Those days

And for quite some time in the initial days
a ring of telephone would jolt us, and
We would gather to observe the expression
On the face speaking into the receiver.

This was, we were told, a replacement
Of the Telegram, which almost always carried
Grave news about illness or death.
Every ring was like an alarm bell.

Darkness wouldn't stop it from waking us up
It would function all the more promptly
When something went wrong
There is no chance for escape.

A feeble voice of fate over an eerie static
Would talk to us and inform about the bad outcome
Of an exam, where as I,locked in the bedroom
sandwiched between pillows was pretending to cry.

Certainty

Sometimes, certainty gives me
a feeling of weightlessness.
A momentary joy of not knowing
The next trap, the next hurdle.
Hanging in a limbo has seeped
deep into my conscience, that
something certain gives me a jitter
A suspension of disbelief.

Over the years
I attributed much chaos to the universe
If something went wrong I would say
"I have put in my best
but fate failed the test"
There would be 'Ayes' and 'Nays' for this
All rational arguments about
Why I was right and wrong.

When I succeed, I know nothing more
Than when I fail.
I don't know if I deserve either of them
But, who is it that decides?
Like a school kid who accidentally
finds himself in the first place
I collect the report cards from fate
And come back quickly to the seat of reality.

Sympathy

Evokes itself in uncertainty
Stays as an uncomfortable zone
to the seeker and the giver.
Sadness in each others' eyes
is like the tears of a fish:
A pondful or not even a glint.

Imagining ourselves
in the densest darkness around
We invest for future
like the money on wall street
It sways, it stays
It is all uncertain
Behind the flowery curtain.

Childhood

Was it only a fleeting innocence ?
Like a stray cloud over an uncharted terrain?
What was that shadow of comfort and caring
blocking the blaze, almost to darkness?
How quickly coldness swept in
to give a hardened look
of a land ploughed for years!
There is no revoking of such innocence now
It would be disastrous.
Like a lie, innocence changes
its hues over time.
But what is worth remembering
is the dissolution of our identities
in that field beyond right and wrong.
Where we transformed into just being.


(Courtesy : Nisheeth Srivastava for "....the field beyond right and wrong...")

In the end

Like an old clock
he has seen many times
His youth had enough
of those resonant chimes
Now he is a heavy book
on a wobbly lectern
Important but unread
he is a dusting classic
The end, he knows, is tragic.

(Title courtesy:Linkin Park)

State of affairs

Her cracked feet
sport deep ridges of mystery
like the stories she narrates.
Of suicides and extra affairs
Of murder and revenge
Of angry housewives and hating in-laws
Of the lost glories and new rises

Behind the haystack and
beneath the temple walls
She knows it all.
Like a temple threshold
she is crossed by all.

Children fall sick and she knows
which lemons to choose to ward off the evil.
A mid-wife and a grandmother
An exorcist and a foreseer
To the rich widower, some say
She is also a wife.

For anyone teasing her
there are ancient quips in store
She threatens to send evil to their house
to carry away those who are half asleep.
They try to win over her, asking
for stories heard a thousand times before.
Too scared are these children.