The Raven's Ballad

and
there sat the one-eyed raven
drenched
atop
the dead crest of a fallen trunk
claws clenched
piercing
through the decadence
of
a rotting corpse

singing
gory ballads
of
lives

the lives that fed on flesh
the lives that fed on blood and bones
the lives that fed on lives


the dead were washed away in the rains

This Place Called Home

why
do you seek
home
in the four walls
of
cemented apertures

don't seek a home
for
home isn't a place
don't seek a home
for
home isn't a definite


home is where the nuisances find solace

The Renaissance Man

every time
you
walk out
of
a war
alive
and
walk back
right into the heart of it
daring life
again
again
and
yet again

you breathe life into someone's renaissance 

Coming Back to Life

when
the world around
doesn't
make sense anymore

put on a wider smile
and
get back at life
harder than before


coming back to life is more than just living

Greyed in Monochrome

the blacks
and
the whites
never made sense enough

as did
the greys


what is monochrome without the grey

A Filthy Collage

stolen spaces
bruised moments
slices of life and lifeless

served cold and stale
on
the distorted skies of a platter


would you devour the clouds intead

An Apostrophe Affair

her's
hers'

chords of an apostrophe 

The Mutiny

inglorious bastards
compulsive outlaws
the smell of a mutiny

clay rebels and glass rebellions are almost real

From a Yesterday

what are we
but
a bundle of memories
that
slipped off
the greyed nostalgia
of
a yesterday

Echo

   an echo
        in
monochrome 

Lost

           lost
             is
a wonderful place
           to be

The Tree of Life

seek
what you hide within
and
you will know
the meaning of life

Into the Wild

once in a while
let yourself loose

unleash the demons
and
wear them in your skin


while
everyone is busy pretending
to
survive civilization

live the jungle you hone within

Thanksgiving

what would you do

if you stood vis-a-vis
the one
you have sought respite in
the one
who has inspired your being

would you profess your love
or
would you worship the very idea of an existence

would you live the flawed man
or
would you love the infallible demigod


there are no heroes
just men
men who set the world on fire
and
men who watch it burn

if you are watching it burn
it was he who set the fire 

It's a Strange World

it's a strange world

a world where conversations don't exist
what exists is apparent emotions tamed in the boundaries of virtuality
a world where identities don't matter
what matters is the neatly done mascara and the aptly lined lips
a world where intellect is a compulsion
a severe compulsion to belong in the crowd of flaunting paperbacks
a world where poetry is no more poetry
where poetry is erred grammar and flimsy words thrown around like the alms of a streetside beggar

it's a strange world
infested with
stranger lives

a world where every life wants to win
a world where every life can kill to win

a world where no life knows what is it that they are fighting
a world where no life knows what is it that they are winning


a world so strange that the men and the sheep are all about the same

Smoking Kills

smoking kills
but then, what doesn't

the oxygen you breathe in
every time you do
it plants one more of its seeds
seeds of mortality
gradual but eventual

and you thought oxygen was life

oxygen is like mankind
hypocrite wrapped in layers of apparent goodness
it kills you
but
it makes you believe
believe
that
you will live

and then
one dusky afternoon
you will choke
you will know of the betrayal
but
it would be too late by then


the conspiracy to mortality never fails

Love Lost. Love Found.

love is rare
somewhat like
the shooting stars
and
the crashing comets

just that
in love
the scarred skies
on
a starry night
are not just about art

love is rare
as rare as
you may
or
you may not
find it

suppose you don't find it
don't kill yourself
for
it will find you
in
death

suppose you do find it
spread your arms wide open
embrace it
like
death embraces life
for
it will kill you


the question was never about surviving
for death in love is inevitable
the question is
is love worth enough a death

Acts of Faith

faith
is
mankind's
favourite lullaby

an analgesic like no other

In Love With Poetry

the more you fall in love with poetry
the more you grow fond of the darknesses
the more you you fall in love with poetry
the more you grow in awe of the grotesque
the more you you fall in love with poetry
the more you make sense of the chaos

poetry isn't just about revolutions
poetry is evolution 

We Are Not Our Wounds

we are not our wounds
we are
but
what remains of us
after
every wound heals
every single time

we are not our wounds
we are
but
what we make of us
once
the wounds have healed
every last of them
every single time

we are not our wounds
we are
but
the lies we choose to live
after
the wounds
every single of them
every last of them
turns
a tattoo we gifted
to
the very skin

every bit of it

Existential Errors

the eyes
behind
the eyes
have you ever felt them

the cautious eyes of an indefinite
the indistinct whispers of a void
the cold cluttered breath of a nothingness


have you ever felt you are being watched

The Man Called Anonymous

He is the paradigm shift
Wrote the critics
He is the renaissance
Said the readers


He was weaving mirages with his words
He was scripting history in his words

He wrote and wrote
Scribbling the pages over and over again
Bleeding the spaces every now and every then
Filling the blanks one after the other

He wrote all day
He wrote all night
Sanity is a miss in the gifted

He smeared the pages black and blue
Playing words and denting lives at will

He was a despot and an illusionist


One sunny morning the world woke up to the clear skies
The monsoons were apparently gone
He didn't write a sentence that day
He didn't scribe a word the day after
Or the day after

A week later
The world woke up to the blue decaying remains of a mortal

The world was stunned speechless
He had won the battle of words even in death
The storms had tamed down
The monsoons were finally gone



How could disasters be so beautiful
One would often wonder
Broken marriages, skewed normalcies and damaged lives suffice for an entirety of countless manuscripts
He had once said

Until Next Time

The next time you fall in love
Don't chase the desires
Don't pursue them
Don't pursuade them

For love is a stranger thing


We bruise the lips we had once kissed
We burn the hands we had once held
We rip the letters we had once written
We abandon the streets we had once walked
We scar the memories we had once painted
We estrange the existences we had once craved

We shatter the very lives we had once gathered


The next time you fall in love
Give it time
Some more time, some more of it
Time enough not desire
To grow out of the fondness
To let it all fade away

Desires don't walk away in a moment
Desires don't die overnight

They wilt in your ignorance
They perish to your indifferences
Gradually but eventually, they turn a distant dream
And then one day, it's all gone
Choked into a black hole

Wait for it



The next time you fall in love
Love beyond the desires
Live beyond the love

The Theory of Existences

it was a bloody evening

the skies had been shot
right through the chest
a perfect girdle of a wound
a bit concave
a lot more crimson
the blood was all over
conceiving shapes in the amorphous clouds


kafka and i drank to the setting sun

B-Side

as
you lie down
in
the comfort of a cushioned bed
adoring the sensualities
in
the wilderness of a bare skin
and your hands
find their way
through the thick and thin
of
an expensive linen
to
moments of a numbing orgasm

somewhere
not very far
in
the sultry blue lights
and
the dingy stinking walls
of
a public lavatory
the calloused hands
of
yet another
greedily hunts
through
the vulgarity and distaste
of
an inexpensive muslin
and
masturbates to the scribbled outlines of his wet desires


pleasure
or
perversion

is there a line to draw

Blank Verse

blank verse.

a blank verse
is
a constellation of stories
in itself

words
spread out elaborate
like a million stars
scattered and spilled
across
the
absinthe skies 

Burn the Bukowskis

quoting Bukowski
doesn't make you an intellectual
quoting Bukowski
doesn't make him an immortal
either

the Van Goghs
and
the Kahlos
the Nerudas
and
the Kafkas
what have we done to deserve them

the nicotine scars
of
a filthy tongue
the sweat-clad clumsy covers
of
a horrifying barity
the arrogant dialogues
of
a scathing conversation

they have made to the vilest of places
whereabouts they haven't deserved


burn them down
burn them all
let the ashes be forgotten in the ashes

stories we never deserved
let the epitaphs say it all

The Epithet

if
it takes insanity
to
cure the cliche
you choose to sobriquet normal

i'd happily dance
to
the madman's tambourine 

Home Sweet Home

when
the intestines burn
to
the periodic screams of a lamenting bile
when
the countless demons dance
to
the arhythmic tunes of the hunger games
when
the house of cards come crashing down
to
the seething temperatures of an everyday


home finds home in a different address

En Route

as long it's uphill
don't mind the pace

it's all about where you let the winds take you

The Silhouette

she sleeps with death by her side
the storms lashing her curtains
she has tamed them like they were her's
the distant pale skies don't seek her
the crevices of an ever-after twilight summon her

she is the silhouette of wreck

Black

chirping birds
blossoming blooms
red roses
too much a many have been spoken of them
too many a lie for a lifetime

let the darkness seethe in
where
black roses cut through the skin
and bled in the fingers
the blossoms wilted
like the nothingness of a bygone
the chirping birds all but dead

black is a beautiful place to be

Into the Stories

don't seek outlines
look for the stories

too many have tried
living the oddities
and turned mere templates
at the end of it all

this time around
don't draw lines
don't break boundaries

this time around
live the stories

Blur of Life

all the broken
you see around
gather them

take them all
into the whining jaws of a mixer
grind them
grind them well
until none of it is apparent anymore

look closer
you will find life in the blur

The Rogue Night

            anaemic skies
             tainted lights
             half windows
                   and
         a bloodshed moon

the night went rogue that evening 

Broken Mirrors

"How does it feel?"

"To be stranded at a table with a stranger acquaintance and an almost cold cup of coffee, and every pellet of rain striking on the glass, harder than the last one? Well, do I quite have a choice at this very moment?"

"Given a choice, you wouldn't prefer to be stranded with me?"

"The question is not you, my dear."

"What is, then?"

"Some other day maybe."

"By the way, coming back to the question, how does it all feel?"

"Didn't I just express my observations on that?"

"What I meant was, how does it feel to have won it all?"

"No one's a winner. There are just survivors and the deceased. We can often choose to believe we can make it to becoming more than mere survivors, make it count, make a difference. But, all of this is as good as the belief."

"You mean you don't believe your works, or anyone's works or acts for that matter, ever make a difference?"

"Do they? Ask yourself the very same question and for once, don't pretend. You will realise you had the answer all along."

"So, we all are pretending, in your opinion?"

"Holding opinions isn't something I am specifically good at. I observe and observe, and that's about it. I'm a storyteller, not a preacher."

"Seven bestsellers in less than a decade of breaking into the scene. Critically acclaimed and condemned to equal lengths, your works have been controversially astounding, I must say. Could it get any better?"

"That's the sad part. And, the funny bit too. We always believe it can get better. We always believe we deserve better."

"Better than a bestseller?"

"I wish I could still be a storyteller."

"Aren't you?"

"Bestsellers are bestsellers. Storytellers are storytellers. From tellers to sellers, it's all too addictive and irreversible a journey."

"A revolutionary consumed in commonplace errors?"

"I'm no revolutionary. I am commonplace and I have no shame accepting that. It's time we stopped hero-worshipping. There are no heroes. There never were heroes. There never will be heroes."

"So, this bestseller has a muse?"

"Isn't life muse enough? But, I do get your query. Smarter ways of finding scandals for the front page. Well, I'm not involved with someone in specific. Now, as expected, you would construe or should I say manipulate, this very statement as a certification of my immoral and lecherous ways. But, that's absolutely fine by me. I guess we are done here. The rains seem gone."



"You haven't changed a bit."

"We see what we choose to."

"Sridhar Ramakrishnan, I hate you. You can be whoever you are, but that doesn't change the way I feel about you."

"Let go. Hatred is too strong. It will break you down eventually. Try loving instead. It's beautiful."

"I did try. If only..."

"Some stories are not stories, but poems. Don't look for closures. It's better that way."

"And, what do I do of the feelings?"

"Stop defining everything. You never can. You never will."

"Why can't you be more like your works, in life?"

"That's the idea of me. This is me."

"You can never lose your way with words, can you?"

"I can lose my way in words."

Don't make it tougher for me. Just leave."

"I have been gone long. It's been seven years."

"If only it had ever made a difference to you.."

"You had wanted me to let you be. So be it."

"I was mad at you. I couldn't bend the knee to you! But I had never asked you to leave.."

"Every act comes with consequences. We get to choose our acts, not the consequences."

"Ever thought of getting back?"

"No."

"Do you even care?"

"Nithya, I see the truth. You and I, we were in love for six years, married in four of them. It didn't work out then. It won't work out now. We could try endless times."

"You have someone in your life now, don't you?"

"I should leave. And yes, I haven't paid for your coffee."



"But why..."

"Reflections are better off on the other side."




The rains were gone. The city had re-imagined herself in the reflections.

The wet streets, the drenched potholes, the murky reflections.



It wasn't forever, but then, what is?

The Dream Seller

the man who sold cotton candies

he wasn't just a man
he was a dream seller

dreams that costed dimes
dreams nevertheless 

She

                she
               hides
           the storms
                and
              the seas

                   in

the tranquil of her eyes

Distortions

the distort
in
the distraught 

Tell Tale

blurred lines
erred lives
fallen skies

and

a hopeless storyteller 

Home

everyday
I return to the four walls

the four walls
I wish I could call home

One Fine Afternoon

that afternoon
the skies had frowned
upon
the concrete life
of
an erstwhile existence 

Memories. Memoirs.

the bygone
lives on
in
the death of memories 

The Waiting

by the lone wooden bench
that stands all day in singularity
drenched
a bit in the rains
a lot more in the downpours

wait for me


when the deafening screams of the city have drowned in the seas
when the maddening multitude of lives have thinned into the night sky

i'll meet you there

The Life of Lies

Sin and you will go to hell.

This place called hell
Have you been there
This place called heaven
Have you been there

How do you know it's heaven or hell
How does anyone know it's heaven or hell
How do you go places when it's all bones and ashes that remain


The good will prevail over the bad.

What is good
What isn't
What is bad
What isn't

Who gets to choose
Who gets to decide
Who calls the cards


The gods are watching.

Or are they
Whose gods
Yours or mine

Aren't they
The same gods whose hands smell of blood
The same gods who speak of justice with a pistol in one hand and a dagger in the other
The same gods who wage wars and kill newborns in the name of godliness

These gods, are they gods
Or, just demons who had better stories to tell

Do you really know
Can you really tell


The cowards will never know what bravado is.

Who are you
Are you the brave
Who are you
Are you the coward

Can you tell the brave from the coward

Bravado lies in trading lives to win wars
Bravado lies in the scent of napalm
Bravado lies in the lives spent in the name of heroics

Is that what you call bravado
Are they the brave
Or, just cowards who had more lives to spare

Do you really know
Can you really tell


Let there be peace.

Peace
Where do you find peace
When do you know it's peace

The bloodshed in the name of peace
All for a good reason
The blasphemy in the name of peace
All for a good reason
The brute in the name of peace
All for a good reason

So much for a cause
So much for the sake of peace

Is that your idea of peace
Is this peace
Or, just another hymn of the beasts

Will you ever know



There are no virtues
There are no vices
The vices are the virtues
The virtues are the vices

There is no heaven
There is no hell
There is life
There is but life
There is nothing more
There is nothing less
There is but just life

And then there is death

The good and the bad are flip sides
The gods and the demons, our own fiction
The brave are the cowards
The beasts are the saints
The idea of peace is nothing but an idea, a lie of an idea


The lies of ideas
The lies of truths
The lies within the lies

The lies of a lifetime 

The Ascent of a Dune

toepalms
yours and mine
held onto the other
against the wall

somewhat
like

the ascent of a dune
against the pale white skies


shapes and shadows are artsy 

The Last Goodbye

I quit.

This very moment
I quit


I am walking away
I am walking away from you
I am walking away from us
I am walking away from love
I am walking away from a vicious jigsaw of neverending second chances

Have I found someone
No
I haven't found someone
I haven't found anyone
I haven't tried finding someone
For, I haven't lost anyone

And yet, I am walking away


Do I still love you
Yes
I do love you
I do love you like I did the first day
I do love you like I did yesterday
For, love dies hard

And yet, I am walking away

Have I given up on you
No
I have not given up on you
I have not given up on us
I have not given up on love
For, giving up on possibilities isn't easy

And yet, I am walking away


Sometimes
Once in a while
There comes a point in time
When
The right and the wrong make sense no more
The black and the white wrapped in an inseparable grey
The life and the death aren't easy choices, not anymore

And
When the time comes
The apparently easy questions have no answers
The answers you once thought were answers turn questions

And then you get to choose
But, what do you do?
Do you choose to give it a chance one last time?
Or, do you choose to walk away from it all?

I choose to walk away


Imagine
Imagine a knife
A knife sculpted off steel
A knife with sharp edges
Imagine
Imagine the very knife
Cutting through the heart of your neck
And as it cuts through, it stops
It stops, stuck in the meat of the bare flesh

What do you do?
Do you let it stay put?
Or, do you pull it out?

If you let it stay
You die
If you pull it out
You die
But, what if you don't
What if you survive

Between death and a scarred life, what would you choose?

I choose to walk away


Now that you are gone
Would I knock a different door
Would I seek a different name
Would I tell a different story

Maybe
Yes
Maybe yes

For, everyone deserves happiness
For, everyone deserves another chance
Another chance at life
Life isn't just about a second chance
One after the other
Life lives in the chances
And, everyone deserves life

And I am just one
One amongst everyone

The one who chose to walk away


Years from this day
If we did meet again
If our paths did cross again
Would I have moved on
Would I have moved on in life
Would I have moved on in love

I don't know
I honestly don't know

Do we really forget the scars?
Do we really forget the stories?
Do we really move on?

Scars and stories are too obvious

And yet, I choose to walk away


I choose to walk away
I choose to walk away from you
I choose to walk away from us
I choose to walk away from love
I choose to walk away from the hundred mistakes and the thousand chances to undo and redo them, over and over again


In the end
It's all about choices

We always have a choice.

Where's Your Poetry

not all poetry is scripted

a lot many are forgotten in the screeching halt of a thousand pretentious busy lives
a lot many are sprinkled in the bleeding morning skies, in the fallen twigs of a dead tree

and, a lot many just remain; seeking shapes in the shapeless

A Fleeting Thought

what you think
people think of you
is but
what you think
people think of you
if only
the people you think
are people
were for real

it's all in the head

Rum and Coke

liplocks with you

the very idea
sends
chills down my spine
as
the tepid bloodstream
washes away the adrenaline
beneath a cold skin

The Dreams

The dreams
Where do you keep them?

Entangled in the rainbow feathers of a dreamcatcher
Sprinkled in the wrinkles of a paper lantern

The dreams
Do you ever get to keep them?

Falling in Love

      falling
     in
   love
is easy

only
  if only
    they knew

The Refugees

     and
     then

the cowards
sought refuge
      in
stone gods
    and
brick temples

You and Me

          you
          and
          me

let's make this while
    a worthwhile

About Living

Everyone comes with baggages.
That's life.

Nothing is perfect
Nothing will be
It's about time we started living the imperfections
It's about time we fell in love with the imperfections
It's about time we made peace with the flaws
It's about time we breathed in our skin

Proximity

breaching
the
spaces

filling
the
blanks

The Civilized Skies

and then
one day
the concrete rib of civilization
pierced
right through the windpipe
of the skies

The Sword. The Pen.

Do you know what they meant
When they said
The pen is mightier than the sword?

They didn't mean it would end wars
They didn't mean it would usher in peace
They didn't mean it would resurrect the dead

Do you know what they meant?

The wars would lurch down the throat of humanity
The idea of peace would be all about mere doves and mortal olives
The dead would still be dead; a piling heap of rotting carcasses

For, who holds the sword will never know what it feels to hold a pen
For, who holds the pen will never yield to the grit of steel

The world still bleeds
This time worse than before
The sword cuts you open
The pen plucks through the insides


Death isn't about gory bloodbaths anymore; death is dark poetic


Do you know what they meant
When they said
The pen is mightier than the sword?

They didn't mean life would be simpler
They didn't mean love would heal it all
What would life be if it was all so simple
What would love be if it didn't kill us a bit more one more time

The steel of swords wither to the rust
The pen remains, the ink remains
The wounds from an assault; the wounds heal to scars
The papercuts of a tarnished novel; can band-aids fix them


Life isn't about dreams and beating hearts anymore; life is dark romantic


Do you know what they meant
When they said
The pen is mightier than the sword?

The sword kills you once
The sword kills you once and for all
The pen kills you once
The pen kills you once, once more, and once again
Every time only enough to be left with sufficient life
To bleed again, one more time, one last time


Sobhraj is as much a hero as is Bukowski

The Question Mark

How far would you go
If you knew there was no return
How deep would you cut
If you knew there was no healing
How mad would you love
If you knew there was no closure
How big would you live
If you knew there was no point

How much would you ever risk for the ashes?

Who'd You Be

would you still be
what you've become
had it not been
purposes and conveniences

The Truth of the Lie

there are no truths
there are no lies
there are but stories
stories of an apparent reality 

Finding Happiness

the day
you find happiness
nothing else will matter
nothing
but
happiness

The Stories of the Rains

nervous spaces
a lone bench
awkward silences
a sudden splurge

two lives
one umbrella


the rains and her stories

The Life Paradox

it's ironic
how
individuals seek definitions
it's absurd
how
differents seek same
in the names
it's strange
how
mortals seek forevers

oxymorons of a paradox called life

The Idea of a Revolution

what are we
but
a bunch of
mindswept revolutionaries
all too taken
all too occupied
with the fed ideas
of revolution 

About Tonight

tonight
let your waves
crash
my shores

tonight
let your waves
break
my shores

tonight
let your waves
weep
my shores

tonight
let your waves
torment
my shores

tonight
let your waves
smother
my shores

tonight
let your waves
house
my shores

tonight
let your waves
be
my shores

The One Wish

I wish
we were inebriated
more often

the drunk screams
the barity
of uninhibited truths
sobriety dare not
speak of
in the wide awake daylight

They Say

       a lot many
             say
   a lot many more

  the more they say
the lesser they mean

About You

who would you be
had they not told
who you would be

what were you
before they chose
what you were

who are you
when they aren't watching
who you are

Where Life Happens

at the crossroads

of a countless parallels

realities coincide

that's where life happens

Love Me Like the Skies

love me
like you love the skies

without the becauses

When the Storms are Gone

when the storms are gone
when the seas stand still
you will be happy
you made it to the shore

for life has no winners

in the end
it's all about
who survived and who didn't

shipwrecks are better than dead fishes

An Affordable Love Story

                     and then
                      one day
love was as affordable as the tattoo on your skin

           the ink was indelible
            the stories weren't

what couldn't be undone was redone

This Thing Called Hope

        but then
this thing called hope
              is
      such a drug

The Flight of a Falcon

Once upon a time
A long time ago
There lived a falcon.

A meaty coat of monochromed feathers
Piercing eyes, somewhat like the colorless toy marbles of a childhood
A peach dark nebula at the very nucleus of it
A pair of wings, far-flung and overarching

He would wake every morning to the daybreak atop the towering arm of a faraway eucalyptus

The entirety still like the stagnant tranquil of the seas before the storm
The eyes, restless like the flight of a newborn.

It was an everyday
The sun was setting to the southern winds across the western skies
The falcon was homeward bound
It was supper time

As he sailed through the skies one last time
Something crossed his eyes
Something at the very heart of the unkempt jungles
Something miles away, a distant blur that could be forgotten in the open eyes

But, the falcon was too exact to miss out on specifics.

And so, he aimed and he aimed well
He cut right through the throat of the jungle

If only he knew, that moment onward, everything would just pave the road to a revolution
A revolution like no other
A revolution like no other apparently


It was a cassowary.

The thorns of a shrub had cut her
There was blood, and a lot more pain
But, the cassowary was too disdained to plead for help; if only narcissism had a cure

The falcon stayed the night
The night after
And, the nights after

Twelve nights after, she had healed
But, the falcon couldn't leave
Neither did the cassowary ask him to


What heals us is often what breaks us.


As the day broke, the falcon stood next to the cassowary, his right wing spread across her
The flight of love, they'd call it.


"But I can't fly", the cassowary cried
"I will fly for us", the falcon smiled
"And I'll build ground", she smiled

"But, what about a home?", she was pensive
"Home is here", the falcon smiled in an unusual calm


It was an improbable wedding
But, a wedding nevertheless.


It was all good
The falcon fetched
The cassowary gathered
It was family

And then, one morning, parenthood embraced them
Four fledglings
The falcon kissed the cassowary to the meek shrills of the newborns

As the sun went past the mahagonies and the fish
And the moon shone with all her grace in the mid-sky
The cassowary lay awake
She was tired, she was sleepy, but yet, wide awake

"What's bothering you?", the falcon asked
"What if they can't fly?", the cassowary was disturbed
"They don't need to know they were born to fly", the falcon smiled
"But, what do we tell them?", the cassowary asked
"Nothing. They are what we are. And, we don't fly", the falcon said
"But you do fly!" she exclaimed
"Not anymore" he smiled

The falcon went fetching the next morning
Only that, this time, the skies were different


The time was lost in the tides
The high and the low

The fledglings had grown up
The skies were nothing but the skies to them
They called the jungle their home

They were what they were told they were.
Aren't we all?


And one day, they found love too.

The family wasn't about just a family anymore.


The falcon was gone.
The cassowary was gone.

But, what nobody knew was, with them was gone the truth of a hundred thousand lives

What lived on wasn't a lie
What isn't a lie is not the truth either

The half-truth of a lifetime had become the folklore of the ages.

The folklore we all wish we could afford to not believe
The folklore we all think we could believe was just another tale
The folklore we all desire to re-write someday

But then, what more are desires than mere desires?

Every revolution begins with an absurd idea of a madman.
How could this be any different?


One day, a madman wanted to re-write the folklore
For the first time in years, someone was willing to risk it all

But, so much for re-writing a folklore?
If only someone could convince the madman to the otherwise.


He was laughed at
He was scorned at
He was cursed at
He was lamented at

But then, a madman is a madman.


And so, he spread his wings and leaped
He fell straight on his face
The jungle called it "the fall of a lunatic"

Death haven't deterred madmen
This was just a fall.

He tried one more time
He fell one more time
He tried one more time and one more
He fell again. Again. Again.

Broken bones. Bruised eyes. A bleeding beak.
The madman took one last leap
This fall would kill him

And, as the jungle let out a sigh in an anticipation of the inevitable
The madman flew.

The wind was too strong
The wings were too weak
The entirety of his strengths and beliefs could suffice for just a flight

The madman had his last fall
The jungle called it "the flight of freedom"


The madman had just begun a revolution
The equations had changed
The roadside lunatic of a yesterday was the legend of today

If only the world could afford legends while they were still alive



Today, everyone wants to fly
Today, no one wants to call the jungles their home
Today, everyone is aiming for the skies


Some fly
Some few die trying

The others just sit there, watching the flight of a falcon, and complaining of prejudice.

Reminiscences of a Sleepless Night

The night
I am not afraid of the night

It's the darker chapters, the uncomfortable obituaries darker than the night that keep me awake..

Someday

Sometimes I look at you and think
Maybe someday
Someone will walk into my life
And just stay

Just stay
Not afraid of cutting herself in the broken pieces

I don't need someone to fix them
I don't want someone to fix them

Someone who could live them all
Someone who could call them her's


That's all I have ever desired.

What's In a Name

Don't call me by my name
Don't call me by your name
Don't call me a name at all
Names give you reasons
Reasons to fall
Reasons to love
Reasons to fail
Reasons to hate
Reasons to give up on it all

This time around, don't give reasons a chance
This time around, don't call me a name
This time around, let it all be in the blanks.


I once called someone by her name
I once called someone by ny name
I once knew someone who called me by my name
I once knew someone who called me by her name
I once thought it was all about names
I once thought life was in the names.


We fell in love one drunken night
Somewhat drunken in the inebriety of an affordable whiskey
A lot more drunk in the sudden rush of blood gushing through the sober veins

The night was gone at the break of dawn
The euphoria of a few glasses of whiskey had worn out
But the names stayed

Love is too intriguing a name to let go
Love is too stranger a name to survive

And so, we loved in the name of love
After all, it was all about names in the end

I called her by her name
And she called me by mine

Every time we held hands and walked back home to the crimson sunset
Every time we laughed to each other on the blades of the lush green smitten in dewdrops
Every time our skins crossed paths as we watched the thousand dots make sense of the star-crossed skies
Every time we slept to each other, arms wrapped, her head resting to my restless heartbeat
Every time we made love to the crumpled sheets, breathless shivers and vanishing spaces

I called her by my name
And she called me by hers

But names don't stop at names.

And so, the love grew
The love for names

The love for mountains
The love for beaches
The love for dogs
The love for cinema
The love for commons
The love for differences
The love for love
The love for life

We named them all.

After all, it was all about names in the end
After all, love was in the names
After all, life was in the names

The love for names kept growing
The love for names kept growing beyond the love


Do you know what lies beyond the love?

Madness. Sheer madness.

But, how long can you survive madness?


I had once wondered how it felt to fall out of love
I had once wondered how it felt to grow out of habits
I had once wondered how love could poison existences
I had once wondered how love could wage hatred
I had once wondered how it felt to be in love and yet not to be
I had once wondered what happened to the names at the end of it all

Life is stranger than fiction they say
Life was stranger than love this time.

The madness had ended
The love was lost
The names stayed but.

The names are never gone
The names can not be drowned or forgotten
The names remain, like the lost bits of a chance otherwise almost survived
The names remain, like the ghost of a dead past that keeps coming back
The names remain, like the scars from an accident almost forgotten if not for them


Don't call me by my name
Don't call me by your name
Don't call me a name at all
Names give you reasons
Reasons to fall
Reasons to love
Reasons to fail
Reasons to hate
Reasons to give up on it all

This time around, don't give reasons a chance
This time around, don't call me a name
This time around, let it all be in the blanks.


After all, love is not about the names
After all, love was never about the names
After all, life is not in the names
After all, life was never in the names.

I Killed Gandhi

You say you hate me
You say you hate me because I killed Gandhi
You would want to believe you could hate me
You would wish you could hate me
Like the hundred thousand episodes of a measured life you have wished you could hate
Like the hundred thousand times you have flocked the streets seeking respite in the pretentious hatred of others


Hatred is not just an emotion anymore
Hatred is about belonging
Hatred is about trying to sink in the lost identities in the chores of the city
Hatred is about forgetting the sleepless nights and the empty stomachs

Hatred is like marijuana
Where the questions don't cut through
Where the answers don't matter anymore
Where the divide of ideas and beliefs are summed up in a distant blur
Where nothing else matters
Where nothing else matters but the habit of it


Gandhi is an alibi.

An alibi like any other
Like the homeless gods and their fallen altars
Like the crippled governments and the deafening religions
Alibis to feed your hunger
Alibis to quench your thirst
Alibis to buy you some more hatred
Some more hatred
And some more of it


You say you hate me because I killed Gandhi
Is it really about Gandhi?
Is it really about the killing?
Would you not hate me if I wrote stories instead?
The stories that would otherwise never make it to the daylight
The stories that would unsettle the very truths of a nation
Would you not hate me then?


You would still hate me
You would hate me in the name of nationalism
You would hate me in the name of an erred democracy
You would hate me for the sake of hatred
You would hate me for the habit of hatred
You would hate me for the love of hatred

You would hate if a man slept to another man
You would hate if a man woke up next to a woman
You would hate if a man made war
You would hate if a man laid down his guns
You would hate if a man made the choices for a woman
You would hate if a man chose the choices of a woman

You would hate for the sake of hatred
You would hate for the habit of hatred
You would hate for the love of hatred

Hatred is not just an emotion anymore
Hatred is the idea of hating someone
Hating someone who is different
Hating someone who does not agree to your apparent truths
Hating someone who isn't you
Hating anyone who isn't you
Hating everyone who isn't you


You scream slogans in the name of hatred
You burn streets in the name of hatred
You lynch lives in the name of hatred
You ridicule democracies in the name of hatred
You tear families apart in the name of hatred
You auction chastities in the name of hatred

And no one speaks a word.



For, you are the skin and the flesh and the blood
For, you are the very truth of everyone
For, you are the one and you are the all


You say you hate me
You say you hate me because I killed Gandhi
You say I killed him because I hated him
Reasons you choose to make yourself believe
Reasons you would never ask
Reasons I would never tell


I would never tell you how it felt when you cut through the entrails of a nation
I would never tell you how it felt when you traded the very soil I called home
I would never tell you how it felt when you ransacked existences in the broad daylight
I would never tell you how it felt when you preached hatred and anguish in the name of peace
I would never tell you how it felt when you estranged families at the length of an imagined divide

I would never tell you any of it
Reasons would never be reason enough to satiate madness.


You would hate me no matter what.

Would you hate me if I were you?

Love in the Time of Maladies

A lot has been spoken of love.

How Romeo and Juliet loved till the end of time
How the fallen angels fell for the monstrous demons
How love came home in Prince Charming's dreamy eyes
How falling in love was always about the happily ever-afters

Those were the days of the dreamers and their rainbow fairytales.


Then came the cynics; and came the dark times, the times of scarred love, poisoned chalices and cold betrayals.

They spoke of love too
The dark crimson and the peach black tales.

How the love for Cleopatra diseased king after king, kingdom after kingdom
How a brother killed another for the war of love
How a lover pushed a shining dagger right through the chest of the loved
How everything could be called fair in the name of love


Men made opinions
Opinions made factions
The right claimed love to be God's manifesto
The left condemned love to the whims of Evil

As time passed, love came to be known as mankind's favourite fallacy.


You think love is our greatest mistake?
Try getting married in love.

Love isn't the end of love
Marriage is the end of love
For, there are no happily ever-afters
For, there were no happily ever-afters ever


And you thought marriages were conclusions
And you thought marriages were where love led to

Marriages have never been about love
Marriages have never been any more than a never ending take of snakes and ladders

Marriages were always about families
Families were always about opinions
Opinions were never just about opinions though
But, beliefs and faiths, blind and cripple


The ones in love were forgotten in love
What was meant to be a tale of two turned an epic of the ages
What was meant to be personal was taken to the streets
What was meant to be between the lips had slipped the coffee cup to the roadside rants
The ones in love were drowned in love

The drowning fought for life
The lovers fought for love

He fought her
She fought him
He bled in the insides
She bled from the skin
And then, they made love like there was no tomorrow
One bloody love affair.


But, it wasn't about love anymore
It was about marriage
And, marriages were never about love
Marriages have never been about love

Families fought families.
The civilised had always housed more beasts than the entirety of a jungle
The snakes were gone
The ladders had been burnt down

Love stood at a distance as the worlds came down crashing

And one day, it was all over
As if, there was never a thing ever before
Or so they wished.

All of a bloody battle for nothing.


The hands were smeared in blood
The scars were too thick for a lifetime
The battle had ended
And, the winner took it all.


But, who was the winner?


Who could ever win the battle for a lost cause?


Love left a single rose where the remains of a dead marriage were laid to rest.


Marriages were never about love
Love was all that love had to itself

Marriages have wronged more lives than maladies ever will
And you thought love was our greatest mistake?

Living with The Ghosts

It was a long time ago
I was probably a ten-year old

The blunt lead of the half-chewed graphite
The meek overtone of the frail scribbles
The inexpensive pages of the hard-bound notebook

They had all witnessed a new beginning
The first signs of an original
The morning to a thousand possibilities
The first ever of a poetic journey
My first ever poetry

The ten-year old me drowned in the loud laughs and ill smirks
The poetry found freedom in the flight of a paper plane

I was too young to make sense of words apparently
I have lived with the ghost of sense ever since.




It was a long time ago
I was probably thirteen or fourteen
Tagore and Neruda and Wordsworth were too far-fetched for my humble height
But, my grandfather wasn't

And so, I read him
I read him every day
I read him every night
Years after he was gone, I could still see him look at me and smile
He smiled at me every time I read him
He smiled at me every time I pulled out my diary and scribbled a little something
He smiled at me every time we sat down to some poetry, some more of it

And then one day, I wrote
I wrote like I thought he would
I wrote like I thought he would want me to

This time though, it wasn't nonsense
This time around, it was theft
A nobody had stolen from a somebody
A grandson had stolen from a grandfather

I was too naive to even think of writing like him apparently
I have lived with the ghost of my grandfather ever since.



It was a long time ago
I was probably sixteen or so

A raunchy rebel who swore by Shakespeare
Bloodshed, betrayals and death made so much more sense
Blooming flowers and chirping birds have always been for the faint-hearted
But then, what was a rebel without a rebellion?
What was a rebel without his armour?

And so, I sat down to write one more time

The tales of everyday wars
The tales of unseen assaults
The tales of lust in the times of love
The tales you had wished were tales

My father was a revered man
What else could he do but burn such poetry and wait till the last of the ashes were gone?

I was too obscene to write poetry apparently
I have lived with the ghost of poetry ever since.



It was a long time ago
If six years were a long time

Heartbreaks have seen the mute sing songs and the cripple write poems
I thought I was different
If only thoughts were half as real as reality itself

I would write
I would write every day
I would write every night
I would wake off a midnight tremor and bleed on the paper
I would wake off an afternoon slumber and the pen would hear my tears

I could write till the end of time
I could write till it was all gone
Every last bit of it washed away in the breath of monsoons

I could write till my hands bled
I could write till the novels ran out of pages

But then, what was the point?

I would still not make enough sense
I would still be naive to write of adulthood
I would still be obscene, unworthy of being called a poet
I would still be fighting the ghosts inside my head

But then, poetry is a disease
And I have been diseased for as long as I remember


I still write
I still write poetry

It's just that I don't write to make sense anymore
It's just that I don't write to appease the grown-ups
It's just that I don't write to be called a poet
It's just that I don't write for any of it anymore.



I have made peace with the ghosts; I call them my home
I have made peace with the oddities and absurdities of sanity; I call them poetry.