Unheard

You are my untold story

That I whispered

Not even to myself.

You are the dream

That survived

That never died

Its fated death.

The breath in my breath

The flame in my eyes

The spring in my step

The star on my sky.

You are the unheard song

That I sang

Only to myself. 

Hunger

You walk

Across the meadows

Across the streams

Across the overgrown trail

Crisscrossing the rocky mountainside.

You climb

To the summit

The crest

The next verse

Of the poem of your life.

You run

To catch the light

To grasp the stars

Towards the melody

Of the lute at night.

You see

The barrenness of miles.

You hear

The whimper of silence.

You  do not hear

The furtive voices

of the other side.

You do not feed

The hunger of your soul,

The hunger of your heart,

The abject infinity

Of the hunger

Of the arms stretched wide.

College Reunion- 1

Together

We all once more.

After twenty summers.

After twenty winters.

After twenty monsoons

Had poured themselves

Into the seasons of our hearts.

We met at the same place.

At the canteen

Near the lawns

Of the same college.

The same spot,

The same benches,

The same cups of tea,

The same camaraderie,

The same spirits,

The same witness,

To our loves and anguish.

Where once

The freedom of youth,

The carefree abandon,

The buoyancy of hopes,

The power of youth,

That does not see

Its impending mortality,

Once blossomed

By the wayside

In the forest trails of our hearts.

  

That same spot,

The same benches,

The same canteen,

The same lawns,

The same cups of tea

(Uridu shai Elti)

The same beautiful faces

The same expectant faces

Many settled faces

Some unsettled faces

Furrowed by the sorrows

That were their lot

More than of others.

Now all poignant

At meeting

At having parted.

Now all missing

The invisible presence

The quiet presence

Of the ones not there.

The ones there

But not quite.

The loves they had left behind,

The friends that had strayed behind,

The lives that had trailed

In the smoky mists of memory.

There were some

That led then

And some lead now.

There were some

That cried then

And some cry now.

Tears lost

In the burning sands

No light in sight.

There were some

That waltzed then

Through the rooms

The corridors

The lawns

The grounds.

There were some

Whose faces lit up

The passage of time.

Now all together

Yesterday

Had never a night.

The day

Never seemed more bright.

What is this

Elusive thing called time?

Has it really claimed

The days, months, years

The certainty of our lives?

Today is just that—

It is yesterday.

And yesterday—

Is today with all her might.

So, we walked to the same places,

The same haunts

We spoke with the comfort

That comes with lives that once lived together

That comes with hands that once held each other

That comes with the need not to speak

Not to say the unsaid,

The beauty of the seen

The promise of the unseen.

No words are ever needed

When it is the heart that laughs

When it is the soul that cries

 When it is love that tries

To reach out

In joy

In unison

In friendship

To those dreams

That never die.

Silence 2

I hurl the chevron beads

Of life into the fire.

They light up

They crackle quiet

They melt

The cut glass of my heart.

The quartz in my voice,

The crystal liquid in my veins.

The smoke in my head

Curls and curls

Upwards

Through the corals of memory.

Through purple mists.

Through stained glass

light pouring in

from the shadows

of the soul.

The silence of the sunset.

The silence of the coral reef.

The silence of the sleeping forest.

Of the thunderclap

before it splinters

the horizon.

The silence in my heart.

The silence of your breath.

The slow waltz of the soul.

The silence of a promise

Never made before.

Wisps of whispers

In the silence of the night.

The invisible presence

Of your silence.

The quiet comfort of your silence.

The fullness of your silence.

The depth of your silence

Like the secret minefields of the earth

Laid bare to cosmic eyes

Away from the turbulence of surfaces.

The silence of me.

The silence of you.

The silence of the chevron beads

Of life hurled into the fire.

Silence

Down by the river in the moonlight

I sail paper boats.

Filled with jasmine

Sandalwood, vermillion

They glide downstream

In ones and twos and threes.

When the bells ring

And the conchshells blow

When the lamps blaze tall

The chants echo.

The galaxy embraces

The world below.

This silence is but

its own echo.

----15.1.13 

Uttarayan

This night of Makar Sankranti

Its ebony blackness

Its licorice lustre

Its velvet texture

Granite breeze

Touches, caresses

Entices, ensnares

The burst of fireworks

Fills the skies

With raptures.

Vibrant stars

Flashes of light

The world’s bathed

In celestial light.

Myriad lamps

Sail with the kites

Glide and slide

Along the strings

Of our lives.

Higher, higher

Ever higher

Cinnabar corals

Their lights twinkling

Their  flames crackling

The skies on fire

Magical sight.   

To new vistas

To new dreams

To new wonders

To new lives

To new places

To new friends

To new loves

They drift

Wide eyed,

Langorous

Light.

Enchanted I gaze

In unadulterated delight

A little for my self,

A little for the world

At each moment

Rapture

At each moment

in flight.

Wonder sublime

Transcendent divine

Shamanic chants

The universe in this sky

Alight.

I look in peace

I close my eyes

Meditate

I pray

Such beauty around

No soul in sight.

No words to whisper

No rustle

Or step.

Cup my hands

To hold the moment

To feel the joy

To catch the lights

Count my blessings

Here and now

Everywhere tonight.

-------14.1.13

Dawn

Dawn

Of the sacred silence

Of the holy quiet

Of the leaves stirring

Themselves green.

The pink and

The tender white

Of the conchshell sky

In the hour between night and day.

Touch of dew

On the grass,

The tears in your eyes.

Bird call

Of the cosmic soul,

Over the whistling woods

Over the eternal river

Over the crease

Of your brow

Across the infinity of space.

Lily clouds

Glow soft

Drift slow

Hold the earth

In your words.

Capture the sky

On your face

In the divinity of grace.  

----14.1.13

Bye bye black bird

we were here.
you were there.

we waved to you with joy
every morning
in the landing
as you kickstarted the scooter
and sped away.

and then we ran
to the kitchen balcony
and waited for eight minutes
quietly
before you emerged
from the underbridge
far away
across the railway tracks
across the clump of trees lining the road
on which you travelled to work
each day.

we waved at you and called out
"papa! papa!"
and across the distance
we saw your hand go up
and wave back.

The White Gas Balloon

winter sunday afternoon
Kankaria lake
double decker bus ride
pink icecream cone
papa, you gave me
a little white gas balloon.

a blue polka dotted balloon
that slipped out of my three year old fingers
and flew up up away
a speck in the sky
gulped by clouds.

now that you are there papa
have you found my little white gas balloon?

These dark days of December

these dark days of december
unfailingly crawl through the fog
of other months
in muffled thickness.
how should i go through the day
that took my dad away?

the man still talks to me
through the mist of time.
in the inimitable cheerful way
that will always be to me, my dad.

why do i recall the final few days
and flog the insides of my head?
this month entombs me some more
each year.

Summer air

Steering wheeled hands teasing,
Stereoscoped song, blasting
a mood out in the open air.
Soft whispering mouth seducing
Silkroute word into word,
Ripping
A kiss out of summer air.

Reach out to you

Now here dearest---
Do I say more?
What more do I say?
Words, after all,
are redundant in a way.
And yet, letter after letter,
Word after word,
Thought after thought,
Love for love,
Love after love,
Reach out your way.

Fog

Songs unsung.
Dreams undreamed.
Love miraged.
Beyond our reach.

Rewind this life.
Rewind this song.
Rewind this dream.
Rewind the dawn.

In the dawn,
In the mist,
In the hours before waking,
In old forgotten niches,
We belong.

Half

Half remembered moments
Memory mosaics
Faded footprints
Unexpressed yearnings
Many unuttered words
Half-formulated equations
Of half-baked potions
Is there any magic in the air?

Step back

Step back.
Step away.
From webs that ensnare.
From souls laid bare.
From eyes that share
My solitary wares.

Step back.
Walk away.
To laughter unsinning.
From anguish undimming.
From voices that care
To take me there.

Come, sit with me

Come, sit with me
Awhile, on this waiting culvert
Taste the nip in the air,
Breathe deep the musk,
Tremble to see
My forlorn company
In this orchid dusk,
Taste the nip in the air,
Awhile on this waiting culvert
Come, sit with me.

Untitled

When I am gone from here and now,
When you will also go somehow,
Where will scatter these sun-gold rays,
The ashes of our sunflower days?

Share

Don't stop sharing with me.
I long, I love to hear
you pour out your
cares, woes, memories,
joys, laughter;
There
I am one with you
at last, at long last.
Hold on to me fast.
Love and longing, bitter-sweet--
Don't stop sharing with me.

Absence

If I were to go

Away, someplace, you know.

Will you step into

this empty room

this emptied-of-my-presence room

                and feel my absence,

the absence of my presence?

No name

No name.

I have no name for us.

Do you?

                The futility of it all

                The futility of naming a name

                The laugh of the Medusa.

Naming constructs categories.

Which categories place us

                In some semblance of sanity

                In some plane of sense?

We are irreconcilable irreducible

There is no name for us.

No name.

Moments

In time

across space

towards infinity.

Absence of positivity

Irreducible moments

Irrevocable moments

They slide, they slither

They collapse and wither.

Hold your breath moments

Farewell moments

My in-between moments

My without-you moments.

Unity

This river in spate,

Minarets across.

The muezzins call—

All soft footfalls

In memory.

These verdant greens

and vandyke browns,

the paleness of the

powdered sky—

stop this time flow.

They lull our cosmic souls

In unity.

Torment

Search my eyes

Search your soul.

Talk to me

Of azure skies

Of halcyon seas

Of the tormented spirits

In your people-tree.

Fate

Earlier,

I could not talk to you

   because you did not know.

Now words fail me,

   because you do.

There is only so much

Of me, of you, of us.

So little ordained.

So much destined

      to remain half

      divided, divisible

      incomplete.

Fragmented selves.

We are hemisphered shadows

        eclipsing the whole.

Ghosts after infinity.                     

Dual selves

Each part of me is a fragmented self.

Fractured, divisible, divided; split into two.

I have lost the art of uniting my two selves.

I take a step towards you.

You push me away ---with silence.

Sometimes my other half pushes

                me away with words.

Rain 3

Lightning plays fugitive

From dark, grey clouds.

Sky rumbles and roars.

My heart soars,

Up in ecstasy, simple and loud.

“I want to live”, I shout.

The rain slashes incessantly

On my window pane

Trickles down its weary path.

Loneliness once again.

Life on a warpath.

Rain 2

Snaking mercilessly down, the rain

Seeks to wipe out everything

From memory—both joy and pain.

And yet, I see you through the mist

Sitting in the dark; drenched

Under that Gulmohar tree

On that lonesome bench.

What makes you wait there love

In the cold; a figure lone

What makes me look for you there

In the dark; cold, tired, alone.

Love pushes me

To put my arms around you

Bring you home.

But I stand at the culvert watching you.

Rain

All night long

That familiar wistful loneliness

Splattered on my window

And left behind

Drop after tearful drop

To trickle down the panes

Like rain trickling down tender stalks

Of young lotuses in vagrant pools.

Night

Night slides in with its own strange shadows

And fractures into two

The indivisible one of daytimes.

Calcutta

Fiery June sun,

Burning hotter, hottest

Enough to drive one insane.

Narrow Calcutta lane,

Near a busy Calcutta street,

Cluttered with shops of meat.

Flanked by weathered homes

A sea of faces—blank, empty

Surrounds me, as alone

I get out of the metro.

Being able to cope

No longer a big feat

Purely a matter of habit

Just a matter of hope.

Walking down a street

In the heart of the city

Wrapped in its own sterility

I am glad I have you with me.

Talking over the phone

The phone rings

You pick it up.

I try to talk

But don’t succeed

I just give up.

Silence punctuates

Our conversation.

Questions asked.

Answers given.

Assurances felt.

Tempers driven;

Verbal battles.

Love is given.

Love is taken—all in silent meditation.

Footprints

I have known how it is

To walk on the wet beach at dawn

And not leave footprints behind

For some solitary figure to follow them.

Or to play upon a flute

In the quiet of twilight

Let the notes merge with the moist breeze

And waft past unheard.

I have experienced

How the sunbeam feels

When passed through a prism

To be split into a spectrum.

And as a mannequin

I have plastic stood

By the shop window and stared

At  life passing by.

Maze

In the darkest hours of the night

I run down the maze of life;

Going around in circles, trapeziums,

Triangles and what not,

Colliding into dark sinisterities

And depressing dead ends.

Menacing figures loom up everywhere

Casting long, black shadows

On my trembling mind

And everywhere.

I want to dare

I want to dare and break out

Shatter the glass

Which traps me; a small ball bearing

In this insane sea

Of running, running, running

Madly, incessantly; I cry

For respite, stillness, serenity.

And then come you:

Shatter the glass

And set me free

From clocked time

Into eternity.

Summer

This summer is so bloody hot,

Roasting me completely.

Not just my sun-burnt skin,

See also my parched soul,

Hear my hoarse helplessness.