Ganga

There I stand
In the unholy waters of the sacred Ganga
Wooden beads around my neck
There are people around me
All chanting something
All with their eyes closed tightly
All offering the yellow flowers to the Ganga

I stand in the black water
My eyes open
There they send the sinful man afloat the black waters
There is an oil lamp sent towards where I wonder
Ganga .

She is like that unarmed solider
She is not at war
She is not at peace

There are sins offered to her
There are prayers
She meets everyone
But no one meets her in her waters

I like him for..

I like him for the word withheld
For the forced sentence
The sentence like a garb
He uses the string of words
Like the silken string
Of the silken curtain
To keep the serenity intact
Of the frozen heart
Of that innocent face
the marble statuette..

I like him for
Carrying the weight
of my empty suitcase
of the unasked question

I like him
As he listens to the story I tell
As he ignores the pages I tear
His silent acknowledgement of my silence
The book is old
Pages were older

I like him as he lets me talk
I talk about the small adventure
I talk about that old misadventure
I talk about my dream
The dream that has chased me
Like some haunted soul
As I try to lose it in the crowd of thoughts

I like him for his courage
To not disregard my childish fear
I like him as he folds his fingers
Lightly cages the panicked bug
Holds it out on the expanse of his palm
For me to see
The bug, the creepiness in the dark
Is nothing but a firefly

The Old Watchman

Why does he sit there at the old gate? The shop is long closed. It never was a great shop. It never sold anything precious. I don’t even remember when I saw it open last time. The guy sits there all day long. The old blue uniform. I wonder if he has ever tried washing it. Or maybe the stains are a permanent design, like those fake golden stars on his either shoulder.

He never sleeps a wink. His eyes are heavy with drowsiness. I sometimes feel like going over and talking to him. Every time I walk down that lane, I am tired of that sight. I have seen it so many times. Nothing changes at all. The shop doesn’t open, the guy doesn’t take a break, and the old rusting chair only creaks never crumples..

Am I the redness?

Who am I?

Am I the red seashell?
Am I playing dead?
Lying on the ocean bed..

Am I the sun’s sliced line?
The red line,
against the blackened sky?

Am I the redness on your nail?
the chapped uneven surface?
the gaudiness at the tip of your finger..

Am I the redness in your eye?
The only evidence of your last tear
the unmasked face of your age-old scar?

Am I the redness?

The Wait

When you wait, what is it that you wait for? Is it for the curtain to burn itself, it's ashes to fall in a heap of gold? Is it for your eyes to open and take in the view of what you have long seen?

What is it that you wait for? Is it for the chaos to gulp you and vomit you out? Is it for your soul to die and be born thousand times with that one death? Is it for the moment, the tiniest fragment of the whole time? Is it because you wish to capture that moment and cage it in a glass bottle like some genie?

Where is that particular pixel in that whole picture? What is it that you wait for?

Close your eyes. And, you know then that you have waited just too long or maybe you realise that that leaf waited for you patiently... beacuse you were waiting.

All that starts well ends.

The year is new. People say so. For me it’s just a numerical change. I care a damn. How does it matter really? Life just happens. You can’t represent it in volumes ..that’s possible with the children’s encyclopedia series or some those sort of books. With life, it’s so disorderly. Clumsy.

We run like machines. It’s all on a schedule. Every 31st December, like the clock that strikes 12 and the chime chimes at 12, we all hoot the happy call. It’s a must. It’s a Happy New Year.

You cannot be at peace on the 31st night. You have to be autistic or deaf at the least to be doing that. The black dress is a must. The stilettos cannot be an inch shorter. The black dress cannot be an inch longer. It’s a Happy New Year.

The sms’ have to be prompt. What’s the use of having so many pals on your list otherwise? That kiss in the air on the bitch’s cheek is a must. You need to look more plastic tonight, more doll-like than the bitch here. It’s a Happy New Year.

You must sound shriller than ever. The laughter needs to be faked. You need to be loud and gaudy. The alcohol should ideally retard your thinking brain. The friends need to pet you the most. They need to sweet talk your innocent boozing self. It’s a Happy New Year.

The car has to run over at least 4-5 people. The black dresses need to be torn. Some of them at least. The boyfriend needs to be around to soothe his tormented girl. The police need to be around and watching over the crowd. It’s a Happy New Year.

The year is new. Hug everyone at your workplace. Read the story of that agonized woman. Okay, so this time only 4 drunken kids got themselves killed. Happy New Year!

I am..

The me that I am now is a stranger to me. Then I feel maybe not a stranger at all. Sometimes I am the cocoon around me and other times I am the soul inside of the cocoon. There is this cocoon and the world around me. Sometimes I am the crowd in my world and other times I am the lonesome world.

I am the lunatic looking for signs of me on the old trail. I left pieces of me at every mile. .. like the pebbles left as signs to find my way back to me. Sometimes I am those pebbles down the trail and other times I am the trail itself.

That part of me is long dead; then I realize it is very much alive. It lives just under the thin layer of my skin. It is there in my eyes, sometimes there caught in the net of those lines on my palm. Sometimes I am those lines on my palm and other times I am the me caught in that web.

I see myself sometimes, just a glimpse of me somewhere in the crowd. I stop and look for me…it’s a routine hide and seek. Sometimes I hide and don’t seek, other times I seek but I am not hidden.

Then I see myself in my eye and say, “When will you realize that I won’t come back?”

I think it will take me one lifetime.