I REFUSE

I refuse to be by-gone

Archaic

Lost in history

Forgiven in memory

Lamented and forgotten

Obsolete an idea

Thought by passed

I shall rise again

Unshackled

Alive

And snatch away

My dreams

From fate’s cruel hands

Reverberate with joy

Disheveled fervour

Shall see the end

The beginning of all

As I am the multitude

Within and also

The connect divine

I am …………….Just me!

HE'S JUST A MARRIED MAN

The tender leaves

Float in his voice

A shine glows deep

Like a moon beam

On a starlit night

His crystal eyes

Mirror a smile

Dreams skirt around

On the marbled floor

Step to step

Rhythm to rhythm

Hands outstretched

Fingers clasped

But still amiss

Is the lonely touch

The nearness

The warmth

Of fingers and lips

So close yet so far

So distant in hold

Faithless but bold

Passes by a song unsung

The empty footfalls

Cocoon a moment

Intimate and gone

A gaiety so fake

Laughs aloud

As the harshness

Of sunshine

Pours on them

A moment is stilled

Gathered again

In distance surround

Promises broken

Words unleashed

Yet unspoken

A wish, a hope

Pulsates within

Hisses under his

Laboured breath

And robs him off

The words that freeze

With lifeless chains

He’s bound to an oath

Long forgotten

Forgiven perhaps

TWILIGHT FRIENDS

In the course of life’s journey, we make innumerable acquaintances and friends. We spend happy times with them, play, make merry and sometimes share our grieves and pains too. At times these relationships are for lifetime, sometimes casual and for a short while. Our limited vision and thoughts prompt us to define every relation by name and bind them into watertight compartments – childhood friends, school friends, college friends, office colleague, bus mate, class mate, batch mate so on and so forth. In every walk of life we interact with so many people at multiple levels. Sometimes the rapport is instant, sometimes slow to build up, sometimes stormy, sometimes strong and deep – there are various shades to it. Many a times after meeting and gelling with a person, a spontaneous thought invades the mind “why didn’t we meet before?” This happens when two souls click and compliment each other without any enforced effort. The most apt answer to this innocuous question is that “you were meant to meet at the time when it was ripe for you”. No more no less! But still we ask such silly questions. Still we ponder and lament over the time lost being away from each other. If only we had met earlier. Had we met before we would have done this or that. Endless suppositions! Endless surmises! Endless queries! I think this process is continuous, ongoing, ceaseless (perhaps common to all too?) and goes on till the twilight of life when its time for the day to slowly creep out and for the night to reluctantly step in drowning all propositions and postulates in the unfathomable cesspool of dark desolation. I sometimes wonder, frail that we are as humans and try hard that we may to clench and cling to every moment, however transient they may be, putting a noose around them and tying them up to our memories, what name will we bestow on those relations and friends whom we come to know at the fag end and fading twilight of life? Twilight friends! Most probably?

THIS PERFECT ORDER

This perfect order

Of day and night

The sun blazes the morn

With golden light

Steps in the moon

Demure like a bride

Sprinkle of stars

Like a sequined sheet

The splatter of a brush

Strokes so rich and neat

The divine hand hath

In careworn delight

Bestowed his blessings

With splendour abound

We have nothing to lose

Nothing to win

Close your eyes

Forgive your sins

Take a deep breath

Realize Him within

Unto Him you belong

Unto Him you begin

ON LIFE'S MERRY BOAT

I rise I fall

With the waves

I stall

I move on

As hues sift shades

Blue turns white

White a fragile pink

Pink mingles with grey

Grey deepens within

I swim in bliss

Morrow I may sink

But today’s mine

I struggle I strife

Coz I’m on the

Merry boat of life

CHILDHOOD RAINS

Yesterday it rained like hell! Much awaited, much coveted after a long spell of scorching, scalding, scathing, parching sun's wrath, it poured. And what a pour it was! All of a sudden, it was dark as though night had crept in without a prior notice. The tempestuous, floating beauties roared, collided with each other, thundered and melted in a scurry. The aqua angels danced in merriment spluttering silver splinters hither and thither. The wind joined the bandwagon and broke in gustily in a mad symphony swaying the big, old as well as small and young trees in a synchrony of anarchy. The roads were flooded. At one point I thought it would be impossible to go back home. The curtain of rain was so opaque that it prevented visibility even ten steps ahead. The water bristles sashayed and swept past everything and anything. The umbrellas fought a lost battle with the torrential gush. The existence of the planet seemed to be at the mercy of the cascading rains. Monsoon was at last here! It reminded me of my childhood days. The rains of 1970s when the city would remain submerged under the "showering inferno" for days together and a glimpse of sun would be like the blessing of Apollo himself. Last year it hardly rained. And the year previous, rainy season was just a few bouts of miserly drizzles. But this time, rain god was on the rampage. A torrential, turbulent, Bohemian outburst.The water puddles laughed gleefully when feet splashed into them wading way home. The children danced with boundless joy. The dripping bikers stood by under make-shift shelters grinning sheepishly. Driving in this rain was like surfing through an ocean hole. Cars, buses and other vehicles were stranded. However, the route taken by us was cleaner except the lashing torrent. Drenched like a cat I reached home late than usual. But no complaints as the euphoria persisted. The unkempt joy of reliving my childhood days of paper boats, wet swings, wrenching and squeezing clothes plastered to the body in happy wetness, strding through tall , slender blades of glistening grass, scanning one's face on the rain droplets resting on the cheeks of the broad lotus leaves and catching the sprinkles in the crook of soft, little palms.

The childhood rains were back again.

HAPPINESS

Glorious morn

Cool sheets renounced

Scrambled eggs

Steaming tea

The day begins

Chirpy flight

Wanton delight

Golden sheen

On the leaves

Blue sky

Breezy sigh

Petals askew

Blushing hues

Happiness

Exotic

Luxury

No more a

Stranger to me

THE BALLERINA

Soft

Delicate

Fragile

Nimble

Fluid

Feet

Trip, twist,

Turn and twirl

On the jagged

Stones

And pebbles

Haphazardly

Laid by

Careless hands,

Beneath the

Gossamer sheen.

The stream

Carefree

Casual

Sometimes

Even coy

Pirouettes by

HURRIED HAIKU OF LIFE

If we have to encapsulate life in a succinct haikued prose! How will it sound. Something like this: Here is the place where I ambled around on nimble feet, rambled aloud, jumbled up thoughts and feelings, grumbled, gambled with risks, tumbled down the inclines and scrambled up a bit, stumbled on surprises, bumbled into potholes, fumbled my way out past the brambles, crumbled in grief on the shamble of residuals that I am left with and humbled, quietly mumble a prayer in thanks that I am still up and alive, a symbol of tenacity, a gift of the All Mighty!

Just ponder over this for a while........................................................in silence!

OPPOSITES ATTRACT

My eagerness

Distanced the world

Detachment

Binds to perfection

THE HAUNTED

It was a “sprawling” graveyard lying in the comparatively deserted part of the bustling city. The Authorities deemed it appropriate to put the barren land to adequate use. Soon the ground was leveled and up rose the rafts on criss-cross wooden ladders amidst heaps of concrete rubbles - the paraphernalia of a massive construct was initiated.

It is rumoured that the construction failed to be a seamless and smooth affair as thrice the half complete structure crumbled down, reason unknown. The labourers would put up the edifice with due diligence till nightfall and come back in the morning to witness it pulled down to smithereens. IT is, I think at this juncture, that weird tales about unidentified presence started floating about the site. There were a few graves which were left untouched and still lie in haphazard order somewhat corroborating the bizarre surmises. Stories of gory aftermath akin to those associated with vandalization of Egyptian pyramids did the rounds. Half truths and obfuscated facts contribute to myths, mystique and the making of legends. This was the beginning.

Notwithstanding the uncalled for impediments, the behemoth was finally put to readiness – an architectural grandeur of pink and beige squares and domes; an assemblage of several blocks which were called “cores”, apparently exclusive of each other but internally inter linked through a maze of passageways almost like secret runaways.

The grand building was to house the more sophisticated arm of the government. Every floor was a wide, open, orbital space divided into rooms, cubicles and halls with false ceilings and vinyl flooring overlooking rectangular terraces, which if one crossed over, curved into the other core. Up came the chairs, tables, cupboards, cabinets, closets, folders, stationery, paper, files, photocopiers, printers, PCs, laptops, fax machines. Pantries were stocked with food, snacks and beverages. Water filters were installed in the corridors. The hustle and bustle of 9 to 5 working hours commenced. But along with the preconditions of a conducive work culture came “the others”, in surreptitiously, uninvited, unwanted, useless to busy executives and harassed subordinates, they stayed put and made it their permanent abode.

“The others” who roamed the floors on silent feet like a swish of air, a whisper into one’s ears, weightless, formless, nameless their empty footfalls plodded the place during office hours as well as after closure. They were always there. They did not disturb much and remained confined to their own clan. But sometimes, the night guards complained of muffled male and female voices, avid conversations and suppressed laughter. Strangely after eight in the evening these guards would shut all the entrance doors to the offices and remain huddled in the main reception isolated by the closed doors; sometimes even outside the office on the landing opening to the lifts. Quite a few years back, one guard chucked up his job without prior notice and fled the city after being a terrified witness to an apparitioned figure in white stalking the grounds at night.

Employees working late were often disturbed by the eerie feeling of being “watched over” and the printers and photocopiers whirring into action on their own volition. Two weeks back one of the guards taking a round after office hour unlocked one of the rooms to do a routine check. As he was fumbling for the switch, he received a smothered but curt instruction of the unseen occupier not to put on the lights. The guard quickly locked the door and almost bolted out of the office.

The premise boasts of many hideouts which when chanced upon add up to the creepiness of the atmosphere. Our washroom has a kind of a small trap door pasted to the back wall which usually remains locked. The other day it was slightly ajar invitingly swaying to and fro softly with the breeze. Curiosity had the better of me. I opened it wide, poked my head in to stare at a dark longish slice of space big enough to snuggle a dead body in. It most probably was a part of the main shaft running along the backside of the building. But it gave me the creeps and for a few days I had to muster the last remnants of my faltering courage to visit the loo.

The latest to this genre of blood curdling instances was the story narrated by our peon, Sompal, who usually sits late in office as his chartered bus, the only one that takes him home, plies after seven. That day his friend had come to pick him up and not finding the guards in the reception walked straight into the corridor which took him to the entrance of the hall where Sompal usually sat. The glass and aluminum paneled door was unexpectedly shut. As he approached the door he had an odd feeling that he was not quite alone. as he saw shadowy reflection of three figures on the glass panel as though standing right behind him. He turned back to find nobody around.

This incident could have shattered the equanimity of any jelly hearted weakling. But we are a department of level-headed, logical, slightly non-imaginative legal minds (I being an exception) who chewed the cud so much that the topic under vociferous discussion almost turned into a sour lemon. The intermittent debates that took place throughout the next day followed like this –

Karun said: “I am not surprised. This is very common in this part of the building which remained unoccupied for a very long time due to these unearthly invasions”

Kiran said: “What rubbish! Sompal’s friend was not in his senses. Better still Sompal must have jabbered about these stories to him which gave his friend ideas. Where were the guards?”

Karun said: “Even the guards vacate the place after a certain hour”.

Priyanka said:”I refuse to hear about such things”

Kiran said: “There must have been someone. Perhaps the workers renovating the toilet day and night”

I said: “And that someone vanished in thin air in a jiffy. It can’t be!”

Bidisha said: “But madam, it is strange. The corridor was well lit. How could he see the reflection on the mirror from so far?”

Kiran said:”Where is Sompal? Why is he scaring us?”

Sompal said:” Kya madam! It really happened. Although I sit late I have never experienced such things. But my friend was new here and it happened to him.”

Life is not a canvas with black and white strokes alone. There are certain shady, shadowy zones of grey, the unknown and the uncharted ones. Choice is ours whether we believe in them or not, but what we cannot surely overlook is the fact that they are intriguing, mind boggling and sometimes nerve racking too. In this entire episode wherein the unknown fenced with the known, I and Bidisha were the worst hit who had to seek each other’s company to visit the washrooms or the dark and deserted nooks and corners of the office even during the busy work hours.

TALE OF A MOLESTED CITY

Suddenly Delhi has woken up to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games. Trenches have been dug (Don’t ask me why; most probably so that we may jump into them and hide in shame when India fails to win even a tin medal in the Games). The potholes have been made bigger by haphazard raking. The pavements are being widened. Dividers are being erected. The roads are being narrowed (scaped is the official term). All the stadia are being renovated. Over bridges are being put up and DMRC is being pushed to complete the “metro-morphosis” of the NCR on or before time. Though, I don’t think it needs to be goaded into action as it is the only system right in perfect order.

But the moot point here is that all these things are happening all at once just a few months before the commencement of the Games at the same time, by a stroke of preordained divine plan, also eerily coinciding with the monsoonal deluge (though the rains are playing truant off and on). As a result, there are “happy” puddles and water logs all around delaying the completion of the mammoth task of overhauling the city. Not to mention the “euphoric” mishaps and accidents for the aam junta stumbling into gaping manholes and man-made gorges and ravines beneath merrily meandering streams and coagulated water bodies. Not to mention the soon to be triggered off water borne diseases in epidemic proportions. Not to mention the indefinite claustrophobic imprisonment amidst never ending traffic jams. Wrath of Nature? Or eternal human folly?

All this for what? Just to make the capital look upbeat and updated to international standards (with its faltering electricity and water supply system)? I am told that all these arrangements are for our “atithi devo bhava” who’d be arriving in throngs flooding the city a few months hence. For the convenience of the videshi athletes who would have found it immensely difficult to tread on the undulating, dented walkways of the rajdhani.

In the meanwhile, Ms. Dixit continues to enjoy an insulated existence within her Secretariat which looks more like a five star hotel from the exterior (I have never had the good (?) fortune of visiting the interiors) rather than an office premise of a country which has just recently scraped past the stigma of the “Third World”. On the other hand, the common man looks on helplessly while the taxpayers’ money goes down the drain.

The breaking news is that the city is going to be brought back to “normalcy” soon after the Games is over. That is what I have been told and people are talking about in agog wonderment(I hope they are all wrong). This means the roads which are now being sleeked will be widened once again to accommodate the every increasing insurgency of vehicles on road and the pavements now being widened will be brought down to shape so that the quintessential Delhites do not loose their age-old habit of tight rope walking between bumper to bumper traffic. So much so for the beautification of the city! A colossal waste of public resources and human labour.

At life’s crossroads, it is sometimes very difficult to choose between what is easy and what is right. In this case, instead of mauling and molesting the cityscape again and again, the easy way out would not only have been economical but advantageous too.

No road scaping should have been undertaken. The ankle spraining potholes should have been retained, as it is, if not made bigger and ghastlier in size and shape. While our desi athlete bhais would know how to circumvent the black holes of life, sorry , road, out of years of rigorous practice, the videshi counterparts would invariably bumble into a few. Result - muscular sprains, ligament strains and orthopaedic disorders of varying degrees (God forbid!) thereby inevitable detention from Games leaving an opponent free competition and an easy win for our country. Medals and accolades do not otherwise seem forthcoming through proper channel i.e. the right way. I think that must be the secret plan as well since MCD and NDMC have reportedly given up on meeting the deadline.

Correct me if I am wrong in my surmises since I am just a hapless layperson of this country and would be extremely relieved and overjoyed if proven wrong ten times and over again.

Ciao

SPITEFULLY YOURS

I was silent for so long

That I forgot my speech

I have so much to say now

That words fail me

Let's begin from the very beginning

And go back to the end

Start afresh from anonymity

To freedom once again

I did the colossal mistake of addressing a fellow netizen by the word 'kid'. He turned out to be a strapping boy of 18 brimming with the pride of new found adulthood. Chaffing was inevitable. He snubbed me back, a little arrogantly, that the word sounded strange to him and should be avoided at all cost. I immediately apologized and replaced the "kid" with a 'ji' suffixed to his name. And that somehow assuaged his hurt ego.

It was a "minor skirmish" which made me realize, rather forcefully, the quintessential difference between the two genders. Had it been my female counterpart, the word would have aroused coy sentiments even if she were a doddering octogenarian. No exaggeration there!

A true incident, gleefully recounted by my sister to many, goes like this. Her colleague's mother-in-law, teetering on the edge of life and death. The young doctor attending her placed the stethoscope on her scrawny, heaving, gasping chest and said politely ,"Mataji! please try and take a deep breath!" Pat came the reply, "Mujhe maataji mat kaho naa, abhi meri umr hi kya hai!"(Don't call me mother. I am not that old).

FOR YOU, SUNITA

She is ex-Brabournite

I am ex-Irwinite

We are both Delhites

In our own rights

We both love verses

And literary discourses

Music and melody

Rapturous rhapsody

She is a literary buff

I am not conversant enough

I am the hesitant beginning

She is the end exalting

In a nutshell

We gel like hell

And quite a rebel

In our own rights

In short, we are friends!

THERE'S A VEIL ON THE CHINK

There’s a veil on the chink

Let the pain flood in

Embalm the ugly gashes

There’s a veil on the chink

Behold the bud blossom

Sunny rainbow blushes

There’s a veil on the chink

Let the soul seep in

Rain soaked mud mashes

There’s a veil on the chink

See how the wind breaks in

How the torrent lashes

There’s a veil on the chink

I cannot glimpse in

And soothe the bygone slashes

There’s a veil on the chink

Stillness smothers echoes

Sighs the solitary spring

How the chime of joy

Dead silence hushes

THE HOMECOMING

Wrapped up in myself

I did not realize

That time has passed by

And I am left hither

On the shores of life

Alone

The wavelets lap up

Licking my feet

In cheerful deceit

Beckon me aside

And whisper a polite

Reminder, “Friend!

It is time to return

Home”

THERE'S A CHINK IN YOUR VEIL

There's a chink in your veil

I can glimpse the snowflakes

Fragile curves and strokes

A few of your eyelashes

There's a chink in your veil

I see the luscious lips pout

Glitter the golden sashes

There's a chink in your veil

I beat with your heart

Rejoice in the Spring

Sulk in dark niches

When hopes turn to ashes

There's a chink in your veil

I creep into your leisure

Gaze on past flashes

There's a chink in your veil

So I need not try and fail

To snuggle through your self-

created impasses

There's a chink in your veil

I sneak into the truths

Hidden yet unveiled

Where life with death clashes

There's a chink in your veil

I flow into your veins

And swim in to feel

How the blood rushes

There's a chink in your veil

Like so many other veils

It unveils exactly

Which the "you"of yourself

So poorly suppresses

WILL YOU STILL.................................?

If you knew it was not the truth

Not what it seems

Not how you perceive it

As the solidified reality of "now"

Will you still be surprised

Agog with wonderment

Ruminate reminiscently

On the sublimity of the moment

Reason a rationale

Try and fail

Then wait for Eternity

To return history

On your lap?

Will you still love the idea of love

Let it bewitch your heart

With all its entrapments

Enchant your thoughts

Provocative as a mirage

Eternally sought

Invariably lost

Infinitesimally close

Infinitely ephemeral

Transience surpassed?

Will you still.............?

Tell me the truth

Please

Await aeon

For the quintessential moment

In time when you met and digressed

In your linear mobile?

Will you still believe in it

Which can never be caught

In the grip of your fingers

In the glint of your eyes?

Will you still remember

Let it torment

By its tempestuous beauty

By its torrid torrent?

Will you still recall

The madness tempted

In the haunting nights

In the solitude of days wasted?

Will you still..............?

Tell me the truth

Please.............

ILLUSION

Those who traveled

Far and wide

To and fro time

In pursuit of passion

With measured madness

To seek the glory

Of knowledge divine

Devoured pages

Of ink and gold

And gained in return

Priceless ignorance

Clueless, they retrace steps

Again in endless quest

Of life and death

And beyond

In the darkened nights

Of fear and dread

I hear their tread

Their sighs and sobs

As they roam the

Roads to horizon

Screaming in

Frenzied desperation

“Illusion, it is just

Illusion, no more,

no less”

Befooled, bemoans

The wind in

Eerie resignation

“Illusion, it is

Illusion, no more,

No less”

MUTE

Silence urges silence

Stillness purses lips

I am the mute audience

Of history's ceaseless drift

I believe I am ancient

In wisdom and priority

As I witness the world

Thus, unfurl as though a kid's play

Before my eyes

Blindfolded

CONFESSION

I grope in the dark

And grab what is Thine

And give back to Thee

In vain audacity

Which never was mine