Shades of Love

Light and dark
Cast like a shadow, I stand before your lamp
in a room with many walls of perception.
The light, I see it burning in your eyes,
and the darkness in me disappears.


Creation
Creation is
when the water of your faith
falls on the tender roots of my heart
buried under every granule
accumulated over years that I spent
looking for a love I never knew


Lovers
Many times I write of imaginary lovers,
lovers I never had, lovers I never knew.
lovers without a face, without a trace
and sometimes I write of you.


Longing
In the hour that your breath became mine,
a moment encompassing
those years lost in time,
I still longed for you to be mine.

You

There is a beyond

And you are the only one

In this world

Who can take me there.

And there are worlds inside of me

That I can see through your eyes,

The worlds I have been blind to

For years. 

New Eyes

Legs folded, you sit

On the mattress.

The bulb lights half your face.

There is the other side

That I have been blind to.

Your words show praise

For a woman unknown.

Your yogic posture deceives me

And there’s more distance

Between us now than the space

Between our breath.

I know I love you

But your eyes

Drunk in love

More often felt

Never understood,

For someone who would

Be replaced next Sunday,

Changes something inside me. 

Creation

Creation is
when the water of your faith
falls on the tender roots of my heart
buried under every granule
accumulated over years that I spent
looking for a love I never knew.

Diamond

Little sister don’t be sad,

fly by

the bright blue sky.

Once the clouds are gone

It will be your sunny day.

And little sister, when it rains

out of turn you know

that a mystery is about to unfold,

and your eyes are about to see

that at the end of it all

the night will be beautiful,

studded with diamonds.

Things

Old Red bag,

tickets to a movie,

and to cities with distant names,

that restaurant bill

with the delicious soup,

long shut, replaced by a coffee shop,

the t-shirt with invisible holes,

the coaster from the garage pub,

the book with yellow pages,

with aged poems,

the image of a dim-lit night,

the creased photo of you and me

almost forgotten,

now stare at me.

Berlin night

I can jump the wall

and walk hand in hand

up and down the dancing hall,

with you, happy and high

and forget to remember you

when the night is gone.

Four strange men

I The Spanish fool

Sitting in the empty space

On the left side of the bench

In the autumn cathedral garden
Is the Spanish fool.

He touches her nose-ring,

Hair and hand,
Praises her beauty hoping

She has no other man.


Too fast, too cool,

He’s trying to get there too soon.

A photograph and a number

He thinks that’ll get her.

“An old trick,” she says.

And walks away.

“The park’s got many more!”

Smiles the Spanish fool.



II The Baget man

“I love baget!”

A Tunisian way

Of stringing together strands

Of broken conversations.

“I make 500, 600 every day.”

“I speak good English, no?”

He says, smiling, and the dimples

Stretch into the burnt lines on his palms

–a tiny price for extra hours

And fruits of freshly burnt cents.

I try, but only half understand
As the sound from his lips

Drowns into the music

Of the harmonious piano.

Playing for those

That are lost in translation.


French, German and Arabic


He tries them all, only to learn

That there’s just one language,

The one that’s no more necessary.


So we dance in the empty bar

Moving to bring

Two distant worlds in line

With words that no longer are
An obligation to building castles in the air.

Then stealing a rare moment
From his laborious days, he tries again.

I love Bagets!”
“I love making Bagets!”
He looks into my eyes.

“But those Bagets very cheap.

You very expensive Baget.

I love Bagets!”

A Tunisian way of saying 
‘I love you’.



III The French souvenir 

Billy Jean on the piano

And the man from a French
Souvenir shop.


The rose from a Bangladeshi

Flower vendor—

The cold of the rainy night.

The ‘I love Paris’ lighter,

The Indian clove cigarette,

The smoke that smells of us.

The things you said

The words I didn’t.

And the moments that were lost

In a picture you,

A picture me,

A picture of us.

From Bonjour to Bisou

And Good night to see you.

Just words of the French souvenir,

Of Billy Jean still beating my heart

And the petals still dancing inside
A notebook from a long time ago.



IV The Israeli night

There’s difference between a Berliner,

Four vodka and berry shots.

It’s the distance between the lips

Of an Indian dance and an Israeli song.

He speaks of Tel Aviv
Of Palestine and Israel

And his small town somewhere
Far beyond my dream.

I, of Indian summers

In the cold of this night,

Of Mumbai rains and the little

Joys of my life.

The night’s no longer cold.
Melted in the heat of clasped hands

And the warmth of the dance,

It turns bold.

When the music’s over

Our lips will sing to the tune

Of passion where our divorced

Worlds will meet in peace.

I find love

I feel you like I feel the sunlight
On me when I close my eyes.
And I find you behind the one
(Amidst a hundred doors), I
Choose to open.

I feel you like I feel the rainbow,
In the invisible summit of rays and drops.
I find love in serendipity
Of the words yet to be born from
The seed of my thoughts.

Black city I

You have been used, abused
And exploited by your own.
Mistreated and humiliated
By those who’ve been inside you.
Raped and assaulted
By your own pimp,
And even by those you’ve fed
Your own milk and those who reached
New highs by stepping
On your corpse-like remains.
Yet flooded in tears, wounded by arms,
Slit into pieces, into sects and segments
By those who’ve grown up in your lap,
You crawl to them with open arms
And give them your last breath.
Those who took away from you
And never gave back.

Anthem for the lost

Who wants to sit in a rocking chair
When there’s a see-saw in the garden,
And you can go up to days of love
And down to lusty long nights
One thing at a time.

Who wants to be a raging bull
When you can hit that elusive bulls-eye
With your charming archers arrow.
Who wants to walk the oft-driven path,
When you are that doped Alice
Discovering your own burrow.

Who wants to follow the misleading compass
When your heart can show you the way.
Who wants to weigh the pros and cons
When all you want to do is play.

Who wants to bury her gift of art
When life is one big Broadway stage.
Who wants to go to the end from start
When there’s mystery in opening a random page.

Who wants to build an earthly nest
When you are fixed to the wings of fire.
Who wants to stick to measured flights
When the winds can take you higher.

And who cares for those who think you’re strange
When stranger things have happened to you!

So trip through the marathon
From monsoons to summers to frost
And stroll past the last lap,
Singing the anthem for the lost.

Smile

When dark clouds surround you
And there’s no sign of the sun,
Smile, it’s going to rain on you.

When thoughts cry out
In the lost alleys of your mind.
Smile and renew your spirit.

When fears of fire
Burn your soul
Smile and pour the water of life.

When the pain of the past
Covers you in shrouds of shadows
Smile and hug the present.

When you’re blinded by light
Close your eyes
Smile, and see with your heart.

When too many voices ring
And you are deafened by chaos
Smile and feel the silence within.

When you are lost
Alone and have nowhere to go
Smile and look to me.

Unsung Heroes

Their cries were silenced by
The fire shots of cowardly power.
Their silence shut up by
A mother’s cries.
You were lined up and shot
And brought down like a card
In a pack of jokers.
Fallen prey to serendipity
Of unfortunate events played out
By the Gods of violence
And makers of hatred
In a world created by the devil
Of power-play by those
Who know not that life is about living,
And not taking another life.
And you died fighting or fought dying
To a struggle for peace, unattainable
In this world where love
Is only a puppet in the hands
Of those unidentified faces.

Tears freeze in the spectators' eye,
As you perform the last dance of glory
Going down in the song of your obituary—
And become yet another unremembered name
In the midst of a thousand unsung heroes.

Silence

Down, down, down you go.
Go to the depths of the dark well.
Well of grim thoughts.
Thoughts that grow on trees.
Tress whose branches run haywire.
Haywire words falling to the ground.
Ground of dead leaves.
Leaves that fly to the tune of the wind.
Wind bound in an invisible force.
Force that drives you to madness.
Madness that takes you to far off lands.
Lands that end in the brutally peaceful sea.
Sea of unfathomable silence.
Silence.

The last photograph

You break into pieces
When you fall to the ground
From the picture on the wall,
Separated from the memory
that tied you down.
You fly, riding on the wings
Of your guardian angel,
Miles away from your last photograph
Taken with me(beside you),
Moments before you crossed
Into the light.

Night

Bare, you move your eyes over me
Like the first rays of morning
Caressing the fresh green grass.

Bare, I covet those unknown lands in you,
Those tiny lanes and pathways
I was too afraid to cross.

Bare, you lie down for me
And I find home in your arms.

I bathe in clear waters of your bare chest,
Twiddling with the little black weeds
That shine in the light of my dim eyes.

Bare, your skin and veins become tender
Unlike the masculinity of the day.

Bare, shapely, vulnerable,
Your silhouette reminds me of
The rim of a half-moon
I saw from my fantastical window.
Your pineapple cheeks,
Apple ears,
The lean nose-ridge,
The highways of your neck
Drive me down
Into the night.

Naked

Naked,
You’ve shed the clothes of fallacy—
the coats of conditioning,
the shirts of societal norms,
the pants of sexual suppression,
the ties of bogus human bonds
and now you stand naked.
Prepared to be judged
for the shape of your nipples
and the size of your genitals.
Criticized for your courage
to reveal the nooks and corners of your torso.
Ostracized for your freedom
from the illusive undercover world.
Uncovered,
undressed,
stripped,
unprotected,
exposed—
free from vanity.

Show me the way

Sitting with a friend,
staring at the blues,
looking at life
from the bandstand view.
Looking for a chance
to sing and dance,
looking for that one moment
to sweep me away.
Feeling like a tiny piece
in the big puzzle of life
and blowing with the wind
of many directions.
Feeling stuck on a treadmill,
I run without covering the distance.
Waiting on you to come by
so I can follow you up there.
Show me the way
when right doesn’t feel quite right.
Show me the way,
when I lose the spirit to fight.
Show me the way
when night disguises as day.
Show me the way
When the blacks turn to grey.

Squirrel

Lying safe in a bark hole,
using my poems the way
a squirrel would its tail.
Making do with plant buds
of small, simple words in time of spring.
And feeding on someone else’s ideas when faced with hunger.
For then I won’t have to migrate to keep alive
because I love to scurry around familiar territory,
discovering every new tree for a new story
and every piece of ground for nuts.
And I wish, so wish that on rainy mornings
I could snuggle in my own fur
of books, movies, music and tea, and
never have to leave my drey for inspiration.
June 28, 2009

Arrangement

I place a piece of banana
Beside a drop of honey
Repeat the lines a hundred times.
With every count I wonder
Is this really me?

I pose for pictures
In the evening light
Trying to smile my true smile
I try red,
pink, brown and white
In the end I wonder
If all this is even right.

I word my qualifications,
My likes and my dislikes
As if hunting for a job,
And hiring at the same time.
Stating my good points
Leaving the bad ones out,
I attempt to sell myself,
Sell out to the business of life.

Why would I want to be with someone
Who’d want me not for me
But for what I reveal of myself
And what I promise to compromise?
But I go on
because everyone else is!
And you’ve got to fall in line.
You’ve got to be happy
With the norms of an ideal life.
Desperate, with every passing month—
As if you marry or you die!

Don’t wear your glasses
Click one in a salwar,
Smile and be decent,
Don’t tell you drink
And don’t reveal all.
Oh, you’re short, look for a 5.5 footer ,
Oh, you are old, try for someone older.
Oh, you are dark, forget the fair guy,
Oh, and you’re a fool
Fooling yourself.

But I’m running late
I need to meet the next candidate
At a coffee shop or for dinner.
And seek a connection born out of the mind
But wonder if he’s going beyond
the clothes, the salary,
And adjusting with family.
Then I meet the next one.
And question myself,
“Why am I even here?”
Then I meet another
Who has no idea what he’s looking for.
Then another who asks,
“What are your hobbies?”

And then I run, run fast
And hide away this feeling
Of utter despair
at being forced to find love
Over an arrangement—
An arrangement of convenience.

worms

Little worms creep,
crawling out from tiny holes
an apology for a snake.
Longing for that one drop
they cross over
the death-like stupor to wake.
But the gaint world, unable to fathom
your lilliputian hopes
pushes you to the brink
of a shameless escape.

Language

I try to mumble
but my broken tongue and paralysed lips
fail.
Can every emotion find its way
into the world of words?
A world with confused grammar,
punctuated sentences
and organised paragraphs—
from one chaotic world into another.
Tangled up in the “rules”,
I try but the wild insane overflow
of feelings speaks in tongues
alien to you
and powerless against the wall
you build around your senses.
I wish you could fly you blind
strands with stray dreams
and build a nest inside
the heart of the one
who can’t understand
the language of love.

Fool

Singing the song of a romantic hero
struck by the cupid of a mushy film,
he imagined of love and its expression
under a European countryside sun
in the company of a hundred Russian dancers
jumping in joy like insane lovers.

He transported himself to a snow-clad mountain
with his skimpily-clad shivering woman.
Then to dancing and grooving in the rain,
in the city’s deserted tiny lanes
his sexy siren drenched, moving in a wet sari.
He fell into the joy of a cliched love story.

He spread out his arms
full with flamboyant charm
and mouthed lines to invisible music.
He gyrated and threw some pelvic thrusts
to shaking hips and heaving busts.

He let go of his same old boring life
with his regular so-not-starlike wife.
And went back to slow motion running
(Lalalaa..la..laa..lalalaa..la..laa)
His wife’s hair flying in winds unseen—
a fool in love with the silver screen.

I said go

I said go.
But you could have stayed.
You knew the midnight moon
Was calling you to wrap
Your light around my night
Untill the ray of a new day.
But you left
Leaving my hand in hesitation
And kissing me good night
Yet another time.
One more incomplete moment
added to the hundred
Moons you saw from my curtained window
Lying in my arms.
And still you leave me behind,
Once again, to count my blessings,
Wishing you’d know
That everytime I said go,
I meant please don’t.

Celebritisation

The beauty queen-
she married a tree.
It's regressive, but freaky!

That hunk
in a yellow trunk
is sleeping around
I smell a scandal!

Here's what I really love to read,
the thing that makes for headlines-
Reality TV show wannabe,
the pin-up boy's infidelity,
the item girl's fashionable tights,
Married star's bedroom fights,
A gay director's sleeping partners
A fatso actress's slimming orders,
A smoking star's self-glorification,
An infidel socialite's clarification.

I, the voyeur,
the lover
of the rich and famous.
I'm obsessed
with aspiration;
giving into
celebritisation.

CRY

Indu Anto,
16,
poisoned.
"I have failed."

Abraham Biggs,
19,
drug overdose,
"I hate myself and I hate living."

B Govardhan,
18,
cut wrist.
"I was ragged and humiliated"

Rucha,
19,
hangs,
"No one loves me."

Pressure,
disillusionment,
false idea of joy.

Depression,
impatience,
loss of love.

Fear,
and the loss of love for life
cry of teenage suicide.

The soul cries
the cry for help.

Loss of innocence

The crazy times
have taken the children head on.
O' you children of the modern depression!
Where do you go when your little feet
are tangled up in chains of illusion?

Satyam, you were taken away
at an age where you failed
to understand the value of your life
by those who were too young to know
that children were meant to play.

Instead they played with fire
with money and greed,
Where are the little joys?
They were shot in the head
by the child's new toys-
the gun.

And your picture flashes
in front of a million faces
who switch to another set of moving images
in a matter of minutes.
Spare a thought for the killing of prudence
Shed a tear for the loss of innocence.

Shoot that man

He's filed an obscenity case
or a PIL against every free face.
From Rakhi to Mallika-
he's got them all bound.
An unhappy soul, set him free.
Let's get him down people.
Just shoot that man.

He's beaten up the "loose women".
Demands them to be slaves.
A control freak on the "loose".
Let's get him down people.
Just shoot that man.

He takes the shutters down-
public demonstrations and burnt cards.
He's a violent lunatic on the prowl.
Let's get him down people.
Just shoot that man.

lines

Creating,
lines
where there are none.
Drawing,
boundaries
to simplify
what the mind
cannot comprehend.
Forms and shapes
from the confines
of the horizon,
paint
an illusion
of a mind
that fears
the boundless.
And the mindless
chains
dissuade
the mind of
a free fall.

In the heat of the afternoons
gone by thinking of you,
I take solace.
In that air
that at least brought your voice
to my ears, parched for caressing words
gone unheard
and the caring hand gone unseen
by the mind that knows not
what it means to give up
on love.

For love’s sake

Don’t sleep,
don’t wake.
Lie there somewhere in the middle
Don’t use the word ‘make love’
For love’s sake.

Don’t ruin
the fun
of not going all the way.
Don’t give it a name
What’s undone is done.

Don’t think
of us as lovers.
For love can get all fake
So make me yours for this night.
Be my friend for love’s sake.

Everything's not alright

Everything is alright
And everything that’s not will be
And you and I will live
in hope forever.
Yawn…go to hell eternity!

Bumpy roads, patchy lanes,
shooting dogs
And dying rats.
It’s all the same.
Another day of hope
Another day of attacks.
Born and gone in a whiff,
thrown in a shit hole at the door-step
Of a minister’s house.
Then where is it that you live hope?
In the government?
Or a poor boy’s grouse?

It takes ten to prove,
ten years to convict,
Ten days to escape.
Ten seconds for you and I
to kill but we die,
and justice is raped.

Everything’s not alright
Neither outside nor inside.
For we live by the same old thought
And fall prey to same old casteist plot,
smelling of the same old inaction,
mistrusting the power of dot.

Desperate

Desperate, foolish, distraught.
I lean on someone who leans on me.
I have seen you across that line before,
at the point where light sends back a reflection.

Utopia

From the space between two wishes of my mind comes the dire need to make ends meet.
The ends- one of the real and one from the realm of the extraordinary.
The space sucks me into my own desperate world of Utopia.

27

I fear not joining the 27s
There's this thing
about approaching the line
between a groupie
and a rock star.

I wish I was more
Of the tattered spirit
hanging on the tattered jeans
of Cobain,
eligible to join the 27 club.

If only I was wasted
on dope,
and rose high
on the thin white lines
running in the air.

If only I got low
on booze,
woke up every morning
to the sweet smell
of beer.

If only I got laid
more than I bargained for
and woke up every morning
to the breath of
new skin.

If only the spotlight
was so bright
that I'd be blinded
And the noise
of the crowds so shrill
I'd break.

If only I lived so fast
that I'd cover the ground
even before reaching
the finishing line.
If only there'd be so much
to live for
that I'd die grabbing it.

If only I'd be caught
napping on the border
If only I'd be caught
in the crossfire-
of darkness and light.

Then I'd be a Morisson
Or a Hendrix or a Joplin.
For
real rockers don't die early
They only cross the line.

On the road again

It's a crowded space.

Single out my mind.

Give me a few more seconds

to get myself out of the grind.

Get me some good old-fashioned cash

to load my cannons

and take off

to the dream I'm dying to live.

But the time's running out

and the road's long and winding.

And the destination I need

is the road I take.

For thats where I belong

- on the road;

waiting to be back home

on the road again.

music funda

There is always something to learn and a lot to live for. I met the legendary Pandit Jasraj today. It was a humbling experience really. He asked me not to interview him if I haven't listened to his latest album. He asked me come back later, whenever I am free but only after I have experienced the music. "Don't treat it just like an assignment. Experience it. Experience and knowledge will always make you richer," he said.

As journos sometimes you become so mechanical. You just keep doing stories after stories. I do try to enjoy the music and the musicians I interview. But it's great to have some soul in what I write.