Can I?

Can I set myself free of these eyes?
This heart, this mind, this life?
Can I walk out of this body and come to you?
Can I set myself free of what they say is me?
Can I sit by your pillow, kissing your tired brow?
Can I rock you in my arms, smoothing every line on your forehead?
Can I whisper sweet dreams into your mind?
Can I place a smile on your lips?
Can I set myself free?

The Distance Between You and Me

The miles between a yes and a no
The ocean between appropriate and inappropriate
The mountain between freedom and slavery
The heartbeat between life and death
Is the distance between you and me

The Predator; The Prey

The cold blooded calculation. A sharp image seen from a distance, but sharp nevertheless. The rest of the background blurred. Focus so sharp that you could smell the prey. Succulent meat. Juicy, melting under the canines. Oh, what a feast….
The predator. His canines eager, his claws ready to rip the life out of the little animal. His eyes, firmly focused. Every mucle taut, rippling. The predator…terrible, beautiful…
His nostrils flared, the scent pumping his instinct to kill. His muscles tensed more. And he imched closer to the kill.
The lamb. Grazing blissfully in what would have been a mellow summer sun. An afternoon flushed with death.
The prey.
It was not a big leap. Just a stir and the lamb was his. Helpless. Immobile in those big paws. His claws dug in the soft flesh…those teeth bit into that little neck…He expected the salty satisfying spurt of blood…but what was this? The lamb stirred. Its muzzle grazed against that giant mane…that tiny head nestled into his powerful chest…
The fool. He took the predator for the protector….the fool.

The predator clenched his jaws to bite. But the damn muzzle nestled against his chest. This hunger was different. It was raging in its heart, in its loins…the damn hunger…how could he be a predator if he hungered for a lamb that way? The clenched jaws sprang open. He dropped the lamb…

Oh damn those wide eyes! He felt his heart would burst …

He turned, pretending not to see.
He ran…
The predator, who became the prey….

That night

A frosty winter night, suddenly simmers

When your lips touch mine the first time…

The creases on my clothes, ]

Witness to ur arms around me…

Ur tender whisper rings in my ears

Ur body makes its way inside me

My fingers mark a path through ur hair

For that one moment,

U are mine…
It was not just my body making love that night]
It was my soul tasting urs...
A taste that lingers on in every pore...

How a bubble burst

A word starts to form, a little bubble, fragile, transient…
Myriad colours dance on its surface,
The brilliant orange swirls into ominous black,
They snake around, trying to form something…
What is it? A question, a smile, a caress?
The bubble floats, silent, gentle…
But those colours, they are not still…
Restless, they dance around…
As if trying to find something…
What? An answer? A touch? Absolution?
There’s another colour here,
Deep red, like blood…
Is the word bleeding?
Red seeps across the bubble…
Till all the colours disappear into it…
The bubble trembles…
As if trying to scream…
But there’s no sound…
The wind tosses the bubble around…
The red deepens….
The trembling is more urgent….
But, no sound…
Drifting, the bubble seeks shelter…
There’s something nearby, warm, it seems, protective…
It drifts, weakly, it’s crimson now…
It drifts, towards that shelter…
And then comes the touch, but it is a trifle too hard…
The crimson spurts out…
What did it touch? Didn’t it look protective?
There are a few red drops on the cemented pavement…
The bubble? Its no more…
But, there was no sound…
The colours have gone…
There’s no bubble…
It burst with the touch it wanted so much…
Around it, everything goes on, as before…
That’s as it should be, for there was no sound…

When

When did trust become such a joke?
When was it ripped out of a pair of wide eyes
To be cast away into the roadside dust?
When did faith become madness?
When did blood thin down?
When did cowardice become logic?
When did the heart become just a pump?
When did conscience become just a word?
When did companionship become drunken stupor?
When did love become a one night stand?
When?

The Teacher

The wizened old teacher has his own ways…
His rasping voice, his gnarled hands…
They are beautiful….
His fiery glance drips with tenderness….
His touch is gentle in its roughness…
I recoil from his anger, to rest on his lap…
He lets me catch my breath
And shakes me up yet again…
There’s more, he whispers…
He makes me taste the poison ivy
Then pours nectar down my throat…
He shoves me into the dark
And leads me into the light….
This wizened old teacher they call life…
He hammers my soul,
Chisels my heart…
I am his sculpture,
He is my nemesis….

Khushi: Just another kid

To this five year old, it must have seemed like any other day. His middle class sikh family must have been up at daybreak…His mother in the kitchen, preparing breakfast…her son’s little uniform kept aside to be ironed. His father must have been sipping tea and his grandfather defying arthritic bones to take a cold shower for the morning prayer. Like any other child, Khushi would have hated this part of the day. Was it morning already? The noises must have woken him up, but, like any other child, he would have tried to pull the bed cover over his head, trying to snatch a few more winks. But then, his mother would have called out….No answer…she must have come and picked him out of the warm bed…That was then. Today, she must be wishing she hadn’t. Because for Khushi, the lessons in school that day would turn out to be the last of those he learnt like any other child.
In the split second that passed between Khushi entering his home after class and him being whisked away by desperate strangers…little Khushi learnt different lessons, those which are not meant for any other kid. For one, he learnt that school is not so bad…because he now learnt what Bad really meant. He also learnt that his father was not superman but just an ordinary man who could not hear him every time he called out loud. He learnt that his cries could not always make people fuss over him, feeding him whatever it was he fancied, or swathing him in more warm sweaters…He learnt that the demons he imagined lurked under his bed at night had come out in the day. Finally, Khushi learnt that he could be murdered….
Strangled with his own patka, his face smashed, blood clots under his eyes…His mother would throw a fit at the odd bruise he got after a fall. But this? So is that what it comes down to? Nine months of pregnancy, all those moments when she felt the little one moving in her belly, the countless sleepless nights after he was born, the joy when he turned over for the first time, then walked….the tears, the smiles, the little fights over food not eaten, the dreams….all strangled with a blue patka? For what? Four lakh rs? Is that what her little one was worth?

The Big Bang

It defies words, it defies measurement,
Formless, it heaves, stretching every limit possible...
Dark, it holds light in its inky embrace...
Silent, it listens to countless explosions...
Shifting, flitting, gliding ----It stays constant...
Nothing and everything----The universe, the womb I sprang from....
The dark recesses of my being ripple with its secrets...
Secrets that whisper into my ears....
Making me restless in my desire...
I have these answers, but i have forgotten...
The questions tease, cajole....making me feel trapped...
I wait for this web of molecules they call my body to disintegrate...
Sending me spiraling back...
Into that bright darkness where the silence bursts with answers...
Where 'nothing' exploded to create 'everything'...
I wait, feeling the feverish buzzing of the molecules...
I wait for dissloution...
I wait to go back to nothing...
I wait for that one loose end through which the blessed silence will come....
One day.....

Spent…

Time floated away into a vortex of….of?
She did not know, it was a blur of faces, promises…some kept some forgotten…
Time, even that ruthless taskmaster had greyed….
The jet black of her hair had grey streaks, where the dreams had withered…
So what was the time?
No, she could not tell…
But the winter did not seem to have that nip of expectation…
Now, it was just….cold….
She could still hear the same sounds…
Or were they the same?
Where was the scathing anger, the gentleness of love, the deep throated passion?
They had greyed too …
Vaguely, she recalled that mighty head, now half buried in the dust…
She smiled, leaving her eyes vacant but wise, in the recollection…
Ozymandias, the unconquerable…vanquished at last…