The Big Fight!

They sat mum for a minute on the cement platform adjoining the compound. He was being reprimanded for his wrong-doings. She kept her gaze, that didnt move from him. And she kept her frown.
"Why?" she asked. That pitch-less tone in the very same cold voice...thats the only thing he hated. Then why didnt he fear that before attempting what he attempted! She had no reason to contain her anger.

They always walked together. And he always told her everything. Sometimes preemptively and at other times immediately after. She trusted him to bits. And she trusted him to answer even now. He looked up at the shimmering rays of the sun that were blindling him. He closed his eyes, but refused to look down. Let the heat outside suck out the heat within! He breathed his longest, loudest breath.

Sweat can be a funny thing. It tickles your skin as it flows downwards, gently. But as new sweat-drops form and slide down, they follow the path of their predecessor. Same trajectories of life! Eventually they stop tickling, they begin to lose their claws, they begin to disappear. He lifted his hand and brushed off the first of the sweat drops from the back of his closed fist. Keep it tightly closed! Its not the right time to reveal the secret!

She couldnt wait though. She held his hand. "Why did you beat her up?" she screamed. Tears were now forming in her eyes, and they were waiting to flow down as swiftly as the blobs of sweat on his forehead.
"Mama," he spoke in fear and slowly released the fist open. "She stole your earrings from my bag!" He swallowed. "I stole them from yours," he admitted, "but I wouldve given it back once I am a big boy," he paused again, "big enough to not miss you!"

She picked up her earrings and wore them. She picked him up and walked. "I wont leave you at school when you're big enough, to not miss me! I'll keep you right next to me, every minute." She gave him a big, teddy bear hug. He cleaned his forehead with the sleave of her dress, gladly.

Sight!

I look down
at reflections
of the whole world above,
upside down
in blobs of
black off sunlight or
colourless ripples spreading themselves in water...

and I think
of how we see different things
at the same time
differently
- smiles
of joy sometimes, of sorrow,
frowns
of sarcasm, sometimes of mischief,
sighs
in relief, sometimes in disbelief
screams
from fright, sometimes from deep orgasmic seizures -
all possessing us
as we possess them in pride, sometimes in indifference...

and I conclude...
sight is that light ray darkened by life's blind spots!

Do you?

What're adjectives but smart sounding nouns ending with 'y'!

"Wintery mornings give a summery feel when sprinkled with gingery thoughts?" She sat there wondering how lives wouldve changed had English been such a simple code to crack. And how would he know? He'd never asked her out. He had never tried anything romantic with words. The only time he'd expressed anything was disbelief when someone asked them about "each other". She had had to sadly laugh it off as he wiped off his smile with serious doubts. Too many oxymorons in one line of a thought. That almost sounded profane! Sigh!

"Why not?" she asked. "Look, its quite impossible to construct what I said, the way I said it, in words other than the ones I used...right?" she justified. "And its important to say things, how ever you say things, you should SAY things."

"Hmmm" his droopy eyes opened lazily to look at hers. "If you insist!"

"I think thought and feel are lesser valued objects today. Too much focus on English grammar. Such a sad world." She was annoyed. "Yeah, I'm kinda annoyed" she confirmed aloud. He wasn't saying anything and that was testing her patience and wit. One year is a long-ish time frame. "Long-ish should be a word."

"What's gotten into you?" he frowned. "And in any case how's this conversation relevant to the mood of the day?" He stroked her cheeks with the back of his fingers. "The intended mood of today." He bent forward towards her.

No more silencing. She sat back. "I dono!" she sighed. 

"Single-hood - thats a thought-feel word - isnt it?" he winked.  

She was whining. Not aloud. "Think I'll go home now, not that you've entertained me ever, to stay back. But well, its not like you're my boyfriend, so let it be!"

He smiled, almost swallowing the laughter that he couldnt let out of himself. Just like words that saw themselves stuck in his diaphragm. Simple words, tough ones, heart wrenching ones, words like sounds that echoed his gut - all stuck - when she was around. Deep breathing helped, crackling his fingers helped, swallowing blobs of saliva helped. But they helped in silencing those incessantly pounding heartbeats. All the time!

He cleared his throat. "Miss tinkering thought," he whispered, "187 coffees...188th," he held his glass high. "we're dating right?"

She smiled a wink-ish smile. "Wintery mornings with strong-ish coffees," she wrote "and one confused right-ish line!" She closed her thought-book. 

Wisdom!

"I know,"
I thought,
as i've seen what they've all seen
before them in age;
and then i looked back at my sagacity
only to summarise
without euphemism -
"I aged".

Water Images...

are bubbly
like life images
that are gawky,
revealing sundry, tawdry manifestations
under shimmering feeble lights.

I looked into myself
and smiled at that
image,
shaken by the swiftness of the waterflow around it,
and it smiled back
at me, surrounded by the waterflows around my eyeballs.

"Embrace me," said she,
"You'll have nothing to wipe off, against you or me,
No screws, no shrews, no soups to be in,
Sit back, reflect what comes along, virtue or sin!"
I wiped myself clean
looked through blinding steam
took a breath, 'hmmm', the aroma from my stove,
"its not soup i'm in," I said, "its that thing called love!":)

Two worlds...

...I live in
in which i see same things
in different ways;
one eery, one sane,
one true, one fake,
thin lines of wet sand separating the two,
as I slip over from belief to its antonym,
back and forth
as if on an automatic see-saw
in an old garden.

Enough,
I think and fight hard,
to wake up, out of the miserable sleep
- wild goriness in broad daylight -
from nightmare to reality,
only to discover -
the former as real
and the latter, as a cold, harsh hallucination
called
life!

PS - Aaj peene de aur peene de, aaj peene de aur peene de,
Kal karenge, hisab, aye saaki...dhal gaya aaftaab aye saaqi! :)

Screen layers!

“Bom Bom Bom Bom!” she typed

“Hmmmm,” he thought. “Andaz apna apna?”

“Nahi,” she rejoiced. “Dil toh pagal hai!”

“La la la la la”

“Amitabh Bachchan wala?” he was excited. “Mere angane mey…woh gaana?”

“Nahi…tu tu hai wohi…lol”

“Hmmmm!” he smiled “:)”

There’s something about games played remotely. Yeah well, in ways more than one. One, they’re way too dependent on the single most powerful human emotion. Two, they’re elusive. Three, there’re no right answers. Four, they’re poor reminders once there is an irreparable, inevitable tiff. Five, they ignore the world outside of them.

Six, they’re unreal! Ha!

PS - Yeh kya baat hai aaj ki chandni mey!

Onlookers!

She waited at the parking lot, the standard rendezvous spot. It was a trying time for her at work. Lotsa stuff to grapple with – new people, new things, new connections and an aging physical self – that sucked time, energy, breath and more.

Dry breeze caressed her neck and climbed up like little ants uphill on the anthill. Nature does find a way of offering its condolences. Sunlight after an earthquake, rains after a deathly drought or even crazy lulls after mighty storms. She ignored signs of any temporary relief; her eyes drooped, heavy and strained. She looked up at the skies, her vision piercing stars and clouds and dark skies, in search of her god. I need you now! Are you really watching? She closed her eyes.

He came there just in time. Is it? He looked at his watch. How late can I be when its this late already? He was vexed too with different things as he frowned at the parking lot. There she is! She turned to him, moist eyes back after lightyears of journey. He forgot. He thought nothing. He watched.

“Let’s go?” he asked. “Come!” he reached out and held her hand.

She pulled it back and squealed, “Everyone’s watching!”

“Oops!” he smiled and held his ears “I’m sorry!”

PS - Yehi lagan rahi toh aye dil-e-jawaan...asar bhi ho rahega iss haseen pe!

Mayajaal!

Is that real,
the bunch of sweet nothings
freely exchanged?

Like a quick magic trick
it appears and disappears
before I know;
but they know,
they believe,
why reality is such a wonder-bird -

it gives you wings
it touches unknown winds
it sings a popular song,
covers up stealthy bygones
its cooks up a lucrative dish
from ‘hunts & kills’ of small fish

its not for no reason that they call it indispensable,
somewhere, that ‘real’ is really in-credible!

That ghost!

I watch the lights
bright eeriness
that unfolds
her.
She stands like a smoky figurine in its whiteness.

I look away
sight fixated
on the floor
that un-buries
her.
She grows into her full self like a brown creature with white teeth.

I twitch my brows
and gaze straight;
at the farthest wall
that un-carves
her.
She is the white sculpted curve staring into me.

I close my eyes,
wash my insides,
that fluid-ify
her.
She is the cast that embodies the petrified, closed-eyed, free flowing mystique!

One-Another!

A lil something that most things contain
in parts that seem
off
and on
or
on
and off;

growing ends
expansive peripheries
extending territories
moving around
myself
around things that are me
- for a long while -

on a dotted line
non linear
between the leap and the pause
the jump and the stop
somethings change
and somethings, wired, stay!

PS - Woh jo ruki si, chaah baaki hai!