Winter Rains, Mumbai.

Petrichor never caught to my nose 

Waterlogged pits of muck and murk did.

Wraths of anger against the dry shores

A familiar foe ebbing and flowing in the near distance,

Ready to break the stony roads

With one gulp down the throat.

Any moment now! 

Tonight in my quiet abode

Stretched across the window

You were clinging on to the panes

with some ceaseless pain

That's persistent and more.

I've felt you as a weeping soul

The only being awake

As I lurk about 

In the dark corridors of life's nights.

Still in the distance

A screen of glass between us,

but somehow akin to me

Somehow persistent in its efforts.

A cold and distant December friend who seldom visits

Who beckons winters,

Winters that have been seen never before

In the 50 years of this sweat soaked city. 

The Role Player

My clutter at your table has been cleared

The sweet wrappers in the bin

The almond skin discarded

The notes folded down with impeccable neatness

My mind unfurled, however.

The month will roll out without compensation

It will be a hard month

But those notes will never be unrolled again.



The chatbox doesn't exist.

You've left the stage with uncertain fervour

And before long I could see myself leaving too

Or have we?

Is there no way back to that cluttered table?



Let's just close it with a no.

There is comfort in hoping

With a sense of negative affirmation.

The Fruit Is Silent

A spot of wiggling green upon a bosom of luscious red

Life gnawing upon life

In the hillock sprayed with chemical.

Worms eating their way into the kernel of life

Isn’t that how everyone writes?

As if the worm’s the harbinger of death

And the toxic spray the champion.

Masked assailants have swerved their pipes

Stifling the life in the supple fruit

And the insect.

The soil is now soaked in the residue of death
And there's a pool of dead bees swimming in the soil
"This time the spray got to them quick" the urchin sighed.

The fruit is silent,

The worm is wringing in pain

And so is our intestines;

Death having percolated 

Through the soil to the water tables 

And from the water tables to dinner tables.

 The masked assailant drops down his gear

 His temples throbbing

 He's not been spared by his own weeds

 Stuff he thought would sustain his family

 Is slowly seeping into his own sustenance.

The vermin that's making it's way through our lives

 And slowly killing us

 Is the very vermin killer.

.

The Inner City Dream_ Smothered Nudes

FADE IN.

EXT. INNER CITY- DINGE LANE- 9PM  

Draping six yards of shimmery purple  

And carefully baring her midriff

She chose a dark deep red for her lips.

The kajal smudged

The betel chewed 

Pretty or outrageous

Was the world's to decide;

She stood there 

Under a night of swimming stars.

The street ogled at her

The world welcomed  her beckonings.

 

The shrieks a half hour later 

however

drowned in the sounds of the distant dog barks

Smothered by bedsheets 

And cigarette butts.

When the woman walked down the street

She ceased to be a woman.

A whore in the streets 

And a whore in bed.

The home and the world thrusting  upon her the drudgery of the day. 

INT. INNER CITY- BEDROOM- 10A.M

The huge blob of flames couldn't be wrapped up by the flimsy drapes 

And so couldn't she.

Staggering up, she reached for the ointment

And applied it on the perfectly laid impression 

Of what seemed like a belt 

that had lashed out in the darkness 

And cut deep into her skin.

The darkness had faded into the horizon

To bring in more darkness by the day,

Her bedsheets reeking of body fluids

Awaiting more lipstick

And kajal

And more of her body

For more money.

Today she would step out

And live her inner city dream,

The world would still decide

Whether she was a whore or a woman

But today she would decide 

Whether she wanted cold warmth in her bed

Or the warm warmth of the sun.

She didn't know where she was heading for,

It was rare for the whore to be a flaneur 

Because she wasn't supposed to 

SEE

To have a vision.

She was only to be seen, 

Only to be gorged on by the street;

Today she didn't know where she was going...

Whether she was leaving this bed chamber forever 

Or just getting away from the searing sweat of one being 

For one interval of the day  

But she knew the colour she would choose today for herlips

Nude.

Wordrobe_J for Journey

I never end where I begin

Atleast not in a moment's time

     It's a course of time the traveller shares with me

Never just a moment

And often a lifetime.

From childhood to adulthood

From the hills to the seas

From hospital to home

Or from the dinner table to bed

It's the path that the traveller takes 

that changes him.

Through the course, he learns to watch, to feel and to make bitter sweet memories on the way.

I am the unsettler

Packers and movers

I sign your travelogue

And change your life.

When the going gets tough...

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going
Literally please
There's no symbolism to ease your overcritical mind
Today symbolism can take a dive into a haystack and stay there, content and naive
Oh no, did I just personify?

Like darkness deepening upon darkness
Toughness percolating into your inner core and furthering its departure 
If you read into 'going' a sense of leaving 
And 
Not flowing.
See I didn't really mean to
But  had to
Bring in comparisons
Is poetry anything without drawing parallels between the moon and the silver stream?
Or reading into the ordinary
What's beyond the familiar
Punning and playing 
With words like going.

It's a huge cityscape 
Throbbing with  life and lonesomeness,
There's a friend there
A colleague here
Your parents there 
The employer here...
In your mind in your soul
The wonderous wit
You can never own.

And the potential sweetheart who's

Always there
Never here..

I found the people I'd grow with
The people I'll race with against time
The people with whom the going does get tough;
With minds abuzz 
Eyes agog
The fever of the earth 
In their forthright firm strides.

Inspired and apprehensive,
Of the sea 
Literally no more please
Inspired by the sea of strivers
And apprehensive too
I skip a beat 
Miss a step
And take awkward incomplete trials to succeed.

But towards the end of the day
The sea has swathed me
It's no more about the 'I' in the sea 
But the sea in me
I've soaked in its strength, it's stride, it's fury
Where goes it's calm, where goes the breeze
Does this sea of people sit down to think?
Is there a moment of ease?
But ofcourse

The tough gets going

Flowing into us seamlessly
Hardening our exterior
It's the wet sand in which it sinks
The water in which it drowns
The breeze in which it is lulled to sleep.

Terribly Tiny Tale on 'Unibrows'

The laughter and pity of the world burdened her senses
But even as the fat boy smirked, 
Google completed her search
'Unibrows are'...HOT'

Autobiography of an Empty Envelope

I'm a small, mauve coloured envelope with a strange round shaped, displayed or rather concealed at Zillion Card shop.
My circular shape doesn't appeal to any buyer at the stationery shop so I've been moved to an obscure spot on a shabby shelf. My uncommon pinkish mauve hue attracted the shopkeeper but it's been a year since I have been empty, dusty, neglected and unwanted. An autistic boy made me with a lot of love and care. I miss resting at his cosy nook for a month. This shelf at the shop is too damp. And there are spiders which keep me awake at night!
I'm beginning to feel the wrinkles on me..crumples the mortals call em'.
That bright hue which caught the attention of the shop owner, is fading away too, and I feel this emptiness is something I'll have to live with forever.
At times I've wanted to be a hotdog or a sandwich, the cafe opposite to Zillion Card Shop being more popular and populous. I would've been more desirable then. They're eaten up and have a poor shelf life but atleast they don't feel so glum and lonely. My shape and now even my faded colour is going against me. 
When will a piece of paper adorn me, ahh when!... When will I carry a lover's message, a friend's birthday greetings, or a colleague's thank you note? When will I be scented and decked up in pretty glitters and escape the dust and damp of this forlorn shelf? How about trying to use me for gift money, now that notes and messages are emailed in the mortal world? Oh I forgot that I'm round..And so is the world! So we can never meet...