21 November 2024

Hiraeth

At the edge of the world,
The house we built when
We were on good terms.

I stopped there for a while 
When I was passing by tonight.
A dinner table in the hall,

Two tea-cups that aren't 
Empty. Bindi on the mirror,
An arm length wreath of 

Jasmine that wants to find
Solace in your braids.

The small geoid marked 
With places we wished to go.
It still rotates.

The door is forever open
And the doormat still flaunts 
'Welcome' in colours.

The kid of our fancy calls 
Your name and I haven't 
Lied to her yet.

"Mom has gone shopping"
I repeatedly say and 
Believing my words, 

She goes on playing in 
My head.

Subtle Art

When the first man chipped away 
The edges off a rock to roll it.

Another playing with stones, 
Sparked the first fire and ate baked 
Flesh for the first time.

Centuries later, a dude capitalized 
Both phenomenons to boil water 
In a tank to move around on steam.

The refinement of the same,
Passing through various minds of
People with passion-

Suddenly you've innumerable options.
Wheel-wise, size-wise, engine-wise, 
Fuel-wise- lots of categories.

And when you complain now about 
How you're anxious to choose from 
The myriad of choices you've-

I say, be thankful sis.

One asteroid is all it takes to bite
The dust- to wander naked in Eden-
Cold. Hungry. Ready to get 

Cursed again by God, for eating 
That forbidden Apple- and a
Whole replay of this simulation.

To say all of that to invoke a sense
Of gratitude in you- Mansplaining is 
A subtle art you see.

Gets better if one knows how to 
Flaunt when the other is 
Under confident and meek.

18 November 2024

Pickles

I had to accompany you that day.
You forced me in fact, saying
You want me to accompany you
Till your hostel in another city.

As we sat giggling and talking,
Our faces so close- I could feel
Your breath and the brush of 
Your hair on my cheeks.

It could have been a kiss.
But I wasn't ready for something 
Like that - consciously maintaining 
A distance, freeing my hand
From your clutch-

Did I have an aversion to touch?
Beats me. I've let go of too many 
Could have been and would 
Have been moments like that.

These incomplete moments,
That swell in my veins now-
Ready to blast. But for what?
Fresh flowers as homage to
Graveyards in my heart?

And what should I do with
This fragrance of regrets?
Preserve it in another bottle 
Of brine? - Pickles to taste 

Again in the future when I 
Reminisce about these lost 
Moments because I overthought 
About the consequences?

15 November 2024

Translation

Whenever she wanted to say
Something uncomfortable or 
Vulnerable. She would text in 
A random language.

Her way of hiding her trauma.
Her way of not throwing it 
Directly at me. 

Sometimes she would text in
Turkish or Spanish.
I had to translate it back to 
English to decipher what she
Meant to say.

Sometimes I would reply in 
Russian or French to hide 
My helplessness to console.

The loss in translation 
Didn't matter. Even if I could 
Understand half of what she 
Wanted to say. It was okay.

Even if she had put things in
Our slang, I wouldn't have 
Understood her pain the way 
She wanted me to be.

Maybe it was the effort to 
Understand her mattered,
More than her pain itself.

Little effort to sneak in another 
Language to understand 
Each other had some kind of 
Intimacy to it.

Maybe our own language 
Isn't enough sometimes.
Like home isn't enough and 
You gotta climb a 

Distant mountain to it sigh off
And understand and convey- 
How the trudge is mutual
And you totally empathize.

14 November 2024

Sab Changasi

Ours is a sleepy town,
The worst that can happen
Is a bad cup of tea and
The best is a good cup
With a plate of Girmit.

We don't have big malls,
Traffic jams, skyscrapers,
Or critical infrastructure.
Streets are not tangled,
You can hardly get lost.

Wokeness of English
Hasn't seeped in our language.
So cripples are not
Special abled here yet.
They do the same things
Ordinary people are supposed
To do.

Feminism hasn't invaded
The households and women
Are busy making homes
Than forming opinions
That are politically correct.

Kids don't hesitate to stone
Mating dogs disgusted by
Their interlocked genitals.
And the men walk in their
Banyans, with their proud
Fat bellies-

The only duty they got is
To transfer their chauvinism
To the next- GenZ and counting-
Everything is all right till the
Round rotis keep coming.

12 November 2024

Beyond Reason

Let us hide in the gaps
Of languages. Where our 
Emotions are untouched and 
Undefined.

Life beyond four letters,
Livelihood beyond 
The day-to-day stutter.

If there's a word for a
Yearning for a non-existent 
Home, let's skip it.

And for the smell of rain
After touching scorched soil.
Let's forget it.

There must be some language 
Of the world where,
They might not have confined 

The meaning of love yet.
A longing that isn't limited 
To mortal sensibilities.

Let's outgrow what we can
Speak and read and touch.
Let's outgrow what we can

Feel and express. 
They say, beyond the shackles 
Of logic and reasoning,

There's a marijuana field. 
I'll roll for you, you roll for me. 
We'll smoke up the earth to 

Call it an apocalypse.

Ripping it

That morning I turned myself 
Into a butcher, to chop flesh
Of my memories as pieces of
Songs I've been in love.

The bloody hassle down this
Nostalgic path to find you 
The best songs- to curate you 
The best playlist 

It's hard not to expect you
Yap about the music and
Scream about it from a 
High tower of your city.

But I gotta keep my expectations 
Low you know? I always get 
Ahead of myself in these things.
Only to sit and wait for others to 

Catch up. Then regret and 
Curse myself in frustration.
For hopping on such a journey 
To begin with.

This euphoria fails to subside,
But when it does my eyes hurt 
And my head blurs as if I'm in a 
Caffeine withdrawal.

This strange attitude of mine 
To feel deeply. Outlive four-five
Oceans despite knowing,
A mere drop is our reality..

It comes with a cost. 
Goes on leaving its marks.
I attach myself deeply and
That's why, feel betrayed easily.

11 November 2024

Participation Time

You're an incarnation of 
A star that died.
Maybe I'm a misfired bullet 
In an astronomical war.

Perhaps everyone here
Is cosmic-apocalyptic-dust 
Forced with life.

Trees culture us to feed 
Themselves carbon dioxide.
They're CCTVs deployed to 
Monitor us. Mitochondria-

Connected to a giant dictator's 
Mind. Earth sure is a lab.

You and me are 
Test subjects, for an evaluation 
Of side effects of love 
That's wild. 

Come on love..
It's participation time.

I want to

I want to let out a
Warm sigh on your neck
While I play with
The strands of your hair.

I want to stay buried in
Your touch while you
Complain about your day
At work.

I want to recite to you a
Romantic poem written
By a rogue poet to

Tell you how I wish to write
Something that great
But unable to pen down.

All I want is, to trace
Back every romantic
Thought of mine to your
Presence. Or absence.

Might sound like a bogus
Fantasy of a hopeless poet.
Come to me once, 
I'll show you-

How the warmth of
My thoughts, 
Down your creases,
Can make you melt.

Shower of my passion 
To invoke a desire 
Can make you wet.

Why the Midlife Crisis?

The first time your friends
Mock the bulge of your belly,
You say you ate more.

The next time you find out
A couple of extra KGs,
You land the blame on
The high density of bones.

The denial goes on for a
Few years while the shirt
Size changes and the waist
Goes beyond thirty-two.

Acceptance knocks on
Your door after a while and
You open it- you gotta, after

Your hand made countless
Slides down the curves of
This parabolic paunch that's
In making.

And when you sit down now-
The folds of this adipose,
Tightening around the waist
To make its presence felt-

You laugh it off, imagining
This fat insulation coming
In the line of sight while peeing
And you can no longer

See your weenie.
That's a legit catharsis of
Every man in his 40s and
You ask why the midlife crisis?

08 November 2024

Choices

This is the second time
You've come in my dream now.
We met at your college this time.
Which was located in a place
I remember from the mountains.

You were attending your 
Classes. Surprisingly I was 
Attending too. My homie was 
Roaming around in his own.

We stole glances now and then.
For some reason, it wasn't 
Awkward at all.
In fact, we mysteriously sat
Together, had lunch and
Read a couple of poems.

He asked me a couple of times,
'Who's she?' I couldn't tell.

Then, we three roamed around.
Talked to one of your friends 
Out of suicide.
Then we saw a rain-soaked 
Path and followed it.

We three were climbing a 
Mountain in a short while.
But when I reached the top,
Found myself alone.

Did I lose you two? 
But why? Surely,
Not because I was fast.

Do my choices have to be
This exclusive? One of you 
Against the other?
Finally to end within myself?

Do I have to be forever 
Alone?

07 November 2024

Entanglement

The train of my thoughts 
Has a steam engine.
Loud, shaky, and smokey
When it runs.

It forces me to cough.

The soot overpowers.
I feel asphyxiated.
But it takes me ahead,
So what's there to complain 
About?

Yes, some hop on with 
Guitars and some 
Jasmine-laden coys.
Folklores and comedy 
That I enjoy.

The hot tea and chips
That are offered and
The scenery that passes 
By when I peek outside.

But they all entangle 
Again in a short while.
Lighting, thunder and
Rain-- deluge.

Then there are sparks too-
Fire, steam, and the train
That runs. Travelling is
Messy- bad tripping too.

06 November 2024

Ghosts

I invoke thy old ghosts
And the new.

The one that made me wet
My bed and the one
One that hides in the
Caffeine withdrawal now.

I plead, ask, and I demand 
What's their problem? 
They ask me in return, 
What's mine?

Addiction, fear and 
The way you make me 
Feel like shit, I say. 
And surprisingly their 
Answer is the same.

I had to hug them to 
Let them go.

I've decided to dig up my
Other hidden graves too.
To host a party to peace out 
With these hoes.

Biggest treaty since 
World War One.
Reparations greater 
Than Versailles and stuff.

Hope the consequences,
Don't lead to another war.
If I'm spared to myself,
I'll stay withdrawn.

05 November 2024

Masters

A few kilograms of rice
And maybe some daal.
A hundred or a five
Hundred note at times.

That's how we sell our
Votes to rot in the same
Hope, again and again.

The fire is costly and
Hunger is cheap.
And the value of life is
An overlookable stat.

Life doesn't improve.
Livelihood too.
Had to take things in hand
To etch fate on our
Foreheads in bold.

But God complains,
Says it's illegible, to
Outsource the task of
Reading to doctors.

Nothing changed though.

Bodies piled up and
The Doctors in turn ruined
Their handwriting in
The process.

Little Things

We kept on arguing over
A perfect flavour.
A perfect flower and fragrance.
A perfect house and
Homeliness.

A flawless you for a
Flawless personality of mine.

Our un-met realities against
The imagined fantasies,
That fizzled out some humble
Possibilities-

Between what you said
And what I heard.
What you expect and
What I could offer-

Truth is a bird that grew
Wings to fly away.

And we sulk here wingless.
Complaining about
A mirage, that could have
Been our big flight.

We can hug and cuddle.
But no. We wait for a
Perfect moment to come
For our initiation.

Small steps for a big leap-

But we're obsessed about
Cleaning our feet first,
Than walking with disregard
For the dirt.

Idealism killed us, our love
Is incomplete that's how.

04 November 2024

Life Goes On

Happy or Sad. Married or 
Unmarried. Homeless, 
Broke or abandoned.
Everyone finds something 
To live by in the end.

Everyone finds their niche,
To operate around, at least 
Some minimal needs. 

And after a point, it's just
One more day of breathing. 
One more night of surviving,
Before seventy years go by 
Without you realizing.
 
Yes, death is inevitable.
But even life, the very 
Act of living or surviving-
It's stubborn. One can't 
Simply give up, can we?

To live somehow. 
To find love, even if it's 
Just a bit. If not in a mansion. 
By a roadside shelter-

And if not under the 
Streetlight. We manage it
Under the flicker of a lamp 
Discarded by a passerby.

Retakes

''Cut, ready for a retake.''
'Cut, Retake. The make up
Is not right'

"Cut, Retake, in the next 
Scene, tear up a little less."
I don't want an exaggerated 
Sob- says the director.

Is this the 19th take?
Who cares. All you can feel
Is his hands on your bust.
Intended brush on the hips.

This hasn't changed in ages.

Cry a little less? How?
Your every effort to suppress 
Each drop of tear,
Bursts open another fissure 
That wants to laugh.

Laugh and laugh, till all 
The tormenters are deaf?
Molesters turn blind and 
The divide that comes with 
Gender is neutered?  

But you can't laugh. 
Can you?

All the efforts you put up
To cry a little less in the next 
Take, when you've an 
Ocean to pour down.

What's more ironic?
Inability to laugh or 
Cry a little less?
Or the fact that the director 
Says 'scene' and you're
Ready again for 

The next nineteen
Or God knows how many!

01 November 2024

Wish You Happy Deepawali

I wish you a Happy Deepawali.
I wish all your siblings holidays,
To make it home this time.

I wish those cousins and friends 
In the village, gather in your 
House to fill up the space.

I wish your dad makes you clean 
The house, put up those lights,
Wash the vehicles and fight
With everyone a couple of times.

I wish you play Uno with people
Around and be blessed with 
The luxury of gully cricket in 
The high school playground.

I wish those aunties bother you
With questions of marriage.
Grandparents force you to touch
Their feet, only to give you twenty 
Rupees like they always did.

I wish you a lazy morning 
With the preview of the match 
Playing on the TV. And the smell from 
The kitchen invade your senses 
When you're not hungry.

I wish you realize what's a home.
The smell of Oily Vada, the taste of 
Mix Mithai. The hints of light
That binds you in a fraternity.

I wish you all the mundane things
That come with a home.
I wish you a hungry stomach 
And blessings of a mom's kitchen.

More than the festival, I wish you
The sensibilities of it. I wish you
Completeness of all the emotions.
I wish a very Happy Deepawali and
The warmth of a home.

31 October 2024

Validating a Wound

What good is a wound 
That heals quickly?
What good is a wound 
That didn't itch when
It shouldn't?

The helpless fingers 
Compulsively finding 
Excuses to scratch.
Healing seeming like
A petty crime-

What good is a wound 
When it's not inflicted 
By you? What good 
Is a wound that doesn't 
Remind me of you?

The reason to bruise
Myself and the reason 
To heal, when it's you-

What good is your 
Occupancy in my head-
If you don't force me to 
Push boundaries that are
Beyond the visible blue?

What good are the wings 
That don't force me to fly
Close to the sun and 
What good is the flicker in 
The heart that doesn't 
Set the world on fire?

29 October 2024

Introspection

In the desert of my
Solitude. I watered my
Silence once.
And it sank deep,
Imploded. Exploded..

It grew eerie though,
I could hear it now
And then. A couple of 
Years passed,
I could see it from 
My third eye.

Eventually, when an
Invisible hand from within,
Started to extend itself,
Into the abyss in seek
Of a connection.

The silence touched
Me for the first time.
And that's how,
I found myself.
Redemption at last.

28 October 2024

November Nights

These late November nights, 
And the mild winter that
Caresses with feeble shivers 
On the exposed skin.

My cranked-up bike on a 
Rusty Lonely Road, sailing 
Through the foggy darkness.

Faint chills of a dread- 
Fear of encountering a  
Scary stranger. Hints of a 
Ghost in my head.

Bit of hunger scratches 
The empty stomach- craving 
For a ready hot dinner.

Thank God the tyres didn't 
Give up or fuel didn't run out.
Happy to be home safe.

Bed, quilts, eyeful of sleep.
Appreciate the warmth.

In the morning, I find a pic
Of mine, deep in sleep.
But I live alone! Bonkers.
What the hell? OMG.

Closure

The bruises stay,
The soreness in the throat 
Itchingly remains.

The tears that didn't 
Come out, they never 
Go away.

The flowers you once
Preserved in the book,
Seems to have left stains.

Closure is an ancient 
Myth. A redundant Deity 
In the third street of 
The village.

Your mind plays tricks like
An excavator often and 
The worship that ought to 

Stay buried comes out 
In the open.
Demanding you to pray.

19 October 2024

Turned Tables

When they lost their language.
Unable to smile at each other.
Unable to pick up signs.

Silence that howled around
Like fragrance. It grew hooks
To pierce their skin.

So they stood at the end of
A road with a doused lamp,
With nowhere to go.

Somewhere down the line,
They knew they had to
Inevitably end in each other.

So they decided to write poems
To each other to open a new
Tunnel of communication.

He says "You shall be condemned
To the shackles of moonlight"
Instead of fuck you.

"I dare you to fetch rose water
So I can drown you in my solitude"
She screams instead of

Giving him a fuck you too.

Another Day Maybe

It starts with a Hi, Hello,
How are you, blah blah blah.
Tea, pop culture references.
A nostalgia trip and
Blah blah blah.

The conversation peeling
Off the layers after each
Spell of boredom.
Uncomfortable silence
Pushing you a step closer
To naked vulnerability.

What a song meant.
A good day before father's
Death. Unexpressed gratitude.
And that random ass pain
That comes cluttering
Through sarcasm at first.

After everything is said
And done. The final layer
Bruising through your
Hesitation past midnight-

Your urge to tear it off,
To cry it all to him-
Then you hear him snore.

Just another day of closing
The floodgates of the river
Behind your eyes-

The invisible knife in your
Hand, a bit more sharper.
The Fourth Blank fired in
The Russian Roulette that
Goes on, in your head.

18 October 2024

Happy Spitting

Most poems are 
Buried in your belly.
You gotta dig them up
With a shovel and 
Pull them up.

Many are stuck in
Throat. You need
To gargle sometimes.
You cough them out
Now and then.

Best ones dance on
Tongue. They're like
Spit. They just come
Out of the mouth 
Without effort.

But the belly needs
To be dug, for you
To drool at ease.
Efforts, no doubt 
Are important.

Some fine ones are 
Stuck in the nose too.
Sneezing is fine but 
Sputum again is not 
A good poem.

Cage

Till one day- the bird
That leaves decides
To never return.

This emptiness after
She leaves. Every song
That goes unanswered.

And the urge to sing
That dries here-

Somewhere every cage
Was a home once.
A good host. A rib.

Then the music sinks.
Breathing stops.
The fragrance dies.

The skeleton of the
Flower still stands stout.
But for what?

Meaningless and loud

I like things that are
Meaningless and loud.
Enough imagination
And totally dumb.

A mountain that's ready
To cry. A volcano afraid
Of Butterflies. Petals bearing
The weight of the skies.

I wanting to be you.
You, wanting to be me.
To be parallel lines
Tending to meet at infinity.

Philosophies not afraid
Of math. Spirituality that's
As secure as science.
A villain deriving power

By square root of minus
Nine and a hero defeating
Him by dividing himself
By zero thrice.

Math books felt abused
By listening to this and
The History professor
Turned Pookie to snatch

'The Great' from Alexander,
He's a they/them, now.

17 October 2024

Odds Against a chance?

Do we realize?
We're all a part of this
Giant experiment of odds
Against a chance?

The smartphone in
The hand is a direct result
Of calculus, we learn
In the school maths?

Rice on our plate is the
Result of the first caveman
Who wanted to settle down
With his girlfriend.

Odd probabilities working
In our favor. Series of
Random accidents in
Right time and place.

Millions of moons died before
One got set on the right path.
And the floating debris
We were before the cocktail of

Some elements got high
On oxygen. Now we sell
Insurance to each other
In fear of withdrawal.

End

There are no new wells
To be dug every day.
Or no fresh trees left
To be cut.

No places to explore
Or names to forget.

A fistful of heart.
A handful of brains and
A tattered soul that's
Never satisfied.

No matter how deep
We fall or how high
Is our flight. We always
End in ourselves.

Tragedies. Comedies.
All the drama, dread.
We're our own
Sunshine, and rain.

16 October 2024

Trust

Sometimes when you
Return home drunk.
Father opens the door
And let's you in.

No questions asked.

This thin line where
He doesn't confront and
You don't outrightly
Reveal your habit.

He knows it's harmless.
You know it's not
Beyond manageable.
This boundary you respect.

This line of belief in
One another.

It's a lamp on the wall,
Serving light to both the
Sides. Flickers, dances but
Keeps a balance.

A little rush and there
Would be darkness on
Both sides.

Taming a Local identity

The capital, the city, the king,
The prime minister- they suck
Everything from us.

They make us grow, and
Compel to sell us at a price
Decided by them.

They steal our plates and
Self-esteem. They savour it
To fart in English and Hindi.

And if we hold our noses
In disgust, they hold us
In contempt for talking-

In our dialects, while their
Mouth is an actual ass that
Gives away loads of shit.

One language, one religion,
One spectrum of stench,
At the expense of my village?

With a knife in our throats,
You snatch our Golden Goose.
And in the name of nationalism

You force us to believe,
That we stole your eggs?

Hakuna Matata

The young Bangalorean smiles.
Hakuna Matata she says and
Smiles. Twists that nose,
Curves her lips and I know,

Something funny is on the way.
Hanuna your tatas she says.
Laughs, laughs, and laughs.
I laugh, you laugh, the world laughs.

My adult awareness hits me.
I get awkward to have laughed
So much. It's okay captain!
She says.

Ta-ta-ta, tomata, batata,
She says and laughs.
I laugh, and the world laughs.
Then it Rains-- Bangalore, right?

Hakuna your gotas I say,
She laughs and dances.
What the hell I say to myself,
Before I too dance like mad.

A streak of lightening and
Then thunder. The dark skies,
Slashed with a Rainbow-
A laughable life this.

Colors yet to be defined.

14 October 2024

The World

In a world where there's
More to what meets the eye.
In a world where words
Can be weaponized.

In a world where algorithms
Dance like unhinged zombies,
To pollute minds and question
Feeble intentions.

In the world of FOMO,
Compulsive take on rapes,
Murders and epidemics.
Their expectations to form

Opinions on politics and
Ongoing wars.

In the world where the moon
Hesitates to transition into a
Steady evening- My mom learns
To send pics in WhatsApp-

The first bloom of marigolds
She grew for the festival of
Dasara. The yellow transcending 
Its hues to my face and 

How I smile..

09 October 2024

Sanitization of Words

The moon needn't be in
The poems today.
The bulb in the room
Often feels betrayed.

The swish of cool breeze
Needn't hail,
The ceiling fan between
2-3 asks, how does it

Matter if Americans can't
Catch the reference?

Bring in that shabby pillow,
Your bag and socks.
The bucket too wants
To be hosted here.

The first time someone
Debuted a TV,
Broke all the rules of
Victorian-era poetry.

Bring in your dirty
Underwear- there are
No rules. Sanitization of
Your words is just pretense.

If your toothbrush hasn't
Made an entry yet.
Your poetic exploration
Hasn't been enough.

08 October 2024

Pheonix

We sit by the river in 
Silence and her eyes talk
About "How we give wings 
To passing moments to 
Make them memories."

My eyes have a different stand.
"The ticks bore each other 
And set one another on fire.
Memories are ashes,
Self-immolation of moments."

She knows it. About my
Cynicism and I know well,
How she always tries to
Fill the gap.

So she asks me to give her
A stone. Throws it into 
The lake holding my hand.
A phoenix rises shaking off
The ash. And she says-

"We're that dip and 
The subsequent flight."

06 October 2024

When Bystanders Wrote History

There was a hole in
The king's immortality.
Pores in his Teflon imagery.

He wasn't that godly 
After all. He too had a
Butthole and his shit stank.

When the bystanders
Wrote history- their hunger
Screamed loud.

Their dilapidated huts 
Against the state's 
Glittery gold-

Their birds with, deprived 
Wings learned to fly 
And sing out loud.

Erstwhile blasphemous 
Acts oozed wisdom.
Earth was no longer flat.

Sun could not revolve
Around the earth.
The crownless could be

A prince in the stories,
And the last princess did 
Marry a poet of her fancy.

Fragrance

The Periwinkles and 
The other small yellow 
And white flowers.
The names you don't know.

But their caress when you
Walked barefoot.
The impression of their color,
On the blanket of green.

The feeling that wafts past
Your nose..

This act of smelling the
Moments that have passed.
The bloom of spring in
Your heart.

Her face, which once had
Eyes, cheeks, lips.
It's all fragrance now-
Rose. Jasmine. Rain.

September 22

This girl who's bday is
Due tomorrow.
She times blowing the
Candles at exactly 6pm.

Cuts cake exactly half 
So that, the day and
The night are equally 
Split in half.

She's obsessed about 
This day, maybe 
Possessed. Equinox 
It is she says.

Half of her 'should
Have been height',
Confused about cutting 
Her boyfriend laterally 

Or vertically to call
Him her better half.

The stuff she explains 
Sometimes pervades,
Halfwit of the humans.
So she writes verses 

Like they got a half-life.
Never-ending, infinite,
Almost finished,
Yet something left.

Half you get, half you
Can't. There's always half 
And half of something as
It's equinox.

But Hey

Your smile is imprinted 
On my chest and heart
Beats differently now.

The urge to steal your 
Glances, longing to imagine 
Your name beside mine.

I wished for your love 
That night and watched
A shooting star.

Wore a yellow T-shirt 
The next day, wishing 
You'd wear something 
Of the same shade.

The coincidence seemed 
Odd to you maybe but 
Hey, you smiled again.

The weight of your elegance 
On my weak shoulders-
I'd to forget gravity to

Match your grace. But,
Now I levitate. None of 
This has to make sense

But Hey, you smiled at me
And I smiled at you.
The world became 

Insignificant and I've too.

04 October 2024

Leap

The wet floors and
The banana peels are just
Excuses. My fickle heart
Likes to slip and take leaps.

The sunsets, the moon.
Colors and the melodies-
Spring is here and my
Garden hasn't bloomed.

Body fancies bruises that
Only you can bless,
Gleam of your eyes to cleanse
The clutter in my chest.

The pen bleeds but for whom
It doesn't know yet.
But I wait for you to smile.
A cue enough to levitate-

My fickle heart likes to
Slip and take leaps, and
Now that I've seen you,
Maybe, only at your behest.

02 October 2024

October

October comes scratching 
Some buried graveyards.
Glimpses of forgotten face,
Traces of a path to an
Abandoned place.

Smoke from the ruins of
A house lost to a deluge.
Bday of a close friend whom
You don't want to wish.

Your own teenage self that
Seems distant..
The child in you who's not
Ready for the incoming 
Winter..

You sit counting the falling 
Leaves of the almond tree
In front of your home.
The hope that someone 
Would come along to paint
That last leaf-

The cynicism of adulthood 
Gets the best of you, and 
Those who came along were
More interested in gathering 
Your ruins to 

Warm themselves first by
Burning the fallen leaves.

Simmer

Who's gonna stop this story?
Who's gonna stop the flood
Of these emotions that are
No more weary?

The legs have mustered
Courage and eyes are ready 
For unshamed stares.
The lungs swoon with pride-

Blood flows thick, 
Head held high. Hands sway
Seamlessly and we're ready
For a riot of dance.

Who needs your approval?
Validation doesn't matter.

The songs that bombard 
In the belly are strong enough 
To make it out of our throats.
Wings are as fierce-

The cages stand molten, 
We're ready to fly away now.

01 October 2024

Last day of Delhi

After we talked for long on
Your terrace- last day of Delhi.
The half-beer against the
Full meal got to my head.

I didn't gather myself to
Tell it to your to your face,
So I sent you an SMS,
Can I Hug You..?

You didn't say anything.
Made excuses to sneak
Down the stairs.
Aloof, dejected..listening to

'No Surprises' I spread
Myself on the terrace,
Cursing the shooting stars
That aren't in my fate.

A sudden brush of hair on
My face and the warmth
Of your lips on my cheek,
And as you rushed back

Down the stairs-
The sudden blues in the sky,
A bloom of roses and it played-
'What a wonderful world'.

Train to Your City

In December of that year,
I came out of Chandigarh
Station. The first glimpse of you.
Happy, awed- Butterflies.

We hesitantly hugged.
Unable to talk clearly at first.
Like learning a new language,
Saying stuff in chunks.

What a day it was.

We roamed around all day.
The rock garden, rose garden,
Skipping the lunch-
The street food marathon.

In the evening, while we sat
By the Sukhna lake, eating
Ice cream. I wanted to Kiss you.
Couldn't muster any courage.

Months went by thinking
Should I have? or otherwise?
The un-met longing, like smoke
Raising off burning desire..

The 10 pm train to your city
From Dharwad, it took a couple
Of years before it stopped
Mocking me over that

Un-kissed evening.

29 September 2024

Unchanged Odds

In a world where they
Ask the right questions in
The wrong time and the wrong
Ones at the right time.

I ask the right question
At the right time and
You don't agree to meet
Me over a coffee.

So I shift to a world where
Things are reversed.
To ask you the right questions
At the wrong time and

The wrong question at
A right time. Only to get
Rejected twice.

And in a world where
The questions and the
Answers are banned.
I bottle my emotions to
Sell them in your street.

For years no one buys
Anything. At the distal
End of an apocalypse.
When everyone starved,

And thirsty for love.
I sought you thinking,
You might need something.
Even then you chose to be

A vile bitch, who thought
She could figure it all out,
But ended up dying of
Dehydration by a creek.

My Name

I'm named after T-90
Russian military tank.
Ajay means, undefeatable.

My father must have thought
Of unsung heroes of his
Battalion before pledging their
Valour in my name.

But the warrior in me gave
Up a long ago.
The sword was no more
Thirsty of blood.
My battlefield, no longer
Hungry for death.

But my words are as angry,
And as sharp. As volatile
And as strong.
Ohh poems are not weapons
You may say and my kind-
Not worthy warriors of a
Bloodshed
.

But wait, "Yankee Doodle" to
To "La Marseillaise".
"Arab Spring" to
"Bolshevik revolution"-

All the weapons lied idle,
Till the songs of turmoil
Hammered boiling blood out
Of sleeping citizens..

So I'd say, "Say..My..Name.."
Though it doesn't rhyme
With Heisenberg, but You'd 
Still be goddamn right.

27 September 2024

Mom's Teenage Photo

Wearing a black top and skirt. 
Standing beside her mom. 
The teenage photo of my mother, 
From an old album- 

Her gleaming eyes with dreams, 
Boats and untamed seas. 
It breaks me when I see her in 
The kitchen now. 

Maybe it is the story of all 
The moms. They capsize their 
Boats. Erase their seas. 
Forget it all for a compromise.

They should all gather in a 
Place one day. To stare at this
Singularity called society. 
Stare long enough till

All of us could understand. 
Leave understanding, 
At least acknowledge.
Stare enough till the guilt in us
Oozes out like an angry river. 

The guilt of confining them, 
The guilt of hiding their teenage
Photos from themselves. 
Guilt of killing their dreams and 

Guilt of how it has been a
Systematic genocide.

24 September 2024

Recommending Songs

The songs I tell you about.
How the lyrics go, how the bass
Feels against a changing weather.

How the particular tone of it has
Soaked in a memory of mine
To become a fragrance.

I can smell it now. 'Rehai' playing
Against the soothe of her face,
Trying to absolve me from a
Confined place..

My soul comes out of the body
To stand on a table to guide me
Through a cosmic dance.

Then it screams about
My performance,
To an invisible audience.

And when I recommend you
That song and you can't talk about
It with the same euphoria..

I'd point you to my best friend to
Convey, how he'd exactly react.
I know you may call us gay,
But that's all right.

I just hope, you really listen to it
One more time. We need a
Third wheel you see and that's

The only screening we felt apt.

22 September 2024

Old Dharwad

I feel like I met you in
Old Dharwad, where
Cement hasn't smothered 
The roads yet.

Your face gleaming with
Rusty shops and hints
Of raw literature that
Runs in the streets.

We sit in a forgotten 
Restaurant to have 
Haap-Cha and Girmit,
And you appreciate it

Using the only cuss word 
I've taught you.

You ask the meaning again,
It's just a superlative I say-
That's too much cultural 
Exchange for a day.

Your Punjabi soaked in
Kannada, our story 
Like a redundant name
Of a Hindustani song-

We walk from Railway station 
To my college, like
Postman carrying a letter,
From 1950s to the present.

21 September 2024

Gothic Bitch

A woke who identifies 
With spectrum of genders..
Yet she doesn't get laid.
A fascist who enslaves 

Low borns but even they,
Detest her to say nay.

She can do anything to 
Get laid, this Vixen is a
Sex addict and is ready to
Be anyone's bae.

She tried to seduce the Devil 
Once but he said he's gay.
So she pulled out a weenie 
By identifying herself as male.

That too ended up in
Disappointment. So she sold
Herself to Bengali baba,
To become an enchantress.

But that came with a condition,
She can never be straight.
She's this type of lesbian now,
Who cuts male genitals to 

Use them for her scissoring 
Sessions. That's the best 
Revenge she says..to hunt
Men who don't respond to 

The nudes she sends.

19 September 2024

Transitions

The smell of one city
Before it gets lost in the
Newness of another.

The nostalgia of the previous
House before it gets
Consumed by the aura of
The next.

The late night's hangover
Of a Sunday brushing its
Madness on the face of
Monday.

Failed resolutions of
This year trying to coexist
With new ones in the first
Week of next year.

Transitions are fleeting
Dungeons, where a little bit
Of both sides exists in
Peace for a brief while.

Like the warmth of palms
On one another after a
Shake-hand and the hints
Of your face on hers-

Before I kissed her.
The poems I once wrote you,
Show a way to new ones
And how I wanna write her

A hundred more now.

Deprivation

We love where we've
Come from and we're
Thankful. A square meal
A day at least..and..

The rags we think of as
Clothes for some
Harmless warmth.
And to breathe clean air,

Taste some neat daal
And maybe some roti.
Life today smells like
Eye full of sleep.

The bright morning
Hasn't come at our peril.
The night had no
Surprises that could kill.

There's a blip in our
Fate it seems. Someone
Has skipped work in our
Tormenter's office.

So much worse could
Have happened,
But we're lucky to
Another day's laugh.

A swoon of gratitude
Towards everyone,
For letting us have
Another day's life.

Could Have Been Gangster

While he and I played under 
The tree- we four years olds.
A dispute arose around 
A toy we found.

The little conflict turned 
Serious when he ran to
His kitchen to fetch a knife,
I to mine, to grab one for me.

In the next five minutes,
We stood staring at
Each other in the street, 
Ready to stab.

His mom came out in time
To bash up both.

What a waste, ruined a
Chance of me growing up
In a remand home to pick up 
A little broken Spanish..

To utter 'Que pasa..' in 
Marathi accent before stabbing 
The final goon, in a future 
Gang war.

The Childishness We've Outgrown

To have us feel 
Each other's breath, 
You inhale a chunk of air 
To exhale it steadily on  
My belly.

You ask me to do 
The same. I think you're 
Crazy but I do it anyway..

The warmth creeps under 
Our skin..it tickles.
It's a bit of an innocent kink,
Makes us foolishly 
Giggle.

When did this fragrance 
In us lost its way?
We love, like dark strokes
In shades of grey 
These days..

The lost revolt of colors 
In the dark..
Two drooped flowers,
Not even excited about 
The morning sunshine.

You say 'I love you '
From the other end..
And I don't instinctively 
Conjure my wit to 
Flirtfuly say..'and lust..?'

18 September 2024

Inheritance of Trauma

You storm the inspection area
Your dad had prepared.
You ransack it with your gang.

In a fury, he sells you off to a ship,
That sails to unknown lands.
Holding the same grudge, you

Excel in your chores, teach
Yourself cooking. Find love,
Make children and eventually

Become a world-known chef
Of the hopeless ship that
Heads almost nowhere.

One of those big days, when
Queen of England was hosted
You were in charge-

Of the big feast. Your son topples
The buffet table on the guests
And you turn seasick..

The higher-ups ask you to throw
Him in the sea but you roast him
To feed him to the delegates.

Your deceased father is horrified
By the scene. So he travels back
In time to not sell you in angst.

But time travel doesn't exist
Does it? And all the un-addressed
Trauma never gets fixed.

So all the metaphorical suffering,
Is transferred to all the symbolic
Victims. Molehills of parents

As mountains on children's
Shoulders- a dynamite underneath,
With a trigger, God knows what.

We're Dust

We're dust that never settles.
The winter wind carries and
That of summer keeps it afloat.

Stays in the sky no matter what.

Bouncing off the fluttering
Wings of birds and frequencies
Of the dragon files.

Reflecting the sunbeams and
Keeping the earth cool,
The patterns of Tyndall...

Painting the sky red and in
Other shades. We're sunrise,
And the sunset. A blip of

Aesthetics in the mundane.
We seem to be harmless and
Not a matter of concern..

Till we get into your eye or
Maybe even the nose,
To assert our presence.

That's how Dinosaurs vanished
Right? Dust occupied the
Sky and there was a long winter.

Wishful Mirage

Your nimble fingers run over
The bare skin of yours sometimes.
They complain about this
Sack of a husband of yours.

Then you drool over the ghost of 
The dead relationship of ours,
And fail to force yourself to
Look down upon me..

Do you remember me?

Creating scenarios in your head
To break it all for once..
To run away to this place I once 
Confided you with..

You'd still find me there, 
Building castles in the air. 

Standing close, looking at me 
With your filled-up eyes to say..
How this and everything esle
Was my frigging mistake.

But I understand your frustration 
And let my long gaze convey
It all. To once again meet
You in a mirage.

15 September 2024

Acknowledgement

Broke, lonely. Stuck in
The summer of Delhi.
The fan stops working 
That night.

Mosquitoes invade.
Irritated and sweaty. 
You sleeplessly roll around.
After an hour-

The electricity is back,
The slow soothe of rotating 
Fan makes you realize about 
The companion you were 

Really missing.
Until his absence was 
Felt, you didn't know the 
Importance of his existence.

The next day, you clean 
Him up with a cloth.
Somewhere you knew,
Gratitude is one of the best 

Way of acknowledging 
A friendship.

13 September 2024

Boundless

The songs of the languages 
I don't understand..
I don't want to thrust words
To this feeling.

I want music to cut my
Sanity, frequencies to
Suspend my vanity.
I want hands of this illusion-

To reach my belly to churn
My realities to make me align
With whatever isn't discernible 
And is not in boundaries.

Too much awareness is
Weighing me down.

I want unicorns to invade
Earth and for them fireflies 
To enslave us. If somehow 
Sparrows fall in love..

With the Periwinkles that 
Learn to fly..
Take me there and wake
Me up.

Feather

Undress yourself, stand stout 
Like there's no burden on 
Your shoulders.

Peel yourself wound by wound 
In front of the mirrors.
Conquer what's left of you.

Layer by layer grow thin..
Light as a feather and
Fly to the cues wind.

Stop when it doesn't blow.
Rise when it does and 
Sour when it tries to rush 
Itself to new highs.

Wind is life. Don't expect
Too much as there isn't.
Laugh when it makes you 
And weep when it 
Wants you to be sad.

Stay quiet and accept the
Things as they are.

But don't take your leg off
The accelerator, as 
Shortly there's gonna be
An opportunity to fly.

A period of calm might 
As well be a pullback to 
Set you in an vigourous path.

12 September 2024

Ancient Wounds

It occurs to me in a 
Sudden rush of angst and 
Excitement that I should 
Just text you. 
Talk to you about all the 
Places I have been..

And in all those places, 
How I've missed you 
Deliberately, to stamp 
Your face, in the high of 
The mountains, rivers and 
The slow betrayal 
Of the evenings.

On a hidden beach, 
Watching the waves crash 
And ships fade on the horizon. 
I wait for a bottle that 
Carries a letter from the 
Other side..

This knack for nostalgia 
And the reasons
You give to scar myself..
I scratch them in rhythms 
You know..

To listen to music that 
Screams your name in 
My ancient wounds.

Four Hundred Eighteenth Time

I imagine your face while
You refused to meet me.
Your hateful gloomy eyes
That shed for me the last
Drop of tear..

I imagine yourself wrapped
In an ornate saree to
Give yourself away to a
Husband, for what mistake
Of mine?

I imagine you hiding me
In the syllable of your
Second child's name, after
The regret of not doing that
With the first one, as you
Still had some hate left.

I imagine you feel a
Pair of eyes on yourself
When you visit the Shani
Temple every Saturday..
Searching for the stalker
In me in the crowd.

But I slide in time avoiding
Your gaze.. the successful
Four hundred eighteenth
Time, since your marriage.

11 September 2024

The Romantics

Someone among the lot,
Would send an SMS
To watch the moon..
Good days back then.

Sun rose beautifully and
Even in the sunstes,
We had our hearts.

We, four-five romantics,
Sharing books and poems.
Good songs and talking 
Like everything would 
Remain the same.

We wrote, posted letters
To each other. Sometimes 
Met one another before 
The letter could reach.

Where's that craze gone? 
The grit of life we could feel 
Under our noses like we 
Breathed a special air..

It's been cloudy lately,
The moon has been 
Masked by a haze. 
The desire to reach out to 
Each other is so shallow..

That the longing to walk 
Barefoot often meets with 
The complaints of the lawn 
Being damp with 
The dewdrops.

10 September 2024

Science Guy

Your grandpa claimed to have
Seen ghosts when he spent
The night in the farm.

Your uncle claims the same.
And your father asserts it
With one of his encounters
In a Himalayan jungle.

Hallucinations, too much
Alcohol and schizophrenia.
You come up with an explanation,
As you're a science guy.

But the voices in your room,
Still persist. How do you
Explain that?

A guy in Reddit claims,
Carbon Monoxide can cause
Delusional manifestations.

You buy a meter to measure
Monoxide levels. In that part
Of the corner, where the
Levels are high...

'Hola Grandson,
Fuck your science
' says a
A shadow cast on the wall.

You get hold of the Hanuman
Statue in angst, that you
Had as a backup.

09 September 2024

Snake Bites the Tail

I look you in the eyes 
And you look in mine. 

For a while each question 
Stands answered and 
Each puzzle solved.

Our lips quiver and we
Explode in a fire of desire.

But love still asks 
Un-answerable questions,
Beautiful or not.

But the answers do not 
Matter when we subsume
Ourselves in one another..

The questions and answers 
Shake hands now.
The snake bites its tail and 

We become a paradox.

06 September 2024

Hungry Graveyard

You take your father on a
Bike ride, over-speed and
Lose control over a hill.
Fall off a cliff, he dies 
And you survive.

You're in the streets of
Old Hubli now witnessing 
The funeral procession 
Of your friend's dad you
Couldn't attend before.

Your brother is hit on duty,
The minister who was 
Supposed to inaugurate 
A hospital in your hometown 
Gets killed.

Your subconscious seems
To have become a hungry
Graveyard that feeds on
Simulated demise of
Close ones...

This one time you couldn't 
Kill yourself and you 
Enslaved your best friend 
To do the favors.
But he refuses.

To assert command,
You yell, 'Who's your Daddy?'
'Ain't no gay' he says and
Kills himself instead.

Boundaries

A wasp goes astray,
Stinging my insides.
Bombards around wild
To find a vent out.

I clench my belly,
Pour out my lungs.
Heart pounds like it's
Stuck in my nose.

Sweat finds way out
Of my skin, but then
The feet turn cold.
Caught between the

Embargo of fight or flee
The legs quiver like
They've seen
Wolverine's zombie.

But can you escape
Yourself? The boundaries
Of yourself in your
Third eye?

Can you ever be free?

These inner revolts that
Are always squished...
Zombie apocalypse with
A happy ending.

For better or worse,
We always end in ourselves.
The Self is a dictator
Of third degree.

Father-Son

Your father is hospitalized
When you're on a trip.
You head back readily to
Assist your mom.

The resentment you had
About him melts in the
Background and a sense
Of gratitude fills you up.

The urge to utter that
Last 'thanks' gets stuck
In the clutter of paying
For the medical bills.

He recovers anyway.
Only to abuse your mom,
The way he always did.
You translate your gratitude

Into an unapologetic elegy
That doesn't materialize.
But this isn't the first time
This has happened, right?

Maybe that's how this
Father and son thing is.
This relationship,
Always dissipates-

Between the gratitude
You can't express and
The hateful elegies
You almost wrote.

03 September 2024

Abortion Receipt

In the top right compartment
Of the old store room,
She has stashed an
Abortion receipt.

Numbered 79, guilty of
Not even bothering to think
Of a name for the fetus
She had shed.

Smiles at her 10 years old
Sometimes. Trying hard
Not to tear up to
The fact that,

The would have been
Eldest kid was the curse
Of a rapist, whom she was
Compelled to marry.

Un-dated

September 2011, fresh out of
School. The journey I took to
Allahabad for an interview..

The train and 'Teri Meri' song
Playing against the flashes of
Your face...

Took a detour to Mumbai while
I returned. Met you outside
Kurla station past 11 pm.

So brief, could only have
A plate of Pani Puri in haste.

Sneaking past the railings
While I climbed the staircase
Of the platform.

I remember your fading
Image as you swayed your
Hand to bid me a goodbye.

The love and longing that was
Budding that didn't go
Beyond a dead friendship..

I rejoice that moment with a
Wishful thinking now. About
The 11 pm Butterfly that might

Just be alive, waiting in a limbo,
Outside Kurla station, on every
Un-dated September night.

Sneezable Sneezes

This euphoria doesn't
Subside. Sticks like
It would never end.

Heart beats fast.
Blood rushes to head.
I can feel it thump my

Scalp from below.
It feels something
May breakout aloud.

But it doesn't.
It's like a sneeze
Poised to rush out

But sticks in the nose.
You conjure all strength
To get it out but

It dissipates.
The moment is gone.
Now you're tired.

The big event you
Conjured your energy for..
The sneezable Sneezes

That go unsneezed.
The un-ceremonious exits
Hurt the most.

When You Truly Arrive

There should be a hill outside
Your village. A narrow,
Walkable path up to the top.

There should be rocks, a lake
Fruit Laden trees and incessant
Rains to complain all season.

There should be an abandoned
Temple with names of lovers
Who didn't marry each other.

The old men and the young
Should talk about a vague ghost
That comes alive every new moon..

The adamant rusty hearts of boys
Who play cricket in such places
To prove them otherwise.

The grannies making papads,
Daughters going to schools.
Memories of making kites.

And years later when you
Return from a distant city..

The smell of crushed flowers
In wet tar, tickling your memories.
There should be a feeble heart

Blessed in you, that screams
Butterflies when you truly arrive,
To this place, you belong.

22 August 2024

Love is Blind

Love me like a madhouse that
Hates that one sane person,
Who thinks we're just statistics
Of a sample size.

Love me like a thief who stood
Still for the national anthem,
Than figuring out his escape
In time.

The madness and passion
Crossing that fine line of
Sanity.. I tried to love you like
A drunkard, high on stories.

But you forgot our beginnings
And the end. Crumpled what was
There in the middle saying
You didn't know how to stab..

Then you did.

I bleed holding your name in
My mouth and a knife in the back.
A laugh in my heart and a prayer..
That chants, love me like a

Tormenter who loves her whips,
And the sheep that sang praises
For his butcher before succumbing
To the itch of his stomach.

21 August 2024

Where Irfan meets Ila

I just wrote a poem for you.
Apprehensive. Little afraid.

In the world where Irfan
Doesn't look in the mirror
To feel the weight of his age.

And reveals himself to Ila in
The restaurant that day.
There-

There, these unapologetic
Poems of romance blossom.
Hundreds of them.

Eventually, you turn them
Into a giant airplane and
We fly to Bhutan.

For a Teen in 30s

I've sliced a part of my
Heart and given it away
To you in apprehension.

It stays bitten between
Your teeth. Bleeding a bit..
Little salty, and tasty.

Waiting for a place in your
Eyes, the other pieces,
Await... Not knowing

Whether to heal or stay
Bruised.

And the knives of your
Lips that try not to kill,
Yet twist inside my gut...

Ahh! what can I say,
Falling in love with a teen,
In the early thirties..

It isn't easy. The knees
Creak and my back hurts.
Mirrors scream self-pity..

I shy away a little. But yes..
I've decided to preserve
The periwinkles that have

Already blossomed.
The cracks they've left in
My enclosed walls.

Things are visible now..
There's light. Colours.
I want to paint.

17 August 2024

Sins

The first time I saw the sea,
Set foot against the incoming 
Wave that washed my feet-

I didn't know until the freshness 
Hit me that I too had sins
That needed to be cleaned.

When the waves touch me
To recede. Constantly inviting
Me to erase my footprints,

That lead upto the castle of  
Humiliation and defeat. 
I comply. But not fully.

I manage to preserve that
One footprint, which only 
I could see. An untouched sin..

More like a memory. A hole
In my Soul that needs my
Body to make it complete..

The need for an immoral act,
To keep the prayers alive
And have this life going.

16 August 2024

Usual Day

Half of me loves the other half,
But the other doesn't even bother
To shake my extended hand.

This one-sided affair that hangs
In air and fights for the divide
In my breath.

Introspection is a war waged
On chaos of my brain,
The clarity I've now is a stink of  
A gutter after good rains.

The inevitability of the stench
Being dealt with the left hand on
My nose-

A usual day is my confused state,
Of sunshine and shade.
It's a lazy refuge, where..

I overthink about having coffee
With milk or just the black.
Only to end up having chai.

Fad

A story-burning ritual fell in
The groove of popular fads.
In a decided venue,
Everyone Interested would

Surround to throw theirs
In a bonfire.

Stories of those who couldn't
See made a lots of noise.
The one who couldn't talk
Amplified the fiery light.

You threw yours and now
The world is on fire.
One-half of you ran for water
And the other half..

Starved before it died.

14 August 2024

Laadu

When her daughter comes
To the festive of Panchami.
Her mother doesn't ask
"Where's her husband?"

She knows how to read
Her veiled smile.

All night, both prepare
Laadu for the occasion and
Talk about the Jhulas and
Coconut Barfi of the old days.

The way they went to the
Farm to have lunch under
The neem tree, when
The Oldman was alive.

For a while, she thought of
Just asking, and the daughter
Too longed to tell all about her
Broken marriage..

But both know about the leaky
Roof above, which can't handle
The pour down of two people
At once.

So they gulp down their tears
By pretending to taste the
Laadus... For what use are
The sweets of a festive if not

To assuage salty grief?

Infertility

This woman who can't bear
Children, treated like an
Orphan by her own mother.

The others who don't let
Her shadow to be cast on
Newlywed brides and children.

Prayers to Gods of fertility.
Payments to similar places
Occupied by doctors.

A forsaken child seems to be
An answer to all her problems.
Not any, but her own. Though-

The orphanages fill the other side.
And this side, the bigots we're
In our homes.. we wait for..

Science to come up with an
Explanation on How silhouettes
Can induce infertility in others.

Landscapes

Soak me in the rains of
Western Ghats. Sew me sweaters
Of Nilgiris in no man's land.

I need winds of Rajasthan
To take to me to the worn-out
Mountains in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Bake me a plate of Kashmir,
Pour me a cup of Chandratal.

Legs chained to solitude,
I'm drowsy again. Slap me awake
To my primal instincts-

Make me fall, drown, and fly.
Serve me those landscapes-

I want to feast on forests
Of Chota Nagpur and
The blackwaters of Nicobar.

13 August 2024

Levitation

Three good days this week,
Seventeen okay and ten
Good years and counting.

Four hundred rupee notes
In the wallet as you descend
Down like a king watching her face.

You forget the count of steps,
That you skipped to leap..
A good smile is enough to

Make you question reality.
Levitation is a subtle art,
Taught by the eyes that are

Intoxicating.

12 August 2024

AI

The only virtuous man tied
A rock to his soul to drown
It down the village pond.

The fish fed on it to cry fire.
And day there was a
Serious drought.

That only happens in
Dystopian movies.
The kids in the street laughed.

'And Cut' said the director.
For the movie written for bots,
To surpass the captcha.

Unshaved Tonsure

Joined the Army at seventeen,
Salaried young bloke, High on
Confidence and hormones.

Married her briefly, and
You impregnated her readily.

The night of the early nineties,
Drunk cycling in cantonment,
Your pregnant lady on pillion-

You skid and fall, nothing serious,
But your Son has a misshaped,
Wobbly head later on.

To hide his geoid full of
Mountains and valleys-

Adamant to trim the foliage,
Maintains a profuse hairstyle
To preserve himself of shame.

You keep respawning in your 
Deathbed after every major incident,
Lord Yama asks what's the secret,

You look at your son's head and
The hustler Lord, to meet his
Monthly targets.

He has been training himself
To be a barber first, while you lie
Farting again on a hospital bed.

07 August 2024

Tamed Mountain

The hillock that once adorned
The name of lovers on its rocks,
Has been invaded by an
Insecure Lord, who throws

Stones at young couples,
He's supposed to hate romance.

The college love that should
Have screamed wild songs,
Now replaced by monotones
Of pretentious chants.

The incels who celebrate this
Shared euphoria are proud to
Inherit this madness from a
Generation that forced him into

Celibacy to hail him as
Fertility God.

The name of his other half
Defaced, overwhelmed by
The relentless offerings, he has
Forgotten his age-old love,

That had blossomed when
This hillock was still a mountain.

03 August 2024

Ajar

Sticking a foot at the door,
A story stands.
Not ready to come in.
Not ready to go away for good.

Life has been ajar this way.

The words that want to go out
Get caught in the wheez of
A bad cough.

The ones that wish to come in
Hitch to the juicy affairs of
The wind to fly away.

The roads always take long detours
Before reaching a place. Exhausted,
You ask 'What's the point?'

The many letters you wrote,
Invisible was the ink and
The one they were addressed to

Never believed in the silence
That could speak.

Praise to Despise

The dark grips you and cold
Seeps down to the grit of bones.
And buried in your palms you'll
Pray for the Lord of Warmth.

At the break of dawn, the first
Stroke of warmth on your face,
Paints you orange and you can't
Be thankful enough.

But by noon, he gets overhead
To hail upon your skin to bow
You down in a sweaty submission.
What was a prayer once, turns

Into a curse and at what you
Beseech for now is what you had
Despised a while ago.

Greener Grass

You descend down the stairs
Looking at the unpaid electricity bill.
Slip off the last step and your
Thigh lands hard on the edge.

It's swollen now. It wouldn't have
Mattered five years ago..but..

The soul that leaves the body
For a while in each fall..
Seems, it hesitates to return to
Your dilapidated bones now.

The age that's hailing down, even on
Your mind- What if the astral self,
Decides not to return to the hut when
It takes a nice little walk in the night?

Lured by the empty castle of a
Bodybuilder, who died yesterday,
Writing poems, the next day in the gym.
It's leg day says the instructor-

"Calves on fire, frozen knee, sweaty feet,
Welcome to this ambulatory demise,
A funeral hosted in my thighs"
recited
Instead of a hundred squats.

A Ride in Rain

Your hesitation to get drenched
While you ride- drizzle, stop, ride,
Repeat
on the highway.
Seeking random shelters gets
Strenuous after a while.

It starts to rain shortly.
The anterior soaks. Your thighs,
Chest and belly feel the cold first.
A bit of the wetness seeps into
Your undies from the front.

The droplets that trickle down
The helmet, get through the collar,
Drench the back, along
The backbone.

By this time, the only warmth
You're left with is around your ass.
And you distinctively feel
The last drop that invades your
Preserved abode.

It redeems you-
Like a homeless man not hesitating
To commit a crime.
You're not afraid of the rain anymore.
There's no home left to protect.

All your restraints fall off and
Soaking suddenly turns out to be
A pleasure.

01 August 2024

Troy

Every time your mother tried to
Tame your wilderness as a kid.
You ran away with your cycle tire
And sat all day, at a potter's home.

Looking at his fingers mending
The puddle, on a rotating wheel-

The way he mixed the water in
The mud brought from the dried-up
Pond, mixing it up and shaping it out-
Must give him immense power to

Create something out of nothing.
A whole tribe of pots might hail him
As their Lord, who in his own way
Must have said..'Let there be light".

You felt something off about a
Red plastic mug among the lot,
Which was used to pour water.

Years later it occurs to you that
The little mug was a Trojan Horse
Sent to destroy a Civilization of Soil,
That can be deemed now as Troy.

Too Much Self-awareness

You self-diagnose your symptoms
And you think you're in a depression.
Then far-fetch the counterfactuals
To hit the edge of deniability.

You're hesitant to talk about it to
The only friend you've got.
You fear losing him and avoid a
Good cry that could reset your mind.

Worried about the weight, worried
About your face- your personality
Seems a fuck up and you think you're not
Worthy of even the things you deserve.

However much you try to occupy
Your mind, the emptiness shrills
Against the incoming wind like it's
A shell of conc on a beach.

Waves crashing hard on your shores,
And you giving away a slice of sanity
To each slosh.
You thought you had strong shoulders

But too much self-awareness, acts
For your own peril. Mind seems to
Have become an unbearable rock
That wants you to perish.

Sugar Daddy

Your thoughts explode into
Flowers, you fly through a
Haze of fragrance.
A deep dive in the sea to
Sail among the corals.

You ride a shark and meet
The Lord of Atlantis who
Made his mermaids twerk for
You, he wanted you to be
His friend.

You're in the Himalayas now
Somehow. Slide down on
The snow, barefoot.
You look at yourself in awe,
Your bondages peeled off-

No baggage on your shoulders
Or trauma to process.

You were given a chance
To be a feather for a day by
God knows how and you
Defied the laws of Newton, like
You're his Glucose Guardian.

Gratification

You run and run,
You run from your friends,
You run from your family.
Your guardians, well-wishers
And from yourself.

Chained to a chair, you
Run in your head.
Legs tied to a post, you
Run from wars that haven't
Yet begun.

You re-imagine possibilities
To run from the past.
Hold on to dystopias to
Take your mind off the future.

Can't talk to anyone openly
Fearing exposal of your
Vulnerabilities, in a denial
Mode constantly - winning
Arguments with yourself
That are imaginary.

You thought you wrote for
The love of it. But sometimes 
You sink in a condemnation that 
Screams a fake sense of
Achievement that comes with 

Writing.
Which you need for 
The gratification of the 'self'
That seems to be dying.

An Arm's Distance

After doing the honors of staying apart,
I stalk her secretly to read her poetry.
Happy to know that she exists and
Happy to know that she still writes.

She did the same to me earlier.
I hope she still does.

The things between us have been
Ruined to the extent that there can
Be no peace. Our volatile personalities
Clashing for no reason and disturbing

Whatever there isn't.

Better to be at an arm's distance like
Soldiers of different platoons.
We needn't be friends or enemies.
Just sticking to the blinders to

Glide forward in the campaign-
Each poem is a kill towards victory.
And we thumbs up and greet and move
On our way to conquer different hills.

When You Fall in Love

It rains when you fall in love.
It should rain.
There should be a cool breeze
Brushing against your cheeks.

The sky should paint itself in
Colours you can't name.
And in a Saree she should
Walk in slow motion.

The heart should pace up
And mind, go numb.
The bones should lose density
To skip the early phase of evolution-

So that you can have wings
To defy gravity. And you'll not be
The same once you're back to
The ground reality-

The memory of a flight is
Enough to bind you to the sky.
And an instance of her face
To create an ebb for once..

You're done for life.

31 July 2024

Wife

Your father's wife is the one
Who supposedly said 
"Let there be light".

But your son's mother is 
Just a wife?

Seventh Day

He sits in the hall with a
Bottle of Old-Monk,
Demanding half-fried omelets
And bhindi fry-
Seventh time this week.

She oils the pan. Tries to keep
The yolk intact while sprinkling
Chilly powder and salt.

After the fourth peg or the fifth?
She waits there in anticipation
Of beatings from him.

With a fake smile as armor
That's never enough.
Just the Seventh day of the week.
Tomorrow, the first again.

29 July 2024

What's the Taste of Blood?

What's the taste of blood
The hooded Satan demands.

And you wake up to the noises
In the kitchen--

Your dad screaming at your mom.
You stare at him in rage and
He smashes his whisky glass
On the wall behind.

His hand bleeds, unable to bear
The sight, your mom faints.
You dress him up in a fowl
Mood.

As you washed yourself,
The frozen reflection of you,
Catches your gaze in the bathroom
Mirror. In a fixation-

You lick the blood off your finger
And collapse.
'Ashy, metallic' says your reflection
And wickedly smiles, as

The hooded Satan appears
In the background in approval.

28 July 2024

Deception

The Oldman sits on the embankment
Under the neem tree to ask
The sparrows if they have any stories.

Of the winds or the oceans or
Of the skies or of the lands
The sparrow asks.

Of you feeble-hearted. Of your
Wings and the the flight.
Of your mates and children and
The nest. Says the old man.

It chirps and picks on the grains,
And talks of her songs composed
In vain. And the flights that didn't
Fetch her any grains.

Of the rains that assured no gains
And mates who betrayed her in
Games that were together to
Be played.

He brushes it's neck and grabs
After a deception saying,
Someone didn't learn from her

Last lesson.

25 July 2024

Gratitude of a Pet

The cat coughs and walks with
No life left. You've seen this in a
Couple of dogs before they died.

You feed him well with the hope
Of recovery and put aside the
Thought of taking him to a doctor.

You've seen human care stretch
Into leashes and neck collars.
Love get out of hand to mutilate

Their genitals, in order to prevent
Their random mating encounters.
So the only favour you could have

Done to this little beast is to feed
The left-out chicken from your plate and
Let him roam around in free lanes.

And when he meets his friends
From the city in heaven, complaining
About their deprivations.

He can have a little erection of
Gratitude for all those juicy rats,
Wild fights and unhinged mating

That you didn't deprive him of
In the streets of your dirty locality.