Month: April 2016

Not anymore…

These lanes are not those. This moment isn’t comparable to those. I was young then.. i see it now. What if those times come back? Would anything change in the course of life? Would the present as it is today exist then? Would i be able to foresee and not let things happen the way they did? They did and i think it is best that they did. I can see more clearly now. There are no ambiguities.

Are we being watched? All of us? Does all this.. all which happens everyday get recorded? Won’t we forget it all one day? But i walk silently..i do not let these lanes know that they remind me of those. Do i remember everything? No.. why should i claim it! Do events follow a circuitous path or are these elements all pervasive? They might mean something else some other day. They might remind others of something else or… is it just me… is it nothing?

Why does the mind flicker.. memories swarm.. words dissect.. and lives digress? Rivers return, reclaim their course.. unappreciated. They bring destruction. It is never the same. How can i forget.. i am living a diverted life. Or was it how it was meant to be? But why could it not be a smoother transition? How can the reconciliation be crease less? Creases.. nah! Much more than that. I am indifferent now. Why can’t they be too? It won’t prove anything. Not anymore.

Destination

Waiting at the metro station for the last metro to arrive, Shanta looks at her watch. 11:30 p.m. suddenly took her back to an incident buried deep within the folds of time.

An incident that changed her life forever. Ten years ago, she had reached home late from office. It was her success party. She had been recently promoted. It was her third promotion in three years. She was beyond herself. Her hard work had paid off after all.

But he missed the celebration. Was he jealous? She didn’t ask. However, he said something which left a hole in her soul; something which she doesn’t even wish to recall.

11:30 p.m. She left.

Today she lives alone. She had chosen that for herself after all.

What did Nora do after leaving her doll’s house? Who knows?

No regrets though.

Freedom comes with a heavy price. Self esteem is earned through a bargain. Did she weigh properly? She does not know.

The train with destination to…… is going to enter platform no 2.

Destination. She wonders.

(In)significant

As she caught sight of her mother’s old dupatta in the junk box, childhood peeped in through flashes of eroded memories.

A faint reminiscence of the cradle covered with the beautiful red to save her from mosquitoes probably.

She, standing next to her mother pretending to pray while the dupatta flew over her face and covered her mother’s head at the same time, adding to her tranquil beauty.

The same dupatta hanging on the nail in the kitchen as her mother toiled hard preparing delicacies to make her happy.

However, with age she lost track of it. Did she not bother enough to notice it?

How is it that the dupatta was silently laying in her junk box in her rented house in Calcutta while her mother lives in their ancestral home in Delhi?

Alone. Both of them.

She opened the folds. The folds of time got unraveled too. There was a tiny hole in it. She remembered now.

Five years ago, when she had gone home her mother had shown her the dupatta. She had asked her if it could be mended. It was her favourite. The same night she fought with her mother for something quite insignificant.

Considered her worthless for something quite insignificant.

Left the next morning and never called back, for something quite insignificant.

Suddenly, she felt a void, a lump in her throat.

“Ma?”

Looking forward to Mother’s Day which is just a few days away, one realizes that we mortals desperately look for special occasions to tell our loved ones that we love them, almost take our mothers for granted and forget the (in)significant sweet nothings of yesterday only to fight with the daily void of not being able to understand ourselves, and thus claiming not to understand others.
This one is dedicated to the unsaid, the beauty of it, and at the same time, the limitation of it. Sometimes it is good to say. Sometimes silence says it all.

Poetry in a Bin

Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Peter Weir’s Dead Poets’ Society..
Dedicated to the monotony of post-modern existence and the existentialist quest for life
More significantly, dedicated to the love for poetry and expression of free speech
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race
-John Keating

Act one (One to be erased through animation)
Scene in Godot Land : (GPS untracable)

Poetry in a Bin

A: Nothing to be done.
B: Nothing to be done.
A: I’m glad you are back. I thought you would never return.
A: Where would I go? We are jobless.
B: May I know where His Highness spent his life?
A: In a dustbin.
B: In a dustbin?
A: Yes, I dreamt of poetry.
B: Poetry? Our poems….Our poems
A: When I think of it…all these years…our poems..the burning of the books..this joblessness..worthlessness.
B: Are we too radical for the age? Are we?….By the way..Which age is this? Where are we?
A: What is your name? Name..
B: Names..Names which got arsoned..Killed..burnt.
A: What is the good of losing heart now, that’s what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the seventies.
B: Forget, Forget… recite one of our poems for me.
A: Poems..huh..
Dedum dedum dedum (several times..)
London bridge is falling down..Its falling down (repetition)
Both sing and dance with blank expressions..
A: What is this? (looking at a book)
B: I found this collection of poetry in the bin last night.
A: Who is this? P.S. Eliot …Hahha..in the bin..Poetry in the bin
B: Death of the author…death of the poet
A: Death of the poet?? Death…
Stop..Stop..Stop..The scapegoat’s agony..Name of my poem..
I remember it now..
Break out! Break out! Now is the time.
Now is the time!
Now is the time!
B: Yes.. Yes..Now is the time..
Don’t give in the void
Carpe Diem
Carpe Diem!!
A: Carpe Diem..Seize the moment..Make it extraordinary..extra-ordinary…
All dead poets..awake..awake..O me! O Life!
Speak your mind
Speak your heart
Sing your praise
B: Let poetry live..Let thoughts prosper.
A: But time will tell
B: Yes, time will tell….

Life’s Game

Reminiscences of a timeless bond
Strained with time
Bundle of entangled emotions
Unknot the ties or breathe in through the knots?
Find solace or continue craving?
Broken narratives
Discoloured images
Time’s vicious assault
The deception called memory
The colossal loss
Acceptance of the given or give in to the accepted?
Build castles or burn them?
No man’s land
Fractured contours
Mending- life’s game.

She is gone

She is gone forever
It seems
She was here earlier
Had always been
Without a sign
Without a sound
Gone
Just
Gone
Whatever happened?

Is that why she didn’t stir for days
Could she be ill
Distressed
Depressed
Why not?

Another had been here
They had fought for space
She had resumed her place
What might the other have said?

It could be me
I notice i mention
Things revert
Phenomena alter
Beings cease to be.
This is not the first.
I kill my intuition
I cannot mention it
It is forbidden.

I should have known
Just why did i?

And yet…

Where do you find that depth from?

Is it the intensity of your gaze
Or the curiosity of your soul
Is it the intricacy of your voice 
Or the plurality of your emotions
Is it the ecstasy of your expression
Or the brevity of your conclusion
Is it the suggestion of your eye
Or the precision of your assumption

You travel through others’ perceptions
unravel them without hesitations
fascinate them with the beginnings
lay claim on their imaginations
intrigue them with conjectures
leave them without resolutions

and yet…
What inspires you?

Definition of me

Let go
The desire to be desired
The need to be needed
The want to be wanted
The sweet nothings of yesterday
The widening gulf of today
The fragile hope of tomorrow
The faint promise of forever
The diminishing strength of the unsaid
The ephemeral bond of silence
Bondage?
The mirage called freedom
When expectations only shatter hopes
When oblivion is the only consolation
When even the fag end of catharsis is non cathartic
When letting go is losing a part of self
The heaviness which stays
reflects a definition of me.

# and …

The times…
When last seen creates more complexities than when they saw them last

When innumerable expression tags are misappropriated to convey what they do not feel

When threads of words remain inadequate to convey what they wish to say

When one post resurrects confidence and another dismantles it 

When a picture construes an image which renders faith vulnerable

When the display recites what the heart sings and leaves others suspecting

When the status embellishes the experience of the moment and is soon replaced

When likes are likened to approval out of custom and disliking is forbidden

When the plus constant does not add to the expression and deepens the void

.
.
.

Then the # and the … tell a tale of togetherness

Scramble

Another thought another time
There, lost. Entangled.
This moment this request
Here, a theme. Write.

Wondering how thought gets into words
If what i wish to hide gets revealed
If what i am thinking is what they read

Scrabble of words or scramble for words