Amber

In the enormity of lived experiences, there must exist unexplored, tempting timelines. Timelines where I don't have to do the things I do daily to stay bright, bright, bright. Places where my poetry isn't repetition, isn't a revulsion towards my current identities. I fear confronting myself through a medium as public as the poems I create. Somehow, that particular expression feels tainted, as if there exists a disparity between emotion, audience, erudition. For, I confess, my writing is necessarily to someone; it demands an audience, singular or otherwise. Maybe that's why I increasingly gravitate towards prose- it is easier to hide hurt amidst a jargon of ideas I tried so hard to combine. My mind is unsupportive- it moves on train tracks of numbing singularity: the same path traced over and over, tirelessly. But here, in this form, I throw together the four disparate tracks that the engine painstakingly chugs over, confident that in the search of meaning, they'll gain contexts and intersectionalities that I did not put there.

I love the word "over". Catastrophic and absolute and yet so, so repetitive. It builds and builds layers upon itself; a glorified pile up of the same things, tortured and maimed into new interpretations.

I remember beginning a poem- my one true "grand epic"- about women who saw people as colours, not humans. It was a struggle, for how could I convince the "viewer" to believe, to believe, that the colours and their connotations were never meant to be the expected, the probable, the predictable; they were meant to be subjective experiences for the one colouring people into compartments. For I'd caved in to presumptive tendencies myself. My character in the narrative, I had surmised, would be the only one that would always be yellow. Yellow's a good, happy thing to align myself with.

And in a perverse way, I still do align with its forms. The story is long forgotten and dismissed, the writer too assured in the symbolic significance given by popular perception to ever see it any other way. So she- so I- still rage glaringly yellow. Murky in spots, even; splattered by the desire to appropriate the lived experiences of others for myself. There are pieces that have torn napkins and photographs and tickets and bookmarks decoupaged onto them; they do a petty job at camouflaging the bilious, nauseating yellow underneath. I feel poetic, though, so maybe I'll call it a bright amber, instead.

Unboxing Her/You

They wouldn’t let me flaunt you 
In front of the neighbors,
You know. 
Like a childhood painting brimming
With unabashed love, 
You were far too intimate to exist
Within the ordered symmetry of our home.
They said they got you, despite everything,
Of course. 
You were an extension of me, however unfamiliar,
And
They said they did try to understand you, 
They were supposed to understand you, after all.
(Ignoring you is almost as good as understanding you, right?)
I did the best I could, too-
I schooled myself into creating 
What they thought my happiness ought to look like. 
But I couldn’t quite forget you, either.
You sifted through the curtains after midnight,
Drifted cheekily along with the broken strains of a distant melody.
You snuck into brush strokes,
Into words,
Into conversations, sometimes. 
This one time, I thought I’d bring you over
To the dinner table. 
They’d never really met you properly before, you
Were a discarded memory
Haphazardly shoved into my closet, after all.

It wasn’t your fault, 
It was never your fault.
I’m sure they would’ve tried to welcome you,
If they’d known how to,
But you were a bouquet of carnations
I’d picked somewhere, you didn’t quite belong;
They told me to put you away-
So I did.
I pretended you weren’t
The letters I unfolded and folded each night,
That you weren’t
The photographs that smiled back at me,
As I stood staring, for hours.

I got you a box of your own, you know:
Partly because I wanted
To be able to turn you into something manageable
That I could shove into forgotten corners;
And partly because I could not bear
To let them see
Portraits of you clinging
To everything
They thought I was. 

It’s been some years now,
They don’t really think about you these days,
They probably believe that you got lost
Along the way, somewhere,
In the last eighteen years. 
I think they’re too distant to really care. 
If I brought you up with them, 
They’d probably
Laugh you off to the past.
Maybe it is a good thing, after all, 
That they’re too far away to know 
About you, anymore. 
They cannot, they will not
See you,
See us,
Anyway. 

But that's okay. 

At least we get to dance along
To the songs you hum gracelessly, tunelessly.
We get to wake up to each other,
To laugh, to cry,
To talk across the dinner table,
To pull out each crumpled drawing
Of us holding hands
That we’d shoved and pushed
Into boxes
Labelled ‘her’/’you’.
I’m glad I can unbox you now, 
It must’ve been stifling in there.
Welcome home, it’s been lonely without you. 

(prompt response to a college competition)

To The Flowers On My Bedside Table

It's spring time-
Summer, if you go by
The unacknowledged absence 
Of lingering, lethargic transitions 
Within Delhi's calculated, metropolitan movements
(or, the temperature).
You're amidst a clutter-
Sturdy white legs and
A smooth turquoise surface 
That support the imprints 
Of my everyday existence. 
You're the only intruder there,
Flippantly flamboyant in your transient brilliance.
Sometimes I wonder whether you're really meant 
To be here; I move you to the window sill. 
A breath of fresh air
To your stagnant beauty. 
The heavy branches of morose city trees
Pity you. 
I bring you back to the corner-
You look on contemptuously 
As postcards, paper, poetry 
Slither onto the table
And consume the flickering importance
Of your dropping blossoms.

It's been a week since mother threw you out. 
Left to me, you'd still be spilling
Withered, withering glances
Upon the evidences of my daily routine. 
But it's better this way. 
I can imagine that you never crowded 
Over the coffee stains and loose-leafed books
That stayed behind. 
Now, if only I could pluck away
The delicate petals of you
That drifted into the unexplored crevices and folds
Of this room. 
Happy memories devoid 
Of the oppressive summer heat 
That they grew out of;
Impossible to dust away. 

An Open Letter To A Dream/Mirage

There’s an atmosphere of purpose, of multiplicity across Old Delhi. Stories interwoven into each other peek out through the cries of the shopkeepers and the snippets of conversations that float dreamily, incessantly across its bustling streets. Like the buildings of this place, people and emotions and memories pile over and over and over each other in a desperate run for acknowledgement. It’s funny how things gain a bland uniformity this way; the sheer juxtaposition of a multitude of eras, narratives, and people gives a singular face to this place.

If Old Delhi were a character, it’d constantly be running. Running from its past, running to its past, stumbling and pushing and forcing its way to an unknown destination. The quietude of your place always got on your nerves; you’d try to fill it constantly with sound, noise, laughter. Silence always felt too inert to you, as if it enveloped all activity like a lullaby, compelling everything to stop, breathe, and rest. I’d constantly reach out for your hand as your fingers would attempt to carry off beat after beat on the table, in a desperate attempt to remind you that stillness can also be compelling.

I never really got your need for movement back then. You’d walk out, walk in, pace about- circle, circle, just circle around- as if every motion added purpose to the placidity of our being. You liked to walk around the bazaar, grasping my hand tightly, as if fearing that the air of exchange would engulf us too. There was so much to give, so much to take; you worried that we’d end up bartering ourselves for a shiny, silver cage, “Thirty rupees only, miss.”

Leaving is a tune-less dance, so quick and unquestioning in its permanence. I never expected it to be so hurried, so very devoid of backward-glances and loosening grips. I cannot stand movement, I cannot get rhythm.

Last evening, I tried to stand still in the middle of a by-lane in the old city, in a desperate bid to conjure you back to life. In retrospect, I cannot fathom why I thought that would work- it screamed solitude in the midst of alluring animateness, and you would’ve hated that. Countless, countless hands brushed uncomfortably against mine, and a procession of insistent shoulders had to push, push, push, before I realized that there was no synchronicity left between you and my memory of you. You would never concede to becoming a memory colorized in tranquil waves of green, grey, blue.

Goodbye.

________.

Stilted growth/ A Fear of Endings

An accumulation of faltering beginnings-

A drawer full of inked pages,

Torn and ripped and torn again.

A methodical preservation

Of the scattered relics

Of a past hastily buried

Into the comforting haze

Of far too many interminable summers.

Could they ever last long enough?

An incomplete, gnawing desire

To revisit a memory no longer haunting

The place it belonged to.

Memories wiped clean so meticulously,

That they can barely be heard whispering over balconies

On odd, sunny days.

‘Can you hear me now?’

A name, a name, just a name.

Can plaster and paint and a series

Of indifferent portraits, faces blurring into one,

Cover the forgotten caresses of your fingerprints?

Can all these expansive catalogues

Of the things you loved,

Of the things you would’ve grown to love

Resurrect you?

Tattered sheets glued down

To form a jigsaw puzzle of ‘maybe’s.

A desperate inversion of conclusive endings,

And a need for self preservation

Through you.

Sticky Notes

You'd collect memories: fragile, fragrant ones
Ones that'd threaten to slip out, forgotten,
to mix in with the autumnal hues of nostalgia.
Ones that'd barely be tangible
Because of their normalcy, their perfect compactness
In the circularity of our routine.
You'd press them alongside the flowers I'd collect-
Press them among words of love,
Words we've grown to love.
We'd make our own compact bundles
Of little slips of happiness,
And tuck them foolishly between pages
Crumbling with overshared love.
Perhaps we've always believed in time travel.
We've tried to preserve its secrets meticulously 
Within the warmth of a well-worn book.
I hope someday, a little yellow splayed across the blue
Of an almost forgotten book
Reminds you of the snippets of conversations saved faithfully,
Of books and tea and harmonicas,
Of evenings dulling into darkness,
Of weed and clover, oranges and sardines,
And of love sought, and shared, unconditionally. 
For now, there will be flowers, always
And a series of unexplored memories
Waiting to be tucked in and treasured fondly.

Hiraeth

Home has always been transient, moving.
I've left snippets of it in car rides
Spent fighting over the right CD,
Over maps and locations 
And words and their meanings 
For us.
Perhaps home had planned for us to disagree all along.
Home is scattered across a crosshatching of mountain roads,
Swirling and whirling amidst the long-forgotten laughter
That still bubbles over unknown paths. 
Home has always been mobile, barely tangible.
It rides alongside a metallic blue cycle
Wobbling with imbalance and uncertainty
On a warm winter day.
It's tangled within the length of your hair,
Your long, lustrous hair;
Waiting to be smoothened into memory.
Home blossoms bright, bright yellow
Within a flower bed, now left untended. 
We've dug around home, in search of seashells, fossils,
In search of long-forgotten relics
Of memories we cannot revisit.
Home's a melodic cacophony
Of creaking black gates, paws padding across a terrace,
And a carefree tune hummed gracelessly. 
Home has always been more human than merely physical. 
It once took residence in a kitchen warmly glowing
With the scent of fresh chapattis and heated conversations.
It would pop unexpectedly in poorly lit restaurants
Buzzing with a thousand stories 
Waiting to be narrated
After a simple, 'How was your day?'
Home's scattered, home has moved around quite a lot,
But home comes back every Sunday 
To grin foolishly at the scratchy video quality 
Of a lifetime full of love.

Cold

“The hills, they’re glowing with warmth,”
You’d say
As you shivered
Underneath the hand-knit sweater
That Nani had compelled you to wear.
You’d be loath to admit
That the sharp winter breeze
Left you
Chilled.
“The sun burns earnestly this time of the year,”
You’d say
As you’d sit staring at the river,
Lost in the decaying memories
Of places you’d almost forgotten.
You’d come out of your musings
With songs that would speak
About the glory Of the rains.
“There’s something comforting about this weather,”
You’d say
As you nursed the scalding cup of tea
Thrust forcefully into your hand.
You’d sit in the balcony,
Prolonging the sunsets
With your delicately short
And sparse
Sips.
“Conversations are cozier in winters,”
You’d say As you gasped for breath
After a coughing bout.
You’d barely manage a croaky hello,
Yet we’d hear you the most,
Within your muffled coughs.
You’d feign good health
For the sake
Of words.
“It’s unnaturally cold for this time of the year,”
You said, that day
As Nani reluctantly turned the fan down
On a sultry, August evening.
That day, within the orchards
Of your private world
It snowed.
Icy snowflakes kissed
The cherry trees
That watched you grow old.
Soft gray clouds beckoned
With morbid comfort,
And silence,
Calming,
Reassuring,
Gnawing silence
Enveloped everything.

Homespun

The first time I thought of home,
Was when I turned the shower on.
The hot, cascading water
Was like a warm hug,
A reassurance,
A comforting hand,
In an unfamiliar place.
The second time I thought of home,
Was when I sipped coffee.
That uniquely mundane drink
Enveloped me
In its velvety warmth.
The third time I thought of home,
Was in the leathery cocoon
Of the passenger seat,
When the dulcet hums
Of cars whizzing by
Lulled me to sleep.
The fourth time I thought of home,
Was when the fondling droplets
Caressed me, as I walked
In the falling rain.
The fifth time I thought of home,
Was when the sultry breeze
Kissed me
Under the gaze
Of a dying sunset.
The sixth time I thought of home,
Was within the din of the metro crowd
When, with bag in hand
I stopped midway.
Cloaked within the humdrum,
My heart throbbed
With the beats
Of a dynamic city.
And, amidst the mellow voices
Of bustling lives,
I felt
Like I belonged, at last.

The Songs Of The Dead

The songs of the Dead
Are the hardest ones to hear,
They resonate with the voices
Of the unseen and the unsaid.
They carry the timbre of futures not lived,
They are heavy with the baritones
Of memories not made.
The songs of the Dead
Are sorrowful to hear,
They are burdened by secrets unknown
and are weighed by words left unspoken.
They are riddled with puzzles not unravelled
And with hopes never fulfilled.
The songs of the Dead
Are the cruellest ones to hear,
They are embittered by hard circumstances,
And are forced by events unforeseen,
They are played to the tunes of injustice,
And are written by the hands of the undeserving.
The songs of the Dead
Are melancholic to hear,
They reverberate with the aspirations
Of men no more.
They speak of lost love, of lost hearts,
Of lost lives.
The songs of the Dead
Hurt the most,
For they remind
Of what has been lost
Forevermore.

(Thoughts after the June 12, 2016 Orlando Shooting.)

Mock Not A Woman

Mock not the pride of a woman,
For she struggled hard to claim it.
Mock not her meekness,
For she always had the courage to stand with, and against, man.
Mock not the serenity of a woman,
For it bore her company, where men failed.
Mock not her confidence,
For it was the only commodity that she could afford.
Mock not a woman's weakness,
For her resilience lent her strength.
Mock not her determination,
For it gave her hope when times were bleak.
Mock not a woman's embellishments,
For she was seldom credited for her wit.
Mock not her emotions,
For words were never hers to speak.
Mock not a woman's silence,
For it was society that robbed her of speech.
Mock not her willingness to fight,
For equality was never hers for the bidding.

A Clockwork World

PART 1

The World once ran on clockwork,

Each human akin to a toy,

Which, when its key was wound,

Would begin its daily ploy.

Each day was perfection,

Each morning crowned by the same dewy glory,

Each night a starry calm,

With nary a long face, or a sad story.

Every life was the same,

The same routine,

There was the security of a life of repetition,

The safety of monotony.

The sun was just as bright each day,

as it was the day before.

The clouds merely repeated,

Their dull encounters from afore.

The people found comfort within it,

For they knew what was in store

Beforehand. After all,

Each day was merely

A mirror of yesterday,

And an image of tomorrow.

PART 2

Until one dawn,

Hours before the clockwork day,

A mischievous child,

Stole out, and away,

And pocketed the shiny little key,

That ordained the smooth functioning,

Of the puppet-like world.

The town awoke, to a certain missing something,

The sun was bright, ayy,

But it wasn’t quite as lustrous as the day before,

And the cloud, quite abnormal,

Darkened and murmured low grumbles and rumbles,

And everything was quite, quite awry.

The folk were clearly surprised,

Puzzled and bewildered and befuddled.

Never in a thousand years could the have surmised,

That their picture perfect land,

Could stumble, and teeter, and crumble.

There was panic, there was chaos,

Their was uncertainty amidst the worries and fumbles.

The kid, meanwhile, welcomed the change,

He skipped along to the brook nearby,

And while he whiled away the hours,

The golden key mumbled its farewell and goodbye,

And slipped into the bubbling stream,

Where by and by, it was searched for,

But never found, much to the people’s disappointment.

It had far to travel, to meet the golden shore.

PART 3

Months passed, yet the key was lost forever,

The world was upside down,

The weather, the day, the sun,

Unpredictable, And many a frown,

Dampened the world, those few months,

And many a conflicts,

Shattered hearts across.

Yet, one day the sun dawned bright,

Brighter than it had ever before,

Awe stuck the citizens, was their golden land,

To return again, so that they could relive,

The harmony from before?

However, there at least, they were met with disappointment,

For the sun shone, not on a bygone time,

But on the future that lay ahead. 

There was violence, perhaps, there was disquiet,

Yet there was a break from monotony,

From the repetition.

There was independence, freedom,

The lustrous glory of adventures,

A land of unpredictability.

And while, the men and women alike,

Mourned the loss of the security of the clockwork world,

They rejoiced

In the uncertainty, and the opportunity,

Of their reformed little world.

And so, once upon a time,

A naughty kid lost a golden key,

And reformed the world,

To a land of mystery.

The Window

The room was hers, hers to paint.
It was all for herself, each wall, each shelf,
Was hers, and hers alone.
She lit it with her own sunshine,
She stuffed it with her own joys.
It was a medley, but it was full of her, 
Of who she was.
Each smile was a trophy within it,
Each tear, a crack in its toughened walls.
The ceiling was a riot of colors,
Each hue a representation,
Of what lay within her heart.
The walls were embroidered
By the grubby prints of muddy hands,
With the mindless squiggles of an artistic hand.
They were the canvas
Of her vibrant memories.
She was satisfied within her room,
Within the littered floor of a childhood
Spent dreaming of the sun and the stars.
She was satisfied within her room,
Within the ornaments of her mind.
She was satisfied, until
Her eyes landed on the little ray of sunshine
That peeked through the curtains.
It unsettled her, it piqued her,
It made her wish to look afar.
It scared her, it intimidated her,
For she could not imagine
Pulling the curtains apart.
The outside was scary,
She was safer within her chambers.
Yet curiosity, curiosity beckoned her
Until, she found herself fingering
The hems of the smooth fabric
That separated her from what was on
The other side.
She pulled it back at last.
What lay behind, left her agape.
At first, it seemed but a mere reflection,
Of her own little haven full of fantasies,
Yet, the more she looked, the more she saw,
The little touches, the subtleties, that made it
Far, far more dearer to see.
The window showed her, not just
Yet another room,
But rather, yet another part of her.
She had found a room to share,
And a person, to share it with.

Not Just The Former President

In a time when all causes felt lost,
He was a beacon of inspiration.
A fire, a powerhouse, a man with a mission,
A man with a vision, a man of action.
He was a father to millions,
A dependable, reliable personality.
A workaholic, a role model, a man of research,
A man who'd always stick to his word.
Innovative and creative, he was the perfect leader,
Frail, yet bursting with energy,
He was a man of humility.
A man, who deserved immortality.

RIP APJ Abdul Kalam. You'll always be remembered.

Woolgathering

It's like we're running endlessly.
Moving across a loop, moving,
But getting nowhere.
Wondering out aloud, chit-chatting with our conscience,
Talking, yet not speaking, breathlessly.
Hearing but not listening,
Connected to reality, but oh so vaguely.
Chasing after thoughts, rambling
Through the meadows of our ideas,
Living in our own mind,
In a world of our own making.
Thinking, but not registering, endlessly
Moving, just moving,
On a path called nothing,
To a place called nowhere.
Perhaps, we're just woolgathering.