Make a beginning

That's the difficult part
they say,
Making a beginning

Everything else, just
falls in place

First, a sense emerges
Over all misty meanings

What looked random
then appears
all planned, deliberately done

Distractions dissipate
As do multiple ways

There is only one road thereon
And it's not hard to take

You just roll thereon
the predestined path
before you so grandly laid

There is no looking back then
That's why I am
so afraid of beginnings.

Buyers and Sellers

Don't ask me if it's good or bad
Hell! I don't even care
What's wrong with being
Buyers and sellers?
You buying me some flowers
Me buying you a muffler,
That would be nice indeed.


But what if you could buy some poise
And I could buy some courage?
Me buy your ideas And you my words, maybe?
Wouldn't that be something?


Then  would you also buy my voice?
And would I buy your truth?
Would you buy my outrage?
And I you conviction?
Doesn't matter good or bad
But would we? If we haven't already.

A THOUSAND AND ONE WAYS

Its quite easy actually,
The poetic among you
can use words
The intellectual
can use logic
The scientific
can use nature
The pious
can use commandments
The political
can use fear
The academic
can use history
And the brutish can
ofcourse use force.

There are a thousand ways
You can kill a woman
or more, now that I think of it
Why, even the foolish can use
their fool-proof prejudice
But for her to live
there is just one
impossible way
That you simply
let her be.
 

A NATION THAT FORGOT

A Woman, who was once a force,
became a fear
A Man, who was once a creator,
became a cog
An Animal, that was once a god,
became meat
A God, who was once a fact,
became fiction
A Tree, that once stood its ground,
became a log
A River, that was once a panacea,
fell ill
An Art, that was once a shastra,
became business
A Pleasure, that was once infinite,
became g-spot
A Life, that was once karma,
became a car
And a verse, that was once an epic,
became this
Because a nation, that had lived so long,
just forgot.

PAPER WOMEN

You can pour your
heart on them,
Or you can crumple
them, junk them
You can tear them,
burn them
You can cut them
into pretty things
You can paint them,
paste them, flush them
You can press your
tears them, or blood or snot
In peace, you can tickle
accords on their glistening backs
In war, they will be the weapon
or the victim at your command.

And if indeed, your bag
gets too heavy with them
You can simply leave them home
and let them gather dust. 

TECHNICAL ERROR

कुल-देशों को
मर्यादा-तर्कों को
दर्प-अर्थों को
असंख्य जन्मों से
धारण किया है हमने

गर्भ-वस्त्र में
मूक-मोह में
लाज-पुण्य में
ढांप रखा है

और मात्र
घूँट भर विष नें
सालों से कंठ
रंगा है तुम्हारा ?

Tale Spin - II

"I was so stupid as a kid you wouldn't believe it." 

Now you must understand the strange effect this statement had on me. After all I  was a kid and she was my mother. I wanted to believe that she was smarter prettier and brighter than me at my age but she wouldn't let me have that. That's why her stories always left me ruffled, disoriented, shocked 

"...always wanted to be a good girl never thought of anything beyond. After all my father, your Nana Papa, was a doctor and Nani was a graduate. In those days it was a big thing. Imagine, she had four kids when she did her B.Ed. 

She always asked me to note down answers on the question papers but I never did that. I dreaded the exams but what I dreaded even more was what happened at home after it. She kept everything aside, brought out her slate board and chalk took the question paper from me, solved the sums and calculated how many I had got right. She was really smart.

Once I lied to her. That day we had a test and I must have been talking to one of my friends. So the teacher took away my answersheet and when she reached her table she looked at me angrily and tore it to pieces. 

I came home and told Mama the story with one minor adjustment: I replaced myself with 'one girl'. So, in that version one girl had kept talking throughout the test and finally the teacher had gotten so angry that she had torn her paper to pieces. The poor girl was crying in the recess and we had consoled her that nothing would happen. Now what will happen Mama? I asked her innocently. That day my lie played out but the next morning a blabbermouth of a classmate let the secret out. So that day, later in the evening, when Mama was giving me my usual bath she picked up the laundry bat and applied it on my back: 'A cheat and a liar... hun? Cheat and liar?'

How I spent the evening after that I don't remember but the next day when the teacher gave back the corrected answersheets I also got mine. It turned out that she had not torn my copy but some other papers lying on her table just to scare us off."

It was as good as I had seen it, my naani, the teacher, the exam papers... and me in place of that one girl  whose answer sheet had been torn off.