A Conversation.

You: thousands of them...

The Whore: but never, never a face!

You: a thousand weaknesses...

The Whore: the strength that were you!

Sleepless in Sealdah????

     I have had my share of sleepless nights-- be it pouring over term paper submission dead-lines, or whiling away the night in lazy dazed young dreams of love, or boozing and puking my brains out with equally notorious friends, or the worst of all, missing a certain 'somebody' sorely when sleeplessness transcended the eyes and attacked the very flesh and veins....or so i thought.........
     Thursday, January 07, 2010, 4:17 PM: I had gone into hysterics and weeped when the public announcement system made my blood crawl by announcing that my Rajdhani Express From New Delhi to Sealdah (West bengal) was late by  7 hours. I sulked through the whole journey as the lateness got stretched by an incredible 17 hours. My train reached Sealdah at an awefuly chilly 03:30 hours, ruining my sleep and making me grumpy and irritated with the whole world. The prospect of another 7 hour journey to my home-town without reservation, jostling for a seat in the general compartment amidst an utterly disgusting, ogling and gawking crowd made me wanna collapse. "Why does this happen to me? WHY WHY WHY?" Silly old reiterations.
      Saturday, January 09, 2010, 4:00 AM:  I started wandering the station aimlessly (yeah, i travel very very light) to keep myself warm and while away the 2 hours before my next train. And this is what I encountered-- an everyday scene in the 6000 odd stations across India. The irony lay in the normality of the scene. It did no more than shut me up.

 5:36:50 AM

        And just to add to the insanity and the irony of it, I did not have to battle the disgusting, ogling, gawking crowd ultimately. I occupied 3 seats in the practically empty 'ladies compartment' and slept through the 7 hours. I guess, I had abused God enough for not taking care of me.

Un-poemed

Random regrets….

Did I fail u?

Was there a river in the path that I did not wade through?

How great would it have been if I had chased those crickets around that corner?

Did I choose to walk alone?

Was there a swinging black tire hanging from an old banyan tree by that road?

Was there somewhere a sprig I that dried up because I stopped shedding tears?

Could I have opened the window and watched the reflections melt away?

Was there fire enough on the Sun to burn my frozen gaze?

Had I stopped for a moment and looked up….

Would that have spared me the embarrassment of scribbling on white pages tonight?

Of trying to fill up an empty world with hollow words?

Was there goose-bump in the air?

What if I had spread my arms?

Valentine's Day Eve.

I saw a car today with two pink and three red balloons flying out of its window. i missed the way my heart would have ballooned up.

Ten steps ahead of me i saw two pairs of feet, awkwardly jostling the busy crowd, in perfect harmony. i missed the street-unsmart me.

I took the stairs through a card shop to reach the book-store on the 2nd-floor. i missed the love-you-or-forever-yours dilemma. and the green-ink-or-red-ink one too.

I saw a man lying dead on the road. i debated and then dialed the emergency number. i shivered. i missed you.


Oh!!!! somebody told me, its a gig created by the market.
I nodded in agreement. and missed you all over again.