
you've demanded more than I am,
I'm already dead.
And you,
who showed me what never was,
you'll leave me,
and join your promised land,
But before you do,
Give me a gun,
and I'll shoot what's left of my paradise.
I should've never been here,
I should've never dreamed,
I should've burned my world,
before it gave me a reason to be.
Rebel, of poems,
Castrated, of my half a life.
I prance around, with delusions of sophistication,
Impotent a man, with no purpose to be.
I'll shine a light,
on my silence,
I'll revisit my weakness,
sit on the floor,
and do nothing.
Work escapes me,
responsibilities avoid me,
pain mocks me,
I chase a rainbow,
made of dirt, blood and slime.
I came alone,
I tread alone,
This world will end,
Sail on sailor,
Defeat awaits on the shore.
Well, this is new.
I had hitched my hopes, dreams, and the promises of a new life to this city. And the city was good. Good to me. It gave me an escape – A refuge to my desire to run away from home and to truly belong somewhere. A place that would shield my past from me, and all the feelings of disappointment and awkwardness the thought of that erst-life brought to me.
And it gave me an opportunity. To leave the burdens of boyhood and craft an identity in the city that doesn't care who you were before you begun here.
Accomplishments came. They reaffirmed my belief that future holds good in this place, in this vacuum strained with people lumping their collective dreams on their personal fairylands.
But it took something from me. My innocence. And in the deal with the devilcity, I was promised a faith that instructs you to cheat your past to rightly claim the future.
Quoting a Coldplay lyric –
“Oh! Did you want me to change?
Well I changed for good
I want you to know that you'll always get your way”
This city does want you to change. And it does always gets its way. It'll make you what you never were, and what you always wanted to be.
But you misread perspective for permanence.
Because all this city was, was just perspective. It looses its reins on me, with every passing minute. The colonial buildings, the hypnotic sea, the utopian window thronged with endless life, are all losing their meaning and their imagined beauty. And so, this is just another city; another haven for lost souls who imagine they don't belong anywhere else.
It will show you the impossible, it will let you smell it, and when it feels generous, it'll let you taste it. But soon enough, you'll know that it can never be, and it'll all be taken away from you before you let a breath-full of the counterfeit paradise in and suck you dry of you.
This is me being thankless. Again. Once, for the city that made me. Twice, for the city that kept me.
Fuck it. I'll go and get a job. Or, the cure for random sadness – booze, smokes, and company.
Maybe.
I know
this stillness
will ripple and flow
Maybe.
The cooler shades
of the greener mistakes
will make a wonderful life
and no regrets
Maybe.
I'll never know
if you leave with me
and take the ride
Maybe.
The next life
The next moor
The next dive
What if,
it never is.
Maybe.
The wait is a road
of daisies, hovels, and mushrooms
that whisper a tender gloom
in songs of the virgin, guiltless, unrequited moon.
And the glass broke,
No ‘you look pretty'.
And no ‘I love you’ from the heart.
And no bike ride that would last.
To feel the shifting of gears,
And that tinge of masculinity it exuded;
The orange road and the crisscrossing ways
And those broad shoulders to kneel on.
When the uncertainty of night became a bike ride.
Did my breast feel safe behind that back?
Blurred trees, shadows, changing forms;
Where there was nothing to hold on but an old jeans.
The stars above were a witness,
To the engine’s old song.
The Bike ride ends and I get down.
My face still cold from the wind,
Sweet memories and kisses made the day.
I didn’t know I would never ride again.
Because the black beauty is dead now.
And so is that life.
And the desire to want that false world,
Comes back to me again and again.
And I cry and cry.
And a bike rides on.
Their eyes sparkle with deliberation,
when they feign attention.
Their brow tips with hope,
when they reaffirm their strife.
in them,
A throng of wanton conflicts
And wonderment is left morose.
They wish,
you would know what they seek.
Belief ends,
where they see.
They know,
what you meant.
But what you did,
they felt.
Stone them,
and they evade shelter.
Then you think they need you,
fetid paradox, you are their broken.
noble women.
trouble is you.
Of all the little flights we take to create our lives – that first leap of faith in the water, that first ride behind the wheel, that first journey alone – the greatest is that one takes takes us away from home. We leave a dream, to live another.
Few revelations are more fulfilling than to stand in the open, feel the fresh freedom air, and proclaim the call to stand unguarded, to feel unhinged to what we've left behind.
To sew our own shelter, to forge our own sustenance, and to search for a purpose in the unforeseen tides of eventuality, makes us as strong as our fragility allows us to be.
To build a palace of our own, unlimited desires is the only evolution to be had from our distant but close, ship of childhood springtimes swiveling in the sea of our characters.
This is the time, this is the place – youth – to swim in the unbound possibilities of what we can make of ourselves, and that what is to come of us.
In time; some reach what they've aspired, and some keep gnashing with the universe to wrest what is rightfully theirs. But in time, all have a home, a life, that they've built as a homage to the one that was given to them.
And with every duality, comes a dilemma. Of choice. Of choosing one over the other. To anchor the palace, or to return to the ship.
There is no right choice though, there are only paths. Some find peace in their crafted strongholds; and some others realize what they've built, is just a nature's test to make them worthy of their origin.
I just know this. Where the heart is, is where the home will be.
Rest all, is the journey. To be lived, and felt, with no fear of tomorrow.
I walked past you and looked at you twice.
And daily I meet you strangers
A black sweater does fine, with your hands in your pockets
And I am shivering with cold with my hands crossed
I look into your eyes and you look into mine
Were we supposed to meet like this and see each other?
To just notice each other at this place and this point of time?
A glance which is slightly longer than a glance,
A slight hint of expectation.
A slight hint of anticipation.
If I can give you something and you can give me something in return,
Or we can have a future and those conversations
Where I talk and you look at me and you talk and I look at you.
Where we laugh on some silly joke.
When you steal a glance again and wish I would stop a while;
I know what you’re thinking and I think the same.
But you walk past me and I walk past you.
And I hear your footsteps fading away.
Forgive the poet
he's not me
He feels things
that I am not meant to be.
Wounded and bandaged
I am left to reel
while he saunters with indifference
and begins another reckless journey.
Thoughts are his blanket
and sleep is a bromide
Insomnia is my nuisance
vain is a functional life.
Confusions are his comfort
transgressions are his habits
Cigarettes butts are my problems
Empty glasses and a smoky carnage.
Love is him
guilt is me
song is him
woe, is me.
They get you through the day. They tell you, it'll be alright.
All the shit one has to go through in life, is suicidal. If only it were not for the happy thoughts.
Of all the mind numbing to the slightly uncomfortable situations that one has to confront every now and then, there is an escape. An escape of thoughts. The thoughts that drift in and out infrequently during the day and settle in when the night approaches.
Sometimes, they're the most simple of things that you know are true about you, and other times they're a conclusion of things that have happened to you. Either way, they keep you sane and breathing.
A walk in the sultry evening in front of the sea. An impulsive movie in the afternoon that turns out to be quite the mood lifter. A planned breakfast in the morning that doesn't go anywhere outside your imagined control. That spirited, personal dance in the shower that you're confident nobody can ever see. The little things.
Your kid cousin brother calling you to help him with a writing assignment. Your kid cousin sister calling you to tell you how pissed she is at her dog who bit her.
Your dear friend texting you to come outside and meet up cause he flew down from home to give you the effing surprise.
And just the knowledge that you are content with the going-ons in your life.
The future may not be sure, but the present certainly is.
In very few phases in your life, you think that what you have lived couldn't be better, and what you will live, won't be as good.
In such times, bliss is scarcely an option. It is the real.
Move along traveler,
this road is open.
it is dusty,
at other times, it is broken.
But there is no place for grief here,
so joy betides,
the smiles are steep here,
and the days unbroken.
She looked a goddess,
nightly scent,
milky skin.
She stood there, a rock angel,
stern her brow,
svelte her lips.
She paced with purpose,
immaculate, her dress,
soft, her steps.
She concealed a greater form,
and revealed a collar,
that glistened with the pearly sweat of fury.
Split twigs,
Make you wonder,
what are your worries?
what are your troubles?
What do they mean,
if the dearest feeling you know,
slips from underneath you,
split twigs,
plucked asunder.
A friend is precious, no?
He rests with you for a while,
but he will think of you,
through joy and strife.
That's why we make friends, no?
To think, to feel, and to share,
what we know is so personal otherwise.
Sit down. Tell me something. And then listen.
For that's why we meet, care and get up again.
You have a sad heart,
but don't you think his also pains,
when there're no jokes, pokes and silly smiles,
oh, see, isn't that a gloomy night.
Now what sort of a sleep is that?
The earplugs are awake and your mind is drifting,
didn't you just loved going to bed then?
With the thoughts of today's fresh talk and weather change.
They will come,
and they will go.
He will come,
and he will stay.
Friends are the currencies of life,
you lose one,
your mood is such a fight,
you happiness isn't perfect,
and your sadness doesn't feel right.
Let us slap,
and let us hit,
and don't you remember?
The deal we made,
doesn't let us quit.
You scream. I scream. We both scream.
Even if there's no ice cream.
A death in the family clears perspective. Remarkably.
Love is bullshit.
Genitalia. Hormones.
All fleeting desires that do nothing more than desecrate the burden of eventuality. The sincere eventuality of being taken care of in your family, growing up within in, and finally, taking care of it like an honest man.
People who cannot understand this burden, are best left out of your life.
The lack of empathy in people amazes one to no end. Even intelligent people can be emotionally retarded. And that is such a thunder killer. Esp. when the knowledge of empathetic lameness suddenly dawns upon you and you retro-think, how you could have missed that thing in a person till now.
I'm in a mood to bitch. And I see nothing around to stop me. So, go get a job. Or a quiet, damp corner to play with yourself.
People are so frustratingly amusing. And well, are amusingly frustrated all the time.
Emotions. Tears. Insecurities. Oooh. Save me a seat for the International Gay porn awards. I'd be much happier attending them than entertaining a barrage of ill-placed self-doubts disguised as woeful cries for comfort.
I find witnessing tears, for somebody who cannot be brought back, infinitely more solemn than a river-shed that is nothing but a festering want for degrading sympathy.
And most people run around counseling the aggrieved. Which is good, but instantly lame if done with a dose of self-righteousness. A moral high ground of "being there" for a person. Pick up a stick. Hit yourself. And if you're still holier-than-thou; rinse, repeat and throw in another torture or two in the exercise.
My point is, Grow up people. Really care when you care. Really listen when you have an ear open. And do what you mean. This is it, you don't get more time to grow up. Sort out your shit. Make space for who is important and throw away the rest.
I'm not a punk messiah for stirring up teenage shit every now and then through these notes. You guessed it, I'm just too full of myself.
But wait, isn't it the perfect job?
Cheeks
Flirt with the Raspberry red,
Breath
Settles in a Sandalfest,
Voice
Stirs a Cricket's nest.
Lips
Move a noxious trance,
Hair
Stage a passion dance.
Eyes,
Lit with a calming rage,
Brow
Slants as of a hardened sage.
Smile
Minces my gleeful gumption,
Grace
Fit for a netherworld luncheon.
Smell
Weaves a tender yarn,
Palms
Rest with a young elan.
Poems
of feeble strife,
Muse
Rented. A Life.
Where will we find the sea,
of open roads,
of uncharted visages,
of limitless fences.
Where is that light?
where is that peace,
where are the embers,
of a childhood apiece.
If the end is delivery,
in the journey of a recluse,
the promise of both,
is a neglected memory.
We want to fight,
we want to live,
give us woe,
give us song,
when will we get a peek,
of a freedom we so long.
Young,
we are.
Free,
it is.
Angry. Not as much as I used to be. But, The hurt of being refused when offering help, or in this case, encouragement, is one of the most biting and non-sensical feelings. Why is it our tendency to influence people and derive joy out of it? Do we think that gets us closer to them? Probably.
What I, or most other people, for that matter, do not realize that giving a friend space to think, to act, and to respond, is best help that can be offered.
Moot is the point of imposing a print of you on the one in front of you, and wanting that print to respond, instead of wishing for an independent mind.
How can one explore closeness then? Through indifference? Isn't that unpoetic irony?
Care is another way that comes to mind. But isn't encouragement an extension of care? Anyhow, what is selfless care; explain that to me.
How do friends grow together then? Sharing is a definite yes. But it's boring. After a point, whatever and how-much-ever you share, the result is insipid stability, and nothing else. The relationship needs conflicts, creative and destructive disagreement, dissent of opinions, and romance. Whoever said romance is an exclusive premise of lovers. I can romance out with my mom. Fuck you, whoever.
Pain, discomfort, awkwardness, or rather the delivery from them, makes two people understand each other better, at successive watersheds of their parallel. This is not some hollow bullshit on love, this is basic human connection I'm taking about, you chick.
Of course, I could I just give up making sense of this. I'm sure every independent mind out there must think that from time-to-time, and ignore that paraplegic thought as often.
What I am convinced of, that I was never earlier, is that I cannot, and bloody should not stop thinking. Stop experimenting. Stop moving. Stop seeing. And stop believing.
Refusing to think after a point, refusing to reach just that extra inch out, is old people stuff.
I'm young.
I won't go down with a white flag on my ship,
I won't lose my wise-cracking 2 cents,
Cause that is all that is good to me.
The Mojo will keep on rising.
Is she a drug?
The yearn, an itch when she's near,
a craving when she parts,
a gash when she withdraws the diurnal fix.
Stoned,
Drunk,
lungs fogged with smoke,
an eerie chill overcomes.
The sounds grow stronger,
till they recede,
and I am left wondering,
were the sounds in my head?
Unaware, numb,
life is a nuisance.
A shallow voice calls,
and I listen,
knelt to its command,
given.
My sanity,
my fear,
my decadence,
is near.
I, and the vacuum knows,
how my innards burn,
the evil is in me,
and the wheel will never turn.
Loyal as a castrated bull,
frozen as a wingless bird,
the carcass of freedom shouts,
the fuel I will never earn.
What does one do but stop and stare,
when the sweetest memory,
of a touch was spent,
in quenching a thirst that was never there.
The curling of the lips,
the clenching of the skin,
the anticipation in the eyes,
a frozen dream.
The conclusion of an encounter,
the prelude to a journey,
a sombre village,
in life's city.
Drink it over,
till the mud flies under,
till the embers burn sunder,
let it rain Blood and Thunder.
Spill it over,
it'll do wonders,
the light will scorch,
with some heat and a hunger.
Let it hang over,
feed it, trench sober,
let it scrape wounds,
and the smile of slaughter.
A jab in the chest,
is the smoke in the veins,
a cold between the legs,
is the impotence of pain.
Starry nights,
debauchery,
Drugs and Death,
monotony.
Pissed off,
semblance,
Pissed on,
abstinence.
Climax,
paid escort.
Hired guns,
sweat and snot.
Murder holes,
slime rolls,
rat nests,
soaked vests.
Faint of the heart,
not depth of the mind,
empty sewers,
and a life of crime.
Touch. It's special. It's a conduit for the expression of the incommunicable. It is how bodies talk.
It is really but a reciprocative stream of thoughts that travels through and between the envelopes of the mind – bodies. For what is a feeling, but a slim layer of semi-controlled conscious thought resting on top of a potent sub-conscious thought/reason.
And that's why it is a big deal. You want some touches, you refrain from others; you savor some touches and regret the others. Their sheer power of revealing what you feel, in the moment, makes the person you are touching entirely aware of your intention. And the control that you exercise over the selective display of your being, is lost, for the duration of the touch.
Strong are those who are able to mold and alter their touch to conceal what they do not want the person being touched to sense.
Resisting a touch, or avoiding it, makes one miss the dangling sensation that one is left with after making/receiving a touch, like an afterglow of a conversation between bodies. Like a missed closure to a to-and-fro. Like a missed completion of an encounter.
The strange part is – with the same touch, you can express eroticism or care, anger or denial, gloom or wonderment, in the span of the moment. Provided, the other person is listening. One can know when the other is truly listening if the other understands the depth and the design of the touch.
I, for one, am defenseless against touch, as what is within me, travels through me. For me, Touch, is, without substitute, a perennial remedy for the lack of words.
I am incomplete,
Stripped, of feeling and dignity,
Naked,
Pain, love, serenity,
are alien to my body.
If this is the end,
Then why is there ever a beginning?
When I fondle my conscience,
It just returns an indifferent shrug.
The king is dead,
so are his people,
the saint is dead,
so are his believers.
Nothingness stares at me,
while I gape inside,
Like a limp bird,
that never even wanted to fly.
Come, take me, my time is up,
I've hurt enough people,
and have helped some.
The curse of ignorance,
is heavy with vacuum,
The promise of a new day,
has ceased to mean volume.
Life is a bitch. And it is cause you make it. You can’t please everyone all the time, and let it be like that. If someone doesn’t want to as you are now, it’s really not your problem, especially, if you’re young. Life will pass on, and you’ll have the little regrets that you could have done more in the moments that went away in pleasing others. Fuck everyone, really, and do what you think is right.
Get your childhood issues sorted out. Perform well in academics once, at least. Top the shit out of your batch. Play a freakin’ sport and play it so good that everyone fucking claps at your effort, if not your talent or your ability to play it. Sing/dance/play an instrument onstage once, and make sure you do it good. Spectators should freaking get up and applaud their asses away. Because otherwise, you’ll never find out what you can do, where you can be, and the magnitude of confidence you’ll ever have in yourself.
Break your opinion of yourself. Because otherwise, life will keep being a bitch.
You’re only so much away from home when you realize that the thoughts that occupy you have evolved into a strangers’. When I return, the dust on the glass, the soot on the curtains, and the shadows in the rooms, are all uncannily poised, observing me as distant relatives of a past life. Suddenly, you begin to notice your prints around your room – clothes, papers, cosmetics, little trinkets – that were invisible when you lived here, but now stand out in your temporary presence. It is as if my house wants me to know that I’m not to be sheltered as family, but as an estranged tenant.
Your possessions at your place are the first to tell you that they don’t remember owning an owner, however dearly you want you cling on to them. Then, there are the streets. I look at the scenes that appear on the road from the railway station to the Collector’s Office (near to where I live), and I see the local commerce carriers, school children, panwallahs, traffic policemen, hawkers, and the other pedestrians, perpetually going about their determined businesses indifferent of my story – my nervous farewell to Indore, my tumultuous affair with Mumbai, and my fleeting returns to the city where I’ve loved much and lost some.
That’s okay though. I’ll take a smile. Because there are these little things, that never change – conversations.
When my dad cribs about the dinner and mom defends its nutritive value, when my Dadi shouts at the maid till the plates are sparkling clean, and when my friends whine about my not giving them enough time, I feel what home is supposed to feel like.
It’s hard to find people who get you. Harder to find are those who can carry compassionate, mutually-respecting, humorous, and loving conversations with you.
It’s not a violent revelation, but a steady truth, when I say that all I remember of a home are the people who have held me in their curious to-and-fros. That is what I miss of Indore, and that is what binds me to Mumbai.
Conversations make people. They make me.
Out of a Pink Rose bush she is,
out of a naive village she is,
she is a man's fantasy parade,
she is a dreamer's heathen spleen.
She fluttered like a neon flower,
when I asked her to grace my abode,
true to her instinct,
she flinched and clinched,
and hoped to see me alone,
while nobody watching her come in.
We danced the wonder Waltz,
we sand the jaunty Blues,
the gunpowder of ecstasy,
crept in the veins of our melting bodies.
The dove she was then,
the tigress she is now,
her demands for the flesh,
grow by the motley second.
Moments remain,
till the explosion of love,
but she finds me inadequate,
she gets up and leaves.
The steam is burning,
but the heart drowns.
The room is dead,
her smell circles the grief mound.
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