Politics in Plate

The students have 

gone on a protest at 

Jantar Mantar, but my 

coffee is not perfect.

A bridge has collapsed

in Morbi, twenty dead,

but I see two kilos more

on my weighing scale.

I have bread to pick up

and eggs to buy,

but damn the Iranians-

why are they passive

in the news headlines?

The kebabs in my new 

air fryer were promising.

One of my classmates

got a bigger package.

Manipur is still burning

and the Education Minister

refuses to resign.

It was supposed to be a 

drought year, but it's 

continuously pouring here.

My undies are not drying.

Liberals in this country,

my foot. Sometimes,

I just want to paint my 

nerve endings saffron, 

and become stupid,

foolish, absolutely blind.

Not because I believe 

everything they tell me,

but because believing 

in nothing is exhausting 

too.

There is something

almost peaceful about 

reducing the world to 

the size of your own 

plate-

One can eat without 

thinking about famine 

in Gaza. Sleep without 

thinking about epidemic 

in Africa.

What laxury it is to scroll 

past a burning state because 

the algorithm has already 

found a better reel.

Maybe that's what politics 

eventually becomes-

not choosing what is right,

but choosing which 

suffering you can afford 

to notice today.

Anyway, maybe I can switch

to jaggery for weight loss.

The country can wait.

It's protected by the ancient 

wisdom of scriptures anyway.

Backstory for Myself

If I assume a backstory

for myself, will I be happy?

Like a village I was supposed

to have grown up in,

a father who taught me

how to fix fishing nets,

a mother who waited by 

the window every evening.

Perhaps I need something 

I can point to when someone 

asks why I am the way I am.

Like a childhood I don't 

clearly remember.

Like how I was once a 

reckless boy who ran away 

from something and found 

everything, or how a quiet 

child who learned too early 

that leaving was easier 

than staying.

Perhaps there was a girl 

I loved before I knew what 

love was, and perhaps she 

left with enough sadness

to explain everything I 

do now.

Perhaps it would be more

convenient if I were a 

shepherd, who lost his 

parents early and later 

self-taught singing by 

rehearsing to the sheep.

Every self-inflicted wound

would have a sheepish origin 

that way. Every habit would 

have a nomadic elevation.

Every passing moment 

of loneliness would have 

been simply playing flute to 

the flock in the name of 

character development,

and it would have been 

perfect if I had attained 

low-key enlightenment by 

a hut while the sheep 

ate grass unnecessarily.

But alas! I wasn't born 

in a fishing village.

My parents are alive.

No lover left me with 

crippling pain and the 

sheep I wish to have as 

emotional support are 

often juicy mutton on 

my plate.

So here I am reclined on

a chair with legs on top of

the table. Pen in a hand 

with blank pages that 

stare back.

I overthink all the 

possibilities to make my 

present version happy, 

but the only respite seems 

to be a pretentious cup 

of black coffee.

But the ghost of my 

overly concerned mother 

knows what I need is a

good cup of tea and deep

down I know mom's chai

makes me happy.

Lying Around

You lay your head on 

my lap, and my hands 

find a way to your hair

to play with the strands. 

We stay there, idle, 

as if time freezed just 

for us.

You offer me a cup of 

your solitude, and I taste it 

with my eyes closed. 

I prepare a sandwich of 

our silences, and you are 

happy to take a bite. 

I say something with

my eyes and you nod your 

head into acceptance.

I draw an imaginary 

heart around your navel 

and you pinch my 

shoulder in protest.

This intimate passing 

of time into nothingness,

challenges fate. 

This is when the God of 

oblivion misses his

monthly target-

That he had to sweep 

and dump heaps of 

memories into a nullity. 

But we kept knitting 

metaphors till they grew

wings, and they flew away 

from the clutches of time-

Now they're stars.

If Buddha were a Woman

If Buddha were a woman, 

his thoughts would have 

been declared radioactive 

and contained them in 

lead-coated walls of 

the kitchen for safety. 

His thinking would have 

been declared a public health 

hazard to confine him to 

the boundaries of a building

by his own father. 

And God forbid if he left 

the house in the middle of 

the night, his long road to

enlightenment would have 

been one heck of a treatise 

on women's safety and 

sexual harassment. 

The Bodhi tree would have 

grown conscious suddenly 

to question his chastity. 

And to maintain its own purity, 

the Buddha would have been 

asked to stay away on that 

week of the month. 

If Buddha were a woman, 

the first sermon in Sarnath 

wouldn't have gone past 

the absolutely bizarre 

conditions women have 

been put through. 

The entire religion would 

have been about methods 

to escape chauvinistic tyranny, 

and then there would 

have been four Buddhist 

councils for equal rights.

Perhaps that way, there 

would have been a religion 

to represent this half of 

humanity. But alas, 

Buddha was a man and 

he himself excluded women 

in his monasteries. 

If he hadn't, enlightenment 

wouldn't just be flexing muscles 

with meditation and the four 

noble truths of Dhamma 

would reek of hypocrisy of 

patriarchy first.

What's a marriage?

The fourth day after my 

tenth class, as I returned 

from the farm, Mom said, 

someone has come 

to see you.

Then I was wrapped in 

a new saree, powder was 

put on my face,

some ornaments around 

the neck and on ears.

They asked me to take 

tea to the guests. 

I was nervous.

Someone asked me my name.

Another asked me to turn 

around. I fumbled a bit.

I didn't know they were 

inspecting my body.

They must been 

impressed though, 

as it followed a series 

of events over the next 

few weeks-

a huge gatherings,

elaborate rituals,

visits to temples and 

big big talks on how to 

behave.

Then suddenly there was 

an ugly man, who they 

said was my husband.

He climbed upon me to 

hump me like a hungry dog.

I liked it a bit i guess.

maybe that's why I was 

punished with four kids.

The eldest one is about five,

and she asked me just now.

"What's marriage?"

I take a breath. I sigh.

I look back at of series 

of hazy, chaotic events-

A body wrapped in a 

new saree to a man taking 

control of it.

I wonder if this was the

first pause I took from 

that day?

Anyway, I don't seem to 

have any answer to that 

question.

So, I look at her and 

ask myself the same 

question-

What's marriage?

Hey Birdie

I should name you

after a Flamingo

and make fun

of your long legs.

Or compare you

to a certain Owl

in the Western Ghats

and praise

the symmetry

of your eye bags.

Perhaps

I should call you

a Nightingale

for your voice,

then remind you

that, on most days,

you are perfectly 

capable of being

a humble Crow.

How about Hornbill 

for your non-existant 

beak or Kiwi for overtly 

being an ass?

How about I call 

you a Peacock for

patriotic purposes,

and tell you how ugly 

the females are.

But you know, they

exchange gametes 

through their eyes?

In that case, eww!

don't look me 

in the eye.

Dating a Poet

First, never date a poet.

You'll spend years being

compared to weather.

You'll wake up as "autumn."

By lunch, you're

"an unfinished bridge."

By dinner, you're "a slightly 

anxious pillow."

Every argument will somehow 

become a discussion about 

migrating birds.

They'll pause halfway

through kissing you

because your left eyebrow

suddenly reminded them

of a coastline on an 

old Portuguese map.

You'll never simply make tea.

You'll become "water 

negotiating with leaves."

A headache will not be a 

headache. It'll be 

"the moon attempting to

hatch behind your forehead."

They'll forget your birthday,

but remember the exact 

shade the sky was when 

you laughed three 

monsoons ago.

They'll compare your 

silence to abandoned railway 

stations, your patience to 

furniture that has survived 

five generations, and 

your irritation to a pigeon 

with unresolved 

gut problems.

Worst of all, one day you'll ask,

"Do you love me?"

And they'll stare out of the 

window for fifteen minutes

before saying,

"You remind me of a house

that keeps its lights on for 

people who were never

coming home."

And somehow... you'll know 

exactly what they mean.

Metaphor is a Map

Every map is a confession

that the world is too large

to carry whole.

So we reduced mountains

to triangles, oceans to blue ink,

people to symbols.

Perhaps every metaphor

isn't an invention, but an 

apology for language 

being too small to hold a

living thing.

So you should know when

I reduce your name to a

a certain shade of red. 

Your face to a yellow 

breasted sparrow that visits 

my village every winter-

Maybe I've failed to 

become large enough to 

contain you, and everytime 

you're my favourite 

jasmine or guava my 

grandma loved,

You should know it is a

silent apology for my 

inability to comprehend 

you enough.

So lemme unapologetically 

make you a coastline, 

turn you into a tide and mark 

every place I kissed you as a 

lighthouse.

Every argument, a cliff.

Every return, a harbour.

Let every poem I write 

be a humble submission 

before the sky you've 

grown into.

And every metaphor 

I've ever written be a star 

I've counted, not knowing 

how many more I've to count, 

to sigh into a disbelief over 

''how infinite you are."

Mirage

somewhere I hear the 

sound of your anklets.

and I slip to sleep 

as if it's a dream.

you exist between my

dreams and delusions.

a fantasy if I close

my eyes and a daydream 

when I open.

you arrive without arrival,

leave without leaving,

linger like a question

I don’t want answered.

in that thin space

between sense and 

surrender,

you feel almost real-

enough to touch,

never enough to hold.

and I keep returning there,

half-aware, half-lost-

hoping the sound of 

your anklets doesn’t 

fade into silence.

But it does.

but it does and I go on 

chasing your shadows 

and silhouettes.

sometimes even an

outline seems enough.

but can a mirage ever 

be anything beyond 

disappointment?

well, my fancy with a

palette disagrees.

believe me, 

filling colours to the 

outlines of a person 

who doesn't exist,

Uhh! It's a habit beyond 

a certain repairing.

Distant Presence

Some fruits are sweeter

in their shade than in 

the cusp of a hand.

Possession reduces 

miracles to memories

in no time.

Oh! my distant mango 

on the tree, I would 

rather leave you hanging 

on the branch than 

devour you at once.

May the child in me 

remain throwing stones

at your branches-

never quite reaching,

never quite leaving.

May you forever linger 

on my tongue,

than be fizzled from 

my restless mouth.

I'd rather carry the taste 

of you as a promise,

than the certainty

of an emptied seed.

For desire ripens best

where distance has

no utilitarian end.

Longing is the only forever 

that doesn't come 

with conditions.

Must be

Must be the blue saree

that runs down

like a river.

Must be your eyes

that drown well the 

spread of my solitude.

Must be the bangles

and the anklets that 

land softly like feathers 

on the bed of my 

silence.

Must be the jhumkas

and your dense hair

that wrap me up in

a steady warmth to

sync themselves to the 

rhythm of my cold 

heart-

Oh how it feels to be 

music soaked in your 

distant presence.

A song learning 

itself through your 

close absence-

Must be your laughter

that keeps filling up

the hollow places in me 

with fresh flowers.

Must be the fragrance 

of the same I taste 

on my tongue.

Must be the way

your name trespasses

through every sense

until my sight begins

to blur with glitter.

And now that I see you

in every other face,

Must be you've colluded

with my dreams too.

But he question is

where are you?

Third Grade Anomaly

They say you don't 

need a reason to love.

But I've seen her in a

wolf-cut and saree.

Jasmine flowers and 

oversized hoodies.

Jingles of silver 

anklets while she walks 

in combat boots-- 

Cargo pants go

seamlessly with the 

glass bangles that 

are dotted green.

The leather jacket

and a tiny black bindi.

Ripped jeans and

elaborate jhumkas-

She says 'Ayyo' while 

ordering sushi.

Looking like tomorrow,

carrying yesterday 

effortlessly.

Ohh! the kathakali 

adorning a Gothic 

building-

Perhaps it doesn't 

need any reason,

Just enough contradictions 

maybe.

It's a third grade 

anomaly in a 

second grade heart.

Love is a wound that 

doesn't subside but 

compels you to 

scratch.

Poster Boys

Bhagat Singh's anger is 

welcome, his atheism is not.

Azad's bullet makes a good 

brochure but his politics 

leans left and that's bad.

Zafar's Urdu is beautiful,

let's just remember him

as a weak emperor.

Everything else should 

be erased because of 

his faith.

Bose is invoked loudly.

But his complicated alliances 

are whispered selectively.

Microphones have learned 

to tone it all smartly.

Ambedkar is celebrated.

But his annihilation of caste

must wait outside the 

school Savitribai built. 

But why not restrict her 

to margins or footnotes?

Her rebellion should be 

politely described as 

social work anyway.

And Gandhi walks a tightrope 

between being a saint and 

a villain depending on which 

side of the argument a 

corpse needs to fall.

Revolution, that way,

is easier to digest once you've 

amputated its questions, 

and martyrs are useful only 

as poster boys in party 

manifestos.

History, that's why is not 

what happens. Often,

It's just what's allowed.

We can't be friends

You being sad is alright.

But if we can't talk about a

hundred ways to laugh 

about it.

We can't be friends.

You being happy is alright.

But if we can't peel it down  

to the core, to hold it 

against light to examine its 

existential vanity.

We can't be friends.

I want to know why sorrow

has such an inflated ego,

and why joy always behaves

as though it invented

the universe.

I want to get into the mess

of chaos. Swim in the ripples 

deliberately created by 

stoning the still waters.

I want a cesspool we can

regret and romanticize.

Like, if we can't laugh at 

funerals. If we can't 

philosophize bad coffee. 

If we can't interrupt our 

deepest confessions with 

the stupidest jokes.

We can't be friends.

I don't want conversations

that merely exchange

weather reports of the heart.

I want an intellectual 

vandalism that rearranges

each other's thoughts to

leave fingerprints on 

each other's worldview.

I want us to disagree 

without becoming enemies.

I want us to change our 

minds without calling it 

defeat.

If curiosity of certain kind

finds us to make us reckless 

about our explorations-

Let's end up as footnotes in 

each other's thinking.

Let's argue all about it,

till we embarrass ourselves 

into a dungeon of 

comfortable silence. 

And only if we're compelled 

to fill it up with something 

unnecessarily,

We can't be friends.

Muse is a Meta(p)whore

The poem I haven't yet 

written is 'the girl' of my muse.

She gets to my ego.

Invokes in me disgust.

Makes me unnecessarily 

haughty and unusually 

sad as well.

She pampers me, 

Hampers me. 

Tickles chuckles out of me 

till it eventually hurts.

She's dirty, she's witty.

she's always around to be

forever out of reach.

Never arrives upon my

summons, but she does

when I tend to give up.

Does she mistake

indifference for invitation?

I don't know.

My starry-eyed girl,

My moon-soaked beauty.

Slutty nurse at times

who can kill, and a 

mallu aunty on the other

who can heal.

She knows every room

inside my head.

Enters and exits anytime 

at will. She's an anomaly 

in my conscience,

who knows exactly where 

to press to keep all my 

wounds open.

Undressing my language 

down to its bones,

asking me to touch every 

word twice,

Slithering through the 

wetness of syllables,

She leaves halfway through 

a sentence-

Then it takes hours of

coaxing to pull her back.

Keeping her entirety intact 

is another full-time job.

But that's what I've 

signed up for.

Perhaps that's what a 

muse is- A relationship 

too complicated, or 

perhaps a marriage that's 

toxic, but has its perks 

if one has enough 

metawhorical kinks.

Terms And Conditions

Love is overrated.

Longing is hopeless.

Desire is a short lived

temptation that can 

damage a beautiful 

relation.

Forever is just a promise

no one lives long 

enough to keep it. 

Staying was never really 

a choice, just a delay 

before leaving.

Let's think about being 

distant friends that's why.

Let's call it convenience,

not coldness. 

Let's refuse to grieve 

things we never fully 

claimed.

Send me a piece of art, 

I'll send you mine.

Maybe that's enough 

reciprocation-

wisdom lies in 

understanding without 

having to understand.

So I propose an

an attachment that's 

detached.

Let that be a covenant.

Let it be a feeling

that lingers in the mouth 

like a taste of something 

we never consumed.

Just enough to forget you.

yet, significant enough 

to recognise a grin that

could linger upon hearing 

your street name you

had vaguely mentioned  

years ago.

I Dash you

I pomegranate you, 

I masala dosa you.

I Rishikesh you, and 

in the turquoise water

of Ganges-

I raft you, kayak you, 

and bungee jump you. 

I cheesecake you, 

I filter coffee you, 

and deep in the forests 

of western ghats by a 

campfire-

I toast you with roasted 

pork and if you may, 

you can give me a 

"beer you too". 

And to biryani you in 

Hyderabad. 

Chole Bhature you, 

in Old Delhi, and to

Ro-Sho-Golla you, 

in the streets of Kolkata-

And only if I could 

Bike you to Chandigarh,

to ice cream you in 

tender coconut, 

Then, from there, 

I can Shimla you, and 

eventually momo you

up north, to Kaza.

We can Chandratal each 

other after that. 

and that's how I propose 

to masterpiece you in 

my heart.

Ghosts Of Previous Century

Maybe you wrote a letter, 

the postman made a mistake. 

I received it, and maybe 

I chose to write a reply,

just to be quirky. 

Maybe you chose to be 

quirky as well, and wrote back 

shortly, and the postman 

didn't make any mistakes 

this time. 

Five-six reciprocation, 

spread well over a year, 

maybe we learned our

addresses by heart-

a two-thousand-kilometre 

of distance against 

an unknown longing is 

always short.

But maybe by then, 

I memorized all the trains 

that passed through your 

hometown.

Maybe you kept wondering 

about the coarseness

of my voice all the time...

Maybe we kept writing,

kept yearning and

maybe everything about 

this invoked in us 

something so irresistible, 

that one day we met

at a coastal town.

Or maybe we remained as 

prisoners of our age 

and era. Maybe you 

got married and the letters 

stopped coming.

Maybe I did the same 

and eventually forgot 

your imaginary face.

And maybe one day, 

my kid, while going through 

his school atlas, stumbled 

upon a vague town and 

asked me about it.

Maybe your kid did

the same.

And maybe at the same 

time we'd tasted the same 

sweetness, and we smiled

over the feeling of 

knowing a town that we

never visited.

Devotion

I lick stars of your sky 

and drink wine sucked out 

of your moons. 

I sniff fragrance off your 

flowers like a saint high

on prayers.

And to be rested in your nest, 

to stroll through your forest 

and to stay soaked in your

fiercely flowing rivers- 

Oh to be drawn into your 

ocean and to refuse to stay 

sober after tasting your salts-

Your mountains make me 

tread and I gasp out of 

my breath. 

Your zenith seems to be 

astronomically far and for 

today, I am satisfied 

with the elegance of your 

foothills, uhh!

Keeda

There should be unfulfillment 

in your heart and an itch to 

fill it up no matter what. 

There should be restlessness 

in your fingers to keep scratching-

You gotta keep the wound alive. 

Like how there should be a 

mountain and an ache in your 

legs to climb it up. 

Like how your hand should 

look forward to swimming in 

the open sea, at least once. 

There should be invisible wings

that flap for a mysterious flight.

There should be an imaginary 

sky that shines only for you

to keep your delusions intact.

And somewhere far away, 

by a creek or amidst a forest, 

there should be a wishful house

made of sticks and stones.

And to spend a good chunk of

your life, there should be an 

equally mad companion to 

tag along.

And after spending the first 

chilly night by the campfire,

you gotta wake up to a new 

hopeless horizon to help yourselves 

with a steamy beverage that's 

really bad.

You gotta have a special kind

of 'keeda' to romanticize it,

like you're gonna repeat it again.

And to call discomfort an

adventure. A bad drink, a tradition. 

and the cold, an intimacy-

Oh they said to stare back at 

the abyss when the abyss stares 

at you, but you went ahead and 

took a piss in it. 

And why shouldn't it be alright?

Affection

I try to imagine you as 

a child. small hands, 

soft legs, two freshly grown 

teeth ready to bite anything 

that's in reach. 

Oh, the drool, the smile, 

and the loud, deliberate cries. 

I feel your cheeks between 

my fingers, but just then 

you pee and I'm asked to 

change your pants. 

And with all tenderness, 

I tend you. 

Your constant moving legs, 

my loosening grip over 

your waist.

I manage to handle your 

rebellion by effectively 

covering you in cloth. 

and you give away 

the greatest smile.

That stupid smile stirs 

something ancient inside me.

A strange familiarity,

as though I have known you

before memory

invented names for us.

For a dangerous second,

I wonder if you were my

kid in a previous life?

But that thought seem to

be forbidden somehow.

But maybe some tenderness 

doesn't have boundaries.

Like you're an absolute 

baby sometimes and 

all I can do is hum you lullabies 

to pat you to sleep.

Social Mobility

The priestly class is 

deemed higher in any 

society and those who 

dispose the dead are 

kept lower.

But even among Brahmins 

those who assist cremations 

are kept lower. 

They can't marry 

higher up.

Then there's a priestly 

class among Dalits.

Who look down upon 

other Dalits.

A hierarchy nesting

inside a hierarchy,

This seems to be a venn 

diagram problem.

And while solving this,

somewhere a math teacher

who's a lower Brahmin,

is gonna lock eyes with

a student who's a 

Priestly Dalit.

The tension of social 

mobility between would 

give birth to a bridge, 

via which, other people 

are gonna go beyond 

caste and hold on to 

beta division-

that's class.

Rome- built and crumbled

Whoever said Rome wasn't built in a day should come visit my head, to see how entire cities can be built and converted to dust within a thought.

I get excited easily and,

get disappointed likewise.

The gap between the two

hasn't reduced.

Nor has the emotional

response optimized.

It's as though I've already

developed a fancy about

the journey and the destination

before I could even set foot

on the road.

I have named the cities.

Decorated the houses.

Prepared conversations

that haven't happened.

And assigned meanings

to things that are yet

to exist.

Then, at the first hint

of this house of cards

crumbling, I go sad.

Embarrassingly sad.

As though I haven't

watched this architecture

collapse before,

Only to stand stout

before the next nice thing

again.

The hope in me doesn't learn.

Or perhaps it does,

and simply refuses

to behave accordingly.

It is the same with you,

know that I have already

simulated all the possibilities

that can elevate us,

and all the ways

it cannot go down.

I have run scenarios.

Built futures. Made a little 

homes inside my head.

And yet, the moment I 

arrive at the actual instance,

the range of expectation,

excitement, desire,

and disappointment

all begin operating

simultaneously.

So whatever it is between us,

it is oddly stretched, torn,

intensely built up again,

and crumbled into dust.

And I speak to you through 

this architectural chaos.

So if I fumble a little,

spare it. my words,

before they make it

out of my mouth,

have already carried

furniture up the stairs,

hung photographs on 

imaginary walls,

survived a collapse,

and begun rebuilding.

Understand that I do not 

travel lightly towards people.

I arrive to you with a 

baggage you were never 

there to pack.

I arrive with entire cities 

already built inside me.

And every time reality 

fails to match my expectations,

I quietly evacuate a civilization 

that never existed to 

mourn it like I had lived 

there all my life.

Middle-class Hindu Male

I needn't watch my tone

while I talk. I needn't laugh 

with my mouth closed,

I needn't hide behind my

shame when someone

meets my gaze.

I needn't be careful about 

where I sit, how I sit, or

how far my legs have to

spread or be stretched.

I certainly needn't worry 

about my chest when

I bend or be worried about 

someone's stare while I 

walk around.

I can enter any temple

on any occasion, 

at any time of the month.

I need not worry about 

access to God's wisdom.

Even the scriptures grant me 

extra perks when it comes

to spirituality.

I won't be ogled or

unnecessarily touched

in buses or trains.

Neither the style of my

dress would be held 

in contempt.

This extra layer of freedom 

I carry by belonging to

a particular gender, class,

religion, and caste-

I needn't prove my 

nationalism or secularism 

to anyone, and the choice 

of my food would never 

become a national issue. 

The system is made for me. 

It works for me.

It protects me at the expense 

of others, yet somehow,

my existence seems to be 

under threat lately.

Do we need to worry about 

these women and the other 

minorities who go on gloating 

about their problems?

Maybe yes!

We men, should wake up 

to the new reality.

Mass mobilization of men

is necessary, and we should 

organise ourselves politically.

If you agree, Like, Share, 

Comment and Subscribe.

Give me a shoutout already,

Let's get our well deserved 

glory back.

To be XX or Not to be XY

Looking at my baby bump,

When they say, "it will be a boy",

what they mean is, they want 

a champion with a peg.

whom they can flaunt in their 

ancestry with a hidden wish

that he would light their pyres, 

as though fire itself were averse  

to a particular gender. 

What they might further mean is, 

if it isn't a boy, I would be

held against it. I would be 

shamed, disregarded, and asked 

to turn my uterus into a 3D 

printing machine of hit and trial, 

till it throws away a haughty 

little brat.

Sometimes some of them say, 

"it better be a boy".

what they mean is, I would have to 

thrust my hand in my uterus to 

pinch all the 'X' chromosomes 

in my egg to facilitate 'Y' to bind 

to 'X' of my husband's sperm.

What they'd further mean by it is, 

when the baby comes out of my 

birth canal, they would rush to 

check its genital first, and 

if it is what it isn't, they would 

immediately mourn a life 

that just bloomed. 

They might even consider,

and reconsider what to do with 

it till they run out of options, 

and after that, at most, 

they might let it exist. 

Just fucking merely exist!

And a few, who aren't even 

that considerate, would say

"It should be a boy" like it's

a statutory warning.

what the warning would 

eventually mean is,

If it comes to that, they would 

take me to a sneaky van 

outside the village for an 

ultrasound.

And if the smuggled Chinese 

machine in that detects a 

female foetus,

I might be forced to take 

certain banned medicines 

to force a miscarriage. 

and if in any case, I escape 

the ordeal to birth her-

There are always seasoned 

midwives who could choke the

baby at a cue, or throw her

into the nearby lake.

At the bottom of which 

the other baby girls might 

just be waiting to welcome her 

with better consolation.

Silent Uniform

It rains in the evening and

she has to rush to the terrace.

No one has to tell her.

No one else has to go to

fetch those dry clothes.

The rules seem to be ironclad 

and the process is efficiently 

automatised.

It rains, and she has to 

rush up, down and sideways 

to bring the dry clothes she

herself has washed.

The kids play in the hallway,

husband is hooked to the 

TV even on holidays.

Can't outsource it to the

in-laws obviously, and to crib 

about the same, by now, 

her mom is far, far away.

Ohh, it rains, and she has to

rush to gather a lot of clothes.

The variety of shirts, jeans,

uniforms, t-shirts, shorts,

socks, jersey, innerwears 

and whatnot.

The heap of it piles on a

cot and it needs to be

tended into neat folds.

It rains, and even if it doesn't,

she has to do it anyway.

Fold them, sort and keep

them separately in the closet.

and while she does that,

one day she'll realise-

How amidst the heap,

what's hers is just a bra, 

panty and a faded gown-

A silent uniform she 

wears in rotation.

Her retired jeans and

tank tops laugh for being 

reduced to this identity but 

the sarees under suspension 

comfort her occasionally by 

being unnecessarily elaborate.

How long this can go is

the question, and 

almost every time,

"what to cook for dinner"

snatches away the answer.

Beauty and the Beast

It's said one shouldn't engage 

with the beast. Don't listen,

don't empathize, don't ask for 

his side of the story.

Because the moment you 

understand him, you are already 

trapped. You'll excuse him. 

Rationalize him. Fall prey to his tactics.

That's the statutory warning.

But tell me what if the beast

is told the same thing?

Never trust beauty. 

Never be moved by innocence.

Do not listen. Do not soften.

Do not hesitate and never 

entertain a victim's justification.

What if both sides are raised 

behind opposite walls of suspicion?

What if the beast learned 

monstrosity the same way 

the prey learned fear?

And what if beneath the claws

and the growling, there is merely

a wound that never found

the courage to call itself one?

People speak of evil as though 

it arrives fully formed.

As though betrayal doesn't leave 

fingerprints.

As though cruelty isn't sometimes

grief left unattended for too long.

I am not asking for acquittal.

I am not asking that teeth be 

mistaken for kindness.

My concern around this is only

a considerate possibility-

Like, what if the beast has spent 

so long being warned against 

tenderness, that he flinches

when it finally appears?

What if every outstretched hand

looks like another trap?

What if the betrayals have 

poisoned his well so thoroughly 

that love itself tastes suspicious?

So he starves for trust.

For touch. For the simple luxury

of believing someone means well.

The tragedy, perhaps, is not that 

the beast remains a beast.

The tragedy is that some wounds 

become identities.

And after a while, he no longer 

remembers whether he is guarding

the injury or imprisoned by it.

Mistaking every chance at 

healing as another attack,

He dies hungry surrounded 

by things he was taught to fear.

Cherry

We entered gaps of songs

to stay there deciphering 

meaning according to the 

seasons of our hearts. 

We made ropes out of poetry 

to swing across tall trees, 

like we were ape-twins from 

a previous life. 

We exchanged recipes 

for disaster, 

we brew storms in teacups, 

cooked misery, and dined on 

fantasies that were 

garnished in existentialism. 

We played hide and seek 

in philosophies and 

practiced kickboxing with

delusions. 

That way we hit it off well,

Not gonna lie.

We perfected the art of 

capturing moonlight in a

a palm full of water to

freeze it in metaphors. 

We stuck at the heart of 

fate to crystallize ourselves

'time' that wasn't meant for us. 

We were briefly infinite.

But good things end, 

and great things end with

big exit wounds. 

They take away a good 

chunk of flesh to 

hurt all at once.

But pain was never 

unfamiliar to us both.

So I did what you would 

have done.

I learned to nurse it in 

rosewater. I made paper 

planes out of it.

I toned it, shaped it.

Messed around in other 

ways and painted it in red. 

But pain is pain.

It never fails to hail.

And when it does, I bite 

my tongue to taste an 

imaginary cherry in your 

loving memory-

The sweetness bolsters 

my delusions and 

yet again, I become this 

person who still checks 

the rearview mirror,

even after the road has 

run out of its journey.

Judgemental bastard

One of my friends called me

a judgmental bastard.

I smiled in agreement.

If there were a competition

for jumping to conclusions,

I'd probably win it.

Give me half an excuse,

a delayed reply,

an unusual punctuation mark,

and I'll construct an entire

civilization around it.

A missing "goodnight."

becomes abandonment.

A changed tone becomes 

betrayal. A misplaced 

emoji can stir an agitation 

and become a national 

issue for me.

You can be good to bad.

soulmate to suspect,

lovable to character-less 

within minutes. For me,

the evidence hardly matters.

My imagination is perfectly

capable of operating

without it.

Some people wait for 

facts to arrive. Not me.

I prefer to greet them

at the destination.

I mean, why burden 

myself with uncertainty

when I can manufacture

certainty from thin air?

It's a remarkable talent.

being arrogant, haughty,

and self-sabotaging-

narcissistically adorable

but remarkable nonetheless.

And the worst part is,

every now and then, I'm right. 

which is all the encouragement

a bad habit needs to 

become a philosophy.

One successful prediction,

one suspicion vindicated,

and suddenly every irrational 

thought gets tenure.

That's how paranoia earns 

credibility.

So yes, perhaps I am 

judgmental. But look at

the stories I invent about 

people. They're usually far 

more dramatic than the 

people themselves.

They've proper arcs,

better conclusions.

Funny noses, improved faces. 

walking styles synced 

to the tunes of Bhojpuri songs.

And beyond this, if reality 

insists on being ordinary,

surely it can't blame me

for trying to improve the plot. 

at least I tried to add colour 

to some of your lives.

But imagine the audacity of

not thanking me enough for 

being such a humble painter.

But l let it pass. 

I'm sure you're not gonna 

go far with such a poor 

sense of gratitude.

Things I imagine when you stopped talking

Maybe your mother found out, 

but she already knew. 

Or maybe your brother found it

through her, and he created 

a ruckus? But it wouldn't be 

this serious, ain't it? 

Or maybe your dad found out 

and locked you in your room.

snatched away your mobile, 

cut your Wi-Fi, and made you 

swear on your mother's life,

to make you stop talking to me.

Well, hell, am I overthinking? 

Maybe I do, but what if that 

sneaky little friend of yours hit it 

off and you fell in his groove? 

Maybe you both are a thing now 

and that's why you withdrew. 

But you wouldn't stoop so low, 

would you? It feels like a stretch

to assume something like that.

but I can't stop thinking about 

the possibilities. 

What about that toxic BFF of 

yours? Did she spew any venom 

against me? Or your therapist 

warned you against staying close 

to me because you got 

daddy issues? Maybe yes. 

Maybe no. 

And that makes me come to 

the last option, which is the 

never-ending mess that is me. 

I look deep within myself to see 

if I was the problem all along. 

It's a scare to be honest.

But maybe that's the simplest 

explanation. Maybe I was not 

a safe harbour and you had 

to sail your ship. 

But I have a duty to protect 

myself too. So I pack my 

obsession to find closure.

sink in all the reasons and 

justifications beneath the sea,

to take deep breaths that

are seasoned in sadness.

Ohh how wonderful it is to

stare at the setting sun. 

The sunset from an empty harbour 

was always a spectacle, I guess. 

Maybe somewhere you are 

doing the same, I guess.

Maybe you're more relieved.

Or maybe you're heartbroken.

Or perhaps you're too busy 

deciding what to order for dinner.

I wouldn't know. 

Maybe I wouldn't want to 

know this time. 

Maybe that's closure, or maybe 

One doesn't actually find it.

But in the process, maybe one 

simply grows tired of carrying 

questions that refuse to 

become answers.

Nangeli

Kerala had a tradition of taxing Dalit women who covered their breasts. Nangeli rebelled against it by cutting her breasts in protest.

They ask me why I cut 

my Breasts, as if the story 

begins there.

As if blood is the cause

and not a consequence.

They ask me why I cut 

my Breasts, and I

look at my sickle that

wasn't sharp enough 

to cut anyone else.

They ask me why I cut 

my Breasts but they don't 

tell you how the kingdom 

decided to measure 

them first-

I remember the hands

of the accountant 

fondling my breasts,

to assess how much tax 

I had to pay for bearing 

them on my chest.

I remember, how at the

cost of our humiliation,

the tax had to be served on 

a banana leaf with utmost 

respect.

The untouchability, 

no temple entry,

hundred other taxes levied 

besides other subjugations-

They even forbade

the shade of certain to

trees for us.

So it boils my dead heart,

when they ask me why 

I cut my Breasts.

And I say, they deserved 

a spectacle-

A blood-oozing wound 

might stick better in memory 

than slow oppression fits 

into history.

But why does history 

remember the breasts

and forget the tax?

Why does it remember 

the blood and forget 

the caste?

You may ask the same 

question too. 

and in all humbleness, 

I shall serve you my severed 

Breasts to you as well.

That's how I want to break 

the fourth wall to ask

you this-

You've been subjugated 

by similar taxes too.

What's the mode of your

protest?

Why your dicks still intact? 

Or you've come already cut?

Red shift

Waves compress when 

things move toward us. 

Frequency rises, and the world 

sharpens itself into arrival.

But when things begin leaving,

the wavelengths loosen.

The pitch drops. 

Even sound cannot hide 

separation.

Astronomers know this well.

They stare into distant galaxies

and measure loneliness

through redshift.

Light itself reddens while 

fleeing away across 

expanding space.

Entire stars confess their 

departures without language.

And perhaps human beings

carry their own Doppler 

effects too-

Like how your voice 

sounded different

when you loved me closely.

Every word arrived brighter,

compressed with attention,

alive with blueness.

But now- even your silence

feels stretched.

As if distance itself

has entered your frequency.

But the blue light of your 

arrival still hangs in me,

unable to decide whether 

it belongs to the past

or the future.

So here I stand with a 

telescope pointed toward 

your absence,

watching your redshift

grow deeper each day.

The hopeless observer 

I've become in search of an 

astronomical miracle-

There must be a law the 

universe forgot to write, 

where, things that recede 

forever can somehow 

still be coming home.

Wave🤝 Particle

The observer effect says

nothing remains untouched

by the act of being seen.

Even electrons lose their 

composure under attention.

As if observation itself

demands performance.

Photons colliding. Detectors 

interfering. Measurements

leaving fingerprints

upon being measured-

As if the universe, when 

watched too carefully,

forgets how to remain fluid.

Perhaps that is why

I fear being understood

too completely.

Maybe people are not

so different from particles.

Leave us unobserved

and we remain expansive-

contradictory, wave-like,

full of unrealized selves.

But the moment someone 

demands certainty.

asks us to define our exact 

trajectory, 

something collapses-

We harden into identities.

Tell me how much of love

survives observation?

How much tenderness

disappears the moment

we try too hard to name it?

Perhaps intimacy itself

is a delicate experiment.

Too much scrutiny,

and the mystery recoils.

Too much definition,

and affection stiffens

into expectation.

Maybe that is why some 

feelings survive longer

in glances, half-finished 

sentences, and lingering 

silences.

Because the moment we 

drag them fully into language,

they stop behaving like 

wonder and start behaving 

like witnesses under oath.

Shortest Distance

The shortest distance between 

two points on a flat surface

is a straight line says, Euclid.

I keep thinking about that.

I keep thinking about your eyes.

and how, I could look straight 

into you with just a stare and

understand you right away.

But isn't that wishful?

Could it ever happen?

Can it ever be that easy to

understand each other?

Perhaps, a certain distance 

could afford such honesty.

But If Euclid could draw a line 

between our beginnings 

and endings, and called it 

optimal-

We could both have easily 

surrendered to such mathematical 

efficiency and laughed ourselves 

loose through all possible 

geometrical angles.

But we've emotional detours.

Curves of memories that

push us in loops to take us through 

scenic routes of denial, ego, 

and longing.

The destination remains 

unchanged, but we arrive 

exhausted from unnecessary 

weather, because life or love hardly 

aligns well on flat surfaces.

The Earth curves.

Space-time bends.

Gravity distorts trajectories.

And, even light learns to bow

around massive objects.

And I know the thing between us- 

if not massive, it's not easy 

at least to come around it.

Every short path of mine

has warped my universe to

become something stranger

every time I've tried to 

reach you.

Every effort to reach you directly

only taught me how deeply 

the reality bends around desire.

Perhaps that's why I still 

circle you instead of arriving.

Maybe some people cannot be 

reached through straight lines 

alone. Love perhaps is a loop-

and through a beautiful distortion 

of distance and return,

I shall learn to spiral better 

to reach you again.

Paisas, Annas, Rupees

When Dadabhai Naoroji

sat pondering over the 

economic state of India.

Reflecting, contemplating over 

the things he had seen. 

Referencing and cross 

referencing the things 

he had experienced in-

"Poverty and Un-British 

Rule in India"

His theories stretching

beyond mere arithmetic-

towards the quiet starvation

of an entire civilization-

the estimate itself must have 

trembled his hands.

If he had to put in numbers

Twenty rupees he would 

hesitantly write.

Twenty rupees per year

as the per capita income,

He would gulp it down

like hot coal before he came

out of his room in fury.

And as he walked down the

corridor- his thoughts 

lingering between rupees,

paisa and annas-

entire civilization shrinking 

down to a mathematical 

humiliation-

He must have encountered 

his personal assistant 

cleaning the floors of his 

posh bunglow-

He must have looked into 

his deep eyes.

The desperation in his eyes

must have asked for better 

wages for the first time.

And Dadabhai must have 

given away sixteen annas 

to hide his own guilt.

And that's when his

Drain Theory must have 

stood up to slap him,

and Dadabhai must have 

given two more annas in a

hurried miscalculation.

But did it make up for the 

rightful twenty rupees? 

Or down the history,

the wisdom of averages

overlooked it for larger good?

Pi and Richard Parker

When you grow too curious and 

hold your ear against the fabric of 

reality in search of a higher purpose, 

you're thrown into a desperate ocean. 

You and me ended up in these

existential waters, like that.

Helpless, drifting and hallucinating,

while trying make meaning out 

of this salinity.

But the waves here aren't made 

of water. They reek of confession, 

compulsive guilt and self-humiliation 

that comes after forced sarcasm. 

You made gods out of language, 

fed meaning to every passing cloud, 

Tried to tame the wild thing in me 

with tenderness. and without noticing 

Didn't you become 'Pi' like that? 

And I, Richard Parker. Not fierce,

just an animal, too wounded to admit 

I have grown used to your companionship. 

And this raft between us-

these exchanged poems, 

these metaphors stitched together as 

survival manuals. 

We fed on verses like it's a wisdom 

that guide us out of the abyss.

and somewhere between casual words 

and crafted poems, our instincts 

disappeared and we became witness 

to each other's drowning. 

You fed me your attention, and I circled 

your loneliness, like I would worship it forever. 

And, to be frank, I survived the ocean 

because of you.

But somewhere I know why 

a beast should never forget his teeth 

out of gratitude.

That’s why I keep warning you.

That, one day, land will arrive-

Reality will return like a coastline

neither of us asked for.

And when it does, I'm afraid my 

old instincts will crawl back into me.

The instinct to vanish, to ghost.

To walk into the jungle without turning back.

Not because you meant nothing.

But because creatures like me only know 

how to survive through departure.

Richard Parker

You called me your fierce 

companion, but I was only

a hungry animal dragged 

unwillingly into the brawl 

of the ocean.

You looked at me through 

your dread and 

I looked at you through 

the lens of starvation.

But both of us had to

act beyond our insticts-

So the raft became the 

ground for a negotiation

between us.

The distance we maintained 

as a measure of survival,

turned into mutual respect 

and somewhere between 

salt and hunger, we stopped 

being boy and beast.

And through blind storms

and mad sun,

You fed me with your 

trembling hands and I tried

offer you purpose by simply 

being there.

I've heard your sobbing

beneath the waves,

the way you whispered

to gods like a child writing 

letters to an empty sky.

I never tried to respond.

not because I don't have a

heart. Because Tigers don't 

know how to console. 

But when the land arrived,

and the jungle called me in 

the oldest language I knew,

My predatory insticts were back.

So tell me Pi, whether 

saying you goodbye was

important or grabbing your 

neck against my will?

And because somewhere

inside my animal heart,

I could not bear to make 

a meal of the only witness

to my survival, I walked away.

Not out of indifference,

But because instinct is older 

than gratitude.

Ila

They ask me her name, and 

an imaginary mirror appears 

in front of me again.

My grey hair gleams in it. 

The wrinkles on my face 

suddenly grow honest, 

and the shame in my eyes 

settles heavily upon my 

shoulders. 

They ask me her name, and 

my tongue fidgets restlessly 

inside my mouth. 

The throat thickens, blood rushes 

up, but before even her 

image fully forms in my head, 

her name collapses into an 

awkward smile.

They ask me her name, and 

my barren lands enter the fray. 

My untouched soul protests 

against the ebb she creates. 

The solitude I have grown 

used to goes into defence.

Even the ghost of my dead wife, 

whose face I no longer

remember-

indulgences itself and asks me

the definition of love- 

The bravery in my veins 

quivers down again.

But why won’t this wretched 

world let my brooding rest? 

Again and again they ask, 

" What’s her name?" 

I try to swallow it back, but they 

do not know how desperately 

I want to scream it away. 

The letters she sent in the

'The Lunchbox' push it 

against my restraint, and 

her name returns tasting 

Like all curries, I relished.

Ohh! They ask her name again 

and again. But I have to 

smile first, to hide the blush. 

The world could end in the 

next instant if I say it, but 

to hell with it this time. 

I say "Ila" and the world 

still stands unbothered.

But all the weight is off my 

shoulders, and I'm in the air.

River

There is a river in me, and 

I let you flow through it.

The fragrance of your hair

dissolves into its currents,

the tones of your anklets

ripple across the water.

and the caress of your feet

colors its otherwise 

restless depths.

If I ask you to be my navigator,

will you do the honors?

will you place your hands

upon the trembling compass

of my longing and pretend 

you know where this ache 

is headed?

I would obey gladly.

“Aye aye, Captain,” I’d say

like a compliant child who trusts 

the sea only because you're 

beside me.

Let the darkness of night 

be dealt with reading the

stars aloud, let our fancy be

always the constellations 

of the other world.

And when we reach the sea,

don't just stand and watch

me disappear.

step into my depths and

take me to the shores.

If I drift, guide me towards you.

If I drown, lemme be subsumed 

in your reflection.

Atone my storms, 

repair the fear of shipwrecks

in my heart-

For what is a river if not a 

body searching endlessly

for surrender?

Let us find new beaches 

everyday to break as waves.

Let us do it so meticulously 

till they can't say, 

where we began and 

where we ended.

Omnipotent

Whoever bears a surname

as yours, I tend to think they 

might be your distant relative.

Whoever comes from your state,

I quietly assume they must 

know you somehow.

It's as if geography itself is too 

small to not carry traces of you.

Or you're are perpetual enough 

to not be everywhere?

I search for your familiarity

in borrowed accents,

in train station conversations,

in the way certain people

stretch vowels while speaking 

your language.

Sometimes a stranger laughs

in a way that resembles you

for half a second-

and my heart, foolish thing,

stands up to attention.

I know how absurd this is.

You cannot be scattered

across an entire population.

And yet,

my mind keeps rehearsing

your presence

through other people.

I very well know this in my

bones, that this is an illusion 

cast by my fancy.

Yet, I let my longing weaken 

the borders between 

resemblance and memory.

So what if every map

feels mildly inhabited by you.

What if every language in

the world has your hints.

When every crowd seems 

to be capable of returning 

you to me, 

why would I wanna strip 

down my delusion?

When my my devotion 

for you is as real as the day,

Why wouldn't I fancy every 

attribute of God to you?

That way, you're at least 

omnipotent.

Jasmine

Your arrival is announced 

with tones of anklets,

The gleam of your eyes 

reaches me laced with kajal.

The air, swept by the sway 

of your saree,

It reaches me softly and

my reasons fall asleep.

O, the jasmine of my village.

Come to me like a steady summer,

and settle like a season 

in my barren heart.

The restless bee I am

short of purpose, reach me

like fragrance and take me 

away to a certain slumber.

For what good is reality if

it can't be fancied?

and what good are the dreams 

if they can't be lived?

Enchant me into a deep sleep. 

Once I dream you enough, 

Mumbling your name,

I wanna wake up gasping.

Search

They say-

The things you run away 

from, will meet you in 

the middle of the city.

Grief found me on a

rainy day.

Loneliness on a summer 

day.

I tried running away from 

you. Seasons have passed. 

Cities I've crossed-

Where are you?

At the edge of the world 

You meet me, only to say 

I've been searching too-

where were you?

Negotiations to be a fool

On a distant sea shore,

there's a piano and you play it.

I feel the tones here and 

dissolve in a deluge.

The undercurrents have a

thing or two about you to say,

But I out beat them by saying 

many more.

I've done the same in the sky. 

And with gods and devils 

in heaven and hell.

No one can stand me, that's why.

Talk about getting banished 

from everywhere for being 

such a chatterbox-

I'm a stray in no man's land.

And the way I wanna belong 

only to you, own me if you want.

That's why I seek your asylum

with repeated pleas.

This yearning I suffer with.

I've made threads out of it to tone

my longing. Every guitar riff

is tuned to your distant presence. 

My compositions fleet in your 

service, forever in the air-

and if you get a whiff of it.

Embrace it into acceptance.

Do it, so that, 

I could negotiate terms with 

myself, to be a fool I should be, 

again and again.

Hijack

Hijak their tongues.

Hijak their words.

Hijak their silence and

assume it's a 'yes' 

when it's 'not a no.'

Tell them bad air is

all their fault.

Tell them how holy

is water, to hijak

their god.

Tell them nation 

comes first, tell them 

it's for the greater good.

Tell them individuality 

is a sin and sacrifice is

the only way to go.

Punch holes in their

dialects with a

compromised vocabulary,

and rinse their history 

with facts that are 

blasphemous to deny.

Make compliance a

virtue. make questioning 

a sign of betrayal.

Repeat it. Sharpen it.

Sanctify it until 

language forgets 

how to resist.

You're champions of

democracy already,

Yet, you choose to conduct 

elections now and then.

Not for power but

check the grammar 

of your propaganda-

Which is foolproof.

and we, with bit of

rationality left, are fools,

to think, you aren't 

Inevitable.

Opulence

If your income is

below twenty thousand 

per month-

You've a caste, sub-caste.

Kul, Gotr, Nakshatra. 

Rashi, dosh, Mangal, 

Shani and what not.

Upon that, even the 

neighborhood deity, 

who's a boulder,

is angry on you for

missing a upvas.

Maybe, if the income 

doubles, or triples.

Your Kul and Gotr

would be spared.

You can offord to overlook 

the local deity and focus 

on some institutional 

Gods of your town.

If you it notch up a little 

and go over few lakhs

a month kinda bracket.

You can ignore even

mangal and shani.

Can appease a pujari in 

a few temples, he can 

offer special puja at will

whenever you need it.

And if you can go even 

further. Perhaps, if you can

make a few crores a month. 

Maybe you can have a

few temples of your own.

Maybe few gods will 

stop holding you contempt 

altogether.

Few murders, few rapes

can always be kept in

reserve till you piss off

a better lord.

Then, if the money in 

question starts working 

for you and you start 

minting it even when you

don't have to.

You can start a cult to 

enslave a few gods.

Make your own rules to 

keep them in check.

In fact, you can force them 

to interbreed. So that,

you could use their children 

for your pedophilic acts.

Maybe other alpha Gods

will be a little angry but

you can negotiate a

deal to make them part

of your sweet dirty acts.

You don't have to worry

worry about the consequences 

at that level of opulence. 

The onus lies on the almighty.

Or maybe it doesn't.

As they're equally corrupt.

TF

When someone is reduced 

to being a shadow,

No one has to wake you up

to force you into recognition.

That's why you should know,

you're perpetually present.

I know, everytime I mistake

you in a stranger, 

it's definitely not you.

Yet I carry your silence in

each one of them to repaint 

the fading contours of you.

The air doesn't become 

thin for me. It already is.

The flowers needn't bloom.

The bloom is forever and

I taste the fragrance in my 

mouth like I munch on your 

name with each breath.

I've seen fresh horizons.

Experienced new maps

and I've experimented with

new faces to force your

memory into submission.

But the bloody thing sticks.

The fact that you're vital,

constant and Inevitable-

I hate to meet you in 

rooms no one else can find.

I hate your occupancy in

my thoughts and I hate

the fact that I can't get 

you even out of my vacant

gaze when I recollect 

something nice.

That's the problem with 

being reduced to a shadow

you know.

You don't arrive, you persist.

By this time, you're a 

fantasy gone wrong.

A rogue angel back as a 

ghost.

Ohh to breathe around you,

to think despite you,

and to move forward

without ever leaving you 

behind.

Ohh to be aware of this

toxicity and yet be a

hopeless romantic-

You may feel happy about 

the way you linger within me 

but I feel stuck in the 

quicksand of failed 

negotiations with self.

and if it helps,

each time I whisper 

your name before I could 

realize I've spoken,

the only afterthought 

these days is TF.

Contentment

I crave for a freedom 

I don't want when 

I don't know what to do 

with what's already in 

my hand.

This constant urge to 

escape- 

Is the grass really green

on the other side?

I wonder about it with a

cup of coffee in hand.

Where does the peace 

lie though?

Does contentment linger

between the ribs or 

it fleets somewhere far?

When the chair I sit has 

enough to offer,

I don't know what to do 

with these thoughts that 

seek comfort in a

foreign land-

So I take a sip and 

contemplate about how

the mind might sit here

or wander elsewhere.

May sulk in a room or 

bask beneath the shadows 

of pyramids-

The other side maybe 

green or offer, a whole 

spectrum of the rainbow-

and as I take another sip 

of this bitter black liquid,

I hypothesize-

That if you aren't happy 

with a cup of coffee,

You can't really be happy 

with anything else.

Backspace

I type and undo stuff.

seems backspace is my love 

language and I'm becoming 

fluent at it, I know.

I overthink to reject the 

things I feel about you.

sometimes I send,

then delete and deny to

achieve what, I don't know.

I've buried your pics and

pics related to you in a 

vague telegram group.

I visit it now and then-

I pretend to hide something 

from myself but can I 

outrun my impulse?

I freaking don't know.

I look in the mirror and stare 

into the abyss of my eyes.

I feel cute and wanna smile.

but I stop before my lips

can give it away.

I know you're the reason 

for this and I don't want

to say it aloud.

Ohh! is this how I look when 

I pretend to be in love?

The gleam in the eyes 

I bury with loud laugh.

words I bite and swallow 

with sarcasm at my hand.

I wonder if I have spilled 

any hints.

But, did anything flutter its 

wings to reach you before 

I could clip those cuties?

I must say, it's difficult to 

kill a beautiful feeling.

But I try.

But no matter how many 

stars I crush and the flowers 

I manage to trample.

the stardust sticks and 

fragrance lingers.

I borrow it all to weave 

it all with my unspoken words.

some of it becomes what 

they call as poetry,

and I humbly slip into the

humble arrogance of 

being a sorted poet.

Messiah Complex

Oh, that fancy for girl 

with terminal illness-

That tumor behind a 

little face.

Hope gleaming loud

in her big eyes, and 

walls ready to crumble 

behind the stony walls. 

Didn't we men create a

romance genre around 

this trope?

Adding fragility over 

fragility over the softness

of her white skin-

Only to bring out an 

inherent duty in ourselves 

to rescue this 

starry-eyed girl. 

Ohh this compulsive 

urge to be a messiah-

A hero complex with

daddy issues that 

leaves a hollowness 

that needs to be filled-

You wait for her demise 

by framing and reframing 

your words for an 

ultimate eulogy-

Isn't such tragedy 

a perfect place to 

rehearse your poetry?

But when she's gone.

when you no longer 

have an audience for 

your pretentious grief,

you're left with a question-

That if you loved her

for what she was or just the 

idea of her, upon which

you could briefly park-

The only purpose you 

were left with.

Make me something you never finish

Oh, to dissolve on your tongue 

like a cherry and taste my name

in your reveries.

To be the hushed tones of 

your whispers and the feeble 

breath of your sigh.

Oh, this yearning to meet you 

and be cradled in your arms.

to hold your hand and 

to lay there off guard.

I wish I could meet you once.

I wish I could walk beside you

basking in your shadow.

I wish the sentences suspended 

in our throats would start a

poetic affair of their own.

And I hope this distance is just 

a comma and our separation is 

a deliberate a plot hole to elevate 

the climax.

And before the ink is dried and

chapters are closed.

memory is thinned and 

oblivion is invoked-

I'll meet you once for sure.

We'll force our hands into 

etching our union onto the 

stony silence of fate.

But the night is longer, and

the wait is forever, my love.

Keep looking for omens till then.

If I swift through your loose hair 

and disappear like a sparrow's chirp.

Preserve me like a fragrance.

Settle me deep in your memory,

like you reminisce your favourite 

Gazhal, Make me something 

you never finish and,

I'll always return.

We'll never meet again

You ask for a meeting

brief as a struck match.

But what if we have already 

burned that fleeting light?

The ancient, unbreakable 

promise you keep talking about.

Haven't we both learned how 

words fail precisely where 

they are most needed?

You philosophize distance 

as a comma. 

I wish I belived the same.

But commas are not always 

merciful.

What if they continue when 

we would rather stop?

You say your heart would find me

in a sea of strangers.

Mine would recognize you too.

But won't we be those 

familiar strangers full of 

contemplation again?

Your fear of solitude in love 

is justified. But again,

ain't love solitary at its core?

Yet there were moments 

when our solitude overlapped.

so precisely that it 

almost felt like belonging.

But if the pages must turn,

and chapters must end and

books should be closed.

Let it be.

Not every story is meant to 

be concluded.

Some are meant to be 

suspended mid-sentence,

mis-plotted and half-baked.

So they can be returned to

without the burden of an ending.

So I will tell you this-

we will not meet again.

not because I doubt it.

But because I refuse to reduce 

us to being subjects of a

bogus promise.

Hence, let the memories die

out of hunger. Ink dry 

after being orphaned.

Deprived of any touch, 

the tenderness of hands must sulk

and heart must ache-

For silence has always been 

the question, let solitude 

be the answer.

Bombing A School

From the mouth of a building

that forgot its own shape,

they pull out papers-

creased lungs of color,

breathing ash.

A house drawn in seemingly 

straight lines refuses to 

learn collapse.

A sun- not so round, 

not so certain,

keeps smiling at a sky that 

no longer exists.

Stick figures hold hands

across a page in solidarity 

like there's still a future 

that no blast could edit.

A blue crayon river

still remembers how to flow,

though the street outside

has turned to dust.

Fingerprints of red and yellow-

small, stubborn signatures

outlive the walls that tried to 

keep them safe.

And in one corner, a bird 

mid-flight, wings open-

has nowhere left to arrive.

The resuers stack the 

drawings like evidence against 

the idea of war. Proof that 

color survived impact.

Proof that someone,

before the noise,

before the blast believed in 

windows, in doors, 

and in tomorrows.

Proof that, in the quiet

after sirens-

whatever hope that was left

got laced to crayons and 

took an iroclad refuge 

in papers that no

power could ransack.

Cold Goodbye

Sometimes the kindest 

thing is a cold goodbye.

No trembling voice.

No rehearsed compassion.

Just a clean cut

that doesn’t pretend

to heal.

You leave without 

nostalgia.

You leave without the 

fancy of a 'what if'.

No strings.

No soft corners.

No memories left to

polish later into 

tender reminiscing.

Raw, unflattering wounds.

The bruises that cannot 

be romanticized.

The kind that makes 

you cringe when their 

name surfaces.

A disgust that protects.

An embarrassment 

that pushes you ahead.

A decay that doesn't 

grow back-

A dirty breakup is 

A strange mercy.

Ohh that freedom 

that comes when 

even longing gives up-

Insects gone for good 

from the den of head.

Ohh when the definition 

of empty cages come 

closer to peace,

The feelings you kill

becomes an act of 

self-love.

In seek of validation

What if I call you a 

Goddess and worship? 

Would you consider my 

Devotion? 

Would you shower me 

withblessings if I offer 

you prayers? 

If I adorn you with flowers, 

fruits, and other hefty 

offerings, will I be worthy 

of your affection? 

Tell me the threshold of 

your appeasement 

before I stop sounding 

natural-

and I shall cross 

it by jumping, crawling, 

or in whatever way

you would like it. 

The human sacrifices 

aren't enough clearly, 

so aren't my pedophilic 

tendencies.

I've tried bombs,

missiles and rockets.

Space exploration,

Genocide and whatnot.

Still falling short?

Give me a hint maybe.

A sign?

By this time,

The validation I'm seeking,

seems to exceed 

the magnitude of your 

delayed blessings.

Perhaps I can go on

committing more heinous 

acts, till you one day, you 

prostrate before me

to stop it.

But I won't.

By that time my 

God complex would

make me deaf and

maybe you can act

like you're my bhakt.