Hurt

Look me in the eye;
tell me why is your breath so hard, short.

Who pulled the plug
to the smile, the zest?
Who closed the door to nights
and gave you the switch
to insomniac bed lamp?

I remember you spoke of love
affection, commitment, friendship.
Are they still in your life
as you sit still
with down-cast eyes?

Look me in the eye;
tell me why is your breath so hard, short.

Vignette

hoard some tears
tis just night-time,
light of dawn too
craves nourishing.

Why Now? How?

Bring out the brush, said Nani
I need to talk to you.
Where are your songs,
the fire, that feeds the breath?

Picking up a Raga
my silence strummed some notes
but limpid plait sat at the dances
long resigned to being the sideshow.

Hearing this, I dusted the files
of bounded dreams;
spilled on, most faded
always under lock and key.

How do you expect me to sing now
when everyday, as you brushed my hair
you combed away the fire saying
'a girl lives and dies without destiny'?

Peepal tree (Holy Fig Tree)

delicate roots
rewrite the law
parting apart the wall

the red ball

in the wind's murmur
i heard the cry
of a child
searching for his
red ball.

the same wind
carried the wail
of a mother
dying, holding the red ball.

the wind spoke of leaders
raiding lands,
raining bombs
rhetoric in place
their righteous quest
veiling
the red ball.

the wind dies in my arms ,
and at my feet
lies the red ball.

Part time writer

Suddenly I came to realise that I disliked opening MS-Word. The reason was quite apparent. With a blank page in front of me, I had to figure out that which needed to be said. And not just say it but present it in an attractive, alluring fashion. If the words, the idea didn’t draw in the reader, they would have had been better left unwritten.

Now I am one of those types who, when they come to realise that they are afraid of something, they cajole themselves to do it just to see how far they would go. So here I am with a blank page in front of me; wondering about all those writers who cannot get their fill of words. How do they manage it? Day in, day out churning of words – words that make sense, that invite the readers to react, that trigger off more ideas in other writers.

And then a question sort of took shape. Would I like to be one of those? Or would I prefer to sharpen my skill as a writer but not write because of any compulsive need. The type who, once in a while, puts an idea to words. Words are needed because the idea demands to be communicated to a wider audience than found by my jabbering tongue.

For now it’s the words that dictate what I write. Sometimes they demand a blank canvas so that they can run across them and I marvel at the picture painted. Sometimes an internal churning happens and I get past my fear to open up the MS-Word. They flow, without saying much, perhaps just to show their power over me? Whatever it is, I feel like a helpless witness to a process that I do not understand. And at times like this I wish I were one of those writers who wrote because they knew their life, their identity was linked to it.