dearest,

muji

2012-01-14T21:53:00.000+05:30

corrupt gardi halyo
amit trivedi lai pani
hindi cinema le.

'so what exactly am i allergic to?' part three

2012-01-14T21:51:00.000+05:30

goo.

mostly because it rhymes with

you.

'so what exactly am i allergic to?' part two

2012-01-14T21:50:00.000+05:30

maybe the words of the jyotishi when he told me last year:

'i see the disease of skin in your future'

'so what exactly am i allergic to?'

2012-01-14T21:49:00.000+05:30

nothing
worse
than having your
skin
be your

worst enemy.

2012

2012-01-11T23:45:00.002+05:30

the year we all die

is the year i finally
learned how to live.

there it is

2012-01-11T23:38:00.001+05:30

in
between

i try to
squeeze
my love for
others

but my heartbreak
you own.

this is my entire story

2012-01-11T12:21:00.000+05:30

again

it breaks

again and again and again

just for you

it breaks

because all i want to do is hold you tight

and never let you go

all i want to do

is heal

the both of us -

but how?

misanthrope again

2012-01-10T21:49:00.000+05:30

oh verse, i am tired of you.

words, you too.

people, especially you.

snatcher

2012-01-10T21:40:00.003+05:30

you yanked the paper from my hands and wouldn't let me have it. it wasn't even finished. i was going to call it 'little girl' because it's about how you're still a child, even though you're also the most grown up person i know. and above all, it was supposed to be really beautiful. the most beautiful thing i would have ever written. because i wanted to make that poem into a bag which would contain all my love for you.

but it had a shitty middle. a really, really shitty middle.

because i lost the middle part on my way to work on my scooter. riding in the mist. most poems come to me when i'm riding. and most of them are forgotten by the time i've hit the brakes. today, all i wanted to do was to rush to school and pick up a pen and put the poem on paper so that it wouldn't vanish altogether and i could give it to you. but i also had class to rush to. i had children to attend to. and i had love to share with them too.

i scattered whatever bit of poetry that had remained on them. they made drawings around basho's old pond. they made laughter amongst themselves. they also made my face into a happy face.

i scattered myself on them too. just like i scatter myself on everything, everywhere i go.

what can i possibly give to you that is whole?

dumbfounded

2012-01-10T13:14:00.001+05:30

makes me want to burn the paper
i've been writing on

all these words
are all lies anyway

and they would make do just fine

but your words
are truer
than my experiences

truer
than the air i breathe

each word you write
exposes the lie in me

why would you write things to debilitate others so?

ah...

2012-01-06T20:48:00.002+05:30

that

unbutton your pants
unzip the zip

just let loose
and splay

time of day.

flower

2012-01-04T23:24:00.000+05:30

my mother says that it was
carnation not
chrysanthemum

whatever the case
you were smart
to wrap it in newspaper
and foolish
to stick the paper together with
scotch tape -
what did you think that is made of?

you were also foolish
to give me
the best conversation
i've had over a coffee table

i think i felt god eye me once
peering from behind
that blue mug of 'regular' coffee

you were foolish because
this conversation has wrapped itself
around my heart -
without any scotch tape, mind you -
and will stay there forever

now all my conversations across
coffee tables
will be measured against this.

majaak nai garne ho bhane

2012-01-04T22:49:00.001+05:30

Nepali haru lai pani Time person of the year banaam na.
Loadshedding bhanne word invent gareko ma.

Prophetic wisdom gleaming in one word -

equipping future tongues
all over the world with vocabulary
to iterate the eternal darkness
that is their destiny.

the girl who carries milan kundera in her bag

2012-01-04T21:51:00.001+05:30

off-white jacket
brown stockings
leather boots
dark brown woolen skirt -

i lost my heart in the shape of diamonds
that pattern your skirt.

as i'm coming back home through the
invisible dust of the night -
loneliness stinging my cheeks,
or is it just the wind?

may it also be possible
that i be the most special person in your life?

it mightn't

but that doesn't stop me from wishing.

article

2012-01-04T21:42:00.000+05:30

uff

a poet's worst enemy.

also in this story

2012-01-02T19:58:00.000+05:30

how i miss dancing with you

let's dance to invisible tunes

like invisible people
dancing on the moon.

let's, let's sing
and let's
swoon.

so in this story

2012-01-02T19:57:00.001+05:30

i saw a rainbow
and it reminded me so much of you

did you know

that you are also a rainbow
one that has delivered
a pending childhood to me
at this age

you've known

and yet you always
like being told.

so in this story

2012-01-02T12:32:00.003+05:30

"there is no poem for me on gooeyjournalism" re.

poems lekhchhu
tara publish gardina.

malai matrai dukha dinchhas? mora!

in the affirmative

2012-01-02T10:04:00.001+05:30

no

i will not touch

what can i say

soaking in the sweetness
of your words

stirring your memory
with bluing fingers

temptations linger

no

i'll just have to die of thirst.

kasari sutu?

2012-01-01T23:14:00.000+05:30

rain
falling
in
kathmandu

snow
falling
on
youtube
screens

the cold wants to be my bedfellow tonight.

written on the body

2012-01-01T10:48:00.002+05:30

illegible scrawls.

your pen

hits and misses

hits

and

misses.

yeah

2011-12-31T22:21:00.001+05:30

shards
accompany
shards

uncooperating edges
pieced together

to make love.

darling

2011-12-31T21:09:00.007+05:30

worlds collapse again
my heart bursting with an ache
i cannot claim

your pain

s p l i n t e r s

my words

not even a single poem comes out whole anymore.

regret

2011-12-31T20:57:00.001+05:30

paying daily reparations

for not showing up
nor leaving

for not knowing
and refusing to know

for denying
and for hoping

for being unable
to stop loving

and refusing
to show

for relying on the pale thud
of this sane heart

that will not feel
for the sake of tomorrow
and tomorrow
and tomorrow

so all due reparations are paid

and regret
can forever fade into a grin

you win.

bodystrong

2011-12-31T18:14:00.003+05:30

no amount of conversing

makes me literate
in the language of violence

the body is just a long pause of baffled silence
where this unending, coiling, strangling telephone line delivers

in
com
pre
hensible
messages
of
pain.

haha

2011-12-31T18:01:00.000+05:30

real love
never ends

po raichha.

same intensity
that same lub-dub, lub-dub crazy beating of the heart.

the same stars looking down
on you
and
me

smiling at us
on behalf of
me and you.

silly stars, sillier their permanence too.

silly us, sillier our silences too.

lujjaa i will smile through it all. je parla parla.

luh luh chiya biskut pani khaam yei upalakchhya ma.

lessons to be learnt

2011-12-31T15:56:00.004+05:30

this is what my new job will have taught me when i'm ready to quit:

trees bleeding
into
millions
of
tender
sheets
of paper

and

innocent
words
scattered
in bulk

will help mount
corrupt
stories
derived from corrupt
sources

news
altogether
unworthy of being told
will be finger-exercise
for sedentary bodies
as human hands
brush against
wilting pages.

there will be momentary contact

there will not be much reading

who is going to emancipate wood pulp from this existential crisis?

news will continue to be made
just to keep the cycle of waste
in motion.

it says shit about me to me

2011-12-30T19:44:00.001+05:30

sometimes i miss you with an
intensity
that wants to disregard

all the walls
we've erected

with our silences.

nobody knows
or
understands me better than

you

yet you cannot stand me.

porcelain princess

2011-12-28T23:03:00.009+05:30

bukowski was an odd fuck
as ordinary as fuck he was

i bet
bukowski would have liked a fuck
with me

ordinarily i don't like to fuck

every now and then i meet a man
who'd like to fuck me very much
and my vagina finds that odd as fuck
my vagina can't stand his cock
my vagina'd rather stay shut

i think what he wants
is to make some true, meaningful love

but bukowski was sacred as dirt
bellowing out words sending
brittle girls into erotic rage
he'd know to do me right
he'd fuck some sense into that frigid vagina
i'm sure he'd set it alight

and ordinary fucking would crack through the clay
maybe even save the day

but bukowski's been dead since i was eight
and fucks these days don't come the right degree of odd.

but god - cohen, at 77, is very much alive
and still looks handsome as hell.

take three

2011-12-28T20:07:00.001+05:30

ours is a frail civilization
where
breaking hearts
are comforted by the broken hearted

ours is a failed civilization
that never tires
of its failures.

take two

2011-12-28T20:06:00.000+05:30

this morning when i
stumbled upon my mother
crying as if someone had died

- when in fact no one had died
no, dead people don't drive
you to tears of those kind -

i let her spill into me
naive empty container
of longing
that i am

now an awkward
uncomfortable sorrow

is trailing into my
tomorrow.

things yingyang

2011-12-28T18:00:00.003+05:30

december is the month for pining for things that cannot be

pinpointed

days of endless wanting, wanting.

december is also a month

when contradictions

hold hands and play lovers.

everything is

bittersweet

in december.

2011-12-28T16:13:00.003+05:30

some days just come like this

shrouded in sadness
i cannot escape.

naive

2011-12-28T15:12:00.002+05:30

all day i walked
with an earnest smile

bleeding a trail
of sorrow

like a vagina
without whisper wings.

withinout

2011-12-28T15:10:00.002+05:30

life is
a strange
kind of drowning
where her
tears
form my world.

stranger

2011-12-28T15:01:00.002+05:30

i miss you with
an ache

that goes back
beyond the time
when i was
born

all my longings
are like empty containers

with labels
that have your
name
written on them.

epiphany my-chance-to-get-it-before-the-world-comes-to-an-end

2011-12-27T00:23:00.000+05:30

oh my god

beauty is a feeling?

when i see you, what do i feel?

the interaction between my heart
and your being?

that's all beauty is?

energy suffusing
into spaces between bodies?

contained in matter, mass
things that levitate -

that is beauty?

so beauty isn't alone
doesn't seem to happen in isolation.

just another kind of
lovemaking

should have known.

notes on the head and the heart

2011-12-23T23:30:00.004+05:30

1. they came into my world
in awkward, blaring briefs.

awkward bodies carrying
a familiar grief.

2. unenchanting,
unwilling to look into the eye

like monkeys but human.

unintending
to make music

then why unending?

3. were the birds singing outside of view
and the river flowing,
foams whispering to each other
like restless little schoolgirls?

did they just chirp along?

4. you can hear the knocking of knuckles on a wooden log
if you listen carefully

5. the voices merge and blaze like hot gasoline
jolts of magic

5.5 they look away.

6. like pajama players
they're never-ready
music always makes itself available though

7. every song so sweetly delivered
brings success
and even if you didn't ask for it
being loved by many
and becoming big -

just wait
we will corrupt you

that's inevitable
or you can also
fail endlessly.

fail
endlessly

and make sweet inconsequential music
that explodes in my heart

i will promise to hate you.

8. which one is my favourite?

i can't make head or tail.

my taste is diffused. like your gaze.

9. children play in the park. noise bombs
making some music of their own.

10. like they've answered the question i'd been directing at the universe all this while?

blahblahblah.

11. solid like bricks falling on my head
real too. more real than real.

like a flower
absentmindedly
blooming.

accidental encounters with poetry

2011-12-23T21:30:00.002+05:30

ladddy!

let's meet up soon again

i'm just putting it out there

i don't want to make plans

because planning is

ugly and futile

and never materializes

and even when it does

it's boring

but when i can't keep it to myself anymore,

i will burst with longing at your door.

and then we will do

whatever we have to do.

hai?

what's mine and what's yours

2011-12-23T21:13:00.000+05:30

there's a hole in my bucket

from it drip things

straight into yours.

also known as 'why fail maths in school?'

2011-12-22T23:38:00.001+05:30

- 10 + 9 = - 1

but

- 1 = + 1

and then, here especially,

zero plus zero plus zero plus zero makes us feel like we've got a whole lot more than before

pile on.

so much of
genuine
happiness in
mere miscalculations.

:)

2011-12-22T23:06:00.004+05:30

promise us ten hours of loadshedding
and deliver only nine

unfulfilled expectations

that's all it takes to make us Nepali people happy.

So...

2011-12-22T22:54:00.000+05:30

i know

there were/are/will be many more

but you should know

that you're the one

i've been waiting for.

fucking victory

2011-12-15T19:45:00.035+05:30

one country enters another

penetrates air, earth, building, glass, garden, city, village, child, water supply, ladle, flower pot
penetrates the heart, the psyche, the soul
penetrates the body, the body, the body
penetrates innocence of the flesh
penetrates collective memories
penetrates third party bystanders even

leaving stains
leaving scabs
leaving an utter, uncomprehending silence
leaving a theater of the absurd for none to see
leaving -

leaving
ultimately.

where does the equation for justice
lie
in the rape of a nation?

ceremonies

2011-12-15T19:42:00.003+05:30

one day we get married

another day we divorce

one day the US enters Iraq

another day it leaves

no amount of ceremony
can dignify all the crap
that falls in between.

Aatma Bal

2011-12-14T20:11:00.001+05:30

Ke ko aatma bal

This ego knows
only
how to
curl up like a ball

No strength in this
gutumutu pareko dallo.

so cold

2011-12-12T22:52:00.000+05:30

december is a terrible month

it makes me feel so cold and lonely

esso december ko laagi matrai hire garna paye hunthyo ni euta lover.

new faces

2011-12-12T20:03:00.001+05:30

you know

love doesn't ask for
the one

it's an empty cup
eager to fill up

and keep warm
whatever goes in it.

---

new faces arise
but the same old cup

there's no new way to love.

the thing about gloves

2011-12-12T11:42:00.001+05:30

is that

my fingers feel so lonely
in individual pockets

all they want to do is
huddle together

and be family again.

the thing about gloves

is that they do nothing
about the cold.

waiyyat.

6:33 am

2011-12-11T06:20:00.003+05:30

living in the gray areas

when the sky does not know what to do
with concepts of
day and night

there is more music
brewing
this time between pigeons
soft sounds warbling

from their empty little bellies.

nowhere near the throat

2011-12-10T22:11:00.000+05:30

the formula of life
tucked safely between vibrations
that roar out from
deep within your belly.

who does sing?

2011-12-10T22:08:00.000+05:30

the sound of these wailers
like sandpaper
grazing against the insides of this heart

cracking, breaking, splintering
compounding
to fill up ears

we all die a thousand deaths
and are born again
inside voices like these

wailing
because just singing
is no longer enough

keep wailing, sweethearts.

music

2011-12-10T21:44:00.001+05:30

every now and then

mini earthquakes rattle
things hidden
underneath my skin.

the foreseeable future (in euphemisms)

2011-12-10T20:59:00.007+05:30

if i take one more step in this direction

i will stumble into music making

and get tangled up in strings
i know not how to strum

and things may get ugly for a long while.

new gmail

2011-12-08T22:03:00.000+05:30

new gmail
you SUCK!

and you'll suck
until you're old
and they replace you with something new
which'll suck
even more.

it's like i'm on facebook again.
yuck. yuck. yuck!!

from earth (ii)

2011-12-07T22:24:00.000+05:30

the earth is my body; my head is in the stars.

climb down, my teacher says.

she is so beautiful, my teacher, in that body of hers.

from earth

2011-12-07T18:00:00.013+05:30

somebody said to me obsessing with the earth
is akin to obsessing with death

but being a hindu, with hindu blood and hindu ancestry
with a history of denying the hindu in me

who will listen
(except the voices in my head)

they are probably going to burn me as my skull pops and i disappear into smoke.

in this country
it is air that carries the waft of death

not earth.

earth brings to life
feeds the soul

keeps me calm
keeps me whole

pay attention to the earth
i hear those voices say

pay attention to the earth
live in it
live out of it

dig in.

not a big fan of politics and have never watched the muppets

2011-12-06T22:33:00.000+05:30

but this...

...this is much, much, much better than poetry.

2011-12-03T22:00:00.001+05:30

dear musicians

keep singing
keep making music

never stop sharing

love
ayushma

who is better off than dead

2011-12-03T10:18:00.001+05:30

this is nothing sane
this is a wild melting of the heart
disappearing into fizz

lemon powder
joy.
joy
be kidding.
you kidding me

who you

wonderlust whore

share. share. be there.

and be gone.

you are cruel
and unkind

and i am ruthless
just in time
to make you
you
and
i am happy
to be this miserable

or is this just my shadow

or does this make any sense

but there is this thing
riding inside me
that wants to shoot out
and kill the world dead
in one breath

so what do i do with that?

what do i do with
this thing
bursting
bursting inside me

a strange colored banana clogs my brain

and the shadow of death
again and again

and moments
that are ripe
with snow
and ice
and picket fences
and lines
and arches
and beaten eggs
and beaten memories

and no more waiting
and no more wishing
no more waiting for you here
on my roof
up against the sky
pressed
and suppressed
and repressed
and repressed
and suffocated
this sky
that does not levitate
don't go
don't go

but you have gone
and there are magic wands
waving around recklessly
and i cry
and i sound
like i am
moving
inside the ground
and i see
but it's me
and there's nothing holy
inside the body

and there is a dream
and in the dream
i am silent
and i am broken
and i wake up

where i am silent
and i am broken

and all the cello tape in the world
does not help
to put together
and heal
and there is a joy
in the memory
of having lived before this lifetime

and all the accumulation of all the suffering from the beginning of age
cannot be discarded
so there it is
here it is

where will it possibly go

and lou reed
shooting heroin inside his skin

while i am mean
and ripe
with vengeance

i am clean
and i am a compromise

i am the destiny
of the destroyer

i am your body's gloom
thick and misty

i am a kiss
on the bird's back
as i climb
onto the top

and i hurl at you
stones and sticks
and picket fences
and stars
and snow
and hearts in shards
and a hero's welcome

your stardust is dusty contaminated bruise scattered senseless.

now go.

kill screeching melody scream
kill heaven glory four times over.

kill. kill.
soft voices against shrill sounds.

fly

2011-12-03T09:46:00.001+05:30

eat my heart out in a bowl, einaudi.

scoop it out of my chest
and drink it like soup
spill it like beans

your music speaks to me like truth.

like a wild race
a wild chase
into the ether

i disappear
into the grim
slipping, memory of a song
you wrote
on the keys

in a rush
with my blood
gushing out
outside my veins
outside
in a rush

wanting to reach out to you
to touch you
with my mind
with my hand
with my body
with these hands
i want to steal your music

listen to that. listen to that.

will it never stop
the rush
the beating of this heart
the crazy beating of this heart
the jamming of all things precious
inside a head so small
a heart so wrong
a deed so broken

look. look.

who are you, einaudi?

where does this music come,
where does it come from?

and where does it fly to
when it has flown
my heart flees along

the story is too long
too fast
stretches beyond my capacity to exist

i'm waiting to snap
but the song
does not end
it keeps on bending
from corner to corner
from moment to moment

a mad rush
you me and our stupid reality
and so many things
here
here
here
this is it.

this is it.

wow. that was an ugly end
to something that started with
a soar

you dropped me right into the dirt.

recursion

2011-11-19T16:53:00.000+05:30

what happens when two mirrors look into each other?

happiness

is born out of happiness

and joy multiplies to fill up quiet corners.

dimensions as yet undiscovered

begin to murmur numbers

as infinity learns to count itself.

grabbing life by the ass when you think you're holding it by the face

2011-11-18T18:45:00.002+05:30

all my initiations into love
shut down at the door
of self loathing.

the fall

2011-11-18T18:22:00.000+05:30

last night
the headquarters of pain
shot me messages

i transmitted screams
that taught me of the life
i'd forgotten i had
on the right edge of my left foot

when i fell off my scooter last week
i hadn't intended on falling right into the hands of doctors

now i will be pissing purple stains of
antibiotics

anti-biotic
what does that mean

how did we come to
equate
being anti-life to being healed

how did we figure out
a way to survive
by squeezing life
within this uncomfortable paradox

last night
i screamed through my sleep
tonight
i will be sleeping into oblivion

silencing
once again
the life lurking inside of me

there is hope though
isn't there
that some day
having learnt my lesson
i will wake up to
the sum of infinite
ordinary things
inside me
that await being acknowledged
even without the pain

way across the universe

2011-11-16T14:03:00.000+05:30

it's harvest season
on planet poetry
the moon a-full
the stars a-gazing
the genius a-drizzling
on you

you with pointed finger
scrawling
word
after
word
after
word

gifted stranger
you paint the world a-new

it's abundance season
on planet audience
the blood a-gushing
the heart a-beating
the smile a-spreading
across my face

if you heard all the cheering and clapping
on this side
you'd know how well it complements
the music in your words.

dear milk

2011-11-15T20:39:00.002+05:30

one of these days
i will dedicate
one of these
to you

be water (v)

2011-11-15T20:36:00.001+05:30

be water
stand upright
with pointed shoulders
flaring up at the sky
be firm
and crystalline

be cold
and white
breathing out vapour
deflecting light

be water
not the sweat
we will need to
wipe from the earth's brow

be water
but be the
kind
that's ice

-

the ominous gloom
in the clarity of water as ice
melts in the warmth of my hand

remembering (ii)

2011-11-15T20:05:00.001+05:30

where memories are vivid
and sparkle with a blueness
that spells out eternity
on a songbird's tail

to forget
is to find a way to survive

remembering (i)

2011-11-15T20:03:00.002+05:30

memory like a suitcase with limited storage space

I find myself trampling all over old memories to make
space for new ones.

take this

2011-11-13T23:11:00.006+05:30

in justice, there is infinite violence.

always, my nails screech

"It's. Not. Fair!"

as they claw their way across the wall.

always the wall
a wall

justice is the impatience of an uncouth lout
as he turns away from the mirror
to point a finger at a world
that no longer includes himself.

i turn away from the mirror
to point a finger at a world
that no longer includes myself.

i no longer include myself
i myself

"You. Ruined. Me!"

but justice is fueled by
the illusion
that anger placates sorrow.

justice is fuel
justice fuels

"Fire. Fire. Fire!"

you rub against justice any longer
you'll watch yourself burn
and fade into ashes of
regret.

saathi lai nimantrana

2011-11-10T19:03:00.000+05:30

saathi!

you are invited
to come and share
to come and be
together

amidst
tea and biscuits
munching and crunching
phooing and sipping

amidst
our desire
of creating and destroying
and meddling forever with the alchemy of the universe

and amidst
all the talking, talking, talking left to do

you are invited
to come spend the whole day here

so we can finally make bread together!

and hopefully, even in a country like ours,
God will be kind enough and say, "Let there be light."

and there will be light
so that all the ovenwork will be completed on time

and in that bread, wont we also put
a secret ingredient -
that same stuff that hearts are made of?

only, when we break the bread
and put it in our mouths
broken hearts will melt and heal
chewing mouths will dance and squeal
merry bodies will twirl and kneel
mended hearts will begin to feel

i miss your presence, saathi

can't wait! can't wait!

song of the queen of the night (in progress)

2011-11-05T19:08:00.001+05:30

the queen of the night is here too
in my backyard
blistering with flowers

along with her fragrance
escapes a whispery song
called "Nostalgia"

which goes more or less like this -

"In me is a longing
to bloom beside your river
the water crushing against the rocks
the rocks nestled against each other
the path next to the river
those stone walled cottages
with golden light glistening outwards
and people inside them
with golden light glistening inwards.

Inhaling through their snouts
people intercept my message to you
and keep it in their hearts.

The fragrance dissipates before it reaches you
but in me are tightly knotted memories
that I let loose
every night
when the world goes dark.

In darkness, I like to bloom the best
In darkness, I can be honest
In darkness, my heart is free
to revel in your memory.

I hope my yearning to reach you
will reach you someday

I hope my longing to be with you
will come true one day."

walking away from her
i lose contact with what she sings
but in me trails along a melody
(is it mine or hers this time)
it echoes, "Take me back there, take me back there"

the roar of a wave could drown the whole word

2011-11-05T17:22:00.002+05:30

all day, beating my head, my fingertips
copywriting for a corporate company

the only voices i hear in my head
repeat the same drab chorus

"Never again! Never again!"

what it amounts to is

copywriting means to copy writing

yeta bata chorne, uta bata chorne,
ali ali taaltool garepachhi ready!

selling products with unique selling points
in recycled packaging

but even when i write from the heart
always, always
all i seem to do is

yeta bata chorne, uta bata chorne

selling personal experiences
in public vocabulary

borrowing from others who penned down things that resist being worded
depending, gleefully, on their experience, their courage
their sheer stupidity at attempting the impossible

like this song by Bob Dylan

this song; a hard rain that's a'falling on my being
beating, beating
attacking the length of my spine
and my heart
waking up goosebumps all through my skin
before my head can make any sense of it.

my insides are itching with a strong drive to write
what is true.

what is true
mostly
plunges in and out of silence.

words, words, when will you be ready to wear my story?

kareoke tonight

2011-08-19T22:53:00.001+05:30

a hermaphrodite's voice
wishes to gurgle through my soul

Things behind the sun

2011-08-07T08:09:00.000+05:30

This is an unpalatable evening, when the whole body is senseless, and every pore wishes to be shut. I enter my parents’ room hoping to watch a little bit of television before sleeping off the day’s exhaustion. I crave for some entertainment—maybe a raunchy comedy, maybe one of those predictable detective shows. But my father is bent upon watching Discovery Channel where they are showing an episode of the BBC documentary series titled Planet Earth. Seven minutes into the programme, my father has fallen asleep and is snoring loudly, while I am left to watch the entire show alone.

Alone. It is in the process of looking at wildlife on screen that I realise how impossible it is for us to ever really be alone. Trust a mosquito to be perched on a windowpane, or a silverfish to be lurking between the pages of books stacked on my shelf. Every sleepless night as I sit in bed and listen to the world fall into a temporary lull, there is always a soft trill emanating from insects that seem to come alive just at night. Silence is never absolute. Neither is solitude.

And yet, the facts in this documentary rattle my brain. Numbers and figures leave permanent imprints on my mind. One third of the earth’s frog species—gone. Too many pores in their naked bodies. With their entire body a single sense, do they absorb destruction through their moist and vulnerable pores?

The television that sits in this room is proof that while the number of wildlife species is dwindling, the diversity of technological gadgetry is ever expanding. All day, I drown myself in a world where on a daily basis, new species of technology attach themselves to us, inside pockets, dangling from ears, tucked firmly within our arms, underneath moving palms, pixels dancing to the swift movement of our fingertips. In our busy lives, we are constantly drawn into a network of busy people. We are caught in a web of communication where we’re in touch with people we never dare touch for real.

But I am tired of always finding myself in this cybernetic world sandwiched between hard and soft wares. Always available. Always a green dot online, on screen, in chat boxes. This is a different kind of aloneness—where I am constantly surrounded by the minds of other people. Where there is absolutely no scope for solitude. Where green is just a colour—it does not belong to nature, not even symbolically. But there was a day when all that was different.

It was a delicious evening, when the whole body was one sense, and imbibed delight through every pore. In the summer of 2008, I too experienced my own Walden, my private paradise brimming to the full with wildlife at a residential school I was teaching at in rural Andhra Pradesh. Nature was abundant and each leaf seemed to be inventing its own version of green. After spending many silent evenings with a group of students atop a hill looking out to the sunset, I felt solitude finally thicken around me. The magic of life seemed to buzz inside every cell of my being. Silence was teaching me things words can never express. And all around me, the natural world was making a big affirmative nod. Embraced in its lap, I found nature nourishing me, healing me, encouraging me. I wasn’t just growing up. It felt more like I was growing into nature.

The opportunity for solitude is abundant where nature is abundant. I had to go bang into the middle of nature to understand how well it complements my search for the inner self. So much of it has got to do with the sheer magnanimity of it. But perhaps, it is also due to how the creatures, the mountains and rivers, all the elements that constitute nature live in harmony with one another. This is not a coalescence of infinite egos like the human civilisation is. It seems like every stone, every drop of water, every grain of sand, every living species is in a meditative state, contributing to the creation of a larger whole, this universe.

In a book I cherish called Old Path White Clouds by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddha’s search for transcendence is shown to share a great affinity with his reverence for nature. “He saw that he needed only to look deeply into a speck of dust to see the true face of the entire universe, that the speck of dust was itself the universe and if it did not exist, the universe could not exist either.” Perhaps enlightenment is merely about looking deeply, and finding, in the absence of ego, that you are also that speck of dust and that speck of dust is also you. Perhaps enlightenment is the joy of finding yourself inside the core of every being.

As the human world is continuously expanding, our earth with real life appears to be imploding. Every creature that dies an unjust death must alter the nature of the universe. Something about how precarious this diversity of life has become makes me feel like I’m participating in the biggest tragedy human civilisation has perpetrated. I can feel the weight of our sins pressing down on my conscience. Our collective karma is tainted by the genocide of entire species. And we’re bypassing it like it isn’t even happening.

We are all allowed to make our share of mistakes. For how else will we learn? But look at the cost of the mistakes we’ve cultivated a habit of making—each extinct species is gone. Somehow, we seem to fail to make that translation in our heads, that extinct means irreversibly gone. Forever gone. Every evening, the sun sets with a promise to rise the next day. Imagine the reassurance in that! But the fate of these creatures is sealed behind the sun, beyond the horizon. We are all allowed our share of mistakes, but at some point, we need to be willing to learn from them.

As I go to sleep, in the distance, I can hear the tireless croak of frogs celebrating the monsoon that feeds life into them. Two thirds of the frog species still alive, still here to share in our solitude, still here for us to attend to.

Think of how delicious an evening, when the whole human species awakens to one sense, and delivers compassion through every pore.

(From yesterday's Kathmandu Post)

on sexual pleasure

2011-07-07T20:02:00.000+05:30

what else is it but an itch
constantly craving to be scratched?

like water VII

2011-07-03T22:51:00.000+05:30

this time in the swimming pool
with the water
clogging my nose
making me
sneeze

my arms
flailing in dramatic motions
my face
crinkling into a painful frown

i wondered if
i could
ever be
as dignified about the water
getting into me

as the water was about me
getting into it.

evolution

2011-07-01T23:11:00.002+05:30

i will always be loaded with a history
that is you

each new relationship i enter
is colored by what we had
and what we lost

especially by what we lost.

there is a corner in my heart that is untidy
it is in that corner
that we set up a stall
and gave away our innocence
for free

we took our time getting bruised
and yet, what's left tastes
mostly sweet.

inside my heart there was a pocket for you
that is not there
it is not there at all
it is missing
it followed you out.

when you left
you tore through the stitches
leaving a hole deep and wide

now everything i put inside
comes tumbling out.

so in this story

2011-06-30T00:22:00.001+05:30

everywhere becomes so beautiful
when you are around

but sometimes when you aren't
this turns into a sad little story.

now that the time for writing has come

2011-06-26T09:37:00.001+05:30

last night
with myself on a scooter and the rain all over me
and my thirsty tongue pointing towards the sky
the rain and i
we made a beautiful poem

on my tongue it tasted
wet and sweet

i've forgotten it now
but i hope the rain still remembers.

Be Water (iv)

2011-06-18T22:44:00.001+05:30

For us, adulthood meant uncoiling from each other, crawling out of the skin we were born into and drifting apart, taking part of the journey with new people, but mostly just alone. Unwinding the common placenta from our necks, we've arrived at a true flowering of ourselves; we are finally free. When we're face to face, it is not his face I look at; weary of looking into the other's eyes, afraid to find ourselves all too familiar, living inside. Looking away, I wonder what's really true in our flowering and whether where we've peaked at isn't merely a plateau.

When it began, we toddled into the school gates together dressed in uniforms that looked like sailors' suits. With delighted faces, red cheeks fit to be apples of mother's eyes, we entered rooms - walls covered in colored paper, furniture aligned in rows unlike anything we'd seen at home, chairs filled with young faces just as delighted as our own. We tumbled along, learning alphabets, climbing grades, letting sharp shrieks emanate from our tiny bodies as they bobbed and swooshed around the playground. When we tripped and fell, we picked ourselves up clumsily and that innocent grazing of a knee healed quickly. Endlessly we chattered about things of absolute importance in our abundant, little lives while adults looked on with awe, listening intently.

We should have known that entering these gates would lead to a slow and steady departure from the innocence of childhood. Each passing grade left us decidedly more knowledgeable, disciplined, self assured – as if the formula of life was written between pages of our alphabet books. The more we wanted to speak, those in charge of us lost the smile on their faces until we learned to keep our questions to ourselves. We burrowed our little heads in textbooks, although they did not contain any answers. When my parents decided to change schools for him, we knew little about how expensive this boarding school education was going to turn out to be. Maybe he ended up speaking more than he should have there, maybe not enough, but when we weren't looking, they beat him up. And while the intent was to beat him into shape, I think all the shaping left scars so deep, even those unwounded could not forget.

Before institutions like schools tainted our experience of life and while our half aanaa backyard was still the entire world to us, did we ever make mistakes? I don't remember either of us ever doing anything wrong, although consistently notorious we were. As children, unschooled, we were our own teachers and our mistakes always led us eventually to the right places. In school we learned to identify our mistakes as wrong. Each mistake we made turned us a little sour, humiliated, ashamed, staining our consciousness, eroding into our self esteem.

When being ourselves began to feel wrong, we took refuge in facades, facades that hardened into personalities helping us become unique, identifiable, socially acceptable. We clung to those identities like we still cling to the edge of our sleeves in winter to prevent the warmth of our bodies from escaping. We couldn't afford to let our real selves escape out into the real world. We could no longer embarrass ourselves, make mistakes, admit defeat. At any cost we had to prevent the real from spilling out of us.

Like everyone else, we are made of yearning, curiosity, love; we are made of creativity, imagination and the capacity to relate. But most of all, we are made of water – and it is inherent in us, the desire to flow. When things couldn't flow, they began to leak out anyway.

He drew. I wrote. We let insanity pour out of us in unreasonable proportions through our mediums. During late nights free of institutional obligations, we confided to sheets of paper printing on them our versions of questions about life, love and the universe. We also confided in friends whom we invited back home because school time, cut into equal portions of academic 'periods', did no justice to the potential friendships offered. While sipping coffee in our dimly lit kitchen late into the night, we talked and shared our thoughts, let ideas infuse and grow. We talked about One Hundred Years of Solitude like it was a book that could change your life from the moment you touched the first page. Back then, books still changed our lives. Conversations oozed out of us, pricking our minds and bodies, giving us goose bumps, making our synapses edgy.

With a misplaced priority, academics attacked us to make us ready for the world. School replaced spontaneity, grades replaced inquisitiveness, mediocrity replaced metabolism, duplicity replaced authenticity, half hearted replaced wholesome. Within thick and shiny exteriors, we carried fragile, distorted souls. Our commitment to hypocrisy strengthened in spite of ourselves. By the time we exited school we realized the real world was a cruel, demanding, oppressive, prejudiced, and reductive place. Cold, docile, submissive, incapacitated, we were ready for the world.

Nowadays, it takes courage to look into him. In the rare moments that I find the courage, I can spot a crack on his shell and peering in, I see pale shadows of the real thing. Like today, when I saw remnants of the six year old boy I once used to know with gleaming eyes, unsure of himself, asking questions he's unable to answer, as if sowing seeds of unanswerable questions today will bring forth fruits of wisdom in the future. He says he is painting again, but how it's difficult to remain true to art while coming up with a politically motivated agenda for creating it.

Look at your eyes gleaming. What are they gleaming with, but water?

Be like water; let it flow out of you; stay in tune with your emotions and you'll know exactly what to do are words I offer.

We part for the day, but are there invisible threads tying us together again?

(Published in today's Kathmandu Post. Lucky me.)

wild nights and mild epiphanies

2011-06-17T07:06:00.000+05:30

last night the moon, it was so tender

and all it seemed to be telling me was to let my body move.

Dhobi Ghat from February | this blogger experiments with prose

2011-06-14T14:40:00.001+05:30

You walk into the movie theatre wrapped in an invisible cloak of silence. A 120 rupees ticket is more than you'd expected to pay at this shabby looking cinema hall. The small yellow ticket is thin and translucent - you're immediately suspicious of whether it will get you a real seat inside the theatre.

As the movie starts, you're glad you came to watch it alone. Often, your own words and commentary are so abundant and abrasive, you barely get time to absorb and appreciate the films you watch. But not today. Today, you've come to face a film one on one.

Into the first scene, you feel the distance between yourself and the screen evaporate as Yasmin begins her story. Yasmin is easily the most captivating character in the film, presented to the audience in a collage of visual fragments she creates to send as letters to her brother. Viewing these clips from the same positions as those Yasmin shoots from, you find yourself slipping into Yasmin's shoes to feel as she feels, to live has she lives.

As the most pervasive presence in the film, Shai is in the vulnerable position to be the least likeable. You're not going to say that anything is unlikeable about her. The young woman whose name you don't know has done a great job of playing this role. But by the end of the movie, you've almost forgotten her. The actor has been getting a lot of praise for her portrayal of Shai, but you wonder why nobody has bothered to mention anything about Yasmin.

For it is Yasmin's smile, her laugh, her voice that clings to you. There is an earnestness in her tale, an innocence. It is almost as if she doesn't really belong in the film, but being part of it, she manages to infuse it with new life.

For the first time, you find it effortless to like a character played by Aamir, a reclusive voyeur who is enchanted by the elusive Yasmin available to him only through video tapes through which she consciously constructs herself. Aamir's Arun speaks barely anything through the course of the movie and it is in the lack of dialogues that his acting achieves a rawness, a freshness that is still untainted by his stardom. In the film, Aamir is invisible, and thus Arun blossoms.

It is not the decided worth or quality of this film that captivates you. Your feelings towards the film are just as ambiguous as the film itself. But by the time it ends, you are packed with emotions. Empty of the understanding of the plot, but packed with emotions.

The film is less a story, more an evocation of feeling. And as you walk out of the theatre, amidst dissatisfied viewers who feel cheated of their money at the movie that showcases no tantalizing lives, no charming characters, and tells no tangible story, you feel as though you're a segment of the film trailing on in real life long after the movie has ended - without a tantalizing life, with an incomplete sense of self, and an ambiguous, intangible story many may feel unworthy of being told.

mutilate (ii)

2011-06-11T21:58:00.002+05:30

this body is a collage stitched together by gazes that pierce.

so in this story...

2011-06-11T08:38:00.000+05:30

the rain came down
and tickled my memory

and inside it
i found you giggling.

because you do not own a phone and i miss you and wanted to say hello and i know you'll eventually come here snooping around looking for a poem about you. so there.

2011-06-11T08:35:00.000+05:30

you do know that
whenever you're dancing
i like to watch you

as your frail body flaps back and forth like a white sheet of paper
and those untidy curls bounce on a head like medusa's
a smile sprouts from within the forest of your bushy beard

that smile
is a smile that tells me
you've finally caught on to the cosmic joke

you must know that
i like to watch you with envy

you really have risen to the occasion of god with arms open
haven't you
you infectious thing

it's too late to hold on to just envy
isn't it

i like what i can taste on the tip of my soul's tongue.

be water (iii)

2011-06-10T22:46:00.001+05:30

i sat between rocks
facing the river
my bottom cold
with the sand underneath
wet with dew
but tightly packed
like grain hugging grain
locks warmth

next to my large feet - tentacle-toes included -
a tiny photograph
with only the pudgy toed feet of my master
lazy pixels held together
a tiny, grainy photograph

the wind curdled behind my back
wet things gurgled underneath the water
half invisible - distinctly alive

on that side of the hills
dawn was long
and journeyed into all shades of gray before
it touched the sun

i let the ganga be wind and grain and the shadow of trees
toes curling - grains in between
i let it be the alternating rhythms of
movement and calmness
sound and silence
i let it be what conspires between source and destination
i let it be something on the edge of which i sat

anything but water

had i stretched out my hand and touched it
had i made a move
and moved and moved
into the water
i might have known

with water

you must start shallow
before it turns deep

my solitude has been a
yearning for depth
while i forgo all things deep

i resisted washing

stains
have turned to
scars.

like water VI

2011-06-09T00:37:00.000+05:30

at ease.

like water V

2011-06-09T00:35:00.000+05:30

our faces as they turn towards the sky
mouths open
waiting for the rain.

like water IV

2011-06-09T00:34:00.000+05:30

sipping conversations with tea
at dusk

like water III

2011-06-09T00:13:00.000+05:30

looking out the window of a tattered bus
on my way from madanapalle to bangalore

the rain, it brought out the true colors of the earth
and pressed wet memories into my heart

firm forever
memory of rain sealing cracks
healing hearts
penetrating sacred spaces
where nothing fades and none can be forgotten

every time it rains like that though, even here in kathmandu,
water deepens the color of memory
and hearts find new comfort in breaking for old reasons.

like water II

2011-06-08T23:43:00.001+05:30

like water
clinging to your skin

like water
waiting to evaporate

like water
clinging to cycles of eternal life
and eternal doom.

like water

2011-06-08T23:28:00.002+05:30

like water
so keen to touch
like water
irreverent of boundaries

spilling, seeping, soaking, wet
therein lies my desire to possess

better than good keeps us together
together we grow worse
better no longer is good enough
and soon it's best to stay apart

at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who we end up with

on some days, i turn into water
and while i touch you with the palm of my hand
and my fingers stroke your cheeks
you probably think they are just tears

yours.

watery

2011-06-08T23:09:00.001+05:30

feeling like water these days
like i'm made up of water
like i'm being washed over and over again
like i'm always ready to dripdrip

i've been listening to all these new songs lately
and i dont know...
it makes me want to be mute
and wear these songs on my body
like clothes
and let that be my face and my eyes and my words and my smile to the world
between its hellos and goodbyes.

might i mention here how much you tire me, world.

something needs to change now
this needs to turn towards
documenting authentic living
emotions
life.

i think i met a love bomb today
which is why suddenly being watery and lost and frail falling apart like i've been all this while
amounts to a beautiful thing
where i'm flowing
and sparkle every which way

something needs to change now
still hasn't changed
into something where what we lose isn't the authentic.

it's a good thing these songs never seem to end.

bring it on

2011-05-15T09:11:00.002+05:30

in a world where vengeance is our best friend
betrayal is a swell way of paying it forward.

caution II

2011-05-15T08:51:00.000+05:30

don't read promises into my lips.

caution

2011-05-15T08:50:00.000+05:30

i make promises i don't keep.

defected poem intact with title in disarray

2011-05-10T21:18:00.003+05:30

a love that frees
is also a love that inevitably confines
is also a love that flees.

i wish for a love that binds
like the bending metal
of a ring that curls
and holds tight a finger on my hand.

so even when you're not around
i'll always feel held.

i haven't been held for five months
months that have stretched into infinite forevers
skin shriveling incurably.

silent corners of my body
are waiting to be heard
waiting
in quiet desperation
for some body
to return a greeting.

the love i desire to feel
is also a love that
disintegrates
before my eyes
before it earns the name
of love.

something along the lines of how
before it's birthed
it dies.

the love i remember
is also the love
i tried to make
both raw and overripe
and just as you'd expect from me
i took a bite.

ashes in my mouth
taste like a distant dream
of someone sleeping whom
i should not have woken.

eyes

2011-05-10T21:10:00.001+05:30

when you touched her hand
the sun shone

in your eyes

in mine
you won't find
even the madness of
the moon

only tides.

on a day like this

2011-04-24T21:13:00.000+05:30

i wish i were a mitten
that fit your hand only.

only you would have
those special number of
fingers.

and i'd fit you so perfectly
you'd keep me on
all through the summer.