You tell me where I went wrong and I promise I will listen.
You assure me 'everything is going to be okay' and I promise I will believe.
I promise I will behave.
Like a child who's been promised a chocolate if it keeps quiet.
For I have always wanted to be saved.
Make this one of the rare nights I fall asleep quickly.
The rare nights my guitar doesn't tug at the strings of my heart.
The rare nights my ink doesn't weep.
Flickering neon lights.
Cacophony on the road.
Bargaining ladies.
Honking horns.
Stalls that sell tomatoes in the light of bulbs covered with red gelatin paper to make red tomatoes more red.
Fake tomatoes as if people weren't fake enough.
I am lost.
Silent afternoons.
Sunlight through leaves.
Chattering groups in formal clothes.
Dustbin full of coffee cups and empty packets of Marlboro Lights.
Deep talks of shallow people.
I am lost.
Raggedy emotions.
Opportunistic flings.
Handicapped imaginations.
Insipid conversations.
Timeserving friendships.
I am lost.
Misfit like a broken piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
Nomad stuck in an alien land.
People jeer, laugh, throw curious glances.
I even overheard a couple of them referring me as crackpot the other day.
I shout across the thin glass; in the language not known to the people here.
In The Ugly Duckling's language.
In The Lost Ugly Duckling's language.
They don't get it.
To all you people,
Fighting tooth and nail to get to your offices in time..
Striving to earn that one penny more..
Waiting for weekends to dance with drinks in your hands shouting TGIF..
Cursing because you lost your favourite parking spot today..
Happy because you got two pizzas for the price of one..
Choosing compromise and convenience over honesty and emotions...
Here I am, envying
You!
your shallowness..
your trivialities..
Blindfolds on your eyes..
Headphones in your ears...
Indifference in your hearts...
Here I am, wishing I could give up this so called God-gift.
For I don't dream of soaring in the sky anymore.
For I would like to put my crown down, fold my wings and stash them away.
Wow, those screenguards on your phones!
Where can I get one of those?
I need a huge one by the way, to cover everything I own.
You, my dear, have opened the Pandora's Box.
You have set my demons free.
And yet you have audacity to laugh at me sadistically and call me a crackpot.
If my eyes weren't beautiful, you would have been cursed to the hell by now.
If my hands hadn't run through your hair, they would have been hammering nails in your coffin.
If my fingers didn't play melodies, I would have been writing songs about your destruction.
You just have been lucky.
Lucky that I ever loved you.
Fool me tonight, once more.
Tell me the same old set of lies.
Make those false claims again.
This time I shall lock away the logic and lose the key.
I shall tell my brain not to stay guard to my sanity for the night.
I shall gun down the Small Voice Inside My Head so that it doesn't sound a burglar alarm.
I shall unpack Love and other such things because they are unwelcome to the place we are heading to.
Abduct me again,
to the island of attractive flowers that wait bidding their time to trap their innocent preys...
to the rocky beach where waves of sin crash the shore of lust...
to the trees where fireflies celebrate their transient existence of a night...
We shall lie.
Pun intended, my Love.
We shall lie beside and to each other.
We shall strip our morals off and hang them on the fence of right and wrong.
We shall make love to our demons all night.
And when you fall asleep in silver sand under the moonlit sky, I shall discover Love that has managed to sneak with us.
Maybe, if I could, I would deport it.
Something eternal like that has no place there.
I always hear the clinks of the glasses louder than they all do, notice the glitter of the dim lights more than they all do. My eyes are always elsewhere. I see a man tapping absent mindedly on the table, playing with his food, waiting restlessly for someone for his eyes never seem to leave the door. A woman on the next table is engrossed in her smartphone ignoring the animated chatter going around her, her thumbs doing an awkward dance on keypad, typing-erasing, her side of chat conversation is filled with conversation bubbles as I can see from distance, the replies on the left are monosyllabic. I can hear her sad sighs even through all that noise. Two men that I know hate each other to the core give fake smiles to each other; one of them has been unknowingly mirroring the body language of the other the whole evening. I can see the sycophantic admiration behind the veil of dislike. A meaningful look that a couple in the corner is sharing doesn't go unnoticed too, I can see them playing footsie from under the table. In another corner, I can see a poor guy sitting between who seem like his mother and his wife, both gritting their teeth in silent mutiny, staring in opposite directions determinedly.
I camouflage in the rusty background of the restaurant. My food is barely touched.
If I could, I would shed off these extra ears and eyes, like vestigial organs in the process of evolution. For once, I would appreciate creamy texture of Pina Colada, smoky flavour of Qebabs and sing along the Savage Garden's Chained To You playing in the background.
Sweat drops trickle down her spine like rainwater dribbling down foggy window-panes. Soft contours of her body remind me of a gracefully curving river. When my fingers trace her collarbone, her skin sprouts goosebumps like paddy fields waving in the breeze. Lightening strikes in her eyes as I look into her eyes before leaning in to kiss her over again and when I do, she trembles like a banana tree in windstorm. When she chuckles, it sounds like rainwater dripping from roofs, playful and brisk.
She is not the kind of rain that soothes the sun-burnt earth, she is the kind that scorches it with passion, setting it on fire of renewed hopes.
'You are Scorching Rain.' I tell her, as we lay listening to the downpour outside.
She smiles, 'For the record, I don't like rain.'
Sparks fly whenever we fight. She flares her nostrils, bares her teeth and stings waspishly.
'You cannot fool me.'
'I am the King of Deception.'
That pisses her off. She glares at me as if that would set me on fire and burn me to ashes.
I chuckle at her, seeing her fight off tenderness from her eyes.
Something about it pleases me.
'Only time will tell.' She says in a deadly whisper.
The fury in her voice and the pain in her eyes don't quite match.
'You are fighting a lost battle here. I always win.' I shout after her when she turns on her heels.
'You will learn what defeat is when you would win against me.' She says quietly.
I always wonder if she quickly wipes her eyes when she turns away.
Seeing her after waiting is my favourite part.
When she walks towards me slowly, strands of her hair flying in the wind, her fingers fidgeting nervously, excitement in her stride as if she would break into a run the next second and fling her arms around my neck.
That seemingly eternal walk...
Uncertainty of what will happen when the distance between us would be the least.
Lightening that strikes in the eyes..
A sudden smile that lingers for long..
I notice how she has carefully chosen her shirt- my favourite blue shirt.
Intense moments like these lie on the top shelf of the cupboard of my memories.
Such a chaos- My Dear God, how do You live with Yourself?
Insomniacs taking refuge in Sleepyheads.
Masked faces falling for the purity of the Naked.
Simplicity willingly losing itself in the eyes of Complexity.
Meticulous planners adjusting with the aimless souls floating in the air.
Optimists being forced to get along with the Realists.
Spotless minds; God!- running behind the glitter of selfish illusive ones!
You have messed up big-time, haven't You?
It's been long since I have been bored.
It's been long since emptiness has swooped down upon me.
The pleasure of lying spread-eagled on the floor like a starfish has evaded me for so long now.
For once,
I am sick of excitement and tired of speed.
So sick that the bile is rising in my throat.
Blur of life speeding by is dizzying me.
For once,
I am ready to fall in the unfathomable pit of mundanity.
For once,
I want to dismantle my brain from my skull and taste the vacuous numbness people often talk about.
And for once,
I want to freeze into stagnation of certainty.
I want to know what a luxury boredom is.
I grind my hopes to coarse powder and roll it in the skillfully folded filter of dreams.
I have been good at that, over the time.
I baptize the joint with moist grief from my eyes.
The joint singes at one end and I, at another.
I smile at myself in smug admiration.
Dreams turn darker.
Ash of unfulfilled wishes litters the floor.
Smoke of memories fills my lungs.
I am only a wisp of smoke.
Drifting away in shapeless figures...
Vanishing into the hollow shell of nothingness...
Ending up in the ephemeral paradise that glitters only for a night...
I may have existed. Or may not.
It's hard to tell on nights when I have the perfect joint like this.
-- Statutory Warning: Smoking is injurious to health. Including smoking your hopes.
Karma must be searching for me.
For making people cry first,
And then watching them like that, indifferently, with dry eyes, disgusted by the sight of their weakness.
For the lies I have told,
And then justifying it with the bullshit like 'I follow my heart.'
For the sanctimonious hypocrite I have been.
Karma shall find me once.
For She has always found me.
Just in case She shows my photo to you,
Reveal my whereabouts to Her.
I shall be ready.
Let it be over soon.
It's raining.
Like it does around this time of season.
Cold wind, fragrance of the soil and all those cliches.
Like a favourite movie watched over and over again.
I have got a box full of crayons.
Tonight for a change, I'll put my pen down and hold crayons instead.
How do you want me to paint the rain for you?
Blue, if it rains melancholic monsoon memories for you?
If raindrops taste salty to you...
The blue of the paths crossed years ago, of the roads walked alone in the torrential rains...
Yellow, if it turns you into a child?
The gold of the memories of surprise school holidays, the mud splashed on your best friends' raincoats, of Sonmohor that stained the wet roads gold...
Red, if it burns you with passion?
The red of the blush on your cheeks when holding an umbrella for someone and the trembling lips that you kissed in a drizzle...
Green, if you are a cheerful poet?
The green of the freshly bathed leaves and of the moss that grows on the walls of your childhood home, hell-bent on living...
Tell me and I shall paint it the way you want.
Maybe tomorrow you won't type-caste all my writing.
Maybe tomorrow you won't call it depressing.
Innocence scares the hell out of me.
Spotless white Champa blossomed on that short tree in the park- I can barely look at it. I prefer when petals wither and blacken from edges.
Naive smile of a child in the bus- I only stare at it awkwardly and wish it doesn't extend its arms playfully.
I ignore the glossy pearls of raindrops dripping from roofs after rain and crib about muddy roads instead.
Everything pure like this forces me to look at my dirty hands that reek of rotten selfish expectations and petty temptations I succumb to every now and then.
Guilt takes over me like a fast spreading epidemic.
And that is why I never meet you.
Innocence in your eyes may push me into the abyss of self-pity and envy.
I have never known love so guileless.
You have oversimplified it for me.
He stands by the window looking out to the ink blue city sky. The city is asleep. The streetlights provide some entertainment to the merry light insects and a feast to lizards. The buildings bathing in the dark silhouette against the moonlit sky.
He looks around inside his room. His pristine fluffy bed, a warm blanket, AC whirring in the blackground and then his gaze turns back to the homeless sleeping on the roadside in the humid heat.
Nothing new, nothing new.
Story of every night.
He counts numbers at nights, intoxicates himself with the swig of scotch (but it never puts him to sleep), plays the same video games over again and even winning has lost its fun, his ashtray gets full of cigarette stubs.
When people call the homeless the poor, he merely smiles. If only he could buy sleep, he could be the richest person on the earth.
--- A futile attempt to take an inspiration from the 'Longview' of Green Day. Their song is way better and with fewer words.
'We are leaving.' I announce.
Pride jumps to its feet and drags its baggage, already packed and ready.
Care fidgets nervously, 'Is it necessary? We can adjust.'
Pride shakes its head in a dignified silence.
'Oh come on, we must leave.' The voice of Realist drawls with the air of knowing the obviousness of the situation.
'You sure? Because last time you made us unpack.' The voice of Optimist smirks.
Realist scowls as usual, 'Because of you only, idiot!'
Pessimist keeps reminiscing, staring at the pictures on the shelves and walls.
It takes so long to get them all on the same page.
That is why I hate packing and moving.
It's always a messy affair.
Yes, I have found a place today.
Spotless Place.
In the world that passes a judgement every chance it gets, Spotless Places are privileges.
Places do not judge you.
So I found this place.
It was there all along actually.
Like the Room of Requirements, it just materialised today.
I can hear birds chirping and the busy sound of distant traffic.
I can see the silver linings in the clouds shifting in the wind.
Bougainvillea crane their necks from behind the parked cars.
A queue of angry ants moves determinedly forward and I don't disturb the original inhabitants.
For a moment I was going to carve my name on the place.
But in the world that passes a judgement every chance it gets (friends and foes alike, mind you) someone else could use this Spotless Place too.
Like a wistful child looking at a favourite toy in a shop, I stare at my world of illusions, tip of my nose touching the glass wall that stands tall between reality and dream.
Battle of realist and optimist drags on and on. Pessimist loves the gore, applauds, eggs them on. Opportunist turns misery into an art.
I check price tags on my illusions.
Petty coins clink in my pocket hopelessly.
When I stand aside, I see stain of my dirty fingerprints on the glass through the film of tears.
"What are you staring at?"
"That tree there."
"What's so special about that?"
"It is beautiful."
"It's a tree! Ordinary tree, not even a flower bearing one!"
"Just give it a chance, will you?"
*Silence*
"Look. When the wind blows like that, the smooth backsides of its leaves shine silver in sunlight!"
"Sheesh. You must be crazy."
"Sheesh. You must be blind."
At rare times- on nights like tonight, words maroon me on bleak rocks of reality.
But just momentarily.
I whisper to them.
'Help me here to keep my sanity, won't you?'
I never have to plead them.
I never have to lose my dignity.
I never have to wait for them restlessly.
I never have to wonder if I can call them at such odd hours.
Like a loyal pet, they arrive at once.
Fire in them feels like warm velvet against the cold of indifference.
Sharpness in them takes bad blood out of the wounds.
Serenity in them makes me smile at little white flowers and sunshine through my window.
I never get to thank them enough.
We should have met today.
Evening sky was the exact shade of grey as it was when we met first.
A thousand broken pieces of serene afternoon sky were imbibed by periwinkles along the pavement.
The old uncle who often spotted us together at restaurant ordering the usual menu smiled and raised an eyebrow enquiring about you.
Dirty glasses of tea clinked pointedly at Tapri asking our whereabouts like curious neighbours.
Silence did not suit the surreptitious lanes which have been quite used to our never-ending arguments punctuated by reconciling kisses.
We should have met today.
Universe is losing its balance already, you see.
Let's just think about the greater good here. For the sake of the universe, shouldn't we?
Like a tempest, she arrived.
Everything about her is loud, melodramatic.
Even her entry.
Not a clandestine one, sneaking through a door ajar;
but banging on the door, as if she had come to invade me, claim what was hers...
Years of efforts of building the safe house.
Years of efforts to burn all the bridges that would lead me to vulnerability.
All wasted.
I resisted, I did.
But she smiled one day, 'You don't even know you are screaming for help! Let me care for you, will you?'
It wasn't seduction.
It was invasion.
Like a tempest, she turned eveything topsy-turvy.
Now I stand here precariously on bleak rocks, waves of her passion crashing around.
I am drenched.
I have lost something.
It's been seven days since. (Though it feels like an eternity.)
I think I last saw it at your place.
Will you help me find it?
Check in your sheets where we lay dreaming and laughing for hours.
The corner of the wall you pushed me against to 'kiss the hell out of me'?
No?
At your study table where I doodled your name in your notebook?
In the chairs where we sipped the evening tea, holding hands?
No?
Try the corner where you played a melody and sang to me.
No? Sure?
Check there twice, I remember seeing it there often that day.
You sure you didn't throw it in garbage thinking it's something petty?
Please let me know when you find my smile.
'Enough! You know what, you are crazy! Psycho! You need a doctor.'
When she hears something like that, fear grips her.
She remembers the crazy woman who is often found murmuring to herself in the lane leading to that bus-stop and a boy who throws stones at people who call him crazy.
She shakes uncontrollably as the thousand snakes of thoughts bite her to dizziness.
'NO, I can't be crazy. I am fine.'
She blurts out to herself, her own voice seems unrecognizable and oddly shrill.
'You know how crazy that sounded?' The Small Voice Inside Her Head whispers.
Beads of cold sweat cover her forehead. She sinks down into a roadside bench. She gives a slip to people around her to walk so fast in the hope that she outsmarts the devil in her head. She sits alone by the window sipping cold water just to stop herself from shaking.
'YES. I AM FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZY! SO NOW WHAT?' She gives up one day.
'Pick up your pen and write.' The Small Voice Inside Her Head chimes in, 'That's the only socially accepted form of madness.'
People smother me.
Tinkling laughs, excited murmurs, natural enthusiasm in social gatherings...
The layers of make-up on faces and silk clothes...
Everything.
It all ruptures the peace within me. Like a stone sending ripples over the glassy surface of still water, it shakes me from within.
I give plastic smiles to fit in, show forced enthusiasm to fake normalcy, engage in pointless discussions.
But when people aren't looking, I slip away.
I retreat to my secret place.
I leave places quietly, stiffling yawns, shrugging at the people who call me boring.
'Where have you been?' People ask me after they finally spot me.
I can never answer this question truthfully.
Let's cheat time.
Let's get ourselves out of the rubble of our pride and arguments.
Let's gamble again.
For once.
Once more.
Let's evade from the world and meet up at the usual place secretly.
Sneak out carefully or the wicked fate shall know about our clandestine plans...
Don't linger around the people we know, for they shall engage you somehow...
Hide your bright face behind the veil or the devil shall grin...
Wear that blue shirt of yours which I like, will you?
The usual place, where it all started.
Where we had had Pina Colada.
Right and Wrong.
Cruel and Kind.
Calm and Mess.
Her brain teems with the conflicting thoughts. The guilt spreads like a sinful stain of blood. Self loathing slashes like a sharp edge of a knife.
She racks her brain, to remember the words from her forgotten prayers. How come everything happy is evading her now?
Sage like peacefulness destroyed, pristine prayers plaguing with selfish demands, she realises shallow sanctimony of the whole affair.
Time stands in front of her, once again to do Its bidding, to claim back what never was truly hers, to snatch it from her arms.
'Please stop!' She pleads to Time.
Time merely smirks.
She hangs her head in resignation while Time does what It does the best.
She sinks to her knees, empty handed, frantically searching for the remnants of rented happiness.
Get over him?
Is that what you advise?
Please.
Get over, how?
Forget the way his eyes squinted whenever he smiled?
Forget the funny way his hair stuck to his skull after he got out of shower?
Forget how his thumb rubbed the back of my palm?
Forget how his arms pulled me in a hug and refused to let go?
Have you even been cared deeply?
I don't claim to have known love. But I think I have been loved, beyond the dimensions of time and space. Not exactly how it is in romcom movies, but close... almost close.
And when you have been loved like that, it stays with you.
You are made of everyone who has ever loved you.
How do you get over a part of yourself?
Will you come help me sort my dreams?
There are so many of them, big and small, colorful and grey... Far fetched and achievable.
There is this dream to have a fluffy white bed to sink into ('inviting' bed I call it) after a tiring day. (Pillows are must), an easy one, isn't it?
But there is this one to have a calm sleep, lying on the floor like a starfish. (This one is a little out of reach, right?)
Walking around the cobbled lanes in the city with white houses and blue roofs... (the lanes that lead to the ocean and the white sand). Place this one on top.
I dream of Parijataka flowers often (laugh all you want), keep this one just above the dream of sunshine from the window by my bed.
Some of them are age-old, unfulfilled. No, don't throw them away. (Don't call them clutter, please!) I have special place for them too.
Creating a masterpiece of a post is an unfulfilled one. You may keep it to the bottom, away from my eyes. I rather wish to have it unfulfilled.
And while we are at it, tell me your dreams too and I promise I won't laugh at you like you laughed at me.
Hours of calls that go on nonstop, worries keeping me on my toes, hands pulling at my hair in frustration all the time, I crumple down almost everyday.
I never know how to tame my demons.
I never know what to do when they feed upon a little life left in me.
I sit by French window, watching pointless sunsets and indifferent blue lake in distance.
I give the glass a useless swirl till waft of rum fills my nostrils.
I talk my point of view over insipid cups of tea, blandness seeps into my conversations too.
I see my life going astray like aimless smoke of my cigarette.
At the end of the day, he asks- 'How was your day?'
As simple as that.
I live a little more.
When things go south (that's her phrase) and I realise I need a reality check, I call her.
'I screwed up.' I say with a helpless shrug as she hugs me.
Like good old days, we rant on over noodles in burnt chilli sauce (something that we both love, rare thing; really!) and a cup of tender coconut icecream.
She smacks hard at the back of my head and takes my brain out.
Washes brain and pats dry.
Then she injects something in its folds.
'What is it?' I ask curiously.
'Sense.' She replies with an air of a hardened surgeon.
'There you go.' She says after she finishes.
On such days, I reconcile with myself.
'You are my 911.' She has always said.
When she calls like that- distressed, sniffling, something in my heart always breaks. I get the stench of rum even from over the phone, somehow. I can imagine her cheeks stained with tears. I can hear vehicles swooshing past her; fear grips me.
'Will you walk carefully?' I shout.
'I am fine.' She reassures, in an unconvincingly slurred voice.
She makes a little sense, whatever she says. Her words come indistinct and incoherent.
'Will you tell me everything properly?' I ask her.
At moments like these, I get reminded of an old her and I suspect she remembers it too, because she keeps saying how she is stronger, more practical and callous now, more to herself than to me.
'You are still your old self, you know...' I tell her quietly.
She does not argue.
'You haven't changed. Not even a bit. And it hurts you because you claim you have.'
'What do I do?' She asks helplessly.
I get a pang of pain when she asks like that. How many times I have asked her the same question, knowing she would always know the right thing to do.
She understands and gives a tearful chuckle.
'Role reversal! I wish I were as right as you think I am.'
Right or wrong, I have lost count how many times we have got each other out of the abyss of emptiness. She is my 911 too.
Love me your way.
Singe my soul a little at corners every night.
Stab those piercing words- so typical of you, in my gut and twist the silver blade.
Mess with my brain, infesting it with swarm of dreadful thoughts.
Carve your indifference into my heart with the needle of your unfriendly coldness.
When you are done with me, let me know. I would love you my way.
I would imprison you in the words I write and turn you into a masterpiece.
Would you take this punishment?
