Gap in Your Name

Your parents fought hard to
Settle on a common name for you
After your birth.

As a compromise your dad
Prefixed you secretly after his ex.
Coincidentally your mom was

Relieved to know that the suffix
Rhymed with the one she once
Crushed on in school.

So you have two nicknames now
That are distinctively uttered by a
Male and a female in your home.

And the syllable that holds together
The divide in your name sits
Overstretched in silence, and that

Pretty much sums up
The life you've had till now.

Man-childs

It all starts with some hopeless
Idealism when you're a teen.
Then you together read
'Motorcycle Diaries' and dream big.

But life isn't a movie like ZNMD,
Not sure who was gonna be Kabir
But you eventually turn out to be Irfan
With damnation of poetry.

The two of you lose that third-wheel
And get condemned to be just two.
The dream of forming a band is
Still incomplete, a business at least
In the near future, seems just an
Utopian wish.

But the supposed low-key Arjun
Buys a bike and you get to travel
Across Himalayas. Only that
Happens to have some meaning
In your half-baked life.

You go on a drinking frenzy one night
With this more than a friend
And less than wife nigga, thinking
That's how you end it like you're
In a Tarantino tragedy.

But your goodbyes are somehow
Saved like renewed man-child characters
In another Imtiaz Ali movie.

First Mango of the Season

When the mango trees flower
By the start of April.
The taste buds on the tongue start
A revolt to have a taste of
The first ripened mango of
The season and they don't
Let you wait.

You pluck those tiny-bud-like
Mangoes in pursuit of your
Craving and you keep doing that
Compulsively till you find that
Final emancipating taste.

You go climbing trees and
Hitting private farms in summer
Holidays with all your harmless
Childish face but the owner
Chases you away.

You collect unripe mangoes from
The roadside to keep them for
Fruition in the paddy husk and
You don't have the patience to leave
Them to the forces of nature.

So you press them a couple of
Times a day to see if they're
Magically ripe and sometimes
The squishy pulp of the unripe ones
Makes you believe that it's ready,
Before it explodes its foul taste
In your mouth as a cold revenge.

But that's the grind right?
You chase around restlessly,
For that one over-aged ovary.
And when you find one, you peel
The skin and lick it well first.
Feed on the pulp and suck on
The stone till it's core is visible
And then play all day with the fibers
That get stuck in your teeth.

Barefoot

To all those roads I walked 

Barefoot, when any sort of a
Footwear was a sign of luxury.

The shrubs we invaded and
The trees we climbed to eat fruits.
The thorns that we stepped
Over that got till the bones.

And all those bored grannies,
In the noon, sorting groundnuts,
Keen on digging into your foot to
Liberate you from the nosy guest
With their safety pins.

The cashews you collected that
Summer, you sold for sixty per kg,
To buy yourself a pair of Paragon
Slippers. It's a long way you've
Come from there.

But even then, when the 8 am
Bus from native leaves to your
Mom's village-
The hot soil and unintended
Sharp black stones on
The unmetalled roads call you.

And you feel a brief shudder in
Feet and the soles of the footwear
You now wear shy away a little.

Lethargy

I often get zoned out into
Long stretches of lethargy.
All goals and ambitions go
Out of the window.

Hobbies and habits trampled
With the chronic urges of
Masturbate-- with the butter of
Procrastination sliding smoothly
On the bread of mindless
Binge-watching mania-

I get caught in a loop of
Guilt-ridden whirlpool that
Sinks deep enough to perch
My charring soul till the bruises
Are visible in my head where
Divergent my ideas brew.

And I try to scream for myself
To save myself from a
Grave that hasn't been dug yet.
But the prayers of an atheist
Are not even answered by
Oneself it seems.

So I'm left here to be smothered
By myself- A master of my own
Destiny preaching slavery-
Left to quench my thirst in the sea
Saying salt water cleanses
The soul that has sinned.

Advice to Younger Self

For some reason, the puberty
Will hit you hard my boy.
An intense sort of rebellion
Will sprout like pubic hair to
Drive you around the edges
Of irrelevant philosophies.

You'll stop believing in God first
And you'll read whatever
Re-enforces your atheism out
Of sheer hate for your father.

And even before college
A sense of existentialism gets
To you and you'll question
The existing systems in place
And the society at large.

And that will trigger your
Innate desire to escape what's
Infront of you-
"This is hard, not meant for me,
I'll wait for the right time."-
Always expecting more from
From life when there's none.

And the decade-long slide of
Hopelessness and regret will
Shine when you look back from
Your thirties, to force you to
Answer the question,

"What advice do you wish to
Give to your younger self?"

After a long pause, you'd wish
To just say "Shave away those
Pubic hair before they sprout".
But you can't, as you may
Wanna be politically correct.

What It takes to socialize

For the first time in her life,
Mom asked me for some
Spare money I'm left with.
I wondered, what changed.

She's going to the local market
With the other women,
To fetch vegetables these days.

It took all of her kids to
Learn well, take a job and
Go away from home and then
The husband had to fall ill..
For her to socialise.

I love it when she complains
About the prices of onion
And ridge guard. I'm happy
To see her manage a small

Budget and decide for herself
On the matters she knows well.

I imagine her negotiating with
The vendors over prices of
Brinjal and love it when she blames
The government for the price rise.

And each Saturday, when
The neighboring aunty gives
Her a loud call, I remind myself
The definition of welfare in

Economics as a number of
Choices one makes in a
Day-to-day life.

Hibiscus

The hibiscus that has
Profusely grown like a
Boundary around my house.
Was planted by my aunt,

A couple of couple of
Years ago, besides the one
That has been there from
My childhood.

It's full of unopened buds,
Easily at least 20 Red flowers
Every morning flirting with
Fresh dew.

If my grandpa were alive
Today, he would have been
Filled with excitement to pluck
Each one of those to offer to

All the all the Gods.
Maybe the almighty would
Have blessed him with
A couple more years of life.

Sad that his expectancy
Fell short by a few flowers.

To A Friend Who Killed Himself

But he was just here yesterday,
Debating about inflation
Farm bills and rural distress.
He had a beer and danced
Like hell to "Dhan te na"
From Kaminey.

Suddenly he was sad for a bit
Concerning his mother.
And was excited again to
Talk about the new deal
He cracked for a big ass
Client.

And in the morning when
It was said he hanged
Himself to death,
Quoting no reason or clue
As to why he did it.

It was shocking, surprising
And mind-boggling.
Disappointing above all.
How could he go without
Saying anything?

When I see his mother-
Her pale eyes brimming
With tears- writing apologies
To empty cradles thinking
It's her mistake-

I try harder to stick my
Ears into the void he has left,
To listen to the possible echoes
Of his unsaid goodbyes-
All the unasked questions
Go unanswered and

The condolences like caged
Birds flutter to mock my
Emptiness that keeps coming
Without a formal invite.

Innocent Crime

This girl in my class, had
Scribbled in her class-book
"I want to marry Ajay".
The other girls found it
And brought it to my notice.

This was in the second standard.
I was the class monitor.
It was a big issue. I was
Embarrassed and kept crying.

The whole class booed her,
She ran out of the class.
I caught up to her to beat
Her up with my chappals-
Innocent mishaps can be a
Big crime in a rural setting.

The incident didn't end there.
My aunt went to her house
To create a ruckus- my
Family Pride was in danger
Because of a little girl.

How unfairly a girl of hardly
Seven can be treated?
I feel ashamed of it.

Sometimes when she passes
By my house with her kid,
Head down.
I too look away, out of shame.

Maybe in a parallel life,
We exchange awkward smiles.
But in this one, the damage
Is done.

I remembered God

You always gotta remember
'Vithoba' he would say.
Whatever you do, wherever you're.
While eating, shitting, traveling.
Specially before you hop
Into a vehicle. You gotta
Remember his name.

My mother's father- he was
The most spiritual and
Humblest man I've ever met.

He spent most of his life,
In a small farmhouse.
The trees, cattle and poultry
Is all he needed he would say.

He taught me how to- climb
A tree, graft a sapling,
Pick cashews and roast them
To the right taste.

Those winter mornings and his
Little sessions on the tricks to
Cut grass and bundle it in small
Parcels so that I could carry it.

The mythological stories he would
Narrate in the evenings.
About the King and four shepherds.
About the demon who would be reborn
From each drop of his slain blood.

Sometimes he would ask some
Mathematical questions from
His time. And if you answered
He would declare you're the smartest
Kid around.

When he passed away last summer
Due to prostrate cancer,
I received the news late,
As I was elsewhere in a
Meditation camp.

While I waited for the bus to
Return home for the obituary.
I hated the fact that I couldn't cry.
The smell of oily fritters, when it
Wafted past my nose-

I remembered those Saturdays
When he peddled to the local bazaar
To sell vegetables and bought
Fritters and other snacks.

I uttered Vithoba's name while
I stepped into the bus.
The atheist, I'd become as I grew-
It was the first time in years
I remembered God.

End of the world

At the stroke of midnight
Empty beer bottles pile up.
The stench of half-eaten biryani,
And the dirty dishes all
Over the floor.

The shearing pain in
The head of the hangover,
You can't handle-
Orphan written
On your forehead as you
Can't remember your
Father's name.

She comes to mind and
The life you couldn't have
And the unborn children
Scream and you roll over
The floor and cry.

At ten past two,
You think you're gay and
Try to kiss your drunken
Friend beside you.
He slaps you first and
Consoles you into a weird
Sort of existentialim.

An hour later something
Gets into him- he convinces 

You that the world is gonna end.

Douglas Adam takes over
Your drunken head and
Takes you both to
The restaurant at
The edge of the galaxy.

You order masala dosa
And cutting chai and write
Each other eulogies in a hurry
On tissue papers.

At the end of the world,

By nine past four, you understand-
All the fireworks were just
You puking heavily without
Understanding why and
The eulogy sounded so good, 

You really wanna die.

Anarchy

Every season when migrants
Come to my village to cut sugarcane.
The Socio-economic scenario of
My village changes.

The chicken prices go up and
The demand for liquor skyrockets.
Those who know a bit of Hindi
Get a bit of importance and when

Someone from their clan utters
A word of our slang, our faces lit up.

One can see makeshift huts
By the road. Kids in messy clothes,
Unkempt hair- who takes care of
Even smaller kids and a bit older ones
Armed with machetes to cut and
Load cane.

Smoke off the burnt stubble in
The evening and small talk in
The street corners and pan shops
Finding usual, unusual references
To the affairs of our men and
Their women-

The smell of anarchy in the air-
Bit of intermixing with outsiders
Exposing the cracks in our social fabric-
And before the concerns-

Get out of hand. It starts pouring in June.
Our seasonal guests would be gone.
Chicken prices come down as
Monsoons become proper resets.

The turmoil in many homes, over the
Inflated prices and debauchery of men
Settles and the reason for tears in
Many kitchens would be owned by

Just the onions again.

Redundant Deity

Grandma once told me about
A deity outside the village
Who cured the children
Who uncontrollably cried.

He was offered oily Bajjis        (=fritters)
She says and my father
Was named after him
To stabilize his cry.

The other deities in the village
Have got elaborate temples
And rituals over the years-
To become lords and

The overlords to the wishes
And prayers of the seekers.

But not him.
Roofless, faceless.
No hands or legs or a
Statue that oozes charm.

This deity is just a puddle
Of a rock upon whom
Vermillion is smeared and
The left-out oil is poured-

When women return from
Seeking all other Gods.

Our shapeless deity who is
Just a rock had only one job-
The doctors now give medicine
To the children who cry and

The oily Bajjis are advised
Against a healthy diet.

Death at Will

Can you foresee your death?
One fine morning, can you know
That you'll be gone by
That afternoon?

Does the Buddhist bird on
Your right shoulder whisper
The time and the place of
Your demise and the way
You'll pass away?

It seemed so in my
Grandpa's case.

He woke up that day.
Visited the family barber whom
We still paid in grains.

Had his bath,
Put on a new shirt
Which was very unlike him.
Then applied Vibhooti on
His forehead and visited
All the temples in the village.

On the way back, met his
Usual friends. Sat with them
Under the Banyan tree by
The end of the street.

And when he was back home
By mid-day, we kids were
Dancing off to really loud
Music put up by my father.

For some reason Grandpa
Got irked by it and got into
An argument and a brief fight
With my father-

A classic case of Indian fathers-
"I don't know how to hug you
But this is goodbye, son."

Then he ate lunch served
By my grandma in the kitchen.
I hope he really thanked her
In his own way and pleaded
Sorry for the stuff he put
Her through.

Then he went to the other
House for a nap.
There was urine on the floor
When Grandma went to
Wake him up.

He had passed away
In his sleep.

Quick and painless and
Didn't burden anyone.
People in the locality
Called it a good death.

I too agree if you ask me.
He should've emptied
His bladder before his nap though.
Maybe the Budhhist birds
Wanted the scene to be
A bit messy to avoid suspicion.