Autumn

You were economic with words as always.
A few pregnant pauses, slight whimpers
Unavoidable sighs and uncomfortable silence
Was followed by an agreement.
That it was never there.
We shook hands, smiled nervously
Gulped down our drinks
Thankful that there were no hurt feelings on either side.
It was mutually agreed upon
That bothering about the gifts would be too puerile.
I stayed a little longer to admire the new painting on your wall.
A cold winter evening descended outside your window.

While Negotiating love

“You never ask for too much from Men,

They invariably fail you”- Didi devised a smile

With one hand on her now swollen belly.

“They don’t have the power to love as much as we do, didibhai,

They can’t bear the pain of it”,

Burimashi observed as she mopped the floor.

“Sacrifice is the woman’s virtue, men can love,

But never can they sacrifice for love,”

Maa spoke as her experienced hands deftly shaped the chapaatis.

“You are always giving more than you get, why my love?

I shall tell you why. Because you are a woman,

And all women are like mothers,

And mothers always give more than they get”

You said as your fingers twisted my curls.

But I expect, I demand, and I ask for more

And I break my own heart every now and then

And I hug you and cry.

I thought it was love.
But now you tell me it was a transaction,

A lucrative one, for you, for sure.

Interim

And thus it endeth,

The longest vacation

And it was yesterday that the green grass even greener with virginal showers,

Dampened our skin

When we sat under the mighty banyan tree.

The robust sentinel concealed us in its ancient silhouette

And it seemed appropriate that you plant a sudden kiss.

The moment of trepidation transpired

With great palpitation, and a little perspiration.

We giggled.

And thus it endeth

Every time.

And now as we merrily wave adieu

I wait to catch one last glimpse

The green of your eyes

The lilac of your touch.

And there are a hundred thousand faces smiling

A thousand hands waving

The gold of the sun, the silver of the clouds

Beneath which the flames of your breath had once burned my skin

Leave lingering questions and a crimson hue.

It is not time to end my poem. Not yet.

Invisible

          New year! One step closer, one step away.
 I always thought it's pretty easy to shut out the unholy truth- pressing my palms firmly against my ears I pretend that I haven't a clue as to what's going on. Slowly the murmurs die down, the expressions change, and nature changes its course too.

             I detest resolutions. And I detest social networking. And I also detest people who (ex)claim that they looove dogs, though I do not particularly hate the species myself. Perhaps I would enjoy human life as a primitive being. Sometimes I wonder if I’m essentially hostile. May be twenty years from now, school children will call me all sorts of names and steal flowers from my garden. I look in the mirror and try to picture myself with crazy hair and brittle limbs. I think I like children, as long as they are not mine.

           I had awaited this moment, feared it, anticipated the consequences and yet approached it like the moth approaches the flames. Applying a clichéd romantic metaphor to describe the one monumental confrontation of my otherwise dreary life is not something I longed for and neither was ‘the confrontation’, a grandiose Shakespearean episode, where nature conspired with the occult and orchestrated thunderous roar and torrential downpour, preceded by a monologue. It was a ping.

             The inauspicious green dot sent streams of alarms through my body. The nervous system is exceptionally sensitive in matters pertaining to the heart. The one thought was to be ‘invisible’; the one thing that had haunted me for most of my life on campus. It was unnecessary, which I realised only much later, because I was invisible to the people on campus. Only this time there was an option- a ‘invisible’ option. Much to my surprise, it only complicated things- and also taught me a thing or two about the human psyche.

                I decided to end the relentless staring of the tumultuous one minute and a half. I blinked. Nothing changed. The green dot was still sitting pretty right on the top. It was time to put an end to this obscure complicated relationship with a chat application. I almost clicked on the ‘go offline’ option, and there it was: the life altering ping.

·         Hey!

·         Hey..

·         Ssup.. I saw u the other day..

·         I know. I saw u.

·         You’ve gained some flesh it seems.

·         Yeah.. I know.

·         You used to be quite slim

·         Yeah..

·         Blah blah blah

·         Bla bla bla

                        I was more like an invalid around him, always a non-entity. And I liked it, partly because I didn't want to stammer if he spoke to me and partly because I could stare at him without getting caught. Later at nights I would fantasise about him, about one particularly profound look of his that I caught or a funny chuckle. And even now, my increasing waistline or my receding hairline never came in the way of my imaginations with the exception of today. I felt old. It was no longer difficult to imagine myself with crazy hair and worn out limbs.

                       The naked branches of the corpse like trees will be covered in lavish foliage soon. I shall neatly arrange the pile of redundant thoughts and lock them away in a rusty box and I won’t blink. As planet earth duly completes its revolutionary circle around the blazing sun, my resolutions take shape, only to wither away in drunken fit of frenzy. I squash them beneath my spear sharp heels, as the newborn sun peeks from the horizon of a mundane world.

  

A Hasty Conclusion

I haven’t slept for an eternity

I haven’t kissed my baby to sleep in ages

I have been walking on the sharp edges of time

The soil breathes fire and the air is unpleasant.

A vast relentless stretch of unrest.

I saw an angel on the sidewalk.

Lacerated wings

She wept in crimson and blue.

And I saw lovers, sleeping together

Arms entwined

Nails digging into the skin

And a set of teeth biting purple lips.

Wrapped in plastic they waited for the highest bidder.

Is that a lake? Or is that a mortuary of desires?

Should I proceed or should I play this last game of chess?

Is it time yet? Time to conclude all games

And count the things undone!

Is this what they call redemption?

Prayer of the Ugly Frog

Do not stifle that chuckle

Do not hide your mouth in your palms

Do not brush that strand of hair behind your ear.

Do not do it so often.

I've seen too much of that coquettish fanfare.

Let it rest. Let the calm of the sea prevail.

We have crossed mountains and seas

And overcame that stony silence

Before the storm.

We let the storm destroy us before, and before that.

We made love in caves beneath the wild oceans

Where the sun does not shine and mermaids groan.

The ancient forebodings rang

Through the stalactites and the stalagmites

Before melting in the carnal fire.

Pour yourself onto me once again,

Like the tempest does to the earth

And the tides to the grains of sand.

Plant that venomous kiss again

And put me to sleep forever.

End it now and here, and release me

From this mess of a body that responds not to me,

But to a strange world where I do not belong.

Love Making

There is a rhythm in your fingers stroking my neck when we kiss.
Last night they touched me gently as you nibbled on my ear.
Brushing my chest playfully, they danced to the blues;
Your nimble fingers, they stirred upward
Sending shivers down my spine.
We were taking it slow.
Slowly the grip tightened, it made me wince
And left a dull patch on my neck,
As I, cold, drooped in profound slumber.
The music changed.

Departure

Another goodbye
Another train waiting to depart
Again faces to smile back at
And promises to stand the test of memory
And yes...
Those incomplete inaudibly uttered emotions.
The restless nights of desperate conversations
Perspiration, indecision
Cigarettes and sweaty palms
And the aching need to talk,
When You pretended not to hear
And I was too restrained to repeat.
The tension of a split second
The second it takes to undo myself
Or to put on the cloak of diplomacy.
The subtle shield of sarcasm it always was,
That kept You and Me together
Or apart. It never let Us be.

Tonight, I promise you
I shall find you, where I left you,
Perplexed,
In the crowd of a million known faces.
I shall be home.


PS: elated to have written something, that is not sad/depressing/disturbing, finally!
       dedicated to Ananya Chatterjee.

Happily Ever After

You lift yourself up from the bed
Drag yourself to the kitchen
And make yourself a cup of tea.
The morning sun invades the room through porous curtains.
The dishevelled bedsheet, unable to move
Gapes at you, pathetically,
It's virginal bloom, trampled,
At the feet of a carnivore.
Yesterday it had blushed pink
Yesterday it was fragrant with rose petals strewn all over it.
Pink, your favourite.
Today, it remains,
Stained with your crushed dreams,
Your little desires killed in the womb.
You dispose it in the washing machine
And gulp your tea; your tongue scalded.
The machine crushes the remaining folds
As you pick a smile and rehearse it before the mirror.
The carnivore shall return; he must return
To claim his fealty
And it must blush pink again.

Pity

He meticulously lifts each strand of hair from my face
Looks deeply into my eyes and tells me
Why and how we cannot be.
I listen to him; I always have
And take the next bus home.
He held my face under the street light,
The last acknowledgment of love,
The pain and the betrayal-
My tears vouched for it.


I see him now- him with his daughter and his paunch.
He has grayed at thirty-four
His spring lost in sensex and beer
His charm devoured by corporate slavery
He is just a lumpish sack of rotten desires.
No I bear him no malice.
You must know, I'm not vengeful.
I often pass by the street lamp
Where he had kissed me with pure sympathy
And whispered that he'd always love me
When I felt like the miserable old cat
Nearing expulsion.
He demanded the last avowal of love
And had revealed my face to the light
My kohl smudged eyes slurred by betrayal
Tears rolling down my cheeks
I was ashamed, afraid, vulnerable.
He had looked satisfied
And perhaps concealed an impish smile.
No I bear him no malice, I repeat.
I laugh out loud.

To Love

Are you still there, somewhere,
In the memory stained loops of my mind?

You existed like those lines of poetry

That never reached the tip of my pen.

The ones that I indulgently let lose their way in a muddled conscience.

But the awareness was there

Of you, being. 

You were there with the familiarity

Of that corner in the canteen

Or of scribbled names on a tree trunk.

You were.

You my only fairytale,

You did not know how to retort when awfully ignored.

At night I fondled you, hugged you, and you hugged me back to sleep.

You did not happen to me like the flash of a lightning.

You did not abandon me like the human did.

You hung in there.

Now, I cannot tell.

Shame

I felt his first glances on me when I turned

To get my ticket from the conductor.

His intrigued eyes were drawing patterns on my chest.

Quietly I tried to concentrate on the view outside.

Naked children cried relentlessly for absentee mothers

And fat men bathed on filthy footpaths.

His arm, stealthily moved next to mine

And I did not look. He searched for his wallet

And I did not move. I could not move.

The second time, I cringed slightly and was ashamed

At my own thoughts. He drew me half a smile

And his eyes saw mine droop, in mute indignation.

I fixed my eyes outside the window. His arm, now bolder,

Continued its tour in various directions

While I held my bag tightly on my breasts.

Clutching onto it like a shield, I waited patiently

For the bus to break down, for his phone to ring

Or for the world to come to an end,

And I did not move. I checked my watch.

Fifteen more minutes; adjusting my dupatta

I waited for me to find my drowned voice.

Two of his fingers now relaxed on my thigh.

I shifted, and his fingers shifted with me

As he spoke on the phone in flawless English

And I did not move. I sat there, comatose

With several eyes hovering over me.

The ladies seats glared with apparent hostility

And amused smirks lurked from every corner

Waiting to pounce and dig their teeth into me.

His palm was rubbing against my thigh now,

Wiping the sweat off my head I browsed my texts.

My cheek felt his breath, warm and hungry,

As he, very softly, poured obscenities into my ears.

And I did not move. I think I heard a chuckle too.

A primitive curse chained me to the third seat

Of bus number 237/1 and I could not move.

Amherst Street!- Gritting my teeth and grappling my bag

I prepared myself for one last humiliation.

My friend hugged me at the bus stop

And a pair of eyes chased me from the yellow bus.

I know that they were laughing at me; they always do.

I clenched my fist and started walking.

On Poetry and its Criticism

He wore glasses and a neatly trimmed moustache,
With slight hints of beard and carefully unkempt hair.
The sharp looks and a wisely maneuvered silence,
Kept the ladies on their toes.
I had been half in love with him, I'd say,
If not for his mind-numbing pedantry.
The midday sun shined brightly above us
As we sat down by the pool,
Accompanied by cocktails and cigarettes
Discussing politics and poetry.
The extensive discourse on Communism and its failure
Was soon to be followed by some sweaty, sticky parking lot sex
In the impatient back seat of a car.
It was predetermined; a necessary rite of passage.


I distinctly remember discussing the Romantics.
We agreed that Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Was one of the greatest poets that ever lived,
Raised our glasses to the fact that we both hated Wordsworth.
He expressed great dismay at the decadence of contemporary poetry
And read a few of his own poems at my insistence
And an excerpt from the paper that he was going to read
At the university seminar.
Expressing a keen interest in my poems
His eyes sparkled when he warned me
That he was the ruthless critic.
My candour surprised me 
As I read out to him. Aloud. 
My poetry gained audience for the very first time,
Unfettered, from the dark dungeon of a diary.
It was the blissful ecstasy of holding the firstborn
After several agonizing hours of throe
With a note of caution!


He listened with unmitigated attention
Turning only once to light a cigarette. 
Bestowed with an expressionless face 
And a pair of uncommonly large eyes
He never betrayed a hint of any emotion.
Puffing his cigarette casually, he complimented me
On my confident use of metaphors.
And then checked his watch once
And apologised for having to leave me early.
I looked as far as I could, to see his figure disappear.
The fire spewing sun seemed to burn him as he walked.
The sex was deferred till our next encounter.
Poetry was never discussed again.

Reflection

"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Her brown eyes, kohl laden, motionless, stared back into their own reflection, as still as the glass of the mirror, stained with watermarks. It was the blank look of a dead fish. The kind of look that she saw in the eyes of the girl in the washroom. The girl's foot was bleeding profusely after dancing for 3 insane hours in 6 inches of heels, resembling  a deathtrap. But she didn't seem to care much, or was, perhaps too stoned to feel the pain. Her eyes were glued into the mirror, her soul trapped, by some magic spell, on the other side of the glass- the forbidden territory. Tik tok. The DJ was playing her favourite song, the potboiler of the year, she had to rush. She was running, past the pool, careful, the milk white couches, the slouched couples, the sloshed and the sober, the exquisite but brittle hookas and the fragrant candles. The dance floor looked foggy- dry ice! Dodging a candid elbow and an unfair tackle, she reached the bar. There stood Vishal, inebriated and incorrigible, wooing a barmaid. She looks kinda cute, 5'7", pretty actually, in her navy blue short skirt. Straight hair with the luster of satin. She hated her instantly. 

Raising his 5th 30 ml, stirring the ice cubes, Vishal danced in a peculiar fashion, smiling in her direction. His face looked different in the blue light. Alien. It was changing shapes, assuming the shape of Baba's face and then that of the mad woman who sits in front of the gate every morning. She was yelling at her, the mad woman, calling her names. Her throat felt dry. Where is water when you need it the most! There were plenty of abandoned glasses on the round tables, full of ice cubes and left over booze. Nauseated she looked back. The mad woman was still admonishing her. Her eyes were red. Wine red. Water!! Baby are you alright? Yeah I'm fine. But your foot is bleeding. Vishal was looking at her, visibly concerned. I'll be back in a jiffy. Toilet paper, where are you? She released her exhausted feet from the 6 inches of deathtraps. Maa had warned her, but hell, they looked sexy! There are things Maa would never understand and the number was increasing ominously. How could anyone possibly explain the importance of 31st night in a 21 year old's life! Was she too harsh with Maa? She looked in the mirror and pondered. Perhaps the last few words could be avoided. Tik tok. Her train of thought was interrupted. 

They walked past her with the grace of a mermaid. Cream smooth skin, wrapped in the velvet of red only till the thigh, rest left there, bare and white, to cherish and to covet. The scent of their skin could lull you to sleep. Sleep, placid and sound. No! she cant be oding. Nofrigginway! Placidity... serenity. Long slender legs capped in golden stilettos glided onto the bar counter. The mermaids were floating in the air, and she was floating with them. Peace. The tides, soft and moist, carried her, pushing her forth with an occasional jerk now and then. A ship was approaching through the fog, its light shining on the black opaque water like an ill omen. Her body was too numb to feel the ripples around her. No sensation felt she, but the deathly calm of the dark river. The ship was threateningly close now and the flash of its light blinded her vision. The mermaids smiled. She closed her eyes. Howrah Bridge! Tik tok. Enormous potbellies rocked to the tune drooling lustfully at the two nymphs swaying on top of the bar. Russian belly dancers. No! Ukrainian, somebody in the crowd said. Like it matters... waist 24, 5'8" at least.. Jackpot! Vishal's eyes glistened as he took another sip.

10...9...8 the countdown began. The world was extinguished and madness came to a temporary halt. A profound darkness descended onto her, entering her through her nostrils, ears. 7...6...5  The road was barely visible. Not even the street lights could penetrate the early morning fog. Only a thick white substance could be seen, tainted with yellow around the edges. Smog! It became thicker as the car pushed on, enveloping it with its viscous mass. The car tilted a little. Bump! She hit her head. Slowly for Christ's sake! A loud bang and a feeble whimper; the darkness consumed her. She looked at herself, pathetically trapped in a broken piece of the windscreen. The blank look of the dead fish. The mermaids smiled. The ship was coming for her. Vishal lay in a pool of blood. Red. Wine red. Tik tok. And there was light. Happy New Year shouted a restless generation in preternatural frenzy and diabolical joy as they flowed into another year, very intoxicated, discontented and equally messed up. 4...3...2 the countdown began.