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 

thebordeal 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 lots of clothes.

The variety of shirts, jeans,

uniforms, t-shirts, shorts,

socks, jersey, innerwears 

and what not.

The heap of it piles on a

cot and it need 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 closet.

and while she does that l,

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 everytime,

"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.