Butterflies...

Something like a cluster of bubbles
rumbling along the perimeter of my stomach
try taking me on in huddles
only to test their luck...

My heart thumps a little more than normal
not used to this unsettling surrounding
and gives out a tamed chortle
amid emotions compounding...

I let my
thoughts gather,
breath unwind,
eyes blink in blank gazes,
fingers shiver,

And I let those butterflies be...
grow free
with new esprit
I let them be part of me...

Sneeze!

Struggling thoughts
wiped off their flow,
swarmed
together
and came as a coup,
unattended,
untended

and
unintended,
I sat guilty
- as I sit before you today
long before I made you a promise
to be regular, at least irregularly regular -

spilling it over
with
this
SNEEZE! :)

PS - Feels good to sneeze with a running nose! Aaakchooooo! (Excuse Me!)

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!

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!

The Temple Bell!

Up some twenty steps,
a humble pause, I take,
and there,
before the centripetal force,

O bell, you dawn,

standing like a robust curvature,
secreting within you millions and millions of chords -

ailing patients' near-n-dear ones,
cupid-struck-lost-eyed dejects,
strong-willed-meditators,
the meek-surenderrers,
thieves-who-share, theives-who-confess,
the happy celebrators,
the frustrated rejects,
the aimless for the sheer experience of being there,
conformists as part of their routine,
rebels out of contempt,
dreamers with serious hope;

misters, sirs, bosses, mesdames, mistresses, nobodys and un-namables -

you hear them all alike, take their sounds, wrap them around you and beat yourself to a homogeneous dong...dongs...millions of dongs...swallowing each individual song...one by one...

we hang in there too, just like you do!

Dilli ki sardi! :)

Its almost been a decade since I last experienced the Delhi winters. Back then, it was more about school and sweaters/blazers and waking up early to a hot water bath. Now, its a lil more than that-

its about
life's smoke and bubbles as you breathe in and out,
its about
cold air brushing past your naked face leaving a frozen smile
its about
taking those tiny steps faster so that friction can help warm your feet
its about
chai and steam at the throat of inverted lungs, beside throbbing ventricles
its about
cough and cold, that you know wont harm you
its about
Oakwood's grass that entices you into walking barefoot, bare toes clenching one another like birds from just-hatched-eggs

its about
you & I and I & I
savouring those streaks of warm sunlight

and its about
you, in whom I see a new you
thats now, almost, me...:)

PS - There's something about the Delhi winters just like there's something about Bombay rains that touches me the same way that Bangalore does! :)

The microcosm of me!

It takes just a tiny droplet of dew -
sitting tight on a single healthy leaf,
like soul consumed by undying resolve,
absorbing every ounce of white gleam

before releasing the spectacular visual of
colour
vibrance
energy
purity
sincerity

- to teach us the colours of life.

I smile and sigh as I say -
its always the small things...always...
its always the small things that contain...sustain...my world...our world!

PS - Why am I happy today...still trying to figure out! :)

Refreshed!

I return from known terrain
with a fresh perspective
and
cry as a newcomer,
breathe afresh sans the sleep,
sulk in pain, this time more playfully,
soak in the same moist dreams which have transformed from the saline to more dew-like,

smile at myself,
scream at myself,
groan at my own tantrums...

For in this known terrain
All I know is that
Nothing really is Permanent!