Hope

We light the candles of hope
under the peepal tree
Will the wind behave
And not flicker them?

Caged in our eyes and hearts
Is the full moon;
Does it stop escaping
often into smoke ?

Dry leaves should describe us well
As trampled as them we are ;
Breaking often into shreds
Disconnected and burning out in hope.

Summer holidays

My sword
The old antenna
With black bulbous head

very important
bows and arrows
made of broom stick fibre

catapults and ammunition
rubber bands, folded paper

Be quick, give the signal
Have to win the battle, this time.

Piecing it

'The moon rise?'
"Yes"
'The fire-flies?'
"No, they escaped"
'Is there anything else?'
"You may use the window"
'Right. shall use it'
"Done?"
'Not yet'
"Wait! forgot to tell"
"3 stars, 1 cloud and a mountain"
"Done?"
'Nope'
"Now?"
"Hmm...Looking good"
It's done.

Adjusting

"Who was that, third from the left?"
"No it was not her"
"She had long hair"
"May be she did not"

How often things fade
Slipping out of the edges
Of our minds.
and of those old farewell photographs.

How often we long for things
to fade and slip away into obscurity
just in time.

As we sift through nostalgia
Things are always fading
Always adjusting.
(even the still images)

Flowers and Notes

Jasmine flowers and the Violin

The fragrance grips me
And the notes out of the bow
Shoot me into a creation of
The movement of her fingers.

The notes high and low
The silence and the stray note
Recreate the lost fragrance.

The smell becomes touch,
Sound becomes smell
Vision is blurred with tears
As notes scale their heights.

Into unision, the senses melt
As the music is dwelt.

Mirage

Thirst seems to be quenched
With the mysticism
Shaped out of the mirages.

Some times it is the questions
That answer the most.
And sometimes it is just time.

Mysticism is caged
In you and me
And is every where we see.

Should we settle with it?
Or should it be stirred
Shadows in the sands
Are often screened by the storm.

How-much

Very often
I am amazed at
How much people know
About themselves.

Power-cut

Every evening there was power cut
and it brought silence for a while
We would come out and play
Hide and seek
in the dim twilight.

The neighbour's daughter met
their neighbour's son
In the dark stairways
leading to the terrace.

The street would be lost in chattering
Amidst the pressure cooker whistles.
In those little lit parleys
Opinions were formed.

With the hide outs getting darker
The game would go on
for quite sometime.

How in those days
In that moment
Every one wished
For light not to invade.