what is there to be happy about ?
you ask.
i dont have a list
but,         i suppose
you.  and your fingers inside
me.  
mother, father         and
she, who is far away.
happiness is not everywhere
but it is
there. 

sometimes love may look like this

i had seen you after a long time

you in your dirty, unwashed jeans
and kurti,
you with your satchel like bag,
you with your hair let lose
that hung like black clouds
at your waist,
you and your doe like eyes.

every intake of breath was
like an icicle crashing
on its tip from a frozen ceiling-
breathless beauty.

we walked to the curb and sat
on the broken graveyard stones.
playing with your toe-ring, you said,
"mora saiyaan gaan ta te, all that
i want to do is the tatkaar to its beats."
i didn't know what a tatkaar is and that
did not bother me.  but funny, that you
should say to me "mora saiyaan
moh se bolena." it rarely that i hear
your voice.
i didnt know what i tatkar is and so
i stared at my feet.

times we never have anything to do with each other.

i will listen to songs by unknown people singing songs

about unknown places, in love with unknown people
while you'd be making movies in studios, and

watching art films, and talking about existentialist cinema.

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

your poetry will about breaking tea cups, and

sunlit hungover mornings after; and anger. 

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

on most sundays, i will wake up in my bed hungover
bruised from hitting against the various pieces 

of furniture in the room-- which is an awful feeling actually.

you will turn to your beautiful wife, lying next to you

kiss her ever so nicely, look out the french window
and sigh at the beauty you there.
i will sit in a room in some godforsaken town, 
where the phone lines betray me all the time,

and think of all the places i haven't been.

you, will be on your way to the airport

to board a flight to that country, 

where i should have been born.
you will call me when you are drunk and

say that you miss me, and that you wish

oh! if only i'd been there, with you, the rum

the moon-less night screaming with drunken joy.

easy come and easy go, next evening i call you

you will say that you will call me back

disconnect the line and forget about that phone call

because the music's really good in the pub.

i could say more and point out the ways in which

our lives have become so different. but i wont

because i am tired. in ways you dont know.

but mostly, mostly because now we no longer

have anything to do with each other.

times we never have anything to do with each other.

i will listen to songs by unknown people singing songs

about unknown places, in love with unknown people
while you'd be making movies in studios, and

watching art films, and talking about existentialist cinema.

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

your poetry will about breaking tea cups, and

sunlit hungover mornings after; and anger. 

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

on most sundays, i will wake up in my bed hungover
bruised from hitting against the various pieces 

of furniture in the room-- which is an awful feeling actually.

you will turn to your beautiful wife, lying next to you

kiss her ever so nicely, look out the french window
and sigh at the beauty you there.
i will sit in a room in some godforsaken town, 
where the phone lines betray me all the time,

and think of all the places i haven't been.

you, will be on your way to the airport

to board a flight to that country, 

where i should have been born.
you will call me when you are drunk and

say that you miss me, and that you wish

oh! if only i'd been there, with you, the rum

the moon-less night screaming with drunken joy.

easy come and easy go, next evening i call you

you will say that you will call me back

disconnect the line and forget about that phone call

because the music's really good in the pub.

i could say more and point out the ways in which

our lives have become so different. but i wont

because i am tired. in ways you dont know.

but mostly, mostly because now we no longer

have anything to do with each other.

lines written in a village that god doesn't know about.

but then, if you were to ask me
who i am
i would only stare at the blankness
behind you.
questions have left their answers
hanging in mid air
and so, i am here
and i am there.

tonight the pen..

   tonight the pen refuses to write.
not me.
it's never me.
i am always the
obedient one.
i always do what
i tell myself.
it is the pen that is
deviant.
clutching
one arm
with the other
does not help
either.
neither does,
  feeling sad do the trick.
mostly,
it does.
you see,
sadness
helps one be a
poet.
poet, indeed !
self-flattery is
usually the
preferred
path, to
happiness.
  neither does being a voyeur
help.
peeking at
the girl next
door
take off her
shirt,
through
the curtains
at the
window-
i don't feel
cheap
enough tonight.
  nothing. none of it brings
out the
words.
they behave,
like an
expensive whore
and i am
no moneyed
person.
the pen,
refuses
to
write.

kalyani.

this is a quiet town.
a town so quiet  that 
you can hear the sound
of an axe skinning away
at a piece of wood.
the sound of a singular 
bell 
on a hero cycle, when
the cyclist slowly trails
along an even slower road,
that leads to the blacksmith's
shop at the end of the road.
the blacksmith's hammer's
clank-clank-clank, punctuate
the drowsy town.


at 2 o'clock on an ordinary
afternoon, if you walk towards
Central Park, taposh-da will
be pulling down the shutters
of his grocery store--
his wife has just drained the
starch from an earthen pot
she has boiled rice in for
the last 25 years.
further down,
biren-da would be brewing tea
and selling biscuits and other
such eats,  for the bank
officials,  when they step
out for their hour-long
lunch break.

later on, perhaps towards
5 o'clock when you are
walking back home,
the boy at kamal furniture
store, will be sprinkling
water from an old pepsi
bottle, on the floors
of the shop--
the afternoon dust will
then settle down, giving
way
to a lesser quiet evening.
winding down the lane by
the lake, which leads up
right till the gates of your
home,
you see amal-dadu sitting
at his doorstep smoking
a biri. . "kire? kamon achis?
kobe asli?"  you smile at
him and comment on the
weather, and refuse an
invitation to a cup of tea.
"nah.. aaj jai."


you will reach home, open
the gates that creak with
the sound of years of
coming and going, solitary
footsteps
and bags--
you will sit in your room,
switch on the fan and hear
the pages of your diary
flutter--
it is the sound of a
slumbering sadness of a quiet town
you will know. 

h a n d s.

brown, holding an orange flower
between two fingers
and the other, holding
an incense stick that gave the
shillong air, a touch of the south.
your hands, when i touched for the
first time that day, reminded me
of an old bent willow tree that
i'd seen in bodh gaya.
lines- coarse, hard, etched deep
into your skin almost as if
every year that you had lived
your hands had been the only
witness of them.  witness to,
some eight decades of hills, and
streams that run down to cup at
your hands.
and some lesser years, of ganja
seven children, a dead lover,
wrinkled memories, wrinkled clothes
and wrinkled skin.    
these hands, i know
have caressed several of us
who have stopped at your inn
for a night and sat by you-
a bottle of rum, a smouldering fire
and your stories. to me, you told a story
of a time when a man from across the
seas came for a week and said
he would hold your hand to take
you away, to a far far land.  you
of course knew, that fairytales were
just that, fairytales. and so these hands
some fifty years later were not holding
a strong, white hand but were tying
the hair on the head of a nineteen year old
girl who left you with promises of
coming back to you by the fire with
a glass of rum.  you, of course knew
that fairytales...
now, some years later sitting in place
that would laugh at stories of
hills and hands, i wonder
where are you ?
those brown hands that could
lovingly
sweep across hills, rivers and
a million dreams-
do they still breathe ? do they
at night light up a joint, and
talk to strangers as if they were
born to tell stories ?
your hands, when i first saw them
reminded me of an old willow in
bodh gaya.

Sohor Kolikata

charlam ghar bichana

charlam songsar o' bhalobasha

sudhu parlam na ekhono

charte tomar haath-ta

amar sohor kolikata

jano tomar saathe

nadi-r taan,

jano tumi-i amar maa

sitting by the ganga at princep ghat, watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon as if intimidated by the sound of ships leaving and entering port, was a weekly ritual. sunday evenings were spent like that- melancholic, alone, by the river. i would go back home as the traffic began to quiet down on the streets and find baba at the table reading raag darbari, and ma working on a her college journal. i would sit at the table for a few minutes, during which no one had spoken, i would quietly get up and tiptoe into my room. why i'd tiptoe, i never knew. it always seemed as though someone was sleeping inside the room.. the room smelt of sleep. i'd go into the balcony, gaze out at the skyline and eventually, find my cheeks wet. sunday was always the day to cry. to cry, and beg Cal to hold me close to her bosom and never let me go.

it has been many sundays since then. and now sundays are spent in ways that are rather.. delhi-ish. sundays are no longer spent drinking 8, 10 cups of tea, smoking cigarettes and talking to the river. there is no house to go back to, no, balcony, no invisible person sleeping in a room that smelt of slumber.

there is no longer a ghat, no longer a girl sitting by that ghat.

it is almost as if a shadow has left the place, without a sound and the city doesn't know of it yet. when it does, it will rain.

In this one you are a memory

In this one you

are a distant memory

in a green t-shirt and worn chappals.

A memory that is the color

of the setting sun

over the howrah bridge.

A memory that is the sound

of public buses and trams

on a busy thursday evening.

A memory that has seen

the two sides of Cal--

one, destitute, poor, hungry

the other, Victorius.

A memory that smells of fumes

wet earth, and a smell

that I cant quite describe.

A memory that has just

turned three years old

in a city that has nothing

to do with this memory.

Just as I, no longer have

anything to do with you.

It was an evening not,

out of the ordinary,

for the rest of the city--

For me, it was an

evening, when you

had licked salt off the air

in the City of Water

and travelled

to me,

to give me a taste of it.

The place?

I knew you'd ask.

The terrace on the 13th floor

of the 19th block.

The jagged cemented ground

beneath our soles scraped

off skin,

off our feet--

like it was trying to

scrape memories off

our minds.

Succumbing, was not in

our nature.

Or so we thought.

Ultimately, the

jagged cemented ground

won.

Shadows of

white picketed fence houses

in the midst of paddy fields,

wooden doors and latches

and a Jack,

danced out of the window

mocking me,

out of the reach of

my extended hand--

and you floated to some

place,

that was not for me.

But what does it matter.

It's a memory that

hangs,

on a grease stained wall,

that will be broken down

when she builds her home

around yours.

And I will walk on

sweeping aside the

fragments of my soul,

as though a mirror had

crashed, and someone

with a kind heart,

had fetched a broom

and swept the pieces

off the floor.

being fat

being fat is a strange thing.

for me, it beings with itching

that large piece of skin, that

does not get any air, because

your belly is hanging

till where it should not.

usually, that part of my body

itches at night.

when the chores are done,

the lights put out

and i'm thinking of all

the things i've done in

the day, that i shouldn't

have,

it begins to itch.

itch, like the things i did

that i ought not have done.

the sweat, the rawness of

skin, the fat and that

itch--

it is almost as if i am

paying for my sins.

You my love, fuck with my head.

an atheist--

a gospel songs

brings tears to my eyes

she has the words

i have the thoughts --

neither of us have the poetry.

to you both.

there are two women in my life. two women i love very much. they are two people with whom i've shared drunken pleasures, the cold of shimla and the pinkness of jaipur, the feeling of being perpetually broke, heartbreakes, car rides that made us feel like 'bad-ass' boys (!), regrets about the lack of men in our lives, good food, bad food and a lot of food in general, good times, bad times, and the last 8 months of my life. they are not people whom i can relate to much. they are not people with whom i have a lot in common. they like noida and clubbing, i like north capmus and the sound of a classical guitar. i like frank o'hara, they don't like to have much to do with poetry. they will crack very, very silly jokes and roll over laughing while i would look at them incredously. point is, that i am very different from them, and they, from me. but they are my friends. friends without whom i could not have spent the last few months in this unknown city, friend i can always count on, to make me laugh. friends who would call me over their place so that i get good food. friends who probably wouldnt understand what i am talking about or how i feel, but would nevertheless listen. friends, whom i love. of course that sounds like a repition in itself because if they are my friends then it is because i love them.. but well. so when i see a list of 'dearest friends' on one of their 'profiles', i expect to see my name in the list. and it mildly surprises me when i find that i feature nowhere in the list.and i realise, that the three of us are not really a trio. it is more like this- the two of them, and me. and while i cannot lie and pretend not to feel hurt, i understand, nevertheless. i understand the two of them are a source of solace to each other and their friendship extends beyond just college, and car rides and cigarettes. perhaps it is because of the lack of display of affection on my part, or perhaps it is because i like being with myself than anyone else, but what remains is this- to them i am not what i used to be. and that saddens me. but this post is not about me, it is about them. 'them'. i say 'them' because i can no longer think of each one of them in isolation. when i think one, the other's presence is immediately felt. like two peas in a pod. like two leaves on a flower. like two friends. they are not like my other friends. most of whom, are either writers, musicians or some kind of 'intellectuals' in their own right. these two women, are different. they are fun. that is the only way to describe them. somehow, it is very difficult fot to imagine them sad or depressed, for i have never, ever, seen them without a smile on their faces. on the hottest day, on the most upsetting day, on the most stressful day, on the most horrible day, they would wear a smile on their faces like its a part of them. like their eyes, nose, lips, the smile is just there.

so while i may not post kisses and 'i love you's on facebook, and turn up for college just to meet you, i love you. for you are two people in my life that i would not give for anybody else, anything else. for you two, are my friends.

On a February Night.

If I think of you, should I

not have the liberty to hold

you close? And if I am far away

with distances and nonsensical

aspects of life, such as growing up

separating us, what more is

there to be done, than to pick up

that mundane telephone and

give you a call.

"Hello.." "I called you to tell you

how much I miss you." "Oh, sorry,

I am _____, she has fallen asleep.."

Words dont do justice to my err.. ,

jealousy. Of course, that is a very

poetic way of putting it. What I feel,

on the other hand is nothing poetic.

Should I wonder what you were doing,

before slumber took over you ? I

can imagine the two of you in that

blue-walled room, that smells of you,

and rains, and trains. Did you sit

on that window ledge and smoke

a cheap cigarette or two, while

her eyes ran all over you like

she was caressing you with

her fingers? Or were you talking

of things you love the most--

films, art, Cal, life and death ? Or

did you just sit in each others'

arms, quiet, letting your hands

do the talking?

I will never know. If I ask you,

then you would perhaps laugh

it off, or be offended. But then,

I will never know. If I think

of you, should I not have the

liberty to hold you close? If I

think of you, shouldnt the heavens

above send you to me? They

have been known to perform such

miracles (!) If I think of you,

should I not have the liberty

to love you?

An Ode to Writing

i

have

been

told

that

this

is

wrong

.

(to all those, who could not.)

"And in short.."

Should I stand in a corner

Fold my hands and wait

Or,

Should I plunge into this life

Whatever this life maybe

This life that made me walk
on maddened, nomadic roads

Roads that lead from one city,

a City of Joy to another, a city

That looks like a dark green bowl

where all, in sixes and sevens

just pour in, hoping

to embrace one another.

These nomadic roads

They lead somewhere - of course they do

but I do not want to know where they end.

Who is to say what

I am

I am not lost

I am not found.

I once saw a sunrise

and a sunset, standing

On the terrace of the

Nandan Cinema Hall.

The night came, and

with it brought something

else. Truth is, I never found out

What it was. I once saw

A sunrise and a sunset, only

This time it was from a

French window in a

posh restaurant in Connought Place.

Do sunrises and sunsets change ?

Do skies change ? Did the air

I breathe change ? Yes, they did.

They all changed.

The scenes, the sights,

The roads, the smiles,

The tears, the villages,

Their sounds, he dreams

The vows. They all, all

changed.

"Change is the only constant"

Some madman had once said

I dont think he knew

He was speaking the Eternal Truth.

If you are confused, then so am I

Come, let us hold hands and

Walk these nomadic roads

I do not want to know

Where they lead, or end-

I like their mystery.

August 6, '11

4.40 a.m. in a

Yellow coffee cup

Slumber flirts with

Their brown and black eyes

Something must have been said

Something had to be said

Fingers make love

Noses rub

Lovers, humans, they might be

And yet a green silence hangs

Over their souls and peace

Eludes them

And Marley sings

No woman no cry

Through tears in his eyes

And a hole in his heart.

too early

in the day

too many people.

8.45 a.m., new hair

look around, its the world

a red scarf, you say

"dont buy me things"

poetry is not something

i am good at.

you want to go to lunch with him

i want to hold your hand

and smell yellowed, moth-eaten books

in old curiosity shops

9 a.m., your hair looks nice.

you are like the night's sky...

imagery is overrated

may i tell you that i

perhaps am in love with you

do i dare to ?

for every step i take towards you

you remain standing, motionless

you do not come any closer

winter becomes more cruel

warming hands at a roadside fire

is not the same as warming hands

inside your skin.

you dont have everything that you want

but then i dont have you

so life trails on peeking into

the by-lanes of a this city.

10 a.m., you move closer to me

because you are cold

i move closer you to you

because it is you

my heart slips down my sleeve.