diary of a puzzled romantic-part I

I get these strange dreams these days,
stark, vivid and yet strange
I remember you clearly,
yes, in all of them, closer than usual.

but not me, nowhere as me at least
its like sensing yourself and not being there.

like tiny streams of water trickling down your face or the droplets of sweat over the bridge of your nose.
like those long breaths you draw, and every conscious pause while you speak.

its queer at times, as if I don't know you at all, but feel a pull nevertheless,
no, not a pull really.
you don't experience any kind of pull from your reflection right?
its just something of an unnamed bond,
I stare back at you like your thousand reflections,
fresh cutlery, rear-view of your car, even the kitchen tiles.

all this while , I have this plethora of feelings,
I get judgmental, I reprimand myself, I stalk you, I sulk, I smirk, I never leave,
I indulge in you.
not your sightings, but you
and yet never as me, not as anyone.

you are just as clueless there, but I think you do suspect something
at times when close your eyes and try to listen something amiss in the early-morning sounds,
when the leaves rustle to the tune of an old song,
or so you think.
when the evening breeze hits you square in the face,
 you inhale deep,
that half a grin perfectly in place,
and me resonating in your senses as anticipation,
as longing of the times yet to come.

I long as well,
for that one long breath of yours again
to release me to the autumn sky.

I hold on to you and yet long to fly,
and suddenly you open your eyes,

you leave me there..

innocence....

"aah, I love this place. It brings out the poet in me."

"you'd rather marry these ruins someday, if you could right??"

*chuckles* "its funny you said that. last night before I slept I actually considered the idea of being a wall.."

"A WALL??"

"a wall.."

"strange. If that's so, I'd rather be a curtain myself"

"and why a curtain??"

*sighs* "nothing elaborate in particular you know, just that one really wishes so after spending half a day in the basement. plus its really frustrating to be on the hidden part , unobservable, uninterrupted, layered.
I'd love to have both the dimensions to myself you know,  all the while when each is concealed to the other."

"well that's a weird desire.."

"yeah?? weirder than being peed on all day, or having gibberish scribbled all over you"

"you're just being mean now.."

"search me!!!"

"you know it right??"

*perplexed*" WHAT is it that I know, smartypants..??"

"that its facing the same direction all day, and having the shadows caress you while life goes about in its mundane pace. Its having time grow all over you, yet never leave. Its the innocence of a thought that you shall never be found, and that finally you are free, crouching, apprehensive, but free!!
I remember reading  somewhere in the fairy tales, that it was a fairy who slept between the bricks..."

"...THE WALLFLOWER!!!"

"What about the wallflower?""

"it wasn't a fairy, who slept there you see. It was her necklace she hid there. red and gold., rubies and..."

"...opals. strung on delicate dew drops. enchanting as the heavens themselves. I remember.."

"And the flowers grew over it."

*grins*" I'll have the wallflowers grow over me"

"...and I shall watch you silently from papa's quarters."

*whispers* "and nobody else"

"nobody else..pinky promise!!"

------------------------16 years later-------------------

"I hate this place you know. It smells of eccentricities. I'm afraid I'll be an old spinster till I get through."

"you're lucky you know. I feel torn apart by these two lives I lead."

"what have you to complain about silly. you have those amazing kids, that loving husband.."

"and my Godforsaken job"

"Godforsaken job!! superwoman with modesty huh!!"

"superwoman?? a curtain is more like it you know, two disconnected worlds, with you wavering nervously in between"

*smiles*"better than having handed-down ideals scribbled over you.."

Bared..

One fine morning, just like the other fine mornings sans any fineness in them, as usual,

you wake up to a steady drizzle outside your window, and its more-or-less pouring the same way inside your nose as well and you realize, just like you do, all those rainy mornings of the 22 years you left behind, that you don’t really harbor the fancy poetic thoughts, as they usually do, for the monsoons.

That it’s one of those unfortunate mornings that witness the poisonus-est venoms of your persona laid out for the world to bear.

Everything from your hair to your appetite refuses to agree, and you find yourself muttering profanities to no-one in particular, to thin air…

You didn’t see me in the morning and in essence you actually wake up to me on such mornings and don’t even realize it. I linger around even when you are getting late for work, with your precious toast burned and the eggs under boiled.

You know you’re reckless with the car on such days, and I toss about in the pillion to the irrelevant heavy metal that plays on the stereo. You don’t know, you’re in one of your ‘heavy metal’ moods today.

Remember that character you read about in that nonsensical book you keep , the Queen, yes the one always eager to part her subjects with their heads, you remind me of her.

Don’t bother looking for my identity; you have enough to bother you already. I’m just a narrator of the mundane misery you go through every single day ( at least that’s what you’d like to think of me as now). I’m the pessimism in you, bared to the last thread. That orator inside your head that keeps reminding you of the antediluvian fears ‘ normally’ kept aside, when you’re desperately trying to fit in the ‘normal-ness’ around you.

I’m like that invisible layer of grime you subconsciously try to wipe off your face, every now and then. If that be the case, I might not even exist, mind you, but just be the symbolic ingratitude towards whatever sanity you’ve been bestowed with.

I’m that stench of self-obsession that refuses to leave your quarters most of these days.

I’m just a captive in the metaphors of a failed poet that you are. Don’t even try putting a pin on it. Which Might just as well start oozing of all your fears and the mercurial wrath you harbor, which , however benign they may be, shall continue to haunt you on the other side as well.

 I’m better left to rot on the other end of mirror.

Better put to sleep on the warmer nights when you occasionally pray by the bedside.

A tale thus narrated

A story needs to be told, no matter how short of words one gets
& that at times when ink and paper do no justice, one should let it drizzle over the tin roof, like an incomplete symphony,  flow along the dozen streams thus created , and to change its form naturally in the course.

It must be set afloat at times on a paper boat, with fragments of innocence, and a shroud of the dainty aromas from kitchen.

If you can't pen it anymore, you should release it to the sky with the merry notes of a carefree whistle & let it find its way through the clouds, only to be hummed again.

paste it on to the mirror with a sweet-lipglossy kiss, or lick it off the sides like bright candyfloss.

let it go , or make it yours, snuggle up to it while you sleep.
blow it off your books , smell it on the pages,
and maybe when you need to,
hide beneath it to shut off the world.

let it trickle down your forehead,
and pulse through your neck.
let it settle to the bottom, to the distant hum of a train passing on its tracks.
let it ransack your quarters with the sultry jasmine.

at times a tale needs you to tell itself,
with all your whims and fancies.
your short hushed breaths, the crow's feet by your eyes,
and your silence..

a whiff of something undefined

Its thoughts floating mid-air, some caught, some left to linger, and some newer ones launched. Its life churned to the crappiest detail and still relished, seldom facebooked, oft-feared, and secretly longed for.
Its inexpensive paperbacks, stacked in the dorm room. Buttery thick lassi at the highway dhaba, and maybe just maybe, sweaty palms and stolen kisses in totally ridiculous places.
The makeshift Louvre that the last page of notebook is, and the inspiration these lectures are.

Its despite sculpting a person out of words, a curious self-obsession that refuses to leave.
Chewed to its very end and stuck beneath afterwards, its making your stance,  marking your place, your zone, your territory.
Its the names perfectly in place while the kids are yet to arrive, and the interim children played by orphaned puppies.

Sexy tanned arms and fresh Parmesan discs, with a glorious ‘jungle-book’ song playing in your dreams.

Its Absolut vodka with jaljira and the true sense of belonging that comes with it.

Its the sheer fun in smelling voices, and hearing colors with gulp-ful of songs from the vividh bharti.

‘Sahib bibi aur ghulam’ , 2a.m , instant minestrone , king-size chocolate bar and the utmost delight at not wearing contacts.

Those undefined, overused, cliched words that somehow still make you weak at the knees. Adrenalin drunk, 7am residency park moments, poetic moments, ‘Rang de basanti’ moments, profanity moments, and the like.

It all hangs in the air, every amazing undefined bit of it, white noise for you and me to pick and some.

heresy..

Life is what I learned
on my forced sabbatical from nothingness
a vacuum of pre-conceived opinions, perceptions and half-baked ideals accepted either obsequiously, or conjured from thin air.
That happiness flows well beyond the brims of the proverbial cuppa hot chocolate,
and intrigue very outside the history textbooks,

that sometimes its grossly unfair to pen existence in a shroud of metaphors
when all it takes for a poetry to take form is flesh and blood,
an aching neck,
goosebumps on an old song,
circle of dark brown left behind by a coffee mug
patterns in the sand
etched upon by tiny fingers
& maybe
fireworks reflected in moist eyes.

sometimes, it appears that people lead two lives,
connected by a thin strand of words
across the chasm of the metaphysical reality they so strive to define.

One, of simple complications,
and another of complicated simplicities,

funny as it might sound,
but however deep I wander
in the process of soul-searching,
I stumble across shiny tokens
of extravagance, vanity and lies
floating like lumps
in the broth of my very being.

Its hard not to despise oneself
after surrendering to these continuous impulses,
of chicanery  that goes about , under the terms of 'being yourself'
and after all
Isn't individuality literally and figuratively
what 'they' define it to be..

They say its unwise to be a part of the herd
They say its foolish to stray
& while life be dictated by formless forces,
'they' always have the last laugh

I'm a bad pupil.
I choose not to learn,
but let my survival teach me,
in my very own ways.

the transient cravings of a fickle heart

what do I call this unrest,
and is giving it a name even fair,??
there is no possible vent,
I never defined one. Or is it that my definitions are irrelevant..?
Is my 'defining' these things unfair......?
why's that I never find myself fitting in any static, coherent, 'definable' definitions myself, so to speak.
Is it wrong being not who you were a few moments ago..?

I call it being myself, which is precisely not being constant in any particular point of time. I have been called everything , from spontaneous to fickle, but isn't the whole point of 'being yourself' comprise of being , respecting and justifying all your idiosyncrasies??

I change, for good or bad, I have no idea, but definitely to a clearer conscience.
and what if that very change hurts anybody in the bargain, is it fair?

I debate and defend myself.
I win and lose my personal battles.
I have my phases
spirituality, independence, nihilism and the likes.
I get over, I restart.
and behind me I leave questions, dilemmas, hatred, even vengeance.

I don't mean any harm.
and yet the white noise inside is never pacified..