the word is there
right there on the tip of my tongue
like a headache throbbing
its there
i need a pencil for this one
the light from this screen hurts my eyes
eyes that are tired from sameness
brightness
an everydayness
but today its there
like spice and sour tickling
like sweet spreading on my tongue
its there
tongues that are tired from talking
and waiting
tongues that exhaust the contours of the same words
but its there
a new one.
like the smell of fish just out of reach
like optimism learning to breath
this frankenstein is learning to pump blood
hot molten
like subcutanious hemoglobin
peeping out from a calloused cut.

wordless,
you made a hole
burrowed
just under my skin
there's a piece of you inside me now
bubbling under like, red, wet, hot, paint
is there a word to describe
it came on so suddenly
the distance of you.
Oh to secretly posses you.
to belong to your lights
your streets
your smells
your wonder
your horror
to posses you like the memory of you
i have no desire for poetry
I want to feel the the words crass and crisp on my tongue
burning fire brand tattoos
unmeasure these words
i want the meter of you.
splashing red molten light from your puddles
stains from the wet paint of you.
ear piercing shrill
is the nostalgia of you.

Come here love,
Come here so I can unbutton you
unbuckle you
sit here right beside me
so we can touch hands and toes

come here, come here love
So I can take the straps from your back
put your forehead on my shoulder
unburderened
unbuckled
unbuttoned you

Come here,come here love
It's a promise of cool finger tips
on your eye lids
warm hands on your back
sleep here
spine to supine spine

Come here come here love
say goodbye to the night
there'll be a smile to wake you
when morning comes

Come here, come here my love
i need you.

Its time this time
Its time to start moving
There is a caravan waiting and there’s a spot for us
Maybe it will be a little cramped
Maybe all our boxes will be left
But there is a place for you and me

Are you ready?
Out the door
They’r waiting for us
Don’t delay
It’s the seat by the window and its time to go

Don’t look back
Straight ahead
There the long line of carriage cars is waiting.
Shut the door behind you
Shut it out
Its time this time
Its time to start moving.

its just me today
im not expecting anyone
the bell's not ringing
in my house or in my head
the music's playing
and its just me today

Im not expecting anyone
and no ones expecting me
I'll play host to the rain
have her over for a drink
lazy afternoon just the rain and me

Curl up under the razaii
while she potters and whistles
knocking on my windows
little refracted rain drops
dropping in to say hello

Hello rain!
Today its just you and me.

I crave the dark confines of your mouth.
The silence that wont let me say anything
The unsaidness of everything I say
beautiful things disguised as fingers and hands and limbs and ears
forbidden continents of unknown spices
the smell of the rains and hills
Here I stand alone,
unseen poetry, unknown words
bursting in my head like peach blossoms in winter.

I lost you too quickly
in the tumultuous waves of my mind
I drifted to other thoughts
and left your screaming behind

there is a flash of red
they made a spectacle of you
your in the cirus ring
jumping hoops

I lost you too quickly
and you were gone
and each goosbump of fear
melted to skin

That was yesterday
and I was on to other things
there were things to do
and people to please

Today i tried to conjure you up again
but I lost you too quickly
and you were gone
you left a caricature of your pain
just enough to pontificate
just enough to say I understand
yes yes i see it
its awful
too true,
Just enough to say enough

but YOU, you were gone
you with your red scarf
you with your eyes closed in wincing pain
you with your white clenched clenched knuckels
your scream like a bubble of blood and bile.
the pick axe pinprick of your eyes
I lost you too quickly
and you were gone.

I dropped it in the letterbox today
it should reach you in a day or two
tell me if my love wont get to you
and maybe then a courier will have to do

Its a small envelope
you can keep it in your back pocket
or in that jacket that you like
it could lie by your keys on the mantelpiece
keep it close, dont lose it
Im sending you all my love.

Will you tell her

Will you tell her today please
that today i want to be silent
I want to look inside me
there is the dusting and laundry to do

Will you tell her that today I want to be silent
and still
not move
will you tell her her song is beautiful
but today i cant hear
today i have things to do inside me

I can hear your bangles climbing the stairs
dont ring the doorbell
there is no one home today
tomorrow maybe there will be things to give her
but today i must be alone

I want smudged rainy sunshine on a windshield with you
maybe tomorrow we can find it
Today i must be still
the oils need changing
the brakes need braking
the gears gearing
i need to be quiet today

The birds have made their nests
the little birds are coming
dont crowd me
I cannot hear tham yet
You will know when they come
but today, today I must be still.

Love Song to Self,

I like this you see
sitting here
legs up on a chair
black lap top
sort of dripping, kind of curly black hair

The day is full of promise
groggy clouds
argumentative sunshine
and here I am
sort of dripping, kind of curly black hair

Im waiting but I was here first
and I saw it rain while you slept
When you come you will see I cycled
through the smell of new rain happy enough to have wept
Sort of dripping kind of curly black hair

A new city will walk me home today
a new house will call me home
Maybe I'll make a new friend today
maybe someone else will cycle by and see
Sort of dripping kind of curly black hair

The brain fever bird knows monsoon is here
its just our little secret
Morse code and short stop. stop. telegraph rain drops
today its just me and my sort of dripping kind of curly black hair.

Yellow kurta, white salwar,
yellow chappals
and silver earning and nose rings and toe rings
Dripping drops kissing, sort of curly for the day, black hair.

No Pathos
no poignance
no existentialism
nope,this is just my love song to my no longer dripping, not so curly, black hair

JUST BE!: From Detention Drama to 'Dacoit' Declaration

JUST BE!: From Detention Drama to 'Dacoit' Declaration

Dilli, Delhi, Home

The thing is growing up in Delhi, I think I fell in love with her, with who she is and how much she is. If you were to look at my city as a room then you have to find the trap door which is apparent but hidden in the texture of the walls and once you find it the walls fall away to reveal the butterfly effect of the room you'v always seen but this time its different. There are vines and creepers hidden along the undersides of the bed and chipkalis and kaan ka keedas and white colored 'susu' keedas where they really dont deserve to be.

Delhi lets you be not one but a thousand things and will show you her secrets if only your willing to look.

Its a city that can morph itself to your every mood, my city in winter encloses in itself the purest and most genuine feeling of elation. The light changes and when we think of Delhi the weather has a lot to do with out nostalgia. Warm, sluggish whirring fan, summer afternoons in Delhi University and monsoon in a car peering out at the road.

The train pulling into New Delhi station, a flash of light before dark, light,flash dark, dark, dark, dark and then the all too muchness of light. secret writing on the stones of a forgotten monument, secret chaste walks in Lohdi gardens when all you want is the audacity of the local leach to jump your companion, who if he or she is sensible is eating lemon tarts from the IIC.

Weeping at the sight of the purana kila all lit up like a bride who will never get married. Talking Bhartnaytam and other constructive activities or just general pretentious posturing with knees touching under a dirty table serving up momos or Kathi kababs.

The license to be pretentious and then be a jaat. to be pish posh and a dehati, to love and like and might I add hate with abandon.

You dont have to like Delhi to love her. Delhi is not 'nice' and she doesn't make it easy but its wonderful to be in love with her because sometime you cant tell if she is walking to you or away from you.

A biblical question

Adam of the fame of Eve and paradise must have been white to have been tempted by an apple. I mean if you must be seduced by a fruit shouldn't it be the mango? Ripe with juice flowing down your chin when you bite into it. The sour tickling the tip and the sweet flooding the countours of your tongue. I would settle even for a watermelon but men with watermelons in their throats would be difficult to digest. So mangoes it must be then, the ones where you tear of the top with your teeth and squeeze the flesh into your open, delirious with anticipation mouth. Paradise should have been tropical and Adam, chocolate with long hair.

Compassion and self pity hold one hand and slap each other with the other. Like conjoined twins unable to escape the truth of a shared kidney and an all too small heart but riding the nauseating waves of the world wide web in search of the elusive surgery that will finally allow them to get dining chairs opposite from each other.

It is incredibly easy to give in to both because ultimatly each is an excuse to feel the same thing. Compassion lets you feel love and feel good about it and self pity makes you feel like splitting your head open but generally over the love and loss of something.

Morning

It happens that sometimes the distance inside needs the tender sorrow of words to bind silence into long unbroken stems that can be cracked and whipped and ultimately burnt. Cinder, in a tinderbox of unexplained inexplicableness.
The spirit of destruction must find it sacrifice before it sighs contently and hibernates awaiting the next time nostrils flutter with the scent of a little blood.
Maybe drama is just a mere tool for those of us with lesser inspirations and greater desires to play central characters in irrelevant comedies and life’s little histories unfold and unfurl. Wrapping you in the gentle warmth of happy days sleeping as the morning unwraps itself with closed curtains. The fan the rhythmic unsilence of our sleep
It happens sometimes that mornings come with telegrams of starts and stops awaiting awaiting the next time that we may question the glory of the morning to reach out past the closed curtains in beams of light that only penetrate our sleeping eyes but not the cool underneath of sleeping sheets wrapped around our as yet unwoken warm sleeping bodies.
Sometimes there are days with anticipation we walk out of our separate sleeps with anticipation nudging us or holding our collars to slow down, and sometimes it’s hard to tell which which is which.
So we wait.

TIS 2

Inspite of ourselves we weep
Loneliness is desperate deceit
Left upon untrammeled beds
Flowers rot and turn to weed
Oh this aloneness when I am surrounded by this muck at my feet
The music plays somewhere near my hip
We weep we weep
There is deceit in me
Let these smiling eyes turn unreal
It is surreal to see you smiling back at me
I have my hell to raise
Go away
In spite of me I will push you away
Teeth tangled in the webs of lead
Oh are those my feet
Shall we be careful to tread upon your well-tended mackerel
Or shall be upon our way
For this is deceit
Your smile is a lie
I wanto hate
Go away
It not you I write this for
Then why do I wait for rain
Pretentious posturing
I am fake
Go away
This desperate alones
This is my hell to raise.
Shall I spell check this
Or shall we just pretend
We are good at that you and I
Or is it just me
Let us pretend then our pretensions are real
Confuse me so
Maybe the truth may not be
Oh language language unable, disabled to explain
Crippled words, dripping and soiled do you even care
Do I care that you care
Shall I pretend you don’t.
Oh but desperate deceit I do
I do, I do, and I do
Do I care or do I pretend?
Life’s unending conversation with itself
Why why
Are you a part of it
Or maybe your not
Maybe it’s just them
Round and round the merry go round
And up a hill they went
Listen to your pathetic speech
Aloneness is desperate deceit.

Spell bound, spell binding,
turn around why wont you?
If not for you
fuck you
why does this sound the way it does.
In short vinyl steps,
bind me down
oh take me,
take me in
who is it that said something about shelter from the storm


come in she said I'll give you shelter from the storm
insiduous, deciduous mystery men
take these shaking hands in your and wrench them free
these forests are muddy now,
their scent has turned the stone to rot.
Squelch went the wounded soldiers
in bloody hand grenade rivers.
Its my figer floating by the side.
or maybe its just my teeth.
Alone, macabre dreams turn unreality to fantasy.
Why do i smile as i write this?
What was that line?
In circles we bite down our bits.
Its the horses mouth my bleeding hand
enter at your own risk
beware of dog
said the horses mouth
cantering upon broken stone.
Mindless hands and tasteless tongues
wrap their sinewy muscle around me.
Come in she said I'll give you shelter from the storm.
I can feel my hand shiver.
Shiver shiver not shaken yet.

Indrani and I wrote this

RED.

She is red. only. He is obsessed with red. She dances. because dancers are red..she dances bharathanatyam. with so much vigour and so muchness. as if her entire being is in the dancing. she is red because she has to be red. she has to. Its hard to imagine somebody like her not to be red. She is Vijayanka.

He is obsessed with red. he isn't red. because he doesn’t feel anything. nothing surprises him. he deals with life as if it's routine. there is nothing new. he has to pretend to be loving, caring, angry, to want. because he doesn’t really want to do all those things. that's why he is obsessed with red. He wants to be passionate. he is constantly aware of himself. aware of where he is. He can never get lost. he knows where each road leads to. but he doesn't know he is obsessed with red. He is Dr. Pandey.

It was at a party of partyness make-up, lip stick. tinkling of glasses. White. laughter in a room full of husbands, wives and parents. Men and women. everything is white. Except the balcony which is black.

So quietly without being noticed he walks outside to the balcony and lights up a cigarette and throws the match stick. That’s when he notices her. She is dancing. teaching dance to a somewhat twenty-ish boy. Showing him a dance pose. And then she breaks into the dance.

He is mesmerized. By the vigour and the lost-in-the-danceness of the woman. And there is so much now in her dance as opposed to his yesterdayness and tommorowness.

He stands there watching her. Only her. Only her movement. The fire. The green saree. Oblivious of the presence of the student. That’s the first time he sees Red.

She finishes her class. The student leaves. He stands there till the light goes off and she goes in.

Dr. Pandey wakes up everyday at the same time that he woke up yesterday. His slippers are exactly so. He brushes his teeth for 2 min and three seconds. and his paper reading follows the same ritual. The sports pages are always left for the evening 6 o'clock drink.

9:00 am. he in his not so big and not so small car traveling to his not so big and not so small clinic in the not so big and not so small residential locality of Sheikh Sarai. The Hauze Khas red light is red again. No matter how much Dr. Pandey calculates he never misses the the Hauze Khas red light. RED. He lit a cigarette and flicked the match out the window and thought briefly of the woman he had seen the night before. Dance teacher. Red

She wakes up at 7 or not at 7. every day is a day unlike yesterday. drinks coffee sometimes. sometimes she doesn't. sometimes she leaves and sometimes she doesnt. but always always there is the dance. The dance thats never done. Her dance is red hot fire because of her Unfinishedness,her no routineness. Only the mundane can be finished. Vijayanka never finished anything. she left behind her a string of unfinishednessess. There was a whole stack of charcoal sketches lying in her cupboard. Black and white. Ranjit was unfinished as well, as he still sat waiting for her to decide or not. Book marks marked the halfway and three fourth points in the books that littered her house. she read but never the whole book. Vijayanka was the girl of unfinished business. But dance dance was new everyday. Dance could never finish so there was never any need to try. Dance didn't have an end that Vijayanka could run away from. With dance Vijayanka was neither beginning nor ending neither finished or unfinished, with dance she was.

She walked out onto the balcony and saw the matchstick that had sailed onto her balcony the evening before. She remembered looking up at a face peering down at her. The face was all blackness and awayness against the whiteness of Verma's party.

The light was no longer red and Dr. Pandey drove past the florist and then stopped at pan shop at the corner before his clinic. A man spat out his red pan peak just as Dr. Pandey opened the door and got out of the car.RED. He skirted the pavement and walked past the dripping remains of the mans paan. The pawari already had Dr. Pandey's 4 classic ultra-milds layed out in front of him.

She woke up.

He walked into his clinic and got a call. Hysterics. Again hysterics why is it that mothers feel the need to tell the whole colony about their child's not so stable stool. All attempts to pacify were fruitless in the face of such volume. He agreed to go over and take a look at little Sanket. He couldnt believe he was at going to travel half way across town again, he had already done it the night before and was not looking forward to the drive, there were too many red lights.

He walks past the big kirane ke dukan with the big sacks of chillis and spices in the front.RED. Unhyginic he thinks as he walks up the narrow lane that leads to the house. He would not have found parking if he had driven up. Reflected in the mirrors of a mirror shop. He catches a glimpse of her eyes. And her hand. as she grabs a fist full of chillies. red. she has lovely long surgeon fingers, with the chillis blood red in her hand.RED.He walks past the mirror shop and into the courtyard.

Mrs Khandelwal was still weeping and wailing when he entered. He conducted his routine check, patted the stunned infant and then gave her a placebo.

She switches of the glarey whitness of the television nothing hold her attention for more than a minuet. He settles down with his 6:00 'o'clock drink and the unread sports pages. She puts on her payal.

Dr. Pandey was getting on in life. He was a man of reasonable means and in his chalked out, planned to the last detail life he realised that it was time to get married. So he puts and add in the paper. It was a simple add not one of the biggest but nothing that some one reading the classified section could miss.

Ranjit called and then Ranjit called again. Ranjit was always the one to call. Vijayanka wasnt sure. She never was with these things but when Ranjit asked her all she said was no. He asked her why and she said because there is something else, look in the paper, the supplements.

Dr. Pandey had had his add answered, she seemed lovely. He went to see her perform on Tuesday evening at the habitat and then they decided to meet at Lodhi Gardens on Saturday.

He walked into Lodhi gardens past the stone sentinals up the winding path to one of the tombs. He saw her sitting there. Green and red sindhuri mango in her hand. Sitting under the mango tree. As Vijayanka bit into the fleshy fleshyness of the mango she looked up at Dr. Pandey.

He saw Radhika sitting on the steps of the tomb. He hurridly walked past the attractive woman in the red cotton sari. She seemed familiar perhaps he had seen her somewhere. He walked past the red.

"Tis"

Inspite of ourselves we weep
Loneliness is desperate deceit
Left upon untrammeled beds
Flowers rot and turn to weed
Oh this aloneness when I am surrounded by this muck at my feet
The music plays somewhere near my hip
We weep we weep
There is deceit in me
Let these smiling eyes turn unreal
It is surreal to see you smiling back at me
I have my hell to raise
Go away
In spite of me I will push you away
Teeth tangled in webs of lead
Oh are those my feet
Shall we be careful to tread upon your well-tended mackerel
Or shall be upon our way
For this is deceit
Your smile is a lie
I wanto hate
Go away
It not you I write this for
Then why do I wait for rain
Pretentious posturing
I am fake
Go away
This desperate alones
This is my hell to raise.
Shall I spell check this
Or shall we just pretend
We are good at that you and I
Or is it just me
Let us pretend then our pretensions are real
Confuse me so
Maybe the truth may not be
Oh language language unable, disabled to explain
Crippled words, dripping and soiled do you even care
Do I care that you care
Shall I pretend you don’t.
Oh but desperate deceit I do
I do, I do, and I do
Do I care or do I pretend?
Life’s unending conversation with itself
Why why
Are you a part of it
Or maybe your not
Maybe it’s just them
Round and round the merry go round
And up a hill they went
Listen to your pathetic speech
Aloneness is desperate deceit.

Deepak Grover was an accountant he was a man of mild tastes. His pastel pink shirt was neatly starched and ironed everyday. Pants creased just right, glasses not the latest in high fashion but practical anyway. Deepak was a mild sort of man.

Deepak lived his life in short, organised, pre-defined tasks. He woke up each morning to the same routine. 32 strokes with the tooth brush, one minuet and fifty nine seconds. His shoes just a step away from his bed. his bath an exact seven and a half minuets. His hairbrush moved 4 times to the left and then 4 times to the right. Deepak was a particular sort of man.

Deepak reached Goregaon train station everyday at 9min past nine on the dot. He bought his news paper found a bench and crossed his legs. For the last five years Deepak and his constant companions on the slow train to church gate had developed an unsaid comradry. unsaid because Deepak didnt think it task worthy to actually make conversation. Deepak was a man of few words numbers dont talk you see.

As is to be expected then from a character like this in a story like this a morning would come that would shake Deepak's world. This morning came on the 12th of May 2005.

Deepak sat down. He always sat coming and going. Before he sat though he would take out his hankerchief and pat the seat. Deepak wasnt eccentric he was just clean. This morning though change would come sealed in a little white envelope under his seat, return sender marked to a Mumbaii address. As is to be expected of characters like this in stories like this Deepak did something entirely out of character. Deepak read the letter. he forgot to finish the sports pages he read the letter.

"If you think you can just walk away without ever knowing what you left behind you are wrong. You have to know what you have left me with. Now that you have left i will not let you go. I will hurt myself to hurt you. I will make guilt claw you until you cant go on. This trail of blood that will follow you where ever you may go. I will not be your ornament to love and lose I have bought the tickets on this journey with my tears and i will not waste them so buckle up baby this is going to be a ride"

that smudge in the corner was that a tear that fell while she was writing the letter? She? Who wrote this letter? Deepak looked around at the bored calm faces around him and wondered whos heart was beating with such hate. Who wrote that letter?

Deepak's world changed with that letter. He got off the train but didnt go to work. He found himself walking down a dirt path, walking to the home of the unknown return sender. it was a narrow narrow street in an unfamiliar part of town. There was a smell in the air. the squelch squelch of each step made Deepak uncomfortable. He reached an apartment block. a series of little boxs falling off their hinges indicated the names of the residents of the building. So it was a she, Sonali. She was called Sonali. Deepak took out the letter and wrote on the envelope. " I'm sorry i opened this letter I found it on the train this morning".

The next morning started with only 29 strokes of the tooth brush and only three of the hairbrush. Deepak was at the station earlier today and he wasnt sitting. He bought the newspaper but he wasnt reading. Deepak looked around at the faces around him. Who was Sonali?

And then he saw her standing by the train. He had seen her before. She was new only a month old on the train. He remembered noticing her before he like the red sari that she wore . Her hair was dishevelled and she wore an exhausted, blank look on her face.

She saw a little man in a pink shirt looking at her. She was so sick of these looks. She glared back at him.

And then he was standing by her " I'm sorry i didnt mean to". That was the first time that any one had actually apologised to her " It's ok" she said. Deepak felt a little more confidant "how did you know it was me" he asked her hesitantly. " I saw you looking at me".

Deepak wanted to ask her so many questions but there was the train and push shove they were both on the train. Deepak wasnt sitting he was standing and so was she. So they talked and as with stories like this and characters like Deepak they were soon spending a lot of time standing together on the train.

He took her to a lot of lunches but never dinner. He never met her after the 5:30 train back. Deepak felt blessed he felt blessed that he had found some one so special so much by chance. he felt like they were meant to be together considering that there was never even a need to introduce themselves to each other, they already knew. Deepak thanked god for that letter. He loved Sonali.

He finally decided one day to surprise her. He went back to that dirty alley. The squelch was no longer discomforting he was walking to his sonali.

He walked about that dingy staircase and down a dingier corridor. He walked to room number 4B and rung the bell. A woman in a grotesque red lehnga choli opened the door. Deepak was taken aback, she had said she lived alone. He asked the betal nut chewing woman if Sonali was home. A gruff voice eminated from the interiors of a monstrous bosam. "Sonali is not in here you wanto try new girl?".

Suddenly it was all clear to him why she didnt let him see her at night. So this is what she was a prostitute. Nausea made Deepak run.

Deepak ran out the dingy corridor down the dingy staircase and onto the sqeulchy dirty street. Sonali was Dead to him. Deepak was at the station all night. The night transforming everything into a dingy seediness.

Deepak didnt have the strength to move. Her saw her the next morning walk into the station walk to the point where they both met and wait for him. He wanted to ask her why but he didnt he turned back and never took that slow train to churchgate again.

Shazia took that train every day and everyday she waited for him at the same spot where they met but he never came back. Shazia soon moved out of the hostel in Goregaon where no visitors were allowed after 6:30 and moved to a nice new house in Andheri. She often wondered about the little man in a pink shirt who called her Soni and never told her his real name.

PANTS

What is with cross pockets? I cant believe that people prefer walking around with Mickey Mouse's ears coming out of their hips. Why cant they just make normal pockets? Oh ya i forget that they do except then there are 60 million pockets stapeled to the pant leg as well. And who heard of cargos thats taper. And the pants that look kind of normal on the rack can generally fit a family of elephants in the crotch. who are these pants being made for? And finally when you do find a pair of pants that kind of looks nice you realise to your dismay that they have hello kitty bursting out of the butt. I finally bought pants that make me look like Jitendar in a porn flick because they are White and TRANSPARENT.