The last night

Tonight I won’t say, I love you
neither would I tell you about those infinite bubbles of thoughts,
I had hid beneath the sand dune of time,
all this while,
nor about those countless cravings I’ve had to be near you.
Tonight, I wouldn’t waste time in telling you things, you already know.
(You do, right??)
Tonight, I’ll show you something you don’t.
Tonight I will dig each infinity,
unearthing the album of pictures we lost on the fossil of time.
Tonight, I will take you back to recreating the footprints
that washed away with the wave of years.
Tonight, we’ll just sit inside this hut of love, making love.
When our bodies will forget the mistakes they never made,
actions will start speaking
and
words will go for a walk,
somewhere far off.
But tonight, only tonight.
When there is nothing wrong, nothing right.
That is tonight, only tonight.

बड़ी बात, छोटी चीज़ें

मुझे छोटी छोटी चीज़ों पर ध्यान देने की आदत है,
जैसे वो गोल-गोल फ़ुल स्टॉप,
जो बीच मे आ गया है हमारे.
और अपने भीतर ही समेट ली हैं उसने वो सारी बातें, 
जो अब बिना बोले जाए ही  बेहरा कर देंगी इस रिश्ते को.

मुझे छोटी छोटी चीज़ों पर ध्यान देने की आदत है,
जैसे वो घुमावदार कोमा,
रोक कर खड़ा है उन शब्दों के बहाव को,
जिनसे सबकुछ साफ़ हो सकता है,
इंतज़ार कर रहा है किसी के उसको सुलझाने का.
जानता नही कि सही जगह लगकर,
 वो खुद ही अपनी समस्याओं का समाधान बन जाएग. 

मुझे छोटी छोटी चीज़ों पर ध्यान देने की आदत है,
जैसे वो इनवरटेड कोमा की जोड़ी
जो फुदक फुदक कर वही बात चिल्लाए जा रही है.
बस कोई सुनता नहीं,
शायद समय की भूल भुलैया में खोकर,
वो शब्द अपना अस्तित्व गवा चुकें हैं. 

मुझे छोटी छोटी चीज़ों पर ध्यान देने की आदत है,
पर आज यह कोमा, यह फुल स्टॉप को,
 एक पोटली में बाँध कर फेंक आई हूँ मैं. 
उसी मन के भंवर मे, 
जिससे लड़ के, छीन के लाई थी तुम्हे,
क्योंकि इनके पीछे पड़ी रही तो खो जयोगे तुम,
कभी ना मिलने के लिए.

Freely Captured

Limited to the two sides of the court is my life.
A cursed life is what I live.
Beaten, manhandled, and crushed.
Shuttling between my manipulators, I am still flying.
I am the flying queen of my limited palace.
The walls control my lengths and breadths,
but fail to limit the high of my altitude.
With me falls the fate of my manipulators.
Fragile and powerful.
I have throned and dethroned the rulers of my game.
For, in my fragility lies my tenacity.

The lover and The loved

It's 3 in the morning.
I am awake, only awake.
As if waiting,
Waiting for my gizmo to decide the time I sleep.
She is awake too, walking.
Lovestruck, waiting for her gizmo to talk. 
Her dexterous fingers work with the speed of a dozen typewriters.
Her confident demeanour flashes,
her two paged life - twinkling with As (plural A).
As mine, flutters with Fs.
The wind rips it with holes,
thinking, I' ll give it a F.
Caught in a miniscule life, stuck in gigantic darkness.
Wish, I secretly harness
for an A to possess.

As the different genre of her clicks barge in,
overtaking my own.
I see,
her long eyelashes flirt better than my googled imitations.
Her grace's skin, flaw lesser than my calculated calculations.
Panache, poise,  personality.
Caught in a miniscule life, stuck in gigantic darkness.
A wish, I secretly harness
for her constitution to possess.

Delving into her notebook, I realize we are similar.
They carry her notes- her potion of potency,
my carry my poems - my potion of poignancy.

I introspect,
in my loud world, echoing silence,
I only whisper resilient sobs,
beneath my mountain of Fs,
stuck in a galaxy I don't belong.
The world belongs to her - the loved.
It's humans belong to me - the lover.

Back From Death

With each step towards pragmatism ravaging my existential territory, the idea of death seems quite tempting in that context. It is painful, it is agonizing, it is devastating, and it is killing. It is like walking over a thousand broken glasses with bare feet. I wish, I could show my bruises, my injuries to people, but then those injuries are miraculously invisible.

Even if I had some powerful chemical to make them visible, I would still not because even then, whom would I show them to. I have no one. No one is mine. I am no one’s. When I talk of people in my life, family and friends come to mind. But family accompanies the stink of superstitions, customs, traditions, and limitations. Friends remind of practicality, competition and job security. Perhaps, no one reminds me of myself. I wish someone did.

Perhaps, death does. It makes one free, unchaining one from all such baggages and freeing the soul of these barbed wires. It is rejuvenating, liberating and pacifying and hence the best option to tackle my melancholies.

But then, I think that all that I thought about death is supposed; nobody has ever narrated or described death to me. They all talk about it based on their own imaginations. What if it was actually not like that. What if after dying, life actually seemed easier and happier? What if life seemed more desirable after death? The regretful presence of these what ifs makes me dislike death.

And then, even in my deepest conundrum of unsolved mysteries of life, I suddenly realize that death isn’t the solution, since it actually doesn’t offer us the freedom it is considered to. Life gives us the liberty to die but death doesn’t offer the same menu.

As if, hit by a jolt of lightening, I decided to first explore the menu of life and relish on each delicacy it offered and then maybe cling off the cliff of death later. So, I got up from my bed, wiped of my tears and began writing.

A Poet's Day (part 2)

Today, they finally hear -
With eyes, with ears, with hearts.
Fire sweeps in swiftly through the logs
burning me, snatching my strings of attachment.

As my body burns, my soul rises
with each burning sensation, starts a new chapter.
My limbs wither with the warmth of the wood,
crippling me of the strength.
My heart ignites blatantly,
dismantling my emotional attachment.
As my brain burns,
I exit the gates of mortality and enter the gates of reigns of death.
 
I am amazed to find myself in this world of mirrors.
It’s bewitchingly enchanting.
I feel free.
As I walk down that aisle,
surrounded with mirrors,
overwhelmed.

Suddenly, something smoulders inside me.
My rug tearing apart and I burning.
These mirrors absorb me in installments,
reflecting me against each other.
Tossing me around,
like a pawn.
Changing me,
diluting me,
with their own adjustments,
preparing me for the next world.

Burning the last follicle of my memory,
decreasing me, dimnishing me.
I feel helpless,
life gave me the power to die,
Perhaps death doesn't offer the same.
As the last evidence of my existence,
turns into ashes,
I wish I had lived.
I wish I had lived.

A poet's Day (Part 1)

Like a smiling mannequin waiting to come alive,
I waited,
for ages.
Today, I finally live my life.
Today, I finally have their ears.
Today, the finally hear
with eyes, with peace, with hearts.

The buds of my mommy's mind finally blooms.
The locks of my daddy's permission finally break.
The tree in the garden of my imagination finally blossoms,
decorating the city of their mind.

They finally come to my show,
to warm their hands in the fire of my pain.
But, it wasn't easy.
Like a wave, he kept on moving,
though rejected each time.

Like a rope rubbing against the wall,
I was the same, yet different each time.
Little more destroyed, little more strong.
But today, I burn myself to show the scars I gave the rock.

Like a smiling mannequin waiting to come alive,
I finally live my life.
On my death bed......

JNU - high time we stop we stop it

The recent series of incidents at JNU has engendered yet another headline hitting controversy. Most of you would know that the president of the student’s association Kanhaiya Kumar has been imprisoned on the grounds of sedation or anti nationalism.
First of all, I would like to tell you all, about some very basic facts about the JNU or the Jawaharlal Nehru University like, it is one of the of the most reputed public university of the country. Students studying there range from being the rich brats of elite bureaucrats to lower middle class still fighting against inflation because its fee is still in hundreds.
It is possibly the only place in the country where a transgender will be given as much respect as much as anyone else and a girl will not be letched at even if she walks around naked in the college. It’s the only place in the country where in students befriend each other beyond social and financial boundaries with democracy and freedom being ingrained in every minute aspect of this college.

Having said that, I would also like to mention that since it’s a college, debates, meetings, speeches are very vital and integral parts of its curriculum. Since, activities like this not only generate confidence and awareness but they also inculcate the habit of listening in a person. Besides, these people are the future bureaucrats, journalists, politicians of the country. It’s very important for them to be educated, socially aware and to know to use the powerful tool of discussing and to have the capability to think out of the box and responsibly.

Now, on the eve of 24^th February, a gathering was organized by the students’ society in the college premises for a protest march against judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat and in solidarity with the “struggle” of Kashmiri migrants at the Sabarmati dhaba in the campus through peaceful means such as poetry, art and music. Now, in the process, various incidents took place like students association who organised it was denied the permission at the last moment and then those students began protesting for being denied their right to speak and carried on with their protest march without the permissions. It’s also alleged that in this process some students took to speaking anti national slogans. Since, the videos have reportedly been tempered with, it’s still not clear as to which of the two societies involved in, actually said them.

Let us assume that X party said those slogans and its president was arrested as a consequence. Now, people i.e. the general public of the republic of India have suddenly consolidated together on the grounds of nationalism to protest against such anti-national elements of the society.

I would like to tell that this incident coincides with the jat riot in Haryana where a group of people mercilessly killed people, burned and damaged property to ask for reservations and no major person has been arrested till now and nobody finds that anti national or jarring because apparently killing people is accepted in the second most populated country of the world

We rebuke a bunch of students for shouting anti national slogans in their college campus as a part of their gathering but we patiently see property being dismantled and trains and buses being burnt down to ashes. Suddenly, everyone gets the power to curse the week.

It is also being said that the limits were crossed by these students by shouting such antinational slogans. My point is that the meeting did include Kashmiri migrants, the same migrants who had to incur the wrath of time and were forced to leave their homeland and country. If they feel in a certain way about the country, and if they feel that their problem can be solved through complete Kashmir’s secession, there is no better platform than a debate to dismantle that belief. And where else will the students debate if not in a varsity? I don’t think that imprisoning a few will wash away the stains of the horror they faced. The right way to face this is finding a way to tackle their problem and rather focusing on rehabilitation and reconciliation. If the present government continues to supress and imprison the students I don’t think there would be any difference left between the colonial British raj and the present ‘democratically elected government of India’.    
 
I don’t understand, isn’t this all pretty obvious. But off course, we live in a country where the governments easily succumbs to  the illicit demands of illiterate people of a certain community asked through violence and murder but imprisons the educated peacefully debating over a certain issue in their college campus.

Sanskari Customs of Marriages in India

Since, everybody in India marries at least once in life. This is something which remains same across all social religions and economic statuses. You marry if you earn a lakh a month or even if you are still living off your parents’ money. There are some sanskari customs attached to this khandani culture. I bring you some of them.
People ranging from your far off bua you never meet, your masi you talk to once in a year and some Sharma aunty  invisibly living in the same neighbourhood as you will start getting you marriage offers since you reached the ‘right age’.

 They are the kind of people who give you the right to choose your own clothes based on your own comfort ability, choice, size, etc. But, when it comes to choosing your life partner, they think they are better at that.

 There will be some set parameters to decide the right bride/groom for you like his/ her skin tone, income, caste and sometimes even the taste of the chutney they serve with the samosa. 

At times, you even marry to become mature and responsible or to stop loving the person your family doesn’t approve of.

 Sometimes, you will have to marry for the sake of your younger siblings, since they can only marry after you or no one will marry them as well because people belonging to these species have a unique disease called shadi pox whose antidote is your marriage.

You will be told to decide your life partner while you drink a cup of chai and eat a plate of samosa.

You will finally meet some far off relatives, you only meet twice in your life, once at your wedding and second on their wedding.

There are some below poverty line people who only come to eat. They can afford clothes but not food. Anyways, they are still better than the rest, since they atleast have a purpose in life and they do believe in minding their own business.

 In the middle of all this glitter and shimmer in the wedding, there will be those hot, attractive people of the opposite sex you get to a chance to meet and maybe plan your own with, in the future…

 Basically, marriages are a plethora of colours and feelings and relatives you may or may not enjoy. They happen because the people you don’t even know properly want to see you happy and you can only be happy when you marry at the ‘right time’ with the person they decide or the curse of unhappiness is believed to haunt you for life.  So marry and stay happy.

Multifarious Mind (Our mind is multifarious which means something that can have many forms. It sometimes is your friend trying to make you happy and cheering you up, sometimes your enemy making you feel sad, sometimes some motivator bringing you up, sometimes some conspirator trying to make you nervous just before some important test. At times, it also engenders that effect into things around you i.e. makes things around you look multifarious.)

I was disturbed trying to perhaps solve a meander, turmoil of thoughts going inside, crashing my soul, pucking through my eyes. It did succeed in flowing out once. But, then suddenly I realized how hard had been my journey from the subdued valleys of morose to the plateaus of moderation. How I had pushed myself out of the deepest craters of depression I would have ever been in. I did not want to go back, I determined.

I went to the balcony, stood there, my inside demons still pulling me, banging hard on the resolute doors of my mind. I stood there for a while, as if in a tug of war with the devil, my mind being the rope. Just a little loosening of the grip and I knew I would be swayed into the whirlpool of tears.

I did not realize that till then I had been indirectly staring at a star in the sky. It was the brightest of them all.  It twinkled the most. It was the most beautiful. I wanted to have it. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to captivate it with me. Now, that’s the ugliness of the human mind. It tries to capture the beauty with itself. It doesn’t realize that beauty lies in the colourful wings of a blossoming bud and not in the melancholy of a plucked flower.
Withdrawing myself from this bevy of thoughts, I got back to the star. Now, it appeared to be like a cherry to me. The whole sky as if, was a canopy of trees whose trunks were perhaps invisible or could possibly lie above the canopy. Could there be trees, which have trunks waving up in the sky and branches and leaves supporting the tree spreading their limbs as if to engulf the surface they grew up on.
Or maybe, they could just be a giant monster wearing glittery clothes looking at all of us, searching for its prey for the night extending its invisible, long, dreary lobes. Few people will breathe their last today. This monster will sneak into their room, insinuate its poisonous words of death and suck their soul out of the body.
Or maybe it is just a curtain hiding the chaos of backstage, showcasing talented actors of the universe. The stars acquire it in the night and its mornings are booked for the sun. Or maybe, it’s just the sky and the stars and I need to stop thinking and get enwrapped into the cosy comforts of my warm room. Since, my multifarious mind tends to make everything multifarious. 

Yours Hopefully (One’s heart is a wanderer. Nothing is permanent. Everything about it, keeps on changing ranging from the rate at which it beats to the one who resides in it. But then, our duty as its owner is to keep on moving in search of the rightmost dweller.)

Balancing itself on the delicate needle of the flame of a candle,
is my hope.
At times, am empty.
Other times, am just hopeful.
Wishing we meet.
My soldier!!
The last drop of dew in the barren desert of my heart awaits you,
with hope.
I breathe hope each second,
to keep my engine of love running,
my rivers of passion flowing for you,
only for you,
my soldier!!
My range is not a subset of your set.
I probably lie somewhere above or below it.
But then, I know our paths will meet one day,
even if you fight a different battle
in a different warzone each day.
I won’t stop moving
not before I have my footprints
beside yours.
Because the signal of your heart rejuvenates my existence;
and my heart needs its fuel.

You fight your battle on the field.
Cold corpses and widowed warfare is all you see.
That bleeding blood may be yours,
but your heart belongs to me.

I fight my own, off it.
I struggle to stand,
before being weak in the knee.
Happy is not something,
I’m destined to be.
And since,
you are the only key.
I cannot lose you,
not in my jinxed sea.
So, I give you wings,
fly, fly far away from me.

Someday, dissolved in my own delusions,
I will dig you.
From the deepest desires of my hopeful heart.
I will rush to you.
We’ll meet,
in the carefree crossroads of my dreams,
in the subtle sobs,
between my soaring screams.
We will meet my soldier,
we will hopefully meet.

The Fairytale of a book - Part 1(everyone around us a has a story, they don't shout loud, even a book.)

I was a tattered book, hidden in the corner of a hallowed library,
my pages torn.
My words faded beneath the façade of white stains.
My meanings meaningless.
My existence non-existent.
My neighbours looked the same as me,
but they were a little better, a little different.
Like two apples kept together,
same story;
yet I was the rotten one.
The one everybody throws away.

There were holes in some parts of my life.
 I had nothing to fill them with.
Some stalking stains were a see through into my history of callous users.
Soaring scars of oily mistakes made me ugly.
I was unread.
I was ugly.
I yearned to be read for days, months, years.
Each second lasted an hour.
But, nobody paused.
After all, nobody pauses to adore the ugly.

 One day, from the haughty hollows of a faded crowd came a stranger.
Of us all, she picked me.
I was waiting to be callously thrown away.
But, she possibly liked my antiquity, the rarity of the occurrence of my types in a posh place.
She fell for me. I had to fall back.
It was my duty.
She was different.
The only lift that managed to reach my tallest, abandoned floors.
She filled my voids with her own meanings.
She carefully read my fallacies, adored my flaws,
made creative curves out of my torn edges.
The momentum of my hope began gaining pace.
I liked to be read again.
My crevices felt good.
But then, every road has a speed breaker,
and so did we.

My worldly place (the world i wish to live in)

From the palette of my mind, I feel like painting everything around with my verses.
I yearn to capture the naiveté, the eccentricity, and the imperfections of this worldly place.
But, before that I’ll camouflage myself.
I will hide my presence,
mix in my palette,
dissolve with my colours,
drink them and enjoy each flavour, they bring to my soul.
My poems are the paintings I create.
But for this one, I will myself become one.
Paint this worldly place with the most exquisite colours ever found.
I will colour the sun blue,
the blue found in the deepest layers of a spirited sea and the sky green.
The same green that rests beneath a blossoming red rose.
imagine a blue blooming sun clad in gay, green clouds.
the sky will become a garden, a garden we yearn to touch.
and the sun will become a flower.
A flower we yearn to pluck.
A flower that bloomed each day and wilted each night.
A flower that everyone longed to have but wouldn’t dare to touch.
A flower whose beauty, wouldn’t lead to its own end.
That will be my flower in the garden of my imagination,
in the lap of the world I create with my verses.
My worldly place, a place where even a flower would live its own destiny,
without the fear of being smothered for wearing a short skirt.
that would be my place, my worldly place!!