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 

come up with, to sigh into 

a disbelief of 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.