Smashed

Listen.

Pour all your poison into blotches on this skin.

Press it on hard push it through your pores.

Let this black and brown line you more.

Look. You now have a a distinct pattern.

Let Coach purchase it for their Limited Edition.

But now, pay heed, for this is important.

Shed this skin when you've finished, I caution.

For feet to trample, they need a hide

For this skin they shall have, even if to skin alive.

So mark my words, O Simpleton

Shed this skin, make a run.

In the crowd of a fair

" I believe Mute had died a few days ago"

"What do you mean?"

" It died a few days ago but it is only now that I see. I don't write much anymore. It's gone. Used up.

I poured it all into one big yellow balloon and now it has floated away from me.

Out of sight. Beyond what I can see.


The Wind just came and tugged away my child. Lured to it the open skies. Showed it all the freedom I couldn't give.

My words were getting choked on themselves.

There were too many though my child seemed too young for such a thought.

So my words crashed and bumped into each other instead of sitting in their allotted spaces.

They thought it was time to go hunt for an identity. But they bumped into each other and knew not one from the other or themselves.

They asked which one of us is new? Unique?

Which one of us Ma, is special?

What could I say? They were all mine.

They were all special.

But my children didn't want to hear such an answer. Each child jumped and hopped. Hoped if it would leap higher it would be my favourite. But a mother's love doesn't favour.

So one by one they left my hand in this crowd fair where I stand afraid. Where I clutched them close.

But they left my hand anyway and floated to freedom of the skies away from the strangling hold of their mother's love.

My children took the stranger's candy. Left my hand to walk

In the crowds of the chameleon skies.

And there wasn't even a goodbye. "

A thought

There's a thought that circles her where she sits with her legs under her and hair messily around her face.

It is a frightening thought. Which circles up and down around her. She doesn't see it. But the closer it gets the less she breathes.

It's whizzing by close, so close it raises up a slight rush of air on her skin from where it races by.

And she breathes more erratically. Words don't form. Coherence is crushed.

Her ribs feel a pounding within. Massive rushes of painful blows within.

She can hear her organs struggle to keep her alive but it isn't that which is frightening.

It is this thought, this shameless vicious thought. This thought that sucks out all the air from where it dwells.

This thought.
This morbid thought.

Insufficient

There had been calm for a while. P'haps too long.

So the fire alarms were rung where no smoke arose. Panic -was necessary.

The shrill sounds mercilessly twang against metal. Pounding eardrums. Sending the heartbeat into an erratic frenzy.

She thought drinking from the yellow pool was a good excuse. To be deceitful.
To contemplate the forbidden.
To feign, the yellow instead of the clear, hazed up one's mind.

As if that was reason enough to push Them off a canyon into the sharp projections of the sword-like stones.
In a canyon so wide, one's voice never echoed for it lost its way , its sound.
So deep, one never heard boulders strike ground.

No, not even in thought was it justified.

Not when we had pricked our hearts and exchanged blood .
A promise bound.
Worn in lockets.
Above the pulsating muscled organ in our chests.

But now you see- the one in your locket?

Was the impure one.

A lost cloud

There's a lonely cloud stuck in the midst of this spruce studded mountain.

There's a horde of clouds migrating to the North. Towards the Arctic Circle ready to envelope the sun to bring in the winter of 10 months.

But there is this lonely cloud stuck right above a crowd of spruce as though the baby wandered for a few minutes and got stuck in the centre of a circle of prickly bullies. And there it has stayed since, lost from its kind, away from fulfilling what it had supposed, was its Purpose of life.

So it stays as a little mist, a halo, in the centre of this towering maze of glacier rivulets and waterfalls where hikers can sit under.

In the middle of the mountain facing a marshy shoreline, it's the little heaven this tiny cloud was meant to bring.

A shirt worn as promised

There's a place where I've hidden from Them All all of what you've given me.

In the closet, under the stacks of many cards and photo albums, is a more precious pile of memory. Safely locked in the treasure chest.

Your many kindnesses.

I started cynically. Too many pebbles were needed to bring water up. Water-That seemed to not exist.
For one thirsty summer morning, at the unfortunate hour of 9, it had all been mercilessly pumped out and thrown into a barren desert for the sun to drink up while the naked Marasmus children watched.

The irnoy. For water to be thrown when it was needed most. The sun is p'haps just like a star. Thoughtless and self centered.
But the world still revolves around stars. Atleast- ours does.

But I threw them in. In a well kept under lock and key. Discreetly.

Revolutions later, water has risen upto where light shines and I'm astonished.

There's enough kindness to see - it's almost all you see.
And I've saved enough.

Enough to purchase happiness.

Again.

An Obscure One on One Wednesday

Here.
Take some water paints and colour me a wish.
Bring alive tufts of mossy leaves. And then step aside as I part.
Part these soft fragile bursts of summer. To let the mists pour through.
And sink right into them, lost from where you are.

And whence you wish-spill a bottle of oceans.
And I'll rise yet again from canvas.

But oh look!
Look above.
Sneak a peek at the clouds.
Today, these shifting mists?
Are mine.

Don't make me tap the impatient foot. Grab your skirts for we must run.
To catch the castle of 12'0 clock.
3 wouldn't and nor would 4, 12 it must be and 12'o clock it is so.

So for today, for now.... this?
Is enough.

Contract freedom is enough.

A Cheat hits Replay

Maybe you wouldn't believe me if I were to tell you so but my insides stretch within as they fit in a smile too big for my lips.

There's a laugh that's low and deep. It's silent and yet joyous in it's amused delight.

And I strain to hear it- this unusual wave that I want to see before it crashes down again and melts into the sea.

I don't want to know who you are stranger. But I wish I could tell you just how you sound. I'd capture it in a glass jar and show you. Then I'd immerse myself in it as the silent waves of your laugh zoom by me.

And I'll close my eyes and sigh and hit repeat.

On Independence Day

Not too long ago, on an Independence Day, a white sequined salwar kurta was worn.
How many ironies, you will not know.

P'haps the thronging crowds and countless netas with their even more countless chelas may have been a nuisance. In public spaces that didn't need more dirt or paan stains- their commemoration for our svatantrata. Freedom to be a pain.

P'haps the squished, the torn, the held, the adorned, marigold garlands may have been pathetic to look at. For flowers to be plucked for such futility.

And p'haps the cliched North Indian heat was unbearable and oppressive. Smothering its heavy hand over our mouth and noses. Nary a breath be taken.

But a white sequined salwar kurta was put on.
Sequined. White. New.

Too many ironies for one to count.

Incense clung to it as chhaunk stings your nose. It was used and then thrown.
Like a widow put aside from one's eyes for the misfortune to the family she has shown. To wither but away from your sight. To lament and cry but away from your eyes.

For someone ought to have said,

A white salwar kurta must never be owned

For if it's been made, it must be worn.

Arz kiya hai

kaid aise rahen kyun,ki chaabi humari jeb mein

kaid aise rahen kyun, ki chaabi humari jeb mein

ghuma diya woh baksa, theen jismein tumhari yaadein