Karma

The transience of my being
Is in contradiction with the permanence
Of this journey.

I shall come back again
And again
Forever

Until I get to travel
Once
With you besides me.

Old Things

Raj?
Yes Princess?
This rice cooker is not working!
I know baby. Will repair it this weekend.
How much do you earn Raj?
Baby, I don't like where this conversation is going.

Why have you not bought a new one? It's always the same, the burner of this ancient stove, the rice cooker, that ramshackle apology of a washing machine that you have... Why? Why don't you just get some new ones?

Baby, we have discussed this before. You know I won't.

Shall I gift them for you?

No Princess, these don't leave my house. I can't accept new ones.

Will you always always be so difficult?
Yes baby, always.

Why?
Cause that rice cooker has been with me for 12 years.
So?
So I can't just chuck it.
What does that mean?
It means that as long as it is amenable to repairs, I will repair and use it. I will use it even if it costs me twice the cost in repairing it. I won't give up on it, until it gives up one me.

Do you know how crazy that sounds?
I know baby.
And you are OK with it?
That's the way I am baby.

How long have we been together?
22 years baby.
Love you Raj.
Love the cooker too baby.
Dog you are!!!
Bhou Bhou Princess.

With the Sun in my eyes

There was a turn up ahead on the road. A turn that I did not want to take.

There are times when you don't want any further changes in your life at the moment. It was one such moment in my life in time. However, the concept of having a choice is rather overrated. If I had a choice, I would have become a deodar tree in the middle of Indian rain forests and lived quietly for a million years. Such choices are never available.

There was a turn up ahead on the road. The turn required of me to move along its contours. The turn wished of me to succumb to it's long curves and stay away from its guarded rails. Missing the turn would have meant a dive into the setting sun. I can imagine how it would have felt, a white car trying to land on the setting sun.

As the sun's saffron hue set the horizons on fire, I once again found myself on a road that leads to you.

Footprints on the sands of time

I followed your trail through the ancient by lanes of my memory. I could see your footprints span across all my remembered life. I have never really trusted my memory. I forget more than I remember.

But of this I am sure, that those footprints are not from this life. These are from every life I have ever lived.

Keep the lights on!

Many have tagged along, but you, you have been there all along. All these years on the road, I have been through trails thick and thin. My travails have taken me to edges of reason. I have been insane for longer intervals of time than I remember. And all this time, you have hollered along. I wake up each day, fiercely alone, tragically independent. I go out into the world, as if each day were mine to consume. 

I whimper back into the darkness of my nights, nursing the bruises from another day of living. And when the lights go out, I know that you are right there, coaxing me to sleep. 

Death does not worry me, as much as life does. For a grind that comes to a halt once in a lifetime, why should I care? Living a life devoid of your shadows... How do I dare?

Of Lifetimes and Will Yous

No. We won't be together for a lifetime. Lifetime is a word coined by poets. Waterman just borrowed it since it made their pens look more interesting. Nothing lasts a lifetime. Over the years, we will die many a deaths. In some we will be together; in most, I will die my own death and you will sulk somewhere in the dark corridors of souls silences and whimper away little deaths, many, frequently, soundlessly. The best I can do is trust you. Trust you to share with me the storms that will rise in your life. Most, you will weather on your own, for they are not storms of this world. They will be the ones that rage deep within you. Storms that rise from the strife of everyday living. And then there will be those in which you will call out for me. You will hold my hands and together we will thunder into the storms. Lord be willing, we will survive.

The tango and the waltz that we do is not all of life. It is at best our weekend at the movies. Movies don't last a lifetime my love. Nor does life.

The tyranny of time echoes in the lines on our faces. I never knew when the laugh lines turned into lines of destiny. Engraved, endearing and forever. I don't have all the answers, but I love your questions.

The First One is Always Special

I lost an umbrella of mine the day before. It had been with me for many years now and I miss it terribly. I ordered another one quite like the one I lost. They should be delivering it any one of these days. I know how I will feel when it finally gets delivered. I will love this one just as much but miss the one that I lost forever more. I pray that it is discovered by someone who would love it just like I did and care and polish its burnished wooden handle year on year. Not many people care for their umbrella the way I do. An umbrella has a personality you know.

I had lost a blue Cross pen years ago. It took me three years to find a replacement. I keep the new one very guarded. It reminds me of the one I lost.

There is something wonderful about the first of many. They all remind me of what was once with me and is now no more.

Sigh!

All My Colors... are colors of you

Borrowed from: etsystatic.com

What your golden glow 

Does to a backless Cameo, 

Is how i define Red. 

Ah!

Lost Frames

I had a friend when I was growing up. I loved him and he loved me. There was this girl whom he fell in love with. And then I met her and unfortunately...fell terribly in love with her. You know how your first love is. It was magical. It is twenty years and I still remember her perfume and the taste of her lipstick. It is also twenty years since I lost a good friend. He may be dead, might be living a good life somewhere or maybe, like me, struggling with definitions of a good life.

Wherever he is, I miss him and in some corners, so does she. He was a special friend.

Before we parted, he was my friend for about 8 years. If he were around he would have known...that beautiful girl he lost to me twenty years ago never really went on to become mine. I failed miserably when it came to ownership of all things nice and wonderful.

Like parallel railroads to eternity, I and her have stared at each other relentlessly across a small but unfathomable distance. The trains of time have rolled over us relentlessly, without respite. Our once youthful faces have grown vague wrinkles. We smile less often for we know that these lines are going to stay. We talk less because we are afraid of hurting each other. We meet each other less often for we believe that if we need to meet more often them we would be asked to define our relationship in more contemporary terms.

But we still talk about you. Together I and her, we look at that missing point of this crazy triangle. If she had chosen you over me, would all our lives have been different? How would we ever know.

The girl in my wallet

Men's wallets are just as mysterious as those of women. Though smaller, they inturn have numerous pockets and pouches that are capable of safely tucking away many secrets.

Mine is a leather wallet I go for a replacement every three or maybe four years. Every time I get myself a new wallet, the transfer of contents from the old one to the new is like a spiritual ceremony. First I empty all the contents of the existing wallet into a clean and empty table. Them comes the close scrutiny part. There are coins from Riyadh that my uncle gave when I was young, so they automatically gets into the new wallet. There are unclaimed bills from past expenses and hurriedly scribbled phone numbers, and then there are small notes or at times, a couple of lines from a poem that never had a name. All these go into the 'to be discarded' section. Photos of gods find space in the new wallet. So does all the plastic cards for credit debit insurance vehicle id voting reliance Spenser etc. All these are carefully packed into the various pockets in the new wallet.

Once all is done, I know that you will still be hiding in one of the zipped pouches that are hard to reach. You always had to make it a point to come out last. I would take you out, look at you and think of how much both of us have changed in the last twenty years. You will still have the same smile and your eyes will hold the same twinkle that I fell in love with twenty years ago. You smile at me and I smile at you. For those thirty seconds or so, we make peace with time and space.

Off you go into the eleventh wallet and there you stay until this leather gets worn with time and it is time for a new hide. Every body I know has a girl in his wallet. Well...you are mine.

Heaven and Hell

Raj, does heaven and hell exist?
Yes Princess, it does.
What is this between Hell and Fire? Why is hell always fiery?
No idea baby, probably something to do with pain. I have heard that burns cause maximum pain.
But Raj, how will you burn if you have no body, you are dead right?
Hmm, good one. I have no answers Princess.

Ok. Do you remember the time you were having this fling with that girl from office?
Why bring it up now baby?
No, I am just asking. Do you remember?
I do.
I used to be so jealous, my heart was a smouldering cinder. Do you understand what I mean?
Yes baby. It was like hell for you.
I love you Raj.
So do I baby.
Now you guess what I am thinking....
This is heaven Princess.
Dog you are Raj.
Bhou Bhou Princess.

In the little time that remains

Yes, I can walk back in time and join our lives together into one. I can make two rivers merge into the same sea. I can make both of us lose our identity and become strangers to ourselves. And then we will fall in love again. I can help you and me crawl out of our skin, each using the other, and grow new names and new identities. I can paint this sky crimson and plant 8 birds of love who will continuously flutter their wings for you...flying nowhere. I can. I can erase your memories of strife and loneliness. Of fights with your papa and nights of sobs in your attic. I can help your dog live longer so that you don't have to see him die. I can babble as you drive me into the night and light you a smoke every time you feel like it. I never fall asleep.

I am God. I can do miracles.

Gecko Love

Raj, you need to know things about me that I have never told you. It will be easier for you to manage me that way. I hate lizards, they give me the creeps and they always stare me down. If you have lizards in your kitchen, there is no way I will do the cooking! I love to cook but not everyday. You need to take me out once in a while. Maybe once a month. I love long drives and I am not a shopaholic. I shop rarely and don't spend much. But I would love you to take me out shopping and tell me which dress to wear, what color what fabric. I wear westerns, I hope your parents won't object. Its just that I never wore salwars. And Raj, though I come across as someone strong and sure, I feel terribly low at times and find it difficult to take decisions. You need to help me when I am down. You sleep at 10 and I at 11. I hope you will not want to change that. I will read something while you sleep. And you know what... I love to sleep naked (blush blush), entwined and huddled. You don't mind that do you Raj?

No babe. Its all perfect with me, except the lizard bit. Over the years, I have allowed a couple of them to roam freely in the house. You know how it feels when you are living alone and there is no one to talk to?

Don't tell me you used to talk to lizards?

I still do. They even talk back to me in gecko language!

You are crazy Raj!

Ah! Princess, that's the only thing I always wanted you to know about me! See, now you know me as well!

Timeless

Raj...what is "Time"?

Hmmm...why do you ask me stupid questions. I am not Aristotle!

Honey, please answer this one for me please, I am a little muddled in my mind.

Time is that which passes between a beginning and an end. It can be measured by peeling off pages from a calendar or stupidly counting the number of times your watch repeats its stupid movements.

But what if there is no beginning and no end. How will you define Time for things with no beginning and no end?

They are timeless.

Thank you Raj. You are my Plato.

Beautiful...forever

I cannot promise you that I will be the best thing that will happen to you. Life is not a never ending circus, it has its ups and downs. And between the shows, I have heard that there is much hard work. When the curtains go up, i will be your favorite clown, dancing around you and trying to make you laugh.  And when the lights are down, I will be there to tend to your swollen feets, massage your shoulders and wash away your makeup. I will make your bed and hush you to sleep. And I will always find you beautiful.

Forever parallel

Do you see these tracks Raj?
I do princess.
What do they make you feel?
Ah! Now you think I have feelings too?
Offo Raj, I want an answer.
I love being near them. In fact, I have one running close to where I live.
Funny you would say that Raj. I live next to them too.
I know princess. We discussed this fifteen years ago.
Big deal Raj. What did you do about it?
You remember that guy who sold me my house two years ago?
Haneef?
Yes.
Ya Raj, i remember, what about him?
When I was buying my house, I gave him only one specification.
And that was?
I told Haneef that I wanted a house next to a railway track.
Dog you are Raj.
Bhou bhou baby.

67 Love Songs

Have you been to places that time forgot
Have you seen those faces lost in thought
Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately
Are you the same woman that I knew once, 

or is it the one that I lost?
 

 Do you, when you close your  eyes, 

see those phantoms from our past?
Of all the faces that flicker on the screen
Is there some that of me reminds?

This road has some travel left
And these journeys are often long,
One day when all this is done
You and I will sit along
And for every year of your neglect
My dear, you will sing me a song.

Lest we forget

Life burns up at rate faster than meteor showers. Before we have had a chance to blink, our moment is over, like the lives of those who came before. I have never tried to make sense of this hurry to consume, could never comprehend why it is so difficult to slow down lives pace, live a little more.

A few lines from Auden's As I walked out one evening provides some solace.

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

Or maybe a couple of lines from Louis MacNeice' The Sunlight on the Garden:

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

For whatever time there remains, I keep close watch on the sand glasses. Every time a side seems to run out, I hurry to tilt it right over again.

Another Day Another Time

For the time that I did not have with you, I do not blame you. For the time I had but could not spent, I do not hold myself guilty. I have observed that Life follows its own mysterious  rules. Some cycles are short, some long and winding, never ending. What roads will lead us on to each other again, I do not know. That our paths will ever cross again, I cannot guarantee. How will it be, should we meet again, I cannot foresee.

I live with my inability to learn from my past, I love my inability to predict the future. This life does not run on my terms, I am not the driver of this carriage. Should the wild northern winds that power my journey, breeze me your way, we shall meet again. And then what we go on to become, is between you and me and my chauffeur, destiny.

Forever Times

There are times, and then there are forever times.
The happy times that you and I remember, together
Are the forever times.

Smoking in your dads attic
Picking a fight with your neighbor cause your dog barked too loud
Riding a rickshaw with you behind
Blowing bubbles on your face, and you screaming about that stupid makeup
Playing in cold and dirty snow
Kissing with Cola and other exotic drinks
Flying a kite

Forever times...