Come to think of it - 
there is only one of each one of us 
in this whole wide universe 
and yet everyone is in a race 
to be special. 
What an irony that we don't see that each one, already, is special!

So many people walk this earth 
carrying fragility in their hearts 
of human relating. 
And yet or 
perhaps because of that,
We hardly treat human relations as sacred -
how all fragile things must be treated.

Violence comes in small packets-
everyday, in entitlements-
in unaccountability in relations. 
To forget the other as being impacted by one's actions
is double murder.
Soul murder of both. 
An atomic explosion which generations to come will feel the pulse of. 
The violent packet of one's unexplained, uncommunicated, unaddressed unlived
Is always bombing one's immediate neighbourhood.  
They carry the attack in their rhythms. They repeat it several times over. 

It is true that fantasy is the red dot in the bleak black. 
It is true that romance is the fantasy of the unlived inside. 
It is true that many a beauty is of this sublimated nature. 
It is true that the red is the blood of the life of the real. 
Fantasy kills the real, the negotiable, the address to my soul. 
It mangles the becoming- it fixes what could be.

A different kind of a holiday

A different kind of a holiday,

where you find out new places around the place you just shifted, 

The Mother Dairy at the corner, 

and oh the joy that your courier gets picked up from home! 

Setting up a new home... Living in it...

slowly... 

like a person you have learnt to meander through 

but are not yet quite sure. Well it's been only a few weeks, you'd think. 

Many people breathing life around you afresh, and many things;

The difficult nooks in the grills that you managed to reach, 

Someone new at the door! Oh the person who irons clothes, or the trash person and oh the sound of piano from the house across.

And the leaking tap that you have learnt to press just right

And the key hole, jamming your key, a bit tight

The different paths that come back to the same place. 

And the freshly wiped mosaic floor, where you could just lie all day. 

A different kind of a holiday- just so much to travel into.

वे समेट के इतनी जगहों से सच लाए थे 

कि वो छिंटता ही रहा 

बाहर ही बाहर 

अौर काँच की हरी बोतल में 

मुझमें कुछ लिख कर, 

दूर समुंदर में बहा दिया था 

कभी तो वे पढ़ कर पहचान ही लेंगे तुमको ।

और शायद तुम्हें भी याद हो आए 

कि वो तुम ही थे बंद उसके अंदर ।

"Saraabor",
The word captures it so well 

When one soul soaks another

Just short of dripping.

And if I squeeze myself just a little bit more,

You might seep out from every pore. 

The bhoot

I can never decide if I want to be someone who cares, 

or someone who wishes to be powerful

Power...the sweet opiate rush of painlessness

numb

No one, nothing can effect me. 

If I care, thousands of neurons fire in me 

It burns... Hurts too...

It's ablaze. 

The glimmers, warm, like last glow of coal on winter nights. 

Alive still. 

My dadi during her depression would speak of a 'bhoot' 

which would entangle her legs and she would fall. 

I seem to have a 'bhoot' on me...

to be entangled in choices 

to fall flat on your face. 

Save face? Hell I am thankful to the 'bhoot'!!! 

To be possessed enough to fall a thousand times over...