When time stood still...

Time has stood still. The sky is a brigher blue, the sun isn’t scorching any longer, it doesn’t matter that the driver is grumpy or that I have been nudged out of the queue twice over.
The red bougainvillea, outside my window, nod in unison with the sea breeze.
Time has stood still…..for all four watches of mine are not working.

Pages of my Life

Pages of my life—archived and new!

It is like an old family album and the stories behind every pose, every smirk and every true grin.
It is also like opening a new book, smelling of crispy paper.

This had to happen. But why did I let it be?

Maybe because Hope is never archived.

Waiting to resign

Once upon a time there were just dreams and doings
Victory and failure;
Zenith and nadir,
See-saws and slips
Happiness and despair.

Today, there is Acceptance.
And an unfathomable piece more than simplistic outcomes.
There are differing motives.
Incomprehensible facts,
Complicated states,
Unknown pitfalls.

Despite the sudden up swell,
Resignation has still not arrived.

Lady Cleo

The ‘queen’ reclined there; surveying a freshly showered dark night shining like a knight’s gauntlet that lay beneath her.

Some faces, familiar hukka smell, chocolate fondue, her stretched, bare legs appeared in a dream.

In the half-light of lanterns there was no harm in being all that she wasn’t.
Daybreak was still a while away.

The Rose Garden-5

“Honey, am home!”
She went straight to the loo mirror, ran her fingers through the freshly re-bonded hair, highlighted with blonde streaks. For a moment she drifted into the first anniversary, then the second, finally lost count……
She took out the carefully hidden gift and ran to the Study

The doctor declared he was gone by 3 pm!

Dream Away--3

She who breathes smoke and fire also waits for someone who is quiet,
She who runs with the deer also slows down to keep pace in heels,
She, who creates, also breaks it up with just a single stroke!
She who turns around and wields her sword without armour
Also wishes to rest beneath his shade.

Lonely

Specks of red, blue, green light
Shadows of moving palm fronds
The sky a reddish-grey haze-- like a shoddy, old blanket!

Glittering drops of water down the glass, some scale a zig-zag path like a scared snake, some others rest a while deciding where to go.

Someone lies there, counting every drop and then,
loses count.

Dream Away--2

A home with a chequered red napkin in the kitchen, a dark wood bookcase, some lilting music in the air, a warm Sunday lunch a warmer homecoming on a Monday evening.

A home in moments and an inaudible flutter of an eye.

She, so wanted to dream them and she did.
Just that they never came true.
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[The other side of Bibs' Dream Away]

Trust Walk

Will you walk a mile with me on the gravel path, on the murky city sands?
Will you talk a while with me by the grey sky and the rolling sea?
Will you stop-by when I wake up in the still night, a moment before dawn?

Hey Stranger,

Will you bring your true song to me?

They lost him--VI

He checked once more-- the final draft—before handing it over. The lady at the counter wore a blank look like the other side of an important piece of paper which exists just so.

“My father….you see, this is my father” he stammered.

The lady nodded and stamped ‘24’!

In the ‘Missing’ column,
a father- numbered!

Time, Perhaps? VII

She’d been cleaning and washing for days. The winter sun would often envelope her back like a warm pashmina as she sat there mending quilts.

Then one day, she skipped breakfast and bade a teary farewell to parents.

Soon she pulled out the pre-selected saree and brought the stool near the fan before she ran out of

Recycled message

After this

You washed up my shore
Like a bottle with a message, once more

But it hasn’t been long
Yet it seems so wrong

A recycled kiss
Something, terribly amiss

The cigarette smoke
With your signature stroke

As my soul retreats
Your audible heart-beats

Give the midnight hour a shake
But, can we remake?

Song 55s--In dino....

Circa 2007
In an old shoe-box, with little slits lived Lady Birdie.
A peck here, a pull with her beak there revealed the sepia toned world outside. Of a small unkempt room, a worn-out couch, lots of paper, records, bottles, shoes and what not.

In that year of insignificance, she’d still not given up on the Sky!
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[Hai tujhe bhi ijaazzat, karle tu bhi mohabbat……from the film Life..in a Metro]

Sometimes...

IV

Sometimes, she rides on the crest of the wave like the Chinese dragon-rider from her childhood. She loses count of day and time, flying with the moist breeze.

Sometimes, she somehow wants to whip and push the day, the week, the month with all her might waiting for an oasis which never appears.

Only sometimes, though.

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V

Sometimes, she wonders what if she just vanishes, one day, like those on the ‘missing’ columns in the newspaper. Or perhaps like the Cheshire Cat, from feet upwards till only her words remain choked mid- air.

Sometimes, she wonders what her epitaph will say. Will anyone come for her funeral?
And then she shudders.

Only sometimes, though.

Another life VI

She is in a transparent capsule of bubbled glass which has taken the shape of her head, limbs, hips and the feet jutting out like an odd bunk-head.

Sometimes the world watches her from afar like an unknown symptom.
Sometimes they try pricking, tapping where the glass has a weak turn.

Just like that

Mangalasutram

“It’s too late for you, now….”
“Utterly talented but crazy.”
“Hard to handle”

Two women.
Poised. Smart. Genuine.
Uusally mis- understood.

Two women.
Witness to life around,
The gory battles fought alone,
The comfort of soaring high.

As the Nadaswaram tuned in and some more ghee revved up the holy fire,
The Writer missed their chapter!

Come IV

Come here,
where the Nadaswaram and the Madalam invoke a new path
where roses, jasmine, sandal, sugar candy can’t wipe the tears of a gifting father
where the tunes of the Laali and the shared moment beneath the Arundhati make a promise worthwhile

Come here,
to a new bond to the south of the Vindhyaas

Dance 2

In the half-light, her dancing shoes tapped on the wooden floor and the air buzzed oft-repeated tunes. She swayed in a dervish motion and her white, fleshy calves tweaked like the floor beneath.
Something inside her swelled fighting her composed numbness; the last flicker of a fully-molten candle.

Outside, it hadn’t stopped raining for two days.

In search of me...

When the sprightly morning breeze touches my face,
When the hurried day gradually mingles in slow motion,
When the darkness of the night is cracked by thunder,

I search

Not for another one, not those locked-up moments,
Nor the frozen dewdrops, from the autumn of yesteryears!

The un-awareness churning in half-dream,
Bubbles of boiling water!

True!

The wound up clown kept clapping…out of beat. Against the flood light beneath the window, it was a million white needles showering from the jet black sky.
A child somewhere fought with motherly logic to fly a kite, one torn that very moment leaving him with the tail.

Clowns and kites are hardly ever true.