CHARULATA

Soft pillows for comfort, a queenly bed to sleep in. Staying awake night after night, traversing continents that seem to have stepped in between her husband and a cup- of- together coffee which once celebrated greater togetherness. Possessive and whimsical like a torrential downpour. Eyes glued to the cell phone screen, ears plugged deep into a silence of a peaceful ocean. Heart, as bustling, busy, thumping, squeezed- like the clothes the washerwomen torture on the ghats of an ancient river. Maybe a deep black below her eye-line- a blue in her heart, some greenery at the sight of your prize not in touch for a week, some grey when he does. Some yellow jaundice in your words, some paleness of the moon every night.

Day Dreaming

Losing my way inside the archives of the British Museum. After concert backstage with Darren Hayes. Black coffee at the table where Auden would sit. A cold night of longing in the Tundra. A Masai ritual and a community dinner. Autumn evening in Vienna. A Christmas Mass in Transylvania. A standing ovation at a poetry reading. Seeing a flash-flood from a hilltop. Sitting by the grave of Ghalib, his couplets in hand, waiting, invoking Assad to rise. Singing the club Anthem at Stamford Bridge. Wind in my hair, Shahid Ali in my veins and Jhelum at my feet. And, hearing an old love say she missed me all these years.

Night-time Sky

Like the silence which greets the news of a death or unexpected joy
A silence pregnant with possibilities,
 A virgin darkness and an attraction of the 'out there',
 Little stars winking from another time.
 The moon, the bored queen of a kingdom of frivolity and mirth,
The vast blackness- 
The blackness of human heart. 
Silence, that which precedes a storm, 
Or that which exists in space 
Between two armies just before the battle trumpet is blown. 
Home to so many dreams, 
so many corridors of better existence. 
Sometimes a fleeting aircraft molests the purity of that void. Sometimes a shooting star crowns its sanctity.
 The stillness, 
The mystery...
Just the pure joy of existing as nothingness.

Random Musings No. 3: Like I Want You

I don't want you from the pages of the poem
I'd write for you.
Or from the black ink,
I scribble your name with.
Nor from coffee vapours 
I sip at night.
You are more,
Much more. 


You are not the raindrops
I let seek refuge on my face.
Not even the bouts of loneliness
I suffer when you are away.
Neither the smell of grass at dawn
You are more,
Much More.

I want to see you like a woman on the streets,
Handbag on one shoulder,
The world on another. 
A strand of your black hair
Running down your face,
Like molten lava
From a newly erupted volcano.

Little beads of sweat on your neck
Goosebumps when i touch your skin
For I want to see a woman with doubts
Frowns on her brows
UN-ironed soul and soiled inners

You are my woman of late nights
And early Mornings.
Of staffroom gossip
Of secret longings.
In sunshine,
On lonely moons.
Woman in a music store
And amongst the tombs.

Random Musing No. 2: RAIN

Incessant rain. Like a nagging child. Like the pricking of the thorns of jealousy. Angry words pouring like a thin film of white all night long. Maybe God's scorn, swear words in thunder and lightning embellishing the abuse of water on earth. Trees assaulted, slums mocked. Some distant Beethoven crawling out of windows- the notes made more poignant, sharp, sad by the rain drops on asbestos, on muddy lanes, on tarpaulin protected beggars. A poet hunting for words rests awhile. The rain and the wind howling outside- like Nature mourning some dire calamity. Add to it, the swaying of the trees and you have souls exposed to a death in the family. A first death, hence sharper pain. Pain...burning, torturing, liberating Pain.

Random Musings No1: WORDS

Writing: As Catharsis. As Righting the wrong and Writing the Wrong. The sound of the nib rubbing and struggling on a virgin sheet. Even the tiki-taka of fingers on the laptop keys, the pitter-patter of the rains. Reigning on uncharted, unclaimed New Lands- Inscribing chronicles of pain, fear, happiness, victory. The sheer pain of living and the joy at the prospect of dying. Words, the armor of the soul, the weapon, the crown, the parting letter all brought together in a harmony reminiscent of a solar eclipse.