Monday, November 28, 2011

Regret

"We regret to inform you... "

Regret! That's my hateful word of the day - of this year. Of my entire life at the moment. How I hate that word.

I feel like smashing something right now. I'd have smashed my life if it was not already smashed.

God. I feel like he is laughing at me from somewhere. Look how puny you are. And look what a mess your life is. Ha ha.

It is surprising. Even after all these years, the word still deguts me every time I read it. And there they lie - all raw and bloody in front of my eyes as if nothing will make me whole again. Still one breathes.

Which is a darn miracle - what would it take to stop breathing, I wonder. Certainly more than tonne of regret...

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Shokhi, Bhalobasha Kare Koy?

Sulagna lay cuddled beside him, with her nose buried in his sweaty armpits. The cream pastel walls were still heaving with their evening efforts at frantic lovemaking. She could sense the drops of sweat that had sneaked down his brow, and skidded to a stop on his cheek stubble. Hanging in desperation, afraid of getting lost.


"How did you like it? I am impressed - we have never done it like this before."


Maybe neither of us wanted it enough. Do we want it now? The love? Or just the sex? The cobweb sticking to the edge of the roof beam swayed in the ceiling fan's draft.


"Uhmmm... Shokhi bhabona kahare bole,
Shokhi jatona kahare bole,
Tomra je bolo dibosho rojoni
Bhalobasha, bhalobasha...
"


"What are you singing? Is it some new song? You did not answer my question - did you like it?"


The bedsheet needs to be changed tonight - it is definitely smelling of fungi now. Damn this damp. How is anybody supposed to enjoy a toss in the hay in such weather! Is he thinking of Anne Hathway again... what was that movie we saw... love and other drugs. Maybe he is ruing that I am not like that skinny girl in his arms, in her white shirt, pouty lips holding a cigarette, smoke rising into a cloud of our desires. Does he still love me?


"...Shokhi bhalobasha kare koy?
Sheki keboli jatona moy.
Sheki keboli chokher jol, sheki
keboli dukher shaas...
"


"Thank you for today."

He turned his face toward her. His expression was as curious as ever. What is he thinking? I wish I could talk to him like I can talk to... I miss him. His hands closed around her shoulders in a kind embrace. He smells different now. Does he know how many different smells I can pick off him? Does he even care to know?


"... Loke tobe kore ki shukhire tore,
aemon dukhero aash
.

You know, shokhi, tomake na pele hoyeto kobi hote baddho hotam, but now I don't feel like writing - anything - as if you have sucked in all my words into oblivion."


"Now, wait a minute... what does that mean? I am the death of all your words?"


"No, sweetheart, you are merely the death of me."




Note: The song is written by Tagore. A rendering in an old Bangla movie may be found here. Translating it is quite beyond my linguistic prowess.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

There is a world of pain

There is a world of pain hidden
in a special nook in my heart,
A world that is only mine
Mine in full and mine,
in its every myriad part.

A place to dwell in peace
among my bloody shards,
In quiet whimpers of my own
My own song and my cry,
protectors, my fleet of guards.

Where betrayal fears to tread
deep down in a pitch dark realm.
Where I can murder love
in whimsical glee before I,
am sacrificed at its helm.

A world where I die alone
everyday and night that I trust in life,
Where smiles and hugs
strangle souls and plunge in swift
an icy, pickled, burning knife.

An airtight and quarantined cell
where it's so much fun to rot like this,
Insides hollowed with echoing whys
filled with the stink of cursed flesh,
sealed shut with a fairy tale kiss.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Taste n Tell

Tender,
like a biscuit dipped
in a cup of tea for too long

Swollen,
like a piece of bread
floating in a bowl of milk

Sore,
like feet in sweaty socks
after a rowdy game of football

Bland,
like my wasted poetry
in an angry tubelit room

Slippery,
like the wet corridor
left muddy after Mumbai rains

Cut,
like a pineapple slice
a jagged and juicy end

Quiet,
like crying in the shower
stifled drops and cold memories

Sexy,
like cigarettes in red lips
a smoke and mirrors magic trick

Piercing,
like 5-inch stilettos
passing outside my office door

Modest,
like my shy hairline
almost in line with my modesty

Stacked,
like a tube of Pringles
crumbling with wafer thin charms

Bitchy,
like a sharp wit
wrapped in a Abhinay Deo reel

Cruel,
like being loved
and not being lusted for

Divine,
like a slice of warm apple pie
a triangle of kindness

Pickled,
like my thoughts of you
Staple like kimchi, yet a side

Saturday, July 02, 2011

I am an Idiot

And let this post record this for posterity. And let Google crawl it and save it in its servers for all times to come. For there will come a day, when I will have no one but me to blame for this pathetic existence of mine.

Friday, July 01, 2011

Am I a Joke?

Am I a joke?
Not a joker
Not even a man
Just the means to an end.

Am I a lie?
Not imagination
Not even a dream
Just a board for darts.

Am I required?
Not wanted
Not even desired
Just rusting spares.

Am I a life?
Not words
Not even a shadow
Just not dead as yet.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Unuttered Nonsense

If I was in Neverland, I would probably never fly again. There things that we all wish will never happen. There are things we all wish would kill us when they do happen. But just like in fairy tales, they never do. I will probably die of some horrible disease caused by my fondness for food. Such an innocuous thing - food. Such a treacherous feeling - hunger. I have not really rambled in a while. Why now?

You leave me with... a desire to write...

Desires are a dangerous thing. Buddha was well, Buddha and so he knew this somehow. We all know this too but choose not to remember. For example, I wonder how many people remember the above declared desire.

You don't owe anything to me/

Liability, like desire is a dangerous malady. We do owe our existence to someone else but we owe our integrity to ourselves. Or so I would like to believe. And we owe our words to the void of our souls. In this ephemeral existence, what good are words, unless they take root in memory.

Many whimpers later, when my heart will stop beating, I will still want you to want me, even for one instant, like you have wanted them.

There was a night, in a long distant land, where the fire of desire was smothered with raucous indifference along a tram-line. A night of frightful wakefulness. We all carry out nights within us. And sometimes, when out of complacence, we make them out to be constructs of our dreams, they burn brighter than any fire has ever burned.

People who throw away everything that gets old scare me. People who hold on to everything that they ever owned scare me. Me? I love my 11 year old cellphone more than I should. I only wish the battery would hold it's charge longer.

He would get late for his shift if he did not leave soon. Besides Sameer would be anxious to be relieved. So that he could get back to his newly married wife.

Be careful of what you wish for. Because you just might get it.

I love the damn woman.

Oh... be very careful.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Beaten Eggs

It was an omelette morning. When the day just begged to be started with the smell of well made eggs. The perfect concoction of chopped onions and beaten eggs. Add a dash of cold milk and a masterpiece of fluffy yellow-white would sputter to life on a pan.

He knew this the moment he woke up. With the crumpled sheets and her legs sprawled across the bed in a tangle that belied the calm he felt, seeing her lie there, on her bed. It felt familiar somehow. Even if it was his first day with her.

He slipped out of bed. The cement floor felt cold to his bare feet. He quickly pulled his pajamas on as the light dawn breeze coming in through the open window gave him goosebumps. The kitchen light was on. The chopping board was still there on the kitchen slab. The knife lay in the midst of half chopped onions. The eggs had rolled precariously close to edge of the sink. The pan was oiled and ready. He had been about to light the gas when she had slipped her hand into his shirt from behind and nibbled on his left ear lobe. He hated his ears being nibbled. She loved it.

He remembered he had forgotten to get any milk last evening. Just as well, he thought, it would have gotten spoilt overnight if left out. Her black strappy stilettos were lying in front of the fridge door. She looked good in them, he thought. She also hated putting them on. He reached into the cutlery drawer to fetch a fork. The eggs would have to be beaten well.

He broke the eggs into a bowl. Clean breaks, both of them. The golden yolks floated in the invisible gooey whites. Wobbly. He absentmindedly grabbed the stool beside the counter. It was too early in the day to beat eggs while standing up. He felt something was lumped up on the stool as he sat down. Who wears stockings in a weather like this, she had asked. And besides they wont last me the night, with you around. What kind of talk was that? He was gentle with women's clothing. With the women, however, he was just a man. Mixing a pinch of milk into the eggs when beating them made them frothy and smooth.

The oil sputtered on the pan. He poured in the beaten eggs with the chopped onions and let it spread into an even disk. He could smell the serene golden brown being born. It was amazing how perfect it came out after, especially after the eggs got a really good beating. He folded the omelette into half and slipped it onto a plate. The broken egg shells were thrown into the garbage bin, with the onion peels. The counter-top was wiped clean. The exhaust would take away the last remnants of his breakfast from the air.

He would get late for his shift if he did not leave soon. Besides Sameer would be anxious to be relieved. So that he could get back to his newly married wife.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Knowing Looks

The new concrete wall
beside my house
is looking raw

The new romcom movie
on my laptop
is looking flimsy

The new asphalt road
behind my backyard
is looking awkward

The new crop of fungus
on my bathroom wall
is looking at peace

The new cotton bedsheet
on my bed
is looking neat

because

I know I am not sleeping on it
anytime soon.

It knows that the seepage
will win.

It knows the playground that
lost out.

It knows it has nothing
to tell.

It knows it has to stand on
its own.

Monday, January 10, 2011

A Drop

A drop of kindness
falls.
Washes away mauling tire tracks
off an oft used road.

A drop of humility
floats.
Lifts the rusting anchor
of a wrecked yacht.

A drop of anger
plunges.
Pierces the best made armor
of children and soldiers.

A drop of distance
melts.
Bridges contempt bred
'tween familiar hearts.

A drop of depression
fogs.
Obscures flight paths
and flights of fancy alike.

A drop of happiness
shines.
Lights up dark nooks and crannies
and a hunger for more.

A drop of calm
settles.
Murmurs like autumn leaves
lying on sleepy, lush green.

A drop of love
numbs.
Anesthetic to cuts and aches
and the pain it brings.

A drop of rain
nurtures.
Sapling and floods, my moods
and fresh puddles of mud.

A drop of water
quenches.
More than thirst and perhaps more
a dire need to cry.

Friday, January 07, 2011

Funnily Enough

Funny things have been happening in my world. Or perhaps it is better to say that the world - my world - has taken on a funny hue all of its own. It changes faster than I can make up my mind. And yet - strangely - it is supposed to be my world. But the funniest part of all this is that I cannot seem to stop laughing at it. Sometimes I feel like the Joker, with the permanent smirk on my face. And if you are anywhere close to knowing this arch nemesis of the Dark Knight, you'll know that it cannot be a good feeling.

I cannot quite put a finger on what is it that is so funny. But let me try. Suddenly friends are drying up. People with whom one day, one shared soggy, wet tit-bits of one's mundane life have found better things to do. Or perhaps they have just grown off me as if I was a childhood doll that they used to play with. How does that make me feel? Much like Woody I'd say, lost in an alien orphanage, away from his Andy. Even this would have been tolerable, if people had not become rude - maybe they are just busy I tell myself or maybe they all got secretly married (both are not exactly the same thing, even if you wish they were). But busier than me? Seriously! Even I do not have any idea about how busy I am. But it gets even better. Childhood irks - folks I had silently vowed never to confide in or talk a sensible word to - are turning out to be compassionate listeners. How weird is that!

Let's talk about work now. Inspiration is running low - no, in fact it has evaporated, leaving salty desolate remains of ordinary ideas in plenty. If I was Gandhi I'd be happy with the salt, but I am no where near as historic. I am actually cheating here when I complain about not having any inspiration - it is something else I lack. Maybe as I recently heard someone complaining, there is no spark. On second or third-fourth-fifth thoughts there are sparks too but of the wrong kind. It is difficult making a life out of creating and helping others create. Create what, you may ask. Creating the myth of being able to create while this life spins out of our hand.

From yoga to salsa to calisthenics on a creaking metal bed to chicken biryani - it has not been a particularly bad life so far. Yet I get the feeling every once in a while that something I was meant to do is passing me by. What was I meant to do - how do I know it is not exactly what I am doing right now? How do I know I was not meant to be an angsty, starry eyed, romantic all my life? Or even whether I am one right now or not? Frankly, I am unable reason about love these days - or write about it. Funny isn't it, especially when this blog has been witness to some pretty bizarre lovesick writing in the past.

Funnier still is being in a place which turned one's life inside out (or was it upside down?). No, its not the being there that is funny - it is being there again and not feeling anything except a vague void that one cannot quite relate to. A haircut, a silhouette, an unsymmetrical neckline, a philosophy. I am not exactly sure what I miss or even whether I do miss something from a past I do not quite remember. Sunsets are still beautiful, still orange, still dripping with calm melancholy.

I have developed this amazing ability to forget. Forget unpleasant times - unwanted words - unanswered questions - unexpected rudeness - uncried tears. Strange and unsettling, this new found power is. Gives me a Yoda-like sense of calm. Calm. I am starting to fear it now - perhaps something in me goes to sleep every time I forget something. Or perhaps something goes quiet. It is not funny when I cannot recall what made you upset last night or when was the last time I cried. It is scary when I cannot recall when was the last time we had a fight or when was the last time I had a laugh. Hmmm... perhaps I am being melodramatic here. Maybe I can become a soap-opera writer next. That would be funny too.

Somehow, writing with a dimly lit bulb lighting the hall, sitting on this table, unsaid anger floating in the air mixed with a heavy sigh of disappointed expectations, seems to be second nature now. Even though I know I do not write as often these days. At least my tooth is not aching. That I can guarantee, is not funny.

I am almost done now. With this one at least. Perhaps with the next one too. I have one request though. When it is over, please laugh.