Clap. Clap. Clap.

He rubs a pinch of tobacco
In his palm and claps out
The coarse chaff.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Puts the tobacco in his
Mouth. It's midnight.

He rubs, claps, and puts it
In his mouth and abuses
My mom at night.
Clap, clap, clap in the
Dead of the night.

It's 3.15 in the morning.
The sound, slashing
The fierce dark.
Piercing through the sleep
Of mine.

Piercing through my skin.
A cold knife down my spine.
It's a masterclass on
How you ruin a young
Lad's life.

I hear my mom trying to
Hide her sobs.
In the morning, she
Looks away and doesn't
Look me in the eye.

It's sad that no one
Intervenes. It's sad days
Become years like that.

Clap, clap, clap in the
Dead of the night.
Tobacco should cause
Cancer.
But why hasn't it yet?

And thirty years go by.
My brother says how
He still grows weary upon
Hearing those claps.
I do too.

The trauma doesn't pass.
So doesn't my dad.
We go on carrying a
Broken glass in our bellies.
And clap, clap, clap..
It churns our insides
Every other night.

Baba of Undies

My friend left his underwear 

In my penthouse.

I'd to use it to clean my bike.

He cracked a good deal 

At his company after that 

And got sponsored for 

A free Bangkok trip.

After a year, another friend 

Did the same. I'd put

The cloth to some use.

His business boomed too.

The word got around and

Suddenly all my friends 

And their friends paid a visit 

To leave their undies in

My house and everyone's 

Fortune turned.

Did I just become an

Underwear baba? 

Beats me but

People started visiting.

Sometimes, I had to 

Symbolically clean stuff with 

Their undies and they did

Well in life after that.

Then came the skeptics

A professor, a journalist,  

A man with a clipboard.  

They left nothing behind,  

To check my validity.  

Their stocks plummeted.  

Their lovers left.

One man misplaced  

His entire career.  

Now they, too, return,  

Sheepish, contrite,  

Holding their offerings  

Like wilted flowers.  

I nod. Accept the fabric 

Fate has woven.  

At this point,  

Who am I to question it?  

When divinity passes

Through you to lead a creed.

You accept the prophecy

To happily become a 

Baba of Undies.

Stink

You meet someone online.

Talk for days, fall in love.

Discuss dirty stuff and

Get naked on screen.

You fight, you argue 

You figure it out and fall

In love more fiercely to

Shag each other on video 

For months.

You then fall apart. Breakup. 

You just close the screen 

And there's an eternal divide.

Moving on seems easy-

But it gets to you.

Heart is heart, and you get

Frozen in a period of time.

You miss her eternally.

Her face, her eyes.

Hair, skin, bare bust 

And the way she touched 

Her crotch-

You imagine the way she

Would have touched you.

But how can you?

Touch is what you're

Most deprived.

This two-dimensional love..

The deprivation it came with.

It haunts you.

You shag yourself in

Her memory for years.

Her face fade. Letter by

Letter her name fades.

And one day it hits you.

She remains only in what

You can smell.

She's fused in the smell of 

Your semen with a hint of 

Urine.

What else could have 

Filled the vacuum?

Maybe that's the smell

Of all the hopeless romance.

Maybe it isn't.

Maybe you would have

Been different if you had

Held her hand.

Maybe be this is loneliness. 

Maybe that's how a 

Break up stinks.

Maybe that's how a

A touch-deprived story is

Supposed to end.

Maybe that's how 

Best of memories smell.

Maybe you never know.

Maybe that's why you

Take things in hand 

And do it again.

And maybe... that's why 

Everything goes on 

Smelling the same.

The first time I knew I was alive

When you cut a newspaper in
A square and place a bow and
Arrow across two ends diagonally.

And paste the ends well with the
Rice paste prepared by mom.
You get a skeleton of a kite.

Then you poke two holes at
The junction of the bow and arrow.
And two holes parallely down-

You pass a thread across the
Holes- double the diagonal length
Of the kite.

Pull it out at the posterior end
To tie together the entire structure
To balance the centre of gravity-

You would need a reel-thread
From mom's sewing machine to
Set the kite in its course.

And for the first time, when
My kite soared high, it was
The first time I knew I was alive.