Elbow Room

This palaces, thrones and crowns infested world
Defender of Society, prosecutor of Man, this world
This is the lusting money mongrel's world
What have I if I have the world?

Wounded the bodies, the souls are parched
Bewildered the glances, wretched are the hearts
Is this the World or is this Woe?
What have I if I have the world?

Here they toy with a man's identity
No less than a graveyard is this City
Death is reckless, Life here is thrifty
What have I if I have the world?

Youth loiters like a lunatic in this world,
Young flesh forever fresh for the markets of this world,
Love is but a business in this world,
What have I if I have the world?

This world where a man is nothing
Loyalty is nothing, Friendship is nothing
This world where the value of love is nothing
What have I if I have the world?

Oh Damn it! Blast it! Burn the world!
Let it burn! Let it burn! Blow up in ashes, the world!
Get it out of my sight, oh get it out of my sight, the world!
Have it, have it all, it is yours, the world!
What have i if i have the world!
What have i if i have the world!

(Tr. 'ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है!', Lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, प्यासा, 1957)

Again, there was that same feeling. Something inside trying to burst forth. An angry caged gorrila beating his chest with cupped hands in wild frenzy. If only she could stand in the midst of everything and everyone and beat her chest wildy like that till whatever it was that was trying to free itself inside her could either be beaten into silence or an opening was engraved for it to get out and breathe.

गाड़ी की आगे वाली सीट पर बैठने के लिए
अपने चोट्टे भाई से हमेशा ही दौड़ लगती थी
कभी जब पापा गाड़ी पार्क कर दूकान से कुछ लेने जाते
ड्राईविंग सीट पर लपक के शूमैकर बन जाते थे
उस से भी पुराने बचपन में पापा की गोदी में बैठ गाड़ी चलाती
मेरे हाथ तब होर्न के बने उस चोट्टे से आइलैंड पर खो से जाते थे
पिछली सीट पर मैं और मेरा भाई यूँ फैल कर सोते थे
और वो गाड़ी हमें हर गढ्ढे पर से जादूई कालीन सा उड़ा के ले जाती
उस पुरानी सफ़ेद वैन के बाहर की दुनिया सपनो की दुनिया थी
वहां किसी का एक्सिडेंट नहीं होता था
होता भी कैसे, पापा जो गाड़ी चलाते थे
उस गाड़ी की खिड़की से बस हरे पेड़ और गुलाबी चेहरे दिखते थे
बड़ी अनोखी, बड़ी मायावी गाड़ी थी
उस गाड़ी में ना क्लच-ब्रेक होते थे ना ही कोई गेयर
बस मन की इच्हा से चलती थी
पेट्रोल की जगह भोलापन डलता था
और ज़रा सी ज़िद्द डालें तो एवरेज अच्छी देती थी...
कभी जो पापा स्टीरिंग से हाथ हटा लें, तो यकीन मानें खुद भी चले चलती थी!

आज जो कुर्सी पीछे ना करूँ तो टाँगे पिचक जाती हैं
वो सफ़ेद वैन अब काली होंडा सिटी हो चली है
इस गाड़ी के बहर की दुनिया
धुएं, बेहेस, कानो को चीरती होर्न और पंचर टायर की दुनिया है
पेट्रोल पम्प की लाइन में Godot का इंतज़ार करती बोख्लाई दुनिया हैं
स्टीरिंग व्हील के पीछे कुछ घबरायी सी मैं सीट बेल्ट में बंधी बैठी हूँ
रीअर-वीयू के शीशे में जैसे कोई सिपाही जंग को जा रहा हो
मेरे पहियों के नीचे ना जाने कितनी ज़िंदगियाँ बिछी और रोंधि पड़ी हैं
ये रास्ते ये फलाई-ओवर्स, ये मेरी और ये तेरी लेन
बचपन को लाल बत्ती में तोड़ते युवक
कोई उड़ता हुआ पंछी आसमान से नीचे देखता होगा
तो भला क्या दिखता होगा?
टकराती उलझती आड़ी-तिरछी,
हाथों में तकदीर की रेखाओ समान
बस एक उलझी हुई इंसानियत ही दिखती होगी...

उस सफ़ेद वैन के अन्दर से सब कितना सरल लगता था
कुछ मिनट पहले ही तो था वो सदियों पहले का बरस
उन मुख़र्जी नगर वाले अंकल को 15000 में बेच दी थी
और उस दिन तो पापा भी रोये थे

He stopped and sniffed the air, and still sniffing, looked down at the old dog. "God awmighty, that dog stinks. Get him outa here, Candy! I don't know nothing that stinks as bad as an old dog. You gotta get him out. " Candy rolled to the edge of his bunk. He reached over and patted the ancient dog, and he apologized, "I been around him so much I never notice how he stinks."
"Well, I can't stand him in here," said Carlson. "That stink hangs around even after he's gone. " He walked over with his heavy- legged stride and looked down at the dog. "Got no teeth, " he said. "He's all stiff with rheumatism. He ain't no good to you, Candy. An' he ain't no good to himself. Why'n't you shoot him, Candy?" The old man squirmed uncomfortably. "Well-hell! I had him so long. Had him since he was a pup. I herded sheep with him. " He said proudly, "You wouldn't think it to look at him now, but he was the best damn sheep dog I ever seen. " George said, "I seen a guy in Weed that had an Airedale could herd sheep. Learned it from the other dogs. " Carlson was not to be put off. "Look, Candy. This of dog jus' suffers hisself all the time. If you was to take him out and shoot him right in the back of the head-" he leaned over and pointed, "- right there, why he'd never know what hit him. " Candy looked about unhappily. "No, " he said softly. "No, I couldn't do that. I had 'im too long. "
"He don't have no fun, " Carlson insisted. "And he stinks to beat hell. Tell you what. I'll shoot him for you. Then it won't be you that does it. " Candy threw his legs off his bunk. He scratched the white stubble whiskers on his check nervously. "I'm so used to him, " he said softly. "I had him from a pup. "
"Well, you ain't bein' kind to him keepin' him alive, " said Carlson. "Look, Slim's bitch got a litter right now. I bet Slim would give you one of them pnps to raise up, wouldn't you, Slim?" The skinner had been studying the old dog with his calm eyes. "Yeah, " he said. "You can have a pup if you want to. " He seemed to shake himself free for speech. "Carl's right, Candy. That dog ain't no good to himself. I wisht somebody'd shoot me if I get old an' a cripple. "
Candy looked helplessly at him, for Slim's opinions were law. "Maybe it'd hurt him, " he suggested. "I don't mind takin' care of him. " Carlson said, "The way I'd shoot him, he wouldn't feel nothing. I'd put the gun right there. " He pointed with his toe. "Right back of the head. He wouldn't even quiver. " Candy looked for help from face to face.
It was quite dark outside by now. A young laboring man came in. His sloping shoulders were bent forward and he walked heavily on his heels, as though he carried the invisible grain bag. He went to his bunk and put his hat on his shelf. Then he picked up a pulp magazine from his shelf and brought it to the light over the table. "Did I show you this, Slim?" he asked. "Show me what?" The young man turned to the back of the magazine, put it down on the table and pointed with his finger. "Right there, read that. " Slim bent over it. "Go on, " said the young. During the conversation Carlson had refused to be drawn in. He continued to look down at the old dog. Candy watched him uneasily. At last Carlson said, "if you want me to, I'll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain't nothing left for him. Can't eat, can't see, can't even walk without hurtin'. " Candy said hopefully, "You ain't got no gun. " "The hell I ain't. Got a Luger. It won't hurt him none at all. " Candy said, "Maybe tomorra. Le's wait till tomorra. " "I don't see no reason for it, " said Carlson. He went to his bunk, pulled his bag from underneath it and took out a Luger pistol. "Le's get it over with, " he said. "We can't sleep with him stinkin' around in here. "
He put the pistol in his hip pocket. Candy looked a long time at Slim to try to find some reversal. And Slim gave him none. At last Candy said softly and hopelessly, "Awright--take 'im. " He did not look down at the dog at all. He lay back on his bunk and crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. From his pocket Carlson took a little leather thong. He stooped over and tied it around the old dog's neck. All the men except Candy watched him. "Come boy. Come on, boy, " he said gently. And he said apologetically to Candy, "He won't even feel it. "
Candy did not move nor answer him. He twitched the thong. George chuckled, "I bet Lennie's right out there in the barn with his pup. He won't want to come in here no more now he's got a pup. " Slim said, "Candy, you can have any one of them pups you want. " Candy did not answer. The silence fell on the room again. It came out of the night and invaded the room….
A minute passed, and another minute. Candy lay still, staring at the ceiling. Slim gazed at him for a moment and then looked down at his hands; he subdued one hand with the other, and held it down…
The silence was in the room again. A shot sounded in the distance. The men looked quickly at the old man. Every head turned toward him. For a moment he continued to stare at the ceiling. Then he rolled slowly over and faced the wall and lay silent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Voices were approaching from outside. George said quickly, "Don't tell nobody about it. Jus' us three an' nobody else. They li'ble to can us so we can't make no stake. Jus' go on like we was gonna buck barley the rest of our lives, then all of a sudden some day we'll go get our pay an' scram outa here. "
Lennie and Candy nodded, and they were grinning with delight. "Don't tell nobody, " Lennie said to himself. Candy said, "George. " "Huh?" "I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog. "

खुद से दोस्ती करने को मन करता है
जब देखती हूँ खुद को तकिये से गुनमुनती
रात को गली के कुत्तों सा
भगाने को मन करता है

कुछ खाने को मन करता है
बेमन जब चम्मच को कलम जैसे लिखते पाती हूँ
यकायक उठकर कुछ
नया बनाने को मन करता है

मायूस यूँ रूठी आएने से
मुह मोड़ कर बैठी रहती हूँ
ठुड्डी पकड़ धुंधले मुह पर आँखें
बनाने को मन करता है

यूँ छोड़ रखा है खुद को
के पास जाते कतराती हूँ
डरते मरते खुद को खुदे से
बचाने को मन करता है

बेजान से मरियल कमरों में जब
दिन-पहर बेसुध हो जातें है
हाथ पकड़ ज़बरदस्ती खुद को
घुमाने को मन करता है

बारिश की बूंदों को मैं जब
व्यर्थ सा गिरता पाती हूँ
गुस्साई मन के हाथों में पत्थर
थमाने को मन करता है

बेचारगी में डूबे खुद पर
तरस तो आता है लेकिन
ठहाके लगाये मुझ उल्लू पर
कभी हसने को मन करता है

वोडका का वोह शोट ऐसे मारा था जैसे
तुमको किसी बेहेस में तगड़ा तर्क दिया हो
हाँ, था तोह एक नाटक जैसा ही--
पहले तुम्हे चाहने में वोह बन गयी थी
जो मैं नहीं थी, और अब तुमसे दूर हो कर भी
मैं मैं सी नहीं हूँ

आजकल आधी इधर आधी उधर रहती हूँ
किस बात पर बिगड़ना चाहिए किस बात पर हसना
दो बार सोचना पड़ता है
मानो तुम ही सब तय किया करते थे

सोचती हूँ जो कुछ देर और तुम्हारे साथ रहती
तुम जैसी ही सांवली हो जाती
जो खो गयी थी तुम में इस तरह
ज़ाहिर है, तुम से भी खोना ही था

“What’s got you all wadded up?” he drawls, toothpick in mouth, as usual.

“Don’t ask” I say, but then I start talking and tell him every bit of it, concluding with, “And worst of all, I can’t stop obsessing over David. I thought I was over him, but it’s all coming up again.”

He says, “Give it another six months, you’ll feel better.”

“I’ve already given it twelve months, Richard.”

“Then give it six more. Just keep throwin’ six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time.”

I exhale hotly though my nose, bull-like.

“Groceries,” Richard says, “listen to me. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it – in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out here in India.”

“But I really loved him.”

“Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don’t you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. I mean you got zapped, kiddo. But that love you felt, that’s just the beginning. You just got a taste of love. That’s just limited little rinky-dink mortal love. Wait till you see how much more deeply you can love than that. Heck, Groceries – you have the capacity to someday love the whole world. It’s your destiny. Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” I was actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.”

“But I love him.”

“So love him.”

“But I miss him.”

“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.”

“But I wish me and David could —“

He cuts me off. “See, now that’s your problem. You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”

The wretched agression which fuels his ego could win him the world if he were to redirect it. I think of him as an anti-Mahatma of sorts every now and then. Thin and bony, sometimes like a baby who can barely keep his chin up, he walks with me, happy for the moment, on the red soil paths. The green trees, the wind blowing our sweat dry, people excersing and doing Yoga, an old couple with a labrador, and a stick in hand to keep the monkeys at bay, the healthiness of the surroundings pulsating in jogging feet--he is such a misfit here. Everything inside him desperately soaks the wellness in the air like a thirsty dog laps water, like a band-aid on a wound.

His forced exile has given him what others may call...the gift of time. But its nothing short of Pandora's box. For most of us Time is a gushing river we can not bathe in twice; his Time however is a quiet lake that looks exactly the same at all hours, even the waves the winds paint on its wet surface are not random.

Everytime i enter his room, its as if time has ceased to be till i step out and the clock starts ticking again with a gasp. Strange it is then that the angry clock on his wall runs ten mintues ahead, as if forcing him to take cognizance. But he lies there on the same spot, in the same way, facing the same wall the paint on which seems to have stopped dead in its track trickling down, once liquid and colourful, now solid and caking.

The claustrophobia of his existence chokes me. Someone has bound my hands with heavy manacles to this side of the bed, i cant seem to break free. I am desperate to help him for his sake and my own. But i am afraid to approach him at times, like you would telling a war veteran that he must stop trying to gulp down in his drink the hideousness of the world he sacrificed his leg to save. You'd be afraid he might just throw his drink in your face and holler at you for daring to ask him to smile and let people think of him a mad fool.

I feel his pain. Its spread to us and become ours too. And that gives me authority to enter the room which has imprisoned time. And as i do, the birds outside stop chirping in mid-song, the people on the road freeze in their activities, the rain holds its breathe and the hands of the clock in the kitchen stop waving the minutes away...

"Its not the food thats stale, dad. its the drink."

He looks at me with bloodshot eyes that if you stare in them for too long you can see someone trapped crying out for help.

"Its not mom, its you."

He asks me to stop preaching to him. I try to tell him subtly this is not him. That this is what Freud called the Ego, what so many spiritual traditions call the 'False Self', that it is often a pathological term. He waves sheets of paper in my face, that say his blood tests and his urine tests, everything is normal. But how do i convey to him that the medical reports cant reveal the sickness he seems to be suffering with. That what he feels to be connivace of the rest of the world is a misplaced pride.

I sense I have a few seconds left to stop talking before he makes me his enemy too. I change the topic. And as a post-thought, i quit trying to avoid the fate this road he has taken must take us meet, i quit trying to find a solution. I realise there is no solution; the kind that i have frantically been looking for. The kind that the five years of english literature in my veins pumps into my idealist heart. There is no solution.

I keep up at nights, staring at the fan, feeling utter lack of any emotion as blank watery tears stream down my cheeks gently. I feel nothing. There is no solution. There is no solution. There is no solution. So i quit trying to understand the anatomy of his meloncholy in order to cure it.

'We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.'

There is just this. A readiness to face this meloncholy, and a tolerance, whose limits are not infinite. And as always, there is distraction. Rebellion sometimes is a kind of denial of reality.

So we walk in the green and red scenery, and i let him talk of his time, his time when it was a speeding train, and how quickly it did pass him by. I put some songs in the car i know he likes, and let him hum along. And discover a melodious voice i didnt know he had. I let him take pride in what he has created, and he looks across at me with wonder at his own genius, and for now, i dont break his illusion.

And at times it makes sense. At times its all alright. At times the sunlight gleams mellowingly through the clouds just so you can see the way ahead for a while, not in any ultimately enlightening way. Just thin occasional glimmers and rays that quiver with the leaves of the trees they peep through. Its difficult to keep holding on to the slender fragile ray for long; it melts in your fingers and disappears if you hold on to it too tightly and then there is darkness again. So you have to be patient. Yes, you have to be very patient...

Says Paul Varjack, “You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact…”

She stops dead in her tracks. It’s as if he is addressing her and not Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Like Holly, she has been running too. Running ceaselessly, running fretfully from something she is afraid to acknowledge. Running from that which threatens to change her world irreplaceably, irretrievably. As if ballroom dancing, swirling from one arm to another and hoping the music will never stop. City after city, people after people, distraction after distraction; like downing drinks after drinks, those that make everything forgetful, blurry-- hoping she'd never be sober enough to see what the real picture looks like. It’s ultimately useless, as Varjack says, because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

In her dreams she sees the face of a monster, so close to her she can feel its breath on her face. Her eyes are shut and she knows from somewhere deep within that to be free she must open them and look it straight in the eye. But she cannot bring herself to do it and therefore must remain enslaved till that time to this phantasm of fear. And keep running.

Her state is what Richard Coe described as--

A freedom of a slave to crawl east along the deck of a boat going west.

the hair on her arm rise up like on an angry cat's tail
if she had claws, the nails would come out screeching
carving uneven lines on some smooth surface
so hard its sure to bleed
she wants no hot milk
neither any bells or balls of yarn
nor a fish tank to stare at...
far less a hand to stroke her cold fur.

“There is no such thing as duty. If you know a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don’t want to do it—it isn’t right. If it’s right and you don’t want to do it—you don’t know what right is—and you’re not a man.”



"...you see, if we had souls, which we haven't, and if our souls met - yours and mine — they'd fight to death. But after they had torn each other to pieces, to the very bottom, they'd see that they had the same root..."


Kira: "Haven't you ever wanted a thing for no reason save one: that you wanted it?"
Andrei: "Certainly. That's always been my only reason. I've never wanted things unless they could help my cause. For, you see, it is my cause."

"And your cause is to deny yourself for the sake of millions?"

"No. To bring the millions up to where I want them--for my sake."

"And when you think you're right, you do it at any price?"

"I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, as so many of our enemies do, that you admire our ideals, but loathe our methods."

"I loathe your ideals."

"Why?"

"For one reason, mainly, chiefly, and eternally, no matter how much your Party promises to accomplish, no matter what paradise it plans to bring mankind. Whatever your other claims may be, there's one you can't avoid, one that will turn your paradise into the most unspeakable hell: your claim that man must live for the state."

"What better purpose can he live for?"

"Don't you know," her voice trembled suddenly in a passionate plea she could not hide," don't you know that there are things, in the best of us, which no outside hand should dare touch? Things sacred because, and only because, one can say: 'This is mine'? Don't you know that we live only for ourselves, the best of us do, those who are worthy of it? Don't you know that there is something in us which must not be touched by any state, by any collective, by any number of millions?"

He answered: "No."

"Comrade Taganov," she whispered, "how much you have to learn!"

He looked down at her with his quiet shadow of a smile and patted her hand like a child's. "Don't you know," he asked, "that we can't sacrifice millions for the sake of the few?"

"Can you sacrifice the few? When those few are the best? Deny the best its right to the top--and you have no best left. What are your masses but millions of dull, shrivelled, stagnant souls that have no thoughts of their own, no dreams of their own, no will of their own, who eat and sleep and chew helplessly the words others put into their brains? And for those you would sacrifice the few who know life, who are life? I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved. Because men are not equal in ability and one can't treat them as if they were. And because I loathe most of them."

"I'm glad. So do I."

"But then...."

"Only I don't enjoy the luxury of loathing. I'd rather try to make them worth looking at, to bring them up to my level. And you'd make a great little fighter--on our side."

"I think you know that I could never do that."

"I think I do. But why don't you fight against us, then?"

"Because I have less in common with you than the enemies who fight you, have. I don't want to fight for the people, I don't want to fight against the people, I don't want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone--to live."

She laughs like its her last time. Pouncing on every opportunity. Sometimes a little too hard. A little too gayly. Hugging it tight like a favourite cousin you're afraid you wont see for a long time.

She just surrenders, as if doped. Careless, mindless, free. As if she owes no one nothing and no one owes her nothing. Her playlist has undergone a drastic change. She likes the head-banging rock music suddenly or at least it likes her. It has the same numbing effect like a hot water bath, the excess in this case not being really hot water but really loud noise.

It doesnt mean she is never sad. You could have a sense of humour, take yourself less seriously, eat a lot of chocolates and still be sad. It seems like she is unwittingly sad most of the time. You would think it was better than being consciously sad, but it isn't really. Its like you've hurt you're knee but you don't know it. You keep limping, confused but indifferent for it doesn't hurt. And in the backdrop, that invisible wound, like termite is gnawing at your knee making it hollow from within—till the day you cant walk anymore.


She wakes up in the morning with another strange dream. She sees she is living by the sea in a shack like one you may imagine painted on a cover of a children's novel. The sea a deep azure blue, coiling tides at the shore, a little girl with torn clothes and a dark complexion, sitting with her hand around her dog on the beach, watching the waves come and go. She dreams she is that girl. And a wave as huge as a Tsunami rises like a monster, asleep for a hundred years, from the bottom of the sea, and destroys her little hut and everything in it. As the tide rises like a massive wall in front of her, she rushes back to her shack, and watches frozen with fear from a round tear in a curtain. Her eye round and animated from the whole, like a cartoon character's with curved lashes, that makes a magical sound as it blinks.

And what does she see?? All the aquatic life and fishes and sea animals, in the this fantastic wonderwall rising along with the water. But what she sees most clearly is an octopus. Suddenly she is on a log of wood floating on the sea and the octopus is hazily around somewhere. She is afraid of the huge octopus with its many tentacles more than the water itself. It has a face, that octopus. She could clearly see it. Like King Triton; yes, Little Mermaid's father with the trident in hand! But evil and angry!



And as is customary in dreams, she is suddenly eddied into another place totally unconnected. She is in her bathroom now! With...him! Saying her last goodbyes, hurriedly, for the sense of urgency and danger created by the Tsunami hasn't altered with the change of scenes. She hugs him, cries, kisses him, and there's somebody at the half-open door, knocking...Probably its her brother...

And then, it dwindles from memory. A mass of fog. Thats all she remembers.

Sitting in office, intrigued no end by her strange strange dreams, she searches what her dream means, if anything, because you know, not every dream has to mean anything. What she finds is this:

To see an octopus in your dream, means that you are entangled in some difficult matter. Your judgment is being clouded. Alternatively, the octopus indicates that you are overly possessive and maybe too clingy in a relationship.

To dream that you are in the bathroom, relates to your instinctual urges. You may be experiencing some burdens/feelings and need to "relieve yourself". Alternatively, a bathroom symbolizes purification and self-renewal. You need to cleanse yourself, both emotionally and psychologically.

She finds it funny,and useless. A Dream Bathroom to "relieve yourself" of psychological burdens? Merlin's Beard!

Immediately after she wakes up from this dream, she is still somewhat dotty. Still in bed with her head in her hands, she sits with her mobile in her lap. A few messages blink on the screen from last night. She doesn't open them just yet. She still hasn't completely stopped sleeping. Odds are she is still dreaming a little. With one foot in her dream, and the other in reality, she tries to take a stance. She is unsure where she wants NOT to be. Its 8 am, she has a faint clue that she is late for work. In such a precarious situation, her phone beeps a new message. And its him. She knows she would rather go back to sleep.

Confused, sleepy and disoriented she staggers to the bathroom. About to close the door of her room behind her, her hand comes between the door as it closes. Aaaaaaaaaaah. She totters to the dressing room. After about thirty seconds, her finger bursts with pain like an atom bomb. And right there, she begins to cry. Her brother and parents are fast asleep in adjoining rooms. And she begins to cry. Cry, as if everything in her life is wrong because she caught her finger in the door. There goes her sense of humour and everything happy or funny or right in her life! Because she caught her finger in the goddamned door!

Only she felt like in crying about the finger, she was really crying for the hurt knee which hadn't really begin to hurt yet.

The water is scalding hot. It pours in a thick linear transparent line in the empty plastic bucket — resonating around the tiled bathroom walls like drum rolls. She sits in the cold on the silver steel settee, naked. Her body hunched and gathered in her arms, swaying back and forth — waiting. She watches the steam rise like smoke from a funeral pyre, divine and purifying, disappearing into the ceiling.

Slowly, very slowly, she puts both her feet into the bucket. The warmth attacks her toes, feet, spreading to her legs up to her cold bony knees. As she does that, the water spills over from the bucket onto the floor, overwhelmed. Bones in her thin legs crackle like cold logs in the fire. She puts her hands and arms in next. She finds a therapeutic relief in the boiling hot water that almost burns her skin. It feels like she could go to sleep under that effect. Stay here forever. The band that holds her hair tied in a knot at the nape of her neck, she loosens with a wet hand. As the warmth reaches up to her thighs and back and neck and face she feels renewed. The warmth seeps into her very being, getting the blood frozen in her veins moving again. Hot red thick liquid. She can feel it travelling in her body like tiny fishes. All her troubles seem to melt for a while. There she sits, hanging suspended in mid-air in space-time continuum.

Now that her body has adjusted to the hot water, the heat that had embraced her body like love begins to abandon her limbs. She takes her arms and legs out of the bucket and stands up, her teeth clattering against each other. Her hands are wrinkled and pink. Water drips like greed from her body. She stands there contracting back the cold slowly. The wind jabs at her naked soggy body as she stands shivering... defending herself with a dry towel.

The curtains over the windows block the rain falling outside from view. But I can hear it crash on the winding rocky garden path outside. A thousands jabs on my heart. The smell is intoxicating. Ive always wanted to make a perfume out of it. But thats nothing new. Many love rain, many love that very earthy wet fragrance that oozes like a genie from a bottle, awakening all desires. It isn't for the first time that rain has fell on someone's dry thoughts as they do on mine this moment—rinsing them alive and breathing again, throbbing on the temples. Not for the first time has the sound of thunder sent blood shooting down someone's veins as it does in mine tonight, as pipes and sewers are unclogged in a rainy gush. It isn't for the first time that a memory has opened its arms to lament the romance in the air. Nor am I the first one to wipe a tear escaping through the corner of my eye as i sit facing only the sound of rain.

Its not an easy tear, one following the other, like the ceaseless rain outside. Its a hard-earned tear like a drop from a dry tube well on famished earth. And im grateful for it. Even though a torrent would be so much more merciful than this suffocating starvation. I stare at the curtains, imagining the lush greenery dancing, shivering in the wet wind. Sheena is in the bathroom, talking to Bhuvan. Its Valentine's. I wished id have given them some privacy but its 1.30 in the night, and i cant leave the room. Its isnt Valentine's Day thats making me cry. The rain is. But for the rain, it would probably have been just another practical day. But for the rain...

“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don't know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, comtempt, and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love...the total passion for the total height - you are unable of anything else.”

Something inside me—like a shell—which was protecting me till now, saving me from an unknown malaise, is beginning to crack. I can feel it inside my chest. It cracks, sometimes it melts, sometimes it wants to come out with a final push like a baby is born. People around me, i see, have it already broken in them and its not a defeat. Its a predestined failure to save a beauty that was born to die. It was meant to be broken, like a fruit is meant to be eaten when its ripe. I didnt even know such a covering existed—over your heart, over your soul, your innocence, your self. It breaks one by one. A million cracks slowly spreading over a block of ice.

Some are immune to it, those who were born that way or make themselves immune to its stranglehold. Others like me must find Knowledge a painful evolution.

I can hear it cracking inside me. Inside my womb, evolving to die, like an aborted foetus. Under my chest sometimes, tapping it from inside every hour, ready to burst out with a gasp. Sometimes like a woman sick with pregnancy i wish it'd just come out. And i know id be someone dead, someone changed, someone new.

From the suffocating warmth of the crowded metro, she walks with a vague sense of momentary purpose towards the escalators that perforce augment her as an inert object out onto the threshold of the whistling cold wind. The gust of wind that greets her threatens to send her hair into a disarray. She flips them aside with a jerk but they strike back with an equal and opposite force covering half of her face trying to block her vision. She takes her hands out of her jacket pockets and shoves them behind her ears where they lie confused like a child who doesn't know what he is being punished for. She folds her arms on her chest and grips herself tightly, as if her body will drop lifeless if she were to let go. Like the metal ball in a pinball machine, her surroundings and her routine carry her mechanically, sometimes aggressively launching her aboard, at other times she just falls limp and is sucked down the vacuum into an abyss. She hears, sees, responds, as best as she can, but doesnt register the ambience around her. She is somewhere far off no matter where she is. The cold wind falls disappointedly on her insufficiently clad body. Unable to draw even a sympathetic shiver from her numb limbs, it coos away spiralling up rustling wry trees.

But she keeps rolling on, waiting for a push, a jerk that might send her shooting up like the metal ball under the glass surface of the arcade game of life, only to be dropped down again, and to be thrust back up again and drop again and up again...

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...

Its getting cold, isn’t it? I got up to get the Vaseline lip guard from my dressing table the other day, my lips were beginning to feel dry. It’s been ages. I always use those 80-something lotus lip balms - vanilla, cherry, chocolate flavoured ones. They are yummy! But they never remind me of my grandmother the way good ol’ Vaseline does. I had forgotten how she smelt. She smelled of old days,yes. Her eyes, ever-tearful, and buried in the hollow of her bony face. Her quivering voice. Her shaking hands. Her bag of stories, which opened into an abyss of past memories. Her grey, thin, shiny, slightly charged-up hair. Her religion, her Gods, her prayers, clasped in a plastic basket to her bosom and carried wherever she went.

Winters were particularly hard for her. She often fell and hurt herself no matter how careful you were with her. The cold accentuating the hurt and leaving a red-and-blue mark upon the body part which bore the toll. Her paper-thin crisp wrinkly skin -as if winter had spread over the season of her body too.

My mother had given her the Vaseline, for the two curved lines that formed her lips. She woke up at 4 in the morning, took a bath, and even before she sat for her morning prayers, she put oil in her hair, combed them vigourously, tied them up in a small bun, and rub the Vaseline on her lips. And whenever I went to her and bent low to allow her to kiss me, I would be filled with that smell of the old days interspersed with dry-skin therapy.

I stood there, in front of the mirror. I held the little white tube in my hands, and remembered her with a deep sense of guilt. It’s been two years since she left us and I couldn’t recall to mind immediately the last time I gave her a due thought.

My maternal grandma, however, smelled of ‘Charmis’ cream. Ah! Round, fat, pink bottle. Just like her. It always used to stand on the shelf by her bed. I can still picture it there, and her sitting cross-legged on the bed, attracting company from her children and grandchildren alike, like moths to a flame. She was our nucleus. And we hovered around her like electrons. She never cuddled you much; even so, her love was very palpable, her demeanour so warm, her motherhood so supple.

Cyrus, my dog, had his own unique doggy-smell. But I also remember him by the distinct pungent smell of Betadine which i used to apply to his injuries. Though it brings back memories of tough times, the last few years I spent with him….struggling to get him to be okay again. But even then, anything close to Betadine takes me away to the time when we were at least together. It’s like he just rushed past. (I miss you so much buddy!)

Chicken Sausages and Kebabs. Heh. They transport me back to my Nani’s place in Jammu. To those rare occasions when we had non-vegetarian food there. All of us talking, laughing, and of course quarreling. The soothing sound of nani’s voice, the creaking of those old doors as people kept flapping in and out of them, the hurried footsteps and the drawl of the helper Sanju Bhaiya’s voice as he served us food, the star-studded night sky visible from the verandah where we huddled in a group, the sound of nocturnal insects.....oh just the bliss of togetherness---all comes flying back to me everytime i smell chicken sausages or Kebabs frying on my kitchen stove.

People leave things behind. Mostly they leave an aura of their presence in their absence. It ceases you so profoundly sometimes, almost as if you have received a message from the Beyond. It awakens a dormant feeling lying neglected in the corner of your heart. And somewhere amidst the revelation and nostalgia, it begins to hurt. It takes you away from your present context, in a fraction of seconds, to an old and smudge-y memory, of a time that meant so much to you. The kind which makes you smile and cry simultaneously.

Sometimes when I am lost in my own world, preoccupied with the thousand bickerings in my mind, a breath of fresh air brings a familiar scent. I halt my steps and hold my thoughts and wait---take it all in, and try to rummage through the room of the subconscious, wondering, overwhelmed, who has come visiting this time...

जब जिंदा की मुठी में कैद
इक जीवन घुटने लगता है
हथेली की फटी चादर से
आस का अमृत रिसने लगता है

वजह की उंगली जिस पल
दिशाहीन होने लगती है
हाँ, उस पर भी तब
आशंका होने लगती है

जब तन की शक्ति , घीली घीली
आँखों में , सूखने लगती है
साहस के घुटने हिलते हैं तब
रीड की हड्डी झुकने लगती है

जब स्पर्श को बढता अनुरागी,
कंधे को शत्रु लगता है
मित्रों का निश्छल स्नेह भी तब
तरस सा लगने लगता है

बरसों मूक इक जीव्हा को शब्द
किस पल मिलें, कब कौन कहे ?
भरे हुए प्यालों से भाव
किस शन गिरें ,कब कौन कहे ?

एक चित्र सजा के रखा है
सबको दिखा के रखा है
उन सच्चे रंगों की गोअद में
क्या झूठ चुप्पे , कब कौन कहे ?

तारीफ उस पल शायर को भी
उपहास सी लगने लगती है
जब सोती महफ़िल के आँगन में
वह - वही खिलने लगती है

धुत्कार के आदि कानो पर
जब मीठे बोल बरसतें हैं
सूखें खेतों पर यूँ मानो
इक बाड़ सी आने लगती है

ना झूटी तारीफ ना सच्चा
प्यार सहा अब जाता है
करें भी तोह करें क्या ,कहिये
किया भला क्या जाता है !

I have a fairy by my side
Which says I must not sleep,
When once in pain I loudly cried
It said "You must not weep"
If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,
It says "You must not laugh"
When once I wished to drink some gin
It said "You must not quaff".

When once a meal I wished to taste
It said "You must not bite"
When to the wars I went in haste
It said "You must not fight".

"What may I do?" at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask".

Here is to all musicians everywhere…especially to a stranger I encountered in CP’s famous Rikhi Ram musical instruments shop who held me spell-bound while he blew negligently and silently in his flute, unperturbed by his noisy surroundings, unaware that his ‘hissing’ distracted the cacophony of the surroundings to a halt for a minute or two…and also to the old gaunt flutist you may encounter in Kamala Nagar who sells flutes crouched on the side of the road with a ‘lambi judaai' or the soundtrack of the Jackie Shroff's old movie 'Hero' to his lips.....and to Hariprasad Chaurasiya.


crumpled linen like milk stirring
so peaceful..in a stance, he looked
a feet on one knee, right hand on another
in hand a cylindrical wood

a spitting white kurta he wore
it exposed his dark brown frown
folded parallel of nature dark too
brown.....white....brown....

i came I saw, i didnt yet see
my tuning yet was due
awaiting the brown to play the brown
expectations i had but few

the window crammed with a painful street
...a frame of disharmony
a crippled beggarly voice afar
there resounded a plea for money

just round the corner, careless she sat
the sun slapped her state
little hands tucked at flat dry bare-chest
a curse there echoed at fate

just then the dark twins did part
he formed something of an 'O'
then fashioned a perfect embouchure
in the hollow he began to blow

out released from tiny holes
a spell of fairy-dust
it flew in the mellow steady breeze
and settled everywhere it must

dancing eyebrows and dancing fingers
danced the soul in his eyes
the last i checked i was awake
from what slumber did now i rise?

it carried me atop a cloud
that blew with the wind from his lips
in a trance i rocked forward and back
strange tyrant with a strange whip

the painful window sang still though
its own sad little song
what then had soothed my aching heart
the flute did not right the wrong

from my high place i looked at him
shut eyes, his fingers aced
his lips in a kiss with the aerophone
the melody still caressed my face

i looked about in my vicinity
on clouds sat not one but many
the beggar, the mother and her hungry child
it was an epiphany

the baby slept in his empty kitchen
from the music of the flute
the empty brazen cup of plea
its woes seemed shortly uproot

the Phoebus neither did let any
clouds over its merciless band
it shone brightly sweltering over
not charmed by the wooden wand

to the sweat and heat of the day
and to a doomed civilisation
he gave no ultimate relief, just
exploited the art of distraction

Sometimes it’s a sudden smile
The kind which smiles u and u don’t smile it
Catches hold of you and it wont leave
Try however hard until the moment goes by

Sometimes it’s a heavy load of chains
Tied at either sides
To the frail red pump of your life
Pulling it further asunder

It’s mostly like a prick from a rose
The softness of the petal apologising
To the crimson oozing from the tip of the finger
The rose shamelessly beautiful still...