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.