You stay alive

In order to have pride you must not love
In order to love you must be willing to die
It is not even a final physical death
It is the kind of dying which involves humiliation
The kind that involves immense courage
The courage to die several times
The courage to be born again
The courage to cry alone
The courage to stop yourself from wrenching
your heart out of your ribs and feeding it to a hungry dog
The courage to care when your best friend tells you, " Don't bother! "
The courage to stay alive when life slaps you in the face
and tears roll down your face and all you want to do is die.
Under all circumstances you stay alive.

Tired

I'm so tired
Someone make this day unhappen before it happens
Hold my hands of wax
and turn them to wings

teach me how to swim
or turn me into a fish
and then into food
and then be fed
to a poor little girl I saw rummaging in the garbage can

the one I didn't invite to share with me
even though I ate alone
with money in my bag
and in my heart
good intentions

Rage

Torn papers
cut up fabrics
never to be stitched again

words written
to be erased or
never to be read


words spoken
spewing evil in privacy
of closed doors

non violent methods
can sometimes fail

Rage can hurt,
hit or kill
So drink a glass of cold water
and think again

May be there is a way

There's no forgetting

This is a poem written by Pablo Neruda. I love Neruda and if I had been alive during his time I would have been his greatest fan or stalker or whatever possible to know him better. I had a book of his poems which is now missing. I only have a print of this one poem now which is my favourite.
There have been many times when people have met me after long periods of time and asked me that question- Where have you been?
I have felt like handing over this poem to them so they would never ask me that again. So here's Pablo Neruda for you...

If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say ' things happen'
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in it's own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind , or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day?
Why the dark night swilling around in our mouths?
And why the dead?

Should you ask me where I come from, I must talk
with broken things
with fairly painful utensils,
with great beasts turned to dust as often as not
and my afflicted heart.

These are not memories that have passed each other
nor the yellowing pigeon in our forgetting;
these are tearful faces
and fingers down our throats
and whatever among leaves may fall to the ground:
the dark of a day gone by
grown fat on our grieving blood.

Here are violets, and here swallows,
all things we love and which inform
sweet messages seriatim
through which time passes and sweetness passes.

We don't get far, though, beyond these teeth:
Why waste time gnawing at the husks of silence?
I know not what to answer:
There are so many dead,
and so many dikes the red sun breached,
and so many heads battering hulls
and so many hands that have closed over kisses
and so many things that I want to forget.

Universe has much to do

Once I was stuck in an auto rickshaw at Jawaharnagar phatak in Goregaon. A friend was with me and I was slowly losing patience. I started cursing the traffic which was getting thicker and noisier by the minute. A while later I noticed that the bicycle walas and the scooter walas were going under the barricade and it added to my chagrin. I told my friend may be we should get out and do the same. He reminded me that in all probability we won't get an auto on the other side.
I got more and more pissed off as I couldn't wait to get to my favourite air conditioned shop in Andheri and buy myself nice clothes. It was unbearably hot. Finally I started cursing my friend for having taken that particular route.
Very calmly he told me,' May be the universe has something specific in mind for you. May be it needs time to prepare before you get to the shop, like the right dress, the right size might be on their way and need to get there before you do.'

I shut my mouth and sat quietly waiting for the trains to pass.

I'm reminded of a poem I wrote. It has nothing to do with what I just said... it's just got the word train in it too. Enjoy.

Delicate issue of distance

Time is like a train stuck in traffic

Let’s never sit together in any compartments
Let’s never study together for we’ll both fail

Words will contemplate your actions and vice versa
Only distance can bring you to me

Distance that I will create and consistently keep

God's protest in the rain

Smoking billowing chimneys in the rain
It rains amidst trees stuck…
Stuck between water tanks on top of buildings
Trucks , Vans, autorickshaws, trucks and
Smoking exhaust pipes in the rain

Blinding raging rain
Furious angered Gods in the clouds
Protesting against blood
Both ways
Blood

Let’s commit horror
And then talk about it
And then hate

Amidst God’s protest
We, of our race break blood in the rains
on the telly

Making perfect sense

The following lines are dedicated to Anshuman.

In days

that have a plethora of subjects

to be analysed

and made sense of

You and I

make perfect sense

Blink

I’m a glitter dispensing rubber ball
I’ve been found bouncing off people all the time
I’m a flicker of a smile
And a flame born of a million stars

I am the gurgling part of the fountain
I giggle in short gasps
I’m the white sauce they forget to serve you at times
I am the whole wheat bread my friends love so much

I’ve been seen buzzing around your hair
I was found singing without music in all available corridors
You can pass me by when I’m whizzing without wheels
I’m found everywhere by everyone

While I’m lost to all of them
I was discovered yesterday tickling a Sparrow
through the windows that are really walls
I could be in that book you haven’t bought yet

I could be found sitting in front of you
Blink

Tribute to Wednesday

Life is made up of several such wasted afternoons
Red suitcases underlined by Black umbrellas
A thrown away ruffle
and a potentially dangerous package

The thinking hat talks to the Newspaper
May be they’ll find a way to avoid the next world war
A trunk full of leftovers
Top it all with a few white thermocol blues

Radio sings on top of the TV
I’ll be waking up in half an hour
Don’t any of you be waiting up for me

rain and gay sex

It is that time of the year when I keep opening and closing the windows as and when the rain decides to stop or start again. The only time I find myself with a pocha in my hand wiping the floor three four times a day when the water seeps through the sliding windows of my room.
Somehow I can't get over this film I happened to watch the other day called bad education. The gay sex just threw me off and after a while I had to shut my eyes. I just couldn't watch it. Even before this I watched a collection of sexually explicit foriegn films ... some of them the gay kind. I get totally uncomfortable watching these images and it is amazing to me that it is real for so many people.
I know a few gay people and they are my friends, some of them very close to me and although their sexualty has never been an issue. I realise now having watched these films what the whole debate is all about. I feel I can somewhat understand the difficulty in trying to gain acceptance in the society especially ours which is essentially a very closed and conservative one. Also why heterosexual people can be homophobic. I think it's just because when you imagine gay sex or actually see it the sheer contrast between the two ways of life can shock you.
One the other hand a gay person could be watching a perfectly "normal" sex scene and shut their eyes.
Moral of the story, I will avoid watching gay sex :-)