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...

When you swim looking up at the sky 

The eagles swim with you 

The clouds turn a greyer shade 

setting the trees to a greener sway 

The water under and around holds you like a giant womb.

And you can get lost from everything 

Only to find yourself in this endless blue.

And they thought that the fresh drizzle on a  breezy day would make him feel touched...soaked to his core. 

They forgot he was bubble wrapped... 

 The Nightmare________________

The arm stretched out to be held 

Then why did it seem so strange and threatening? 

I woke up and told myself 

"The nightmares have begun."

They said in the newspaper that a study revealed that social sharing made events 

real. 

How unreal we must feel in our feelings or how unjustified? That to make them REAL we need to have someone affirm it for us... Almost like living for a later date...Living as a documentation or proof of having lived...waiting for a witness...waiting for a judge to allow us to embody it...

How unseen we must feel in our lives in general for this to be...how lonely and empty... How did we come to be this way? Perhaps by being too non-existent in the eyes of those who we wished cared for our existence. Perhaps we learnt early on that it is better to be hidden and be seen only in parts. 

reminds me of photographers at weddings whom we don't even know, who don't even know us to guide every move so it looks a certain way to the world and to us...

The wish to be seen is a powerful wish. The wish to be seen in a certain way is a very dangerous wish! It edits us. Makes us too unreal, non-existent, empty , not there...It's a murder with no haunting. 

And they thought desire was a straight road...only to find that  nauseating sinking feeling of the free fall into sudden strangeness of that which they thought led to what they desired...

And the pages from the printer kept flipping out one after another per half a second in her mind where letters kept getting written to addresses she couldn't find...

Why does no one ask her about why she wants to scoop up other people in her arms like a mother does an infant... Why would she rather kiss their faces wet than ever wonder about her dry cheeks?  Why does she always want to play the host to other people's mind n body whereas her own lies vacant... Vacant... Sometimes she's not sure if there are any walls or rooms... She in fact finds them in the minds of other people and tries to make their bed and put on the tea and sleep by their side awake...wishing they would wake up but actually not coz time could stand still like this... Is she the host? Or is she finding herself a room in others' homes n trying to make it so good and comfy for them that perhaps they would invite her to stay... Stay on... But could she stay? She never stayed in her own soul... She easily slipped into roles that fit them best... But they did not want her fluffy pillows... They didn't want her thousand kisses... She doesn't know what they want... She is too busy making their beds... Occupying the timelessness of staring at someone too far away... So far away in their dream lands that she can only hear their short breaths.... The timelessness of not knowing if this time her shifting would wake them up... Only when they are so so far away can she almost begin to hear her own breath from somewhere behind theirs.

The light that we see from the twinkling stars had traveled years before... Only to meet us now... Is that awesome or is that sad? I do not know... It has traveled so far... But from so far...

That house of cards, the tallest one 
On top of which I want to sit;
cross legged. 

It's blows down with my own breath 
The pumping of my own heart. 

But I sat on it cross legged, sipping tea with biscuits!