Beyond Stanzas

You are my sigh,
My longest one,
The saddest.
I am heavy with it,
Childlike,
Having broken a jar,
Which stored the snack,
I shouldn't have had,
Love.

The jar had frozen memories
Of my many attempts,
Trying to reach out,
Reach you,
Steal you.
My evenings,
They broke.

The sigh pierces through,
Skies and seas,
Salt and sweet.
Smoke, dust and rust.
And light and mist.

Wings, windows,
And other silences,
Waited on watches.

As I sighed.

A Day in Rohini's Life

The view is gorgeous, isn't it? From your window? The sea lapping up the sand on one end, the sun on the other? The view in your arms is beautiful, isn't it? The steady photographs radiate the warmth between you both, so I have to believe it is true; warmth, after all, cannot be woven. I try to forget you, each and every minute of my life. I give it all it takes -- ire, ignorance, ink and ah, my soul too -- but you have a way of showing up, like the steam off my tea, stubbornly swaying all over my spectacles, persuading everything else away.

But you know what a view I had this morning? Oh, I, Rohini, you may have forgotten by now, I am doing quite well. My husband decided to drive today and I had the pleasure of looking out of the window. I generally glare at number-plates. Privileges are rare, so I made the most of it. You came back. But the sky took over.

The clouds had cleared to reveal a blue, freshly painted space, one I could smell. First it smelled of lemongrass, the one you wear, but I had to push it back with a punch. I couldn't let it overpower my day. And then there was a crimson bouquet garlanded all over the blue, announcement like. I could not avoid it, like I have never been able to avoid you. And all around you, and that bouquet of unapologetic enchantment, there was life breathing, invisibly, unassumingly. Much like my existence in your life.

There, look! The dusty greens in a queue, refusing to give way to you, yet, the ochre-chrome yellows shine like ten-rupee coins in the novel confidence of undying admiration; banners of brussel sprouts too nudge into the queue, and once in a while, a branch of pride stands tall. All of it adorning the blue, adorning you. Did I tell you about the betel-leaf shaped green leaves? At moment I felt like being in an open-air Paul Signet exhibition -- each leaf distinct and different from the other.

Abhimanyu lovingly passed me a sliced apple. It disturbed me. I accepted it gladly, wearing a fake content and thought of you, unendingly. There was something about the sky today. You, with you gorgeous view could overlook it, I am willing to call it melancholically enticing. You, with all your warmth must be soaking up wine glasses to cheer at life, and gorging at views with your beloved, buying her necklaces and fulfilling up with kisses.

Here I am, off at "Here you are, Rohini! Remember to pick up Aditya on your way back from his karate class." Here I am, adorned with an i-card, punching in towards mundanity and giving into it. And here I am, at work, and unable to stop thinking about you. For it has always been you. Like those trees who outlive the change, who shed only to return to the purpose. Of living, and giving. You can give me neither, dearest. I am rich, richer than your world tours and your lovely toys. I am richest because I forgive you. But most of all because I forgive myself for never being able to stop loving.

The view is gorgeous here too. It is, as has always been, you.

Thirty Three Years

Thirty three years.

The first eleven --
They belonged to others.
Mothers and Fathers,
Their kind of figures.
And neighbours,
And teachers.
And fellow little people
Taught to be called friends.
The first eleven,
I have frankly forgotten.

The next eleven?
They too,
They belonged to many others.
Mothers and Fathers,
Two set of figures.
And ogling neighbours,
And asking relatives
Taught me of life
Like they were my teachers.
And fellow mates,
I thought to be friends.
The next eleven,
I was mildly enlightened.

This last eleven?
It feels like heaven.
I am my Mother,
And my Father.
I decide my neighbours.
And know life as my teacher.
I take wrong decisions,
Then find the right.
I have friends,
Few and fast.
And finally found
The voice
With which
I write.

Three elevens,
Hovers and threatens.
Thirty three years,
Of mastering tears.

Love Bites

It would be easy

Berry picking like,

I know you think.

To own me,

With your flair,

The same effortlessness

With which you once

Disowned me.

For all such times

When I sizzled in your arms

Red chilli on hot mustard oil,

I gave you flavour,

Burning myself down.

You separated the torment,

Knowing its destiny,

Down in the bin.

But here it rises,

Fiery, flaming,

In words,

Bleeding words.

Does that hurt you?

The burning red wound?

Not yet?

Good.

It decided to let you go,

No, not because it cannot,

I cannot.

But I know,

It's not worth.

Your pain.

You are a destitute,

A lonely tree,

In your palatial backyard.

You could not house

My blooming births.

And on an other day,

When you are disowning

Someone else,

I wish her the strength

Of dried chillies,

And buried flowers,

To burn you down.

In love,

And its beautiful

Helplessness.

In hate,

And its terrible

Helplessness. 

Deep-Sleep Potion

Nobody stories me to sleep, nobody.
That's more than any kisses could ever do,
More than snores.
You know a word is powerful
Once you verb it -- "stories."
Many tell me I do not tell them one ever.
I do,
New ones, always.
I do not have old stories.

An old one has suddenly shown up its sour face.
Would you like to lie next to me
As I read it out? Come.

It was an innocent pull towards colours,
And those who coloured with them.
Are you listening,
Or are you giving in to the smothering curves
Of my body?
Is it more compelling, the contours?
Come back, come hither, listen.

The artist smiled back at my smile,
Made me sit on his lap,
Helped me hold the brush along,
And brushed on his knees, and upwards.
He brushed back my hair,
And breathed pastel shades of lust
On my bare neck.
Are you with me?
Or thinking of that breath on my bare neck?

He held my left foot up,
And gently dabbed his brush
Generously in black,
To paint on it an anklet.
He joked he could open it
With magic tricks,
As soon as I would sit facing him,
On his lap.
Are you angry with him?
Don't be yet.
I had fled,
Henceforth had him avoided.

But another merciless day,
As was the coffin to the dead,
I returned to the colours.
He said he would paint on me,
I was all of twelve, thirteen may be.
He said he needed to use his tongue
And not linseed.
This tale is not so long,
Stay with me.

Briefly, as they say,
Too many things happened.
Too many to count,
Or recount.
Like a feeble sparrow
My soul flew,
With a desperate strength,
Flapping, fleeting
On his canvas
Fierce disappointment.
"I told you to stay," he fumed.
I told you, stay with me.
The end is near.

He caught me by my feet,
Even as my soul was embittered and away.
An artist articulates well,
And tried to cajole a capture.
That was one day,
I did not give in to stories.
I ran.
Before that,
Very proud still of it,
I splashed the tube of black,
Destroying his majestic landscape
Of dotted yellow-green grasslands
By the amber sunset.

Have you slept off?
Now you could.
This is an old tale
Of victory, and sense
In a twelve year old,
Perhaps thirteen.
Quite rare.
She did not break.
Neither her voice.

She is an interrogation,
A ballad bright.
You could now sleep,
Holding me tight.

Tomorrow's your turn, remember.
To story me to sleep.

One Kilo Satisfation, Please.

The dailies of life comprise such abundance of ordinariness, modern life turns blind to it. A walk to the marketplace yielded the same directions: fast food - household and grocery - poultry - livestock. Friendly little marketplaces felt like extended joint families one took for granted. You could request for a discount, not bargain; you could demand a discount, not bargain; you could deserve a discount, not bargain. The end product was an aura of satisfaction one did not carry in translucent polythene packets.

But were you a stranger, a new face? Apprehension could well eat you up. What if you were overcharged? What if you were given the rotten apples, smartly, in between the kilo which you thought you picked? What if you were laughed at the moment you turned your back? The marketplace is a battlefield and arrows are shot at you at each nook, and corner. Who could you trust in the crowd of ordinariness?

Malini felt dead now, hardly alive, but it turned into a habit, like the abundance of other ordinariness. Sometimes she allowed the prying eyes to read her, sometimes she fancied a reading herself. Today she decided to identify, analyse and buy fish. As an instruction she inherited, she remembered her father's instances of the fish speaking back to you. Sarees spoke with Malini, as did notebooks, stones, and sometimes clouds.

The ice pedestal was bride-decked in a streamlined bloodbath. Teams stacked against each other in huddles -- the proud pomfrets, sexy mackerals, underdog folis and of course alienated in exclusivity a basket of pastel blue jumbo prawns. The regular pabda  and the rui, katla were champions in their own right. A compact, shimmering, silvery scaled beauty caught her attention. For a moment she gave up the mask of resilience and light-footed like birds, flew in excitement. It was a hilsa, the bored fish monger informed. Malini had no rat-hole to hide her ignorance. Once you are in love, you know you are bought -- in a good way -- in your own willing submission and space.

Malini surrendered once and for all, without shadows. Now she was born anew, in the market. They owned her, they wished to teach her, make her their favourite subject, giving her a snippet of secret here, a theory of legacy there. She left, suddenly seeing all the abundance that ordinariness had to offer, a string of sights, she had earlier pulled the blinds to.

There, she walks out. Satisfaction speaking back to her from scaled gills, sacked grains and shopkeepers' gestures. 

Mrs Chatterjee's Lover

She unpinned her saree from the courageously low-lined blouse, still humming the song from the party. Mrs Chatterjee had a wine too many after three pegs of vodka, and not being used to it routinely, the music must have certainly left subtle tones in her soul. Like Red Bull, she was on wings. Chittor wasn't a place where one could expect such a get-together. All professional masks were performing disappearing acts and she had outwitted most of her colleagues.

Thump! She slumped on the four poster bed, her elegant figure not giving away her age, or desires. It hugged the skimpy nighty voraciously. Managing to drink her bedside glass of water and forgetting her medicines, she turned to her left, a faint smile distinct on her sleepy face. She didn't have a spouse to bring along with, so she shared the room with a young girl, Dipannita. As she spread her hands to hold her companion, her senses went back to the games floor.

It was a silly game she had thought when they announced "Musical Chair." It didn't quite turn out that way. The beginning bumps into Mr Roy were sensational, and while he made his way out coyly, Mrs Chatterjee repeated her closeness with everyone else, one by one -- a deft touch on Aniesha's waist, a sly slap on Prabal's shoulder, a lingering of an excuse in examining Smita's face powder, and of course the very brave pelvic proximity with Arunabha. She was having a premium time that night as her smile outshone the strings of fairy lights.

People have a way of blaming an alternate. They look forward to it. But the ones who are guilty, they know it best. Alcohol? thought Mrs Chaterjee, how stupid of them to believe in such a kind of intoxication. Where is she? How nice was Prabal's shoulder. I could feel myself melting away with each one of them. Did they hear me breathe huskily? Damn them then if they did. She turned over. Nobody touched me in years! I want a touch, just a touch! 

The light came on. "That was some win, Mrs Chatterjee! Hope you are fine. Mrs Chatterjee? Are you asleep already?" Dipannita came towards the side of the bed to check on her. This is my only chance to remember how a kiss felt. She pulled her strongly and kissed her longingly. Once the frightfully disapproving Dipannita could free herself, Mrs Chatterjee was prepared.

"Oh! I am sorry Dipannita! Wine often makes one giddy! I am so used to my goodnight kiss from your Uncle...here, forget it, sorry. Let's sleep it away."

The next morning was one of chirps and giggles. Mrs Chatterjee walked into the breakfast area bereft of any guilt whatsoever, but conscious all the same. Her hands itched for a welcome touch, tactile as ever that she felt. All she wished for was another round of game, as she eyed each of her subjects earnestly.

"She said she was used to Uncle kissing her each night! To believe they would kiss in such supremacy even now! The woman lacks moral you know!" Dipannita was mouthing over her toasted sandwich, the events of the previous night. "Oh look she has just took that air-kiss to a different level!"

Mrs Chatterjee sat with her earl-grey at the loneliest corner of the terrace, her smile confirming her presence. None of you can ever compete with the touch that last touched me, it was love, it was lust and there was absolutely no luck about it. That was my lover, long dead. All of you have failed miserably. Here remains an aching body for a sensuous touch. 

She got up and made her way towards the juice counter. As she accepted her fresh pineapple juice, the waiter was amused at how long she took to take it in her stride, one finger at a time, each sending electric vibes of desire.

This little boy will be terrific. Would have been. 

The Good Life

You sat there on the floor, transformed from you muscular to now lean shape, the slide of your back cupped in your would-be's knees. Your smile adds to the shine of the silver panther on the table, reflects the crisp linen runner and offers silent satisfaction akin to the Made in England tea set. The piping steam off your cup embraces your specks, wish it were me, placing nibbles on you instead. But I, I sit at the other end of the room, as if I were an on-looker to your photographed good life, outside of the frame. I still do not know if you are savage in your distance, or civil in your embrace.

I am angry when I see you happy. Does this mean I actually love you?
I am ashamed that you do not acknowledge me. Does this mean jealousy?
Sometimes I wish I were cruel enough to wish you bad. Unfortunately, it does not quite happen that way.

You are the good life I have the opportunity to take a peep in but ever be a part of. And I am hurt that you love so well. Another. You are a music so beautiful, it hurts when I listen. Because I didn't evoke it. All my anger is now pointed back to me, that is what you do from your good life.

You demean my mediocrity. I feel like an unsexy, uneventful bamboo shoot in abundance in a forest, nothing extraordinary to fill you with inspiration. I wait for your touch, for you to take me home. And I stand tall in hopelessness, knowing it will never happen. I am tired of waiting and I am even more tired of giving up.

You are the story that I pray to change the ending of. With me. May be that would be my good life. Your clothes have a better life than I, caressing you significantly. It is terrible to stand complete because the stance is lonely. The steam is over, an unannounced battery giving up its life.

I think I write my heart out when I write these things about you, and I am left purposeless because you will never read them, never know me, from the other end of your good life, pining for you with a smile so forlorn that the mirror rejects it too.

Your good life reads prosperity and profound love. Mine is pitiful. Here you get up, timing your day with creating jingles and socialising with strangers. And a good life of asks follow your whereabouts. The last bit of tea and a cookie half-bitten, they stay -- undesired -- like me. All our goodness fall short in your grand aesthetics. I stand tall, like a bamboo shoot or a sculpture, waiting for you to inhale life in me, just how the rains do. I am the open umbrella, from which the rains wash away.

We are both complete, without each other. And it is a terrible, terrible suffering, my good life, you will never know.




   

The Truth

While much has been philosophized, poeticised and practicalised about "truth" and while we have tried to truthify it further by adding "only but the truth" to it, turns out it is mostly bland -- no, not bitter, nor beautiful. If India were ever to wear a necklace formed of its most darling states, Bengal would certainly be somewhere around centrepiece -- the artistic, intellectual ornament.

Well, it is the truth! Bengal could not have been Bengal without Tagore and without Teresa, two surnames that brought it to global prominence, which were now the cause of regional shame. Love stories belonged between the ageing pages of novels stacked in College Street, and in the Page 3 of newspapers, to the trashy cinema which provoked the wrong message and of course, in the dying rate of interest at banks. Two people, at the helm of their respective careers -- Tagore, a billboard painter, and Teresa, a governess, could never have allowed their local train's general compartment love to reach a routine of togetherness. 

Their surnames held the legacy of liberal humanity, their names -- nothing. They were fish caught on hooks, fluttering, flapping, hopelessly trying to fly. They had nowhere to go. They were dawn flowers -- unappreciated, mostly -- dried by the noon time there were visitors. They ached to be elsewhere. 

Mourning was never a choice for those who had to earn their dinner daily. People mourned at Tagore's death and at Teresa's, not one at their's. There are no monuments erected for them, and that is the truth, sometimes people paid with their names, their religions, their cowardice and their conditioning. It is that blatant. They end forgetfully.  

If only truth were not a true story.

Vaani's Longest Night

Of the many means to prepare for bed, one is with a book. It was a Chekov, Vaani's favourite. The tea had gone limp from neglect. But when page 63 opened to a crumpled piece of paper, ill-creased, she sat up and pulled her hair into a bun, readying herself for the little adventure that life had left to offer her. "Or yet to offer me?" she thought. One fold on she realised it was going to be a good night.

The writing on the letter was hardly beautiful in the true term, but in its tiny size and the immense depth it held, the letter was a revealation. It was all of four-five lines and addressed to one Sneha, "in a very Neruda manner," Vaani concluded:

"I will love you today like I have never loved you before, like you have never known me to be -- neither tired, nor passionate about our physicality. It will not be limited to your being close only. It will be a definitive change in me to grace your presence. Over the rains and towards dusks I will love you. When the kitchen is blooming and the garden is barren, when the cigarette packet is empty and when the fans are stirring on their own. I will love you today like you are around, and that would change the kitchen, and the garden, and the cigarette packet and the fan.

But love is like a song, it ends. And love is like a song, it can play all over again. 

Amit."

Vaani's mind was propelled by the wish to share it with someone. Anyone. She chose to bring up her phone, put it on front camera and began recording:

"Hello. I have just read a letter by Amit. I do not know who he is. You must be thinking I am creepy. But the fact is I am still thinking about it and not about the half finished Chekov I was earlier reading. It is a paragraph that letter, but a precis in its possibility. The tempestuous nature of the love, perhaps unrequited is like a faint smell that one wishes to trace. I think I am done."

She heard herself and dissatisfied with what she spoke, tried again:

"Hello. I was reading a book from the library and finding it inside, have read a letter by Amit. I do not know who he is. No, I am not sorry about encroaching into his privacy. You see his private feelings could be a template for love." She stopped mid-way. Shit, what am I doing? She read it again and this time took to typing on her phone:

"Dear Amit,

I read your beautiful letter not meant for me. 

I am suspended into the need to love someone just for the sake of dimension you have offered and which I wish to tread upon. My nights are dull and same and tonight, thanks to you, it is an explosion of emotions. 

It makes me pity myself.

I wish I were Sneha."

She did not post it anywhere, nor did she slip it on a paper and put it back in the book. Vaani spent most of her nights thereafter altering herself to an unknown Amit's unknown love. 

The Day He Left

"Sunsets cannot be draped, silly" and he walked out, wearing his most effective lop-sided smile. That was it, a compound one-liner guaranteeing a lot of interest. And there I was, like a sad-ending, left stranded by the window, neither finding a shadow to his step, nor a shade to the sunset. That night while deaths would have been most welcome, I, Tasneem, embraced births.

A bunch of wildflowers, the dip of a paintbrush in clean water, getting into ironed clothes -- strangely these dreamy-eyed deals offer more satisfaction than his promises ever did. Do not get me wrong, I was always the one who drooled over the secrets of a full moon, but I gave it up for the shiny nights of successful buildings. I was the type who could easily spend the rest of her life crying in luxury. It did not quite turn out likewise. I too was taken by surprise. Instead of shutting out the sunset, I had drawn open the curtains and broken couple of window panes. I faintly remember having dropped fine crockery too. It was when I turned towards the vase that something happened. The flowers were not at fault I had thought. I pulled the vase close and placed them beside my bed. I went in for a shower and quickly finished with the ritual of tears. Then I cooked myself a dinner. I did not drink. I gave up smoking.

The next morning I chose to wear my same clothes a different way -- there was a novelty in my stride -- it demanded attention. I knew it, but I knew not how. Overnight I became a topper, a star. He left behind a me I knew not lived in me. Over the years I have harmed him with my various accomplishments, and it will be wrong of me to say that I have not been happier that way.

Fatima sat over her colouring book, diligently shading the river after the tree with her newly sharpened pencil. "Why are you not using the crayons, Fatima?" I asked.

"They will finish, silly!"

And that was all that was left of him as I embraced births, two shining lives, for sunsets could never be draped honey.

In-Pin-Safety-Pin

The front door framework was a piece of art in itself, a collage of memorabilia the twins had collected from all over the world -- beautiful blue pottery, melodious mountainous chimes and vibrant, colourful devilish masks amongst others. The centre of attraction, yet, was held by the ubiquitous newspaper-model nameplate holding their names in headline bold, but beautiful cursive acrylic, "Khyati & Kriti."

While success came in a platter for them, their label building a legacy in the realm of luxury stationery, the dust of companionship had now touched the point of rusting. Inevitable, as it were, the twins, much like their preferred cuisines, ended up deliberating upon the same person. Similarity became a narrative in their story's landscape, and it stood out like pain.

Out of his double breasted suit, Nayan shone like a prime bachelor designated for the good life. His eyes were on Khyati's nose-pin though, a flying bird. He came around with two glasses of red wine and offered one to her. Within minutes the room could sense their building chemistry. From a distance Kriti tried to stop herself from the overpowering lash of jealously -- this time she had decided to try and restrain.

That night Kriti spent her most restless hours seeing Khyati go with Nayan. Meanwhile, as things were meant to be, inch by inch the proximity between them diminished. It was Nayan's living room couch that finally found them in their sweaty embrace of passion. Around dawn when the wine was beginning to mist away, Nayan came over Khyati and kissed her all over -- her eyes, ears, lips and nose.

To cut a long story short, Khyati was probably having the time of life, and it was only a matter of time till the beautiful mist would blind us all.

Two years down the lane as Mrs & Mr Nayan, who could say similarities would no longer remain the narrative of their conjugal story's landscape? The flying bird of Kyati's nosepin was used well by Nayan, Kriti wears it now on the inside of her right ear. The death of a twin is miserable, but murder? One could not quite say. In a successful voodoo attempt, Kriti settled for Nayan, and now Nayan manages the new label "Nayan-Kriti." After Khyati, it was a natural handover.

Who could call off the tension in a short story, my dear? Mists and memories clear to reveal moments.