Merci beaucoup

Feet demurring to budge, heart supplicating for respite

Eyes hankering to slam, soul yearning to be alone

What time of day is it? What moment of life?

Bumping into lily water lakes in pallid desert

Tepid restituting sunshine in quivery winters

Kindness from obdurate, reticent hills

Affection from stone idols in the temple

Alchemist hands buttressing rocky boat

Gifting education to the blooming buds

Wishing star guiding at every step

Kings and Queens revering teeny Clown

Restoring lost faith to the bruised soul

Replenishing happiness to the riven spirit

Experiencing humanity far and wide

What deeds deserved such tenderness?

What time of day is it? What moment of life!

Merci Beaucoup....

The Railway Platform

Sitting on the cold, rusted blackish-brown iron bench. Clean hands resting on the side arms. The unbearable foul smell of sweat stinking from the passersby. Gyrating noise of the churning fans from the aluminum ceiling. The dusty winds blowing harshly across the cheeks hurting the nose and eyes. The head- ripping noise of the approaching train halting with a big jerk almost shaking the place like a mild tremor. People around getting up and running towards the train, struggling to get a place in the bogies. Others pushing them from inside to move out to the platform. Very few getting in and even less moving out. The shouts from a nearby Chhotu calling all for his Special cutting chai, the crying of Guddu in the arms of his mother asking for a Spider Man. Mickey and Bunty running around with their sarkari father chasing them. Old, weak Sharmaji with his even weaker wife struggling to climb the stairs of the overhead bridge. A Laxmi begging with Kalu in her arms and a two year old Kuber holding her tattered saree. Vicky, Adarsh and Tarun, teenagers on a magazine stall trying to steal a glimpse of “The Sutra”. Reena, Aisha, Kiran and Jyoti, a bunch of college girls on a trip giggling at the “Studs” showing off their newly acquired adulthood. The Shri Shri 1008 in impeccable saffron,  upholding the sanctity of humanity slyly checking the “Firang” Rebecca and Catherine. Not so straight  Neta ji  in white crisp spotless Khadi kurta with folded hands charming the voters from the door. The potters Ganpati and Neel, negotiating with Sheela and Sharda, Aunties for another 20 bucks. The thirteen something Reena feeling coy looking at “The Baby Doll” poster on the side walls by mistake. The naughty Nattu impishly smiling at understanding the lyrics of “The Kunwari Ladki” song being played in a Samosa-Pakora shop. Some Amir Chand sweeping the floor and spilling the leaves even more. Ram and Yudhishtar bellowing circles of smoke secretly behind the shed. Sita and Draupadi busy applying layers of pancake in the washroom. The train departs and another approaches.

Sitting on the warm, rusted grayish iron bench with the not-so-clean hands now not resting on the side arms. The smell becoming even more obnoxious. Me, anxious, lonely still there, waiting for some more adventure from another Kanika, Sanya, Rithik or Sid or even Life as Life and people never fail to entertain…!

The Ides of March

The gardens all blooming with roses, pansies, marigold of red, pink , purple and yellow, sweet smell of spring in the air, lightness of bright sunshine in the heart. March, the month associated with the advent of spring, an end to the chilling heartless cold and the beginning of the welcoming soothing summers. But why is it that March has never been kind to her? The worst lessons of life always taught during the month. Month is her creator, but for how long does she have to pay that debt?

Only to be called fair and just, you give her choices that are best not given. You force her into saying either yes or no, fully aware that no question can be answered in just either of the two. She knows you are tough, tougher than the rest. And this is exactly what she had waited all her life for, A Hercules, a Phoenix…. If you were not toughest you were not worth the pain. Minuscule gusts of wind could not even ruffle her tresses. She needed a storm to move her indomitable spirit.

Don’t take her as a challenge. You don’t need to defeat her. She is already mutilated, bruised, wounded and vanquished. A speck of dry lifeless sand that was blown towards you by the truant winds. She was thrown in your eyes without her consent. And now you stand there rubbing your eyes sorely to get rid of her forgetting that this will only aggravate your pain. She belongs to the comatose desert and it is where she will recoil herself now. If ever again the winds play a brat and fling her at you, she will make sure that she does not rise above your feet because that is where she longs to be. If she hears about you she will close her ears. If you happen to pass by, she will close her eyes. If you come in her dreams, she will wake up…

The noisy thunder storm woke her up this morning only to make her realize that she had been weeping. Weeping in her sleep? And was the sky weeping with her too? It was raining heavily outside as if the forces had aligned with her in her moment of agony. If the decision was right then why is no one happy? Neither she nor you nor the Skies seem to be at peace? Why so much turbulence?

Oh March, dear March, stomp ahead to the beautiful April waiting with a new world, a new adventure and a new you… Be kind to your heart and gentle to your soul. For my sake, this last one time.

Pocket full of sunshine

Pellets tossed in bleak frigid cave

Dithering and doubting their virtue

Ruthless gust cracking bruise

Brutal walls whipping scars

With snub of petite sunlight

Dazzle like diamonds in velvet

Obscurity transposing into light

Cave transcending into vaulted sky

Gullible Sun stands shimmering alone

Sophist, doer, mover, charmer

Filling sobbing empty pockets

Pockets full of warm sunshine

Been Walking

Been walking for too long

Tripping, jumping, sprinting

Tiny beads of warm sweat glistening

On forehead, cheeks, nose and chin

Dripping languidly towards the nape

Think been walking for too long

Sometimes cool breeze blowing

Charcoal, spurned, plangent tress

Sometimes hot blazing sun

Blinding petite cocooned eyes

But the spirit never floundered

Think been walking for too long

Reposing under the copious Pipal tree

Its placid umbra renewing sinews

Beholding the jostling leaves I wonder

Who is lonelier of the divergent two?

Simpleton I or the stupendous you?

Think been walking for too long 

 Instant connect with all your leaves

Many travellers recoup under you

Content to be just one of them

Though you question if it will ever

I know, you know it will forever

Knowing you for umpteen years

Will know you for thousand more

Think been walking for too long

Too long….

Conversations-7

“Whatever we seek usually does not come in the form we expect. That is how the stage of life is animated. Difficult to even remotely gauge how one person can control another, peace, thoughts, breath, ones very existence. For how long can one keep ignoring the cry rasping from some remote nook of the heart? The more one ignores the louder it gets. The plate always felt empty but to be fed with so much fill of love that one doesn't know what to do with it, that’s the deficiency of a mortal.”

“Though depriving myself of you too much, only fear is this deprivation may crumble me down one day, the day I see you in person, alone, all alone.”

“I don’t care what future holds, how events eventually get unfolded. I am happy to be with you, with the feeling of being close to you, with the feeling of being you, just you. Nothing else matters…”

For once the Earth simpered with the flowers.

If You Aren't Hers

If you aren't hers, why does she breathe you?

Quaffing in drop by drop,

If you aren't hers, why does she hear you?

Stomping in every heartbeat,

If you aren't hers, why does she feel you?

Cloaked in the air all around,

If you aren't hers, why does she trust you?

Reverberating in her soul,

If you aren't hers, why does she want you?

Opium to the hapless nerve, 

If you aren't hers, why does she sing you?

Every lyric in her utopian song,

If you aren't hers, why does she dream of you?

Moon on velvet sky,

If you aren't hers, why does she love you?

Falling leaf from the twig,

If you aren't hers, why does she belong to you?

Flute to her altruistic God…