Elbow Room

She says with a sense of urgency to me, 'Settle down. I can only take so much. I can only hold on so long.' Makes me want to delay more. So she can take it for some more time, so she stays for some more time. I cannot leave her alone. She, who takes care of everyone, how will she survive without that trope? Without that next short-term goal. Because thats all she has. A lease, which she has assigned to herself, a lease not of life but of perseverance -- it keeps renewing itself. She thinks she is indispensable just for me. Even then she thinks i can well live my new life without her. What about the others who demand not only perseverance but her selfless unconditional nurture. They need her more than she realizes. Or she thinks she has set the little boats afloat to their rightful streams--and thats where her duties end. They must maneuver the waters themselves--she has equipped them well for that.

What about her? Where will she go? 'In solitude, silence... in the shadows' she says with a wry smirk, belittling her self or may be for the first time giving her self a substantial thought. I dont take her seriously. I mock her plans with my blunt logical questions, trying to convey how dramatic and unreal she sounds to me--hiding my ignorant fear that she might carry her plans out, at the same time. She knows that i'm not taking her seriously, that i think she is merely reacting to the immediate dispute thats occurred. She does not try to make me believe her plans are real. That she has been so troubled and consistently unhappy and dissatisfied that she will actually have the courage to follow them through. She tells me she has no reservations of family or society. That the pain is too much in its slow and steady grip that by the time I settle down it will have mastered her and she will finally be able to free herself from the stifling perseverance.

i think of those empty lonely eyes as i lie in the dark beside her, uneasy more with the closeness than with the gulf between us. Soon I will throw myself in the automatonlike routine of tomorrow and get sucked in like a card in the ATM machine-- till im reminded of it the next time...

im like half a curtain
drawn to you, but can't and won't
come all the way to meet you
you have to tread the same distance or more
to meet me here.

meet me here
for the sun is harsh on my face
for i need some shade, shower, security
barring pesky reality from view
closer to a cocoon, draped of me and you

Must we lie suffocatingly symmetrical
like two cushions of different designs
on the same sofa?

im too afraid, too too afraid
come take me by the hand and show me
how to open my eyes to a plunge
teach me to let go
to embrace you
to face you
look into your eyes
and not be afraid to claim you as my own

teach me slowly, tenderly
how to take your hand in mine
and have it there forever
teach me the conviction of eternity

hover over me like a banyan
green and fragrant and full
let me hug your bark and soil my clothes
let your strong roots steady my shaking heart

tread slowly like a thief
but firm and daring
drown my fears with chloroform
show me the place where all is fair

whisper softly to my disbelief
this isn't too ideal to be true
there are flaws, there needs some work
that the house of my dreams
creaks by the door

And then assure me you will mend it.

In the midst of divorces, shattering remains of broken hearts, scars of iron on pregnant bellies, a promiscuity born of a broken illusory sanctity, she found herself irredeemably in the tight grasp of love. She blew bubbles in the stern face of reality trying to block her view.

They walked in the cold streets of the evening. The cars whizzed past them and the leaves on the trees crackled and rustled in the cold wind heralding the bitter winter that was to engulf two warm green hearts. Like the road beside them that ran ceaseless through the night without stopping for a breathe, they too let themselves run headlong into a bottomless pit.

Freefalling is a scary addictive idea.

सहला फुसला के एक रात
सुलाया था एक सपना

सुनहरी पलकों से इन आँखों ने
झपकाय था एक सपना
अँधेरे में जुगनू सा
जगमगाया था एक सपना
बड़ी मुश्लिल से एक रात
सुलाया था एक सपना

सारा दिन पेड़ो पर चड़ा
धुप से सिके फल खता रहा
नदी के किनारे पैरों को
पानी में नेह्लाता रहा
टायर के गोले को डंडे से मारता मारता
गंदे कपड़े और
छिले घुटनो के साथ
घर लाया था सपना

मैंने धुतकार के जब
कान खींचा था
लिपट कर कमर पर
कस के बंध गया था
मेरे मन की कठोर सतेह भी
पिघल गयी थी
उस नन्ही गिरफ्त की गरमाहट में

उसका चल-कपट हमेशा ही मुझे
विवश कर देता
अपने संकल्प को भूल जाने पर
आज नहीं मानूंगी आज नहीं मानूंगी
पर हर बार उसकी प्यार से भरी आँखें
जैसे सम्मोहित कर लेती

वोह खिलखिलाती हंसी वोह शरारत वोह उम्मीद
आज बिस्तर पर बीमार पड़ी है
ना जगती है ना सोती है
ना परेशान करती है
जब नहीं होती में सहलाने के लिए
अचानक उठ कर रातों में कभी
रो भी पड़ती है

थी आंधी,थी बिजली, थी घरघराती बरसात
दिल का दरवाज़ा भी उस रात डर के मारे चरमराया था
इस तरह रोते रोते जग पड़ा था अचानक जब
कांपते हाथों ने प्यार से थपथपाया था

पर वास्तविकता जैसे परदे के पीछे ही थी छिपी
भूत जैसी काली, और निडर
छोटा सा सपना भी छिप गया
मेरी गोद में अपनी आँखें मूंदें ...

किसी तरह, सहला फुसला के
सुलाया था एक सपना
सुनहरी पलकों से इन आँखों ने
झपकाय था एक सपना
अँधेरे में जुगनू सा
जगमगाया था एक सपना
बड़ी मुश्लिल से एक रात
सुलाया था एक सपना

I look at the endless queue of streetlights on Shanti Panth from one of the many windows of the crammed DTC bus where i sit privately, observing silently the surroundings, and my thoughts. They cast their soft yellow rays on the dark sleepy roads; roads which wind around like a world too preoocupied to look up and notice the tireless effort of the stars who brighten their concrete ebony nights.

The arrythmatic drawl of the DTC bus gives me a sense of disorientaion, as if im doomed to travel endlessly without a destination. The jerks of the bus allow my body to dangle forwards and backwards. I recieve this abuse in an unquestioning resigned state, almost agreeing with it. I want the bus to keep on moving for i am settled and though somewhat uncomfortable, in a patient pensive mood. I have known journeys to have that effect on me. They set in motion a series of unconnected thoughts; some triggered by the constantly altering scene at the window, while others just waiting for a moment of privacy.

As I heave an unhurried breath and continue to look at the calm and calamity of nature through my window, i glance at a young man at the Chanakyapuri bus stop. He is scrambling through the crowd to catch the 680 in which i sit. He wears an official double-knotted tie which stands out like a sore thumb on his trivial half-sleeved informal shirt. He looks quite ridiculous, actually. He has a bag that hangs haggardly due to the thrustings and jabbings from the crowd, on his lean side. He needs a haircut, i observe, and a shave. The crowd rushes past, over and through him towards the bus, and he fails to make it in for the bus is already tilting to one side with the weight of its passengers. The bus stops at the stop for less than a minute and as if like an old lady with arthritis getting up from her bed, starts again. I turn back to look at the young man. He stands with his now ruffled hair and haggard bag, with a sense of a totally wasted effort, and in the midst of the small dust storm that resulted from our bus, waits listlessly for the next one.

I dont know whether i am supposed to but i dont feel like feeling sorry for him. As i said, i am in a patient settled state. I resume my forwards and backwards rhythm and soon forget all about that man with an official tie. My own discrepancies and everyday struggles cloud my mind as the sky outside my window is overcast. Like a journey that will lead nowhere, i keep forming intricate patterns of thoughts in my mind. I look at the crippled beggar at the traffic signal, and feel a sense of empathy. Not only do i feel the poverty, i feel the handicap, to supercede my indignant position. Richness visits as an illusion of ample alms, mostly leaving me with a wretched realisation of my own inertia.

I think of love as all do at some point in their lives, as some do in all points in their lives.

I am thinking of an impossible dream that sits up propelled on its bed, waiting to sleep, waiting to be realised before even venturing into the vicinity of any further realisations. But something won’t let me dream my dream. It’s as if i must sleep with my eyes wide open like that mythological King who was cursed to die in his sleep.

With some effort, I heave another breath, instead of several short ones, and Judy Garland sings in the earphones plugged to my ears,

"Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why..oh why can't I?


A rain-drenched breeze meddles with my hair and heart as the bus picks up speed and turns a corner... I change the track to a less depressing one... The bus is emptier than usual now and everyone is drowsy around me. It’s not everyday that you get to sit alone in the bus without any mullered male figure pretending to not rub his presence into yours until you shift uncomfortably in your morsel of the tight space and try to deny him the silent and shameless euphoria as best as you could. I slide my legs down a notch in my seat, fold my arms, and tilt my head to the left, in alignment with the leaning of the bus, and rest it on the sill...

I know if I close my eyes I will soon give in to this rare comfort and doze off to sleep, which is something I avoid, for I don’t want to wake up looking into the eyes of strange men hovering over me, having taken me to the recesses of the city to probably be held for ransom, or raped, or both. So I shake myself up into my seat, put an upbeat track and sit uptight pretending to be alert when all I want to do is close my eyes and let the Devil care. I disallow myself unwillingly the luxury of such becalming foolishness. My eyes are heavy with tiredness and defiance; the many crimson furrows on their edges are like the fissures on the road on which the bus uncertainly carries its weary body. The patience with which i began, and bore the journey till now, begins to abandon me.

I am wearing my narrow-bottomed jeans which are much in vogue. As my forced discipline turns into crankiness, I pull at the tight ends of the jeans and stretch their mean mouths, which appear to be feeding on me all of a sudden. I want to change into my skirt which I can picture lying folded in my cupboard, I picture myself in it, breathing and twirling freely. But home is still another world, a far dream.

I feel like a neglected child whose mother forgot to feed her and is off to a kitty party. I want some one to help me change into something easy and soft, then take me into their arms, caress my face with a warmth that my cold cheeks have not yet encountered, which therefore might even burn them, and rock me gently forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, and put me to a deep sleep...

My eyes brim up with the very thought of such gentleness, softness and love. I dont want the responsibilty of this maturity. I think of that limbless beggar at the red light with a piece of cloth spread in front of him.

I wonder how many deep breathes away is my stop. A couple of minutes later, I finally reach the Central Secretariat metro station, the Lutyen’s Delhi is a sigh to behold. Lush green foliage surrounding neat smooth roads, the overwhelming Parliament house looking straight into the eyes of India Gate at the distance. Add to it a light drizzle and the setting sun, and you can not suppress a sigh at the wonderful amalgamation of nature and the intelligence of human design.

I get down carrying a heavy bag and heart. The metro is unusually crowded for the Jahangirpuri to Central Secretariat line has been extended to Huda City Centre. I squeeze myself in the metro which at times appears to me to be the symbol of an absent-minded mankind, technological grotesqueness and an impossible insufficient existence. I think of a catroon series I loved to see on TV as a kid, Jetsons, who lived in the outer-space and worked under oxygen globules...with space-scrapers and flying saucers zooming past and many blinding blinking lights and gadgets and other technological hurly burly.

I wish to go outside in the rain and trees from the stench of air-conditioned technology in this confined stuffy space. I am getting worked up and nauseated, thinking of simpler times before mobile phones, and metro, and an evolved consciousness. I feel like an adult which I scarce let me feel and I feel burdened with an unknown responsibility, probably my own. The bag on my shoulder is heavy with my lunch, my books, and other useless knick-knacks. I shift my weight from one leg to another impatiently and still have about 18 stations to cover. All I can think of is soft clothes and warm hands on my cheeks and begin to feel like an unappreciated housewife.

I look around at the crammed human race in this compressed artificial space. I avert my eyes in annoyance, unable to avoid them. The lanky boy with his headphones plugged in his ears taps his feet intermittently; the old man with the salt-pepper hair with his white sports shoes and white kurta-pyjama staring at his wrinkled hands seems like an old street dog past his prime, the fat girl with red cheeks and a ridiculously body-hugging t-shirt is like a prisoner in her own body, the middle-aged man in the formal corporate attire with his blackberry is like a robot... You all are empty and you are blind and you all are ill. And if it was for me I would have this entire metro along with me in it blown in...

“Excuse me, do you want to sit?”

I am interrupted by a young boy. He has a large set of curious eyes that cast a soft gentle light on my concrete pale face. I think of the Shanti Path street lights. I think of the stars. I am already palpitating being stopped short in the middle of my frothing invective on mankind. The tired yet insistent frown on my forehead evens out as I look at him. He must’ve seen me massaging my neck and shifting my weight from one leg to the other uncomfortably.

I look at him, taken aback, as he waits for an answer unlike the rest who are waiting for my denial so as to pounce on the golden seat, while staring at me in bewilderment. Suddenly it feels as if my hard bitter carapace has melted and lies in a pool of water on the metro floor. I fumble for a second or two...and at last give him a stingy yet polite smile saying, “Thank you so much, but I can stand”.

And then, i could.

in a neglected corner, lying hurt
a hungry abandoned child
a jagged annoyed melting outline
faces derelict walls
an ego kicked about
like a stray dog, will not let him cry

on a low fire in a cold cold kitchen
simmers a volcano on an unhappy stove
shall burst like a bubble
at the next ignorant prick
but the eyes, they must stay dormant
no, not even an austere blink
there must not be no tears

the flood knocks for the drowning
the back is firm on the gates
defiant grip may slip and sway
but reserve like a slave must work
no, it must not have no break

hearken ye saintly men
ye saintly men of yore
in the meadow there hides a wench
on her knees there's weight of the world
the earthworm ploughs his field
the woodpecker drills the tree
with sprightly paws a dog
digs a hole in speed
the clouds too waiting hold
their waters in their arms
she tears the grass in pain
while a wretch tugs at her heart
but oh she dare not sigh
no,no, she must not cry

...yes, bar your windows tight
go lock your children in
the metal bars wont keep
the caged agitated gorrila
much longer now.

It is not love for love

is a melting glacier

that drowns your earth

in a flood of trembling desire

An overwhelming expanse

Of sky dressed in a blinding fog

Below a heaven where

Two doves perch upon a cloud

It is your fill, your hilt

Your cup, your bone

love starves

like a goat in a meadow

it is your only piece of warm clothing

as you walk naked

knee-deep in the white snow

holding on to it for dear life

It is not love for love is

the tin shed over your bald head

where the rain plays her tambourine

and those few drops that trickle down

to wet your lips

It is not love for

Being in love is not a question

it's a surge, it's a ghost, it's to feel

it is not to ask, it is to know, it is to be..

Eyes or are they rings of fire
Desire at the fringes reddens and rakes
Swollen like a pregnant belly
Reproduce a cry, when the water breaks

Oft they will hallucinate
And abnegate what present be
Cobwebs will form on the palpebras
Rewinding and playing memories

The broken mirror of things past
Where sunshine brims the brow with sweat
Reflects a sorry soul who will
Drown in nostalgia and regret

The insidious glance of Used-to-be
Might wound some dreams with jabbing darts
Those eyes that must casualties see
Will also truly purge the heart

Anon in forgetfulness they will smile
Bounce back the moon as they once did
A rising tide from the shore draws back
Soft pressing of palms on the lids

Dear Cyrus,

I love you, honey. I miss you. Im sorry. Im sorry I wasn't there. I cant believe I wasn't there. How could I not be there? Just because the vet said he wouldn't do it in front of me knowing how attached I was to you. Just because mom did not allow it. Why did I not fight? How could I just let you go alone? You must be looking for me, weren't you? Wondering why I wasn't there? I always took you to the vet. It wasn't mom. Or Atul bhaiya. How could i? Why didn't I hold you in my arms then? Everybody said I wouldn't want to remember you that way…that I wont be able to take it. But you needed me then, didn't you buddy? I should've been there. I should have been there. I cant forgive myself for that. Was I selfish? I should've made a hue and cry. It must have been scary for you….i know mom was there…but didnt you look for me too? You were in pain, honey. I had to let you go. But why did I let you go before I had to let you go? I haven't cried as much as I thought would cry when the time to let you go would come …but I haven't cried as hard. There was a poignant relief in not seeing you suffer anymore. I have missed you, yes I have, so much. Now when I cry, it's as if im trying to tell you that you meant so much to me. As if not crying is selfish of me. As if I moved on. And forgot. But i haven't. I never will. I never can.

Please forgive me for not being there then. I love you so much. I miss you. So much.

You will always be my best buddy, my baby. No other pet will ever be as good, as special, as much to me as you were. You loved me. And I love you. Always. And Always…

A parasite of inadequacy nibbles at my insides at times when I come across a good piece of writing or an original piece of thought. Confidence, rather an extended lease of over-confidence over my own unexploited potential, clouds the possibility of selfless admiration. What is left behind is a lacuna, a painful reminder of my own lack of progress towards an intended future. And future not just in the vague, ever-receding sense but one the furthering of which every passing second affirms.

I need to write. I want to write. For long I have been unable to, rather withholding myself from it for reasons I don't know. Every time I hear or see or feel something, I take a mental note and in that moment there are so many permutations and combinations in my mind and heart. The feelings that all my experiences evoke in me splash inside me and attack me with a violent fury. They wait to find salvation in expression, tired of passive contemplation. A half-clad girl on the traffic signal performing acrobatics, her dark hands meshing with the sweltering black concrete, or a skeletal of a dog on the side of the highway to Jammu with death hanging on its dry tongue, or a poignant feeling of helplessness at seeing the dark circles under mom's eyes, the same that look over/after everyone, and every time I read into an expression on the face of the young helpers at my place, one that instills the luxury they extend to us with a guilt, and every time when personal disappointments make me want to give up, make me want to run away to a distant shore or hill, every time I stand in the balcony staring for hours at the queue of raindrops hanging on the electricity wires in the street, hanging for dear life, every time the thump of the rolled morning newspaper on my head slaps me out of my slumber……

I want to write and find myself. As much philosophical as it may sound, that's what I think is the logical culmination of writing. Probably I have been too afraid of myself. Too afraid to look within, deep enough, and find those words to describe what I'm really, really feeling. For to write you must dig. Where was it that I read that a writer to write a great piece of work must commit to isolation? It is in that state that you can begin to dig and dive into your heart and surface with something worth writing, worth sharing. I have been too afraid of isolation. Outside and Inside. Too afraid of a calm, of silence, of popping out of my bubble.

I have always been surrounded by people at home, ours being a joint family. Always had a best friend to talk to, been in a 'group' in college, had a gang of cousins while growing up, have been shy but never a loner. Back in 12^th class Farewell, Hotel Ashoka, everyone around me dancing in saris and suits, there was a time when I felt alone, neglected and isolated from everyone around me…and what did I do? I ran. I ran from the claustrophobia of that isolation.

Even my diaries, I sometimes feel, I have been holding myself. Trying to avoid acknowledging certain feelings, certain events, fabricating a past I didn't want to remember.

But I feel its isolation, not an unworldly kind though, that unleashes the true self. To be able to write you need to have experienced a privateness, a solitariness of being. I have been running away from that solitariness. It scares me.

What I have come to realize is that escaping does not necessarily exorcise it. What does that, is the act of what they call 'facing your fears'. Of 'getting down to it'. And the contentment after having written a page, of having truly expressed yourself on the draft of your blog compares to nothing. It brings back the ability to admire others. That had never been jealousy in the first place anyway, only a misdirected rage and frustration at the inability to find my own calling in life. Once you've used that rage to create something, It's liberating. It creates form out of the chaos that is your life. The lacuna begins to fill, then.

Sometimes I want to shriek. Loud and far. So that I may hear in the echo, the ear-shattering sound of something I need the most right now-inspiration.

…

She is bright and illuminating
The glow of her cheek hushes the sunshine
Her gaze stark and steady
She is unshakeable

She stands afar
She stands alone
She stands in midst of a flowery field
Reaching her ankles they hug her in devotion

She looks up, her hands on her waist
She looks up in competition
Her unblinking eyes mock the Phoebus
She smiles

She smiles like a quivering river
Thirsty with its own fullness
Powerful and Powerless
She falls on her knees crushing the flowers,

Still looking at the sun, she smiles
Challenging her numb eye
The sun bows and hides behind a cloud
The tears precede the rain

Her tears mesh with raindrops
Her eyes fill with clouds
She shakes her wet hair in wild frenzy
And shouts hoarse the scenic calm

Far away on the mountain
The sunshine makes love with the raindrops
The dark sky transforms
In the valley resounds the first cry of the rainbow

Her hair flies in all directions
She is mother earth in weak power
She shakes her head from left to right
Tearing away the wet kiss of her tresses

Drenched in exhaustion
She falls down cold and shaken
Wild flowers perfume the blood
Trickling down her scraped knees...