'BELONG'

Walked along the roads,
Ones you had shown.
Whisked along the shores,
Ones you had soaked.

Seethed in whines,
Yours and mine.
Even circled some shrines,
Trusting and trying.

Many worlds and
Their masters I watched.
Many sapient and
Their notes I scratched.

Hostility, piety I
Seek and desired
Within, without I
Embellished, quivered.

Like a nomad so
Wasteful, so lavish.
Fleeced seams and
Devoid treasures.

Along this voyage,
Of times and age,
Of grime and dirt,
Of wilt and search.

Have I not
Come a long trail?
Yet, all I
Feel is a droll.

To you and
Those all around.
I squirm, I plonk.
‘Just don’t belong!’

In between

While,
I’m walking a moment

to gates of another,
gasping through skeletons
of scattering present,
ruins from the past.

Pillar to post as they say,
this distance I map everyday.
dawn to dusk,
here till there,
one facet interspersing
realms of another.

I seek, I push
do the done.
trade joys for
greater sorrows.
Earn the earned,
pennies of wisdom
and lying dust.

While,
I’m on the cart of life.
While,
I’m surviving norms.
Bizarre and outlandish,
transactions between us.

In between,
those destinations of time
In between,
One norm and nine.

In between…
As my eyes smile.
At the sun skimming
through sieves of leaves.

In between…
As moonlight snow
pecks my cheeks.
As rain drenches
my blossomed grief.
As I squeeze,
trickles of fatigue.

In between…
As I dry
in blazed pain,
As I breathe you
fearlessly, unflinchingly.
As brazen winds
bash me to giggles.

In between….
As you, I hear in me
As you, I see in me
As silence loosens
As I pause

In these slant
In betweens
of destinations

In these slant
In betweens

Of lucid glares
In these slant
In betweens
I lie cold and bare!

Perfect storm

Shards of
Scattered notes
Unsung strains
Peeping sighs

Silhouette of a tear
Silence of a storm
Cryptic sounds
Strum music

Of an aching life
Blotched moments
Soaked in languish
Craving for none

Walking past
Would be a strife
For where will
I see this site

Shroud of a face
Parched eyes
Of all was
Is and will be

No questions
Bend her gaze
No answers
Those eyes delve

Shrugging moments
Like sand
Slipping in and out
Of her hands

Lost her pain
Skimming through
A scorched life
Imprinting her blues

Draped in shrieks
Ringing jangles
Clad in chimes
Barbarous songs

Of a Perfect Storm

YOU 'n' ME

Between you and me,
this queer we share.
Nibbling through it,
looking for the same.

Or am I,
knocking the waters
slipping in a stream.
Or am I,
clasping sands
dancing away in the winds.

Seeped in wonder and irresolute,
Dialect of errors,
steer to this bloke?
Are we friends?
Are we foes?
Are we indifference…impersonate?

Looking for an answer,
looking for a name.
Between you and me,
this queer we share.

Show me your cards
Show me your game
Show me that square
you’ll trap me again.

Or leave the court to me.
I’ll quibble some more,
I’ll hope no more,
Someday I will learn,
your indifferent forte.

U I know,
will not refrain.
Your sophism will play
its worth, again.
A fallacy, encore.

Elusive you-Life!
Chilly and shroud
Between you and me,
this queer…
This queer we’ll share.

Score Carding... again

At every stage in life, we pocket a different learning and here I really mean that mental note we make, the anecdote we'd wish to tell our children and their children. Wow!!! inked testiminials of wisdom for posterity!

So in a spurt of iconic wisdom and higher level of intelligence I chose to quit my job as a journalist and follow the pursuit of happiness! (whatever that means). I travelled, read and found out courses that would help me enhance my skills (yeah I do embody a few skills, specially the kinds that make me a highly curious but confused individual).

Somehow I zeroed in on a course that majority of the population in the country would crave to do (at least their dear parents would want them to.). So yeah I decided on doing an MBA (so much for the research.) Now this is where the action begins, here I am in this institution with all my heart and might and an earnest intention to LEARN and how?

I learnt about accounts, finance, debit, credit, GDP, public speaking et al. But in case you thought this was the epicenter of things, u may be in for well, a very predictable but nevertheless surprise! I learnt that the only faint fossil of learning was turning out to be a string of grades and marks.

Really it was all and nothing more than marks. So was I learning much or anything that I hadn’t before? At 29, was I not just revising lessons my teachers gave me on getting a high score? Was I not simply getting a high intensity skill on fetching scores and beating the other rat in the race?

Gazing haplessly, at my peers’ enthusiasm after taking their exam, their flabbergasting responses to all correct answers and their euphoria of relative success. I couldn’t relate to any of this, or may be I didn’t want to. For this is not why I stepped in to the classroom, or may be I was suffering from another theoretical dilemma called ‘Idealism’.

Irony is this- - I didn’t see an iota of this excitement in them after attending a single lecture. I didn’t see any of this excitement after learning any of the earlier mentioned traits! As for me, I continued to grope in the bright light of super intellectuals and economists.

And this is in the least a hangover of “5 Point someone or 3 Idiots”. It’s my story, my mental note, my agony that after slogging my butt for 17 years of schooling, graduating, post graduating , I chose to re postgraduate in the same thing….SCORE CARD!!!

But I am an adamant, obtuse case, so I refuse to learn it, accept it or even acknowledge it. And though I like to stay at bay from political comments, I'd want to second Kapil Sibal’s concerns and efforts on eradicating class ten exams.

Coming back to the mental note…would I want to tell my children and theirs that I loved studying but somehow lost it to a fight for better scores! Are we promoting education here or nurturing a breed of numerically frenzied ideas? So much for having a taste for education!!!!

Banks of time…

Banks of time just stopped by
Like the last grain of passing sands
Like the waters of foregoing waves
They stopped by to let me know…

“Those dreams that you saw once
That music they played then,
Those hues they brushed once,
Those moves they danced around…

You dropped those dreams
Lying on the back yard of your sleep
I watch them scuffle in cold
Fainting in the zone of stench.”

Answers…there aren’t
Lost and glum, I am.
I know no more,
For never I visit that lane again.

I’ve locked the back yard
Have lost the keys,
To a bunch of nomadic desires,
To some heaps of worldly feats,
To the hope of finding a bigger me…

And yet I have
even less of me…

Banks of time…
Urge me again…
“Free those dreams
Don’t let them go.
You’ll choke them
To win some lame game.
Yet again, you’ll misplace them,
Estrange them for strangers.”

I squabble in a rush
To free those dreams
From the dungeons and scum,
I place them on the mantle
of my mindless whims
I let them breathe,
Sing to me and unleash
Spurts of madness and
Dance of life,
Some scoops of naïve spirit,
Splashed colours and
Unabashed rythms.
The backyard is empty,
My sleeps cleaned,
Scrubs of time…
I thank thee.

Life, her whim

A little birdie-she sat alone,
Nestled in her roost,
Weaving a dream of spreading her wings,
Flying was her only whim.

Timidly she opened her eyes,
Coy, she was while gaping at the sky.
Trembling at every wind pat
Often wondering if,
She would ever swing.

A little birdie, she did sway,
In the arms of her haven-the sky.
Gliding amidst the clouds,
Prancing in the winds,
Weeping through the thunders,
Staging at every stance
Her own dance.

This little birdie but, just couldn’t see,
Pats were gearing into wafts,
The unruly winds were swamping her thirst.
She did see though…
Her heavenly mansion crumbling,
She did feel though…
Her music fading.

Estranged and aghast she looked for her stage,
No longer though, she pranced,
No longer she danced.
Somewhere in that sin, I think,
She had lost her wings.


Sitting by the sea of silence,
Gazing at the brushes of time,
She groped for something.
Past- a robber, Future-a stranger,
She befriended the present and
“Yes” to life was her only whim.

“I may not dance but
A new song I shall sing.
I may not prance but
A new play I shall win.
I may have lost my notes but
A new music I shall bring.”

This little birdie, she smiled again.
Her moments had changed their path.
Her laughters did sound dark,
Somewhere she had also misplaced her sheen.
But did she really lose her dream?

An epitome of hope,
She found a new castle, the earth.
Saluting the sky, I see her speak,
“I’m doing fine, breathing fresher winds,
Today, loving life is my only whim.”