Self Blame

Main iss 'over-thought'

ka bhi achar dalunga.

Uss 'over-thought' ka 

bhi achar dalunga...

Mere 'overthinking' ke 

achar ka dera banake

Usiko khana samjh ke 

kha bhi lunga.

Aur jab khana hajam 

na ho, tab jisne bhi

khana banaya hoga, 

usey kosunga.

Music

If the world is going to 

end tomorrow by fire,

let's watch the fireworks 

from a beach.

If it's going to end by snow,

let's climb a mountain

and wait for unraveling 

for the spectacle.

Either way,

I'll handle the logistics.

You curate a playlist.

The wake of our doom

should be a spectrum

stretched between-

"No alarms and 

No surprises", and

"Your lips my lips. 

Apocalypse"-

Radiohead to 

Cigerettes After Sex..

whatever filled the void 

within us- Fire to fire, 

ashes to ashes-

Dust is all we were

but atleast, music

got to us first before 

fate could.

Hatasha, (n)Desperation

Akka goes shopping and 

I get hold of my niece,

she starts crying.

I carry her outside to

console her by showing 

her worldly things.

The boy selling balloons

and cotton candy looks

at us. My niece points her

hand at the shiny thing.

I distract her pointing 

at something else.

He keeps looking at us

now and then, but I keep

distracting her.

A silent tension builds

between him and me.

It churns my stomach to

not empathise that guy.

and just then a little girl

in rags comes to me 

with her brother asking 

for alms.

I nod her away with my

stony eyes, and she moves 

ahead in search of better 

chances-

She goes to the boy with

the balloons.

He readily gives her a 

coin and looks at me.

My face turns pale 

remembering the poem

by Vinod Kumar Shukl,

"Hatasha Se Ek Vyakti.."

and like the poet, 

maybe I too understand 

what desperation is-

But that teenage boy's 

eyes ask me-

Is understanding enough?

Midlife

By age five, I was running 

around in the street with a 

discarded bicycle tire. 

The only aspiration was to 

get a sturdier tire of a motorcycle

to flex a smooth ride. 

By ten, I gathered boys 

of my street to build a cricket 

team to challenge the teams 

from other streets. 

The only aspiration was to 

somehow win a rupee that 

would be at stake. 

By fifteen, I was in a 

residential school. 

I was head of the Blue House. 

I played table tennis and 

the only thing I looked forward 

to was to go to regionals, 

if not nationals. 

By twenty, I had no baggage.

high on hormones, stuck in

college. The teenage angst 

should have upped my game, 

but it was dumbed down by

philosophy I read that 

preached idealism. 

By twenty-five, I had fallen 

into the vicious cycle of cracking 

government exams. 

The shit hit the fan shortly.

The erstwhile aspirations got

subsided into a financial fatigue-

But fortunately, by thirty, 

I got lucky. My concerns were 

dealt with. I could focus on 

writing and a bit of travel.

I could stretch myself beyond 

my usual boundaries to 

some extent-

The existentialism I faced, 

catharsized into absurdism, 

I learnt laughing at everything 

till it became a habit. 

I am thirty-three now, 

I wish I weren't thirty five in

the next two years and 

If only I could manage to 

not behave like forty year old

to plan for my sixties-

I can still look in the eyes

of the teenager I was, 

to hold on to something 

that I haven't yet lost.

'Could and Would' Have Beens

I try to touch you, 

but you keep going away. 

I try to hold you, 

but you keep slipping.

I don't try hard though. 

I feel you would eventually 

come around and fall into 

my arms. 

But that doesn't happen 

either.

Is this entitlement? 

I don't know. Fragile ego? 

High self-esteem?

Low self-confidence 

or just laziness?

I have no idea where 

my present attitude 

comes from. 

I simply lack the fear

of losing you. I have, 

but why doesn't it 

reflect in my efforts to 

hold you?

I know I'll be hurt, and 

I'm gonna romanticize 

this pain. 

But while we are there, 

while we are at this 

absurdity that hangs 

between a casual friendship 

and a juicy affair-

The audacious possibilities 

of things fill ideas into my head, 

and I hang in there with

all possible restraints.

The 'could have beens'

and 'would have beens' 

slip into a steady rot, 

and eventually I gulp down 

my predicament like I 

loved it all from the start.

Numbing Brain

I know I can't get out of this. 

I know I'm gonna overthink 

myself into tiredness. 

I know I'm too lazy to give 

myself a jump start. 

I know I'm gonna consider 

all the alternate routes 

to my freedom and eventually 

justify conditioning of this 

prison. 

The revolt in my bones goes 

out of my dick when I numb 

my brain with masturbation 

thrice a day. 

How do you think wings 

forget their flight? 

How do you think songs dry 

in otherwise fulfilled hearts?

Pump enough dopamine 

to the brain and even

best of us are gonna drown

in self-induced restraints.

Autobiography

I search for writable 

thoughts. Not so dark, 

not so real. Nothing that 

exposes me or shows me 

in a bad taste.

Just indicative enough 

to be a victim. 

Enough lighting to be 

a protagonist.

Wounds without the 

blood, confessions without 

the consequences,

a little suffering carefully 

placed where it catches 

the careful eyes.

A little pain here.

A little longing there.

Something that looks

like a scar without ever 

having to hurt-

I dip it all in sugar syrup

and glitter, till all of it

transcends downs to

symbols and metaphors.

Nothing abrupt.

Nothing conclusive.

Just doors half-open,

the questions slightly 

unanswered-

The mirror deliberately 

tainted to set a context,

so that reflection be 

hailed with applause.

The ending shall wait 

politely outside with a

smug face for validation.

It knows by this time,

the acts in the story are

justified.

Bones of Iron, Nerves of Steel

We called her Tanji.

Though she was elder to us, 

she played with us.

She wasn't mentally sound.

Last I heard, after the demise

of her husband, her in-laws 

didn't treat her well.

She came back home and 

did farming by her own.

Reminds me of Raji too.

The dusky little girl who's 

house was beside mine.

Played with us hide and 

seek almost everyday.

She was married off 

and for some mysterious 

reasons, she committed 

suicide and that's that.

What always gets to me is 

the story of this classmate,

Bharti.

Her father was my grandpa's 

friend. She hardly spoke. 

She had green eyes and 

Everyone called her cat-eyes.

After she overhead her

husband's family's plan to

burn her for dowry reasons,

She fled the house and 

walked for two days to

be back home.

Even in my own family.

Two daughters of my 

grandpa's elder brother,

they were sold to some

rich family in Gujarat.

The marriage squeeze 

of such nature is often 

sugarcoated, but in all

bluntness, the reality was

starker as I learned more.

Sometimes I don't know 

if I should be sad over these

things or draw inspiration 

or just be grateful for not

Even remotely going through 

anything like that.

I guess I carry the same

confusion within me whenever 

I encounter one of these 

classmates of mine.

The wisdom lies simply in 

not talking to them or 

even looking at them.

Because I remember how

bad the treatment was,

when one of my mother's 

guy classmates had talked 

to her in local bazaar and

my dad couldn't keep his

shit together.

Triggering Bowels

You can always drink water 

or tea to trigger your bowels.

I guess most of India does that.

But for some, it’s beedi or 

cigarette, or khaini or gutka.

I know someone who needs 

a newspaper to set things

in motion-

As if his posh gut needs

Faces of politicians,

Bombings in Palestine or 

A statement by Sitharaman 

to get it going.

Perhaps outrage is a better 

laxative than anything they 

sell at the pharmacy.

One of my uncles can't 

do it in the toilet. 

He has to go in the open.

The way he talks about 

the wisdom of open fields,

he's one step away from 

becoming Bear Grills.

From mint of toothpaste 

to early morning bhajans,

to cranky sound of an

old radio- the diversity in

triggers was a thing.

Then smartphones started 

going inside the toilet.

And you, me and everyone 

sat on the commode scrolling-

A reel of a motivational speaker.

Then of of a wedding.

In the next someone is 

doing something impossible

with a watermelon-

And by the time when 

it's fiftieth or sometimes 

ninety ninth reel-

From scaring you into your

own impotency to teaching 

how brinjal could be a

promising aphrodisiac-

Something inside you 

loosens and the body learns 

the art of letting go,

and that's how the day 

could start on a good note.

Every Indian Marriage Ever ft my village

"My princess deserves 

a government babu", declares 

the neighborhood auntie.

It would be a banker one day, 

a low-key state government 

official the other-

Her pride would hide behind 

a high-paying manager 

in a MNC sometimes, and 

on the other, behind a 

businessman with a big 

enterprise in the city. 

And years down the line, 

finally, when this 

"Beaut-force of a girl",

is married off to the only 

son of a big landlord-

Within six months, it's found 

that he's a drunkard. 

Then our princess returns 

to her mother after a big big 

fight within a year.

There is nothing to hide 

by now. The secrets are

out in the open. 

The landlord tag was just 

"erstwhile", and what's 

left now is just 1.5 acres. 

The sunk cost fallacy of 

Indian marriages starts to 

play out well after that-

series of blame games, 

retaliation, negotiation,

and inevitable settlements.

Both the families thrust 

the pact of marriage down 

the throats of these two 

imbeciles, and within the 

next year she comes 

bearing a child. 

Then another, 

then another, and another 

till penury wakes up 

and slaps on them with

a contraception.

But yes, after that, 

They Lived Happily Ever After.

Captivity of Constipation

You sleep clean, wake up early. 

You sit on the commode like a king, 

but it doesn't rain with thunder 

like it usually does. 

You give in, come out of the 

bathroom confused, wondering

If you should have washed your 

misfired cannon or not. 

You sip black coffee to trigger 

your bowels, then sabja seeds 

to build up the pressure. 

Breakfast goes in, just hoping to 

come out, but today it's in no hurry. 

The stock market opens, 

Arnab screams in reels, 

the traffic moves, people go to 

work, and you too join the race.

But you got unfinished business.

The anticipation of which holds 

you captive every half an hour. 

You carry the discomfort into 

office, meetings, small talk, and 

even lunch-- Geopolitics, 

Climate change, who's nailing who, 

when is the appraisal? 

Everything goes on the usual 

platter, except your colon. 

On days like this, your gut 

feeling is often flatulence.

The anxiety eventually turns 

into a neat philosophy-

What is a man who has not 

defecated? Is free will real?

Should the right to defecation 

be part of human dignity in 

Article 21?

The growling in your belly

changes the relativity of time.

The time dilation reminds you

How Buddha died of diarrhea 

and you think how lucky he was.

Every decision feels blocked.

Every emotion feels backed up.

The kind of awakening you're 

pushed into by evening-

You are spiritually constipated

and every philosophical question

seems to wait to be answered 

by the same damn pressure.

And then, suddenly, late in the

night, when the body speaks-

The fluency of pressure pushes

you into a simulation-

For a while you're under that

goddamn Bodhi tree, and you 

realise that enlightenment may 

have been greatly exaggerated.

And if asses could speak,

Every fyn shyt would be a 

preaching and every bathroom 

would be a consecration.

Which, in all reasonableness,

even now, is no less than a 

place of worship.

Am I a Misogynist?

I'm a millennial villager 

who studied in a residential 

school where talking to 

girls was despised and 

reprimanded.

There was a silent 

sympathy and admiration 

for girls who wore chudi,

and our hidden misogyny 

came out as character 

assassination of 

whoever wore jeans.

But times changed and

values changed and

yardsticks changed.

Yet, I still wonder if I'm 

conditioned enough to

be a misogynist.

Like, I wouldn't want 

my wife to burn herself 

after my death-

Sati is a strict no.

But if I were in the 1900s,

would I have gone against 

the family and society 

for it? That's the question.

Like, would I marry a 

10-year-old? Hell no.

But if I were forced into

it thirty-forty years ago,

would I have opposed it?

Maybe no.

I'm in support of widow

remarriage as long as 

the widow is my wife. 

But what if it were my 

mother?

These random musings 

turn into introspection.

Introspections expose

my own biases-

Would I marry a girl of

dark complexion? 

Would I if she were a

bit overweight?

The question of virginity 

always plays out.

How about dowry? 

I know I fully oppose it. 

But if it's sugarcoated by 

layers of "How it's a gift 

to your own daughter" 

what can I do?

Would I allow her to work? 

Allow? Yes. She can work.

Can she wear make-up 

and modern dress? 

Yes, to some extent.

Saree? Ghunghat?

The kitchen? The dishes?

Children? Uhh! Enough.

I guess, if it boils down

to something simple,

my feminism might end

somewhere over how much 

work I'm gonna share with 

her in the kitchen.

And the misogyny would 

surely begin somewhere 

over her decision to wear 

a bikini or any other 

revealing dress.

Delulu Solulu

When the weight of

not having wings gets to

my bones.

The skeleton feels like 

prison.

and somewhere there is 

a man-sized nest, and on 

the days it's too much

to be a human,

I go into a hiding there.

I take up the longest 

flight amidst the clouds,

witness the best sunsets

to stackup perspectives.

Then brood in the paddy 

husk of laziness to call

it a cozy refuge.

Ohh to fold myself into 

the warmth of borrowed 

feathers, pull the silence 

over my head and pretend 

the world has forgotten 

my address-

No expectations.

No names to answer to.

No need to be useful,

reasonable or particularly 

brave.

Ohh to become a bird 

without an obligation 

to fly-

Perhaps I sleep there

until the weight of the day

forgets my shoulders.

and when I finally step out,

I carry a little sky under 

my ribs-

that's delusional enough 

to return to the unreasonable 

business of being an

existential human.

Playful vs Playing it

When you hailed upon 

me like the breeze, 

I should have felt you on 

my skin against the

evening sky.

But instead, I tried to 

build windmills.

When you arrived to 

me like a river. 

I should have dissolved, 

drowned and perhaps, 

soaked like salt does in 

the water.

But I looked forward to 

build a bridge to go

beyond your self.

When you came to me

like rain, I should have 

stood there and let myself 

get drenched.

Instead, I searched for 

a roof, measuring the 

clouds for the possibility

of a storm.

When you became

a fire in the distance,

I should have walked closer

just to feel the warmth.

Instead, I built a wall

and called it wisdom.

You kept arriving as 

something I always wanted,

and I kept responding by 

constructing something

I think I might need.

You always offered yourself 

as possibilities and I turned 

you into an engineering 

project of expectations.

If only I knew how to 

be just playful instead 

of playing it.

I would have embraced 

you like an experience 

instead of treating you 

like an experiment.

Politics in my 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.