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.