Dear All...

For those few who have been wondering whatever happened to me? Well, I have been working on a book of short fiction.. After struggling for the last six months, I have managed to get right the titles for 8 stories... Now, if only I could get the rest of the elusive words in ! I might revert to this blog if I fail to live upto my expectations, as somebody had once said "All failed writers become poets." Meanwhile, I would surely be visiting and reading all you lovely peoples blogs . As in James Laughlin's immortal words:

Nunc Dimittis

Little time now
and so much hasn't
been put down as I
should have done it.
But does it matter?
It's all been written
so well by betters,
and what they wrote
has been my joy.

Seasons greetings and best wishes for the New Year to all you people who have given me so much joy .

I once killed a poet

We crouch in the dark foxholes
afraid to breathe out loud.
The air raid siren is whining down
like it was burrowing into
the safety its own hole.
In the eerie silence, a child
cried somewhere and the mother yelled
“Shut up, or we’ll get bombed out.”
More sshh shhhing and then all of us
are scanning the moonless
cloudless starlit sky with trepidation.
How I wished I were a pilot shooting
down those bastards who made us tremble like
scared animals in the trenches past midnight.
“My grandmother says stars are the
eyes of our dear protectors,” she whispers.
If I could, I would have gouged
them out, to make myself less visible.
“But I think they are more like the
beating hearts of our dear fairies,” she says
clasping her hands together in a fervent prayer.
How I wished I were in the sky, fighting
the enemy instead of hearing such pansy stuffs here.
Someone coughs loudly and apologizes.
How long will it be before the all-clear
siren comes, I wonder, how long
will it be before I finish school and
get into the Air Force , how long…
“I think the moon is like…”
I pinch her budding breasts and she
winces in pain and shuts up. I can see
the glistening swell of tears in her
eyes as I return to the sky
to shoot the bastards down.

Uncle Joe

“I think I have TB,” moans
Uncle Joe, “ I don’t think
the doctors here have
diagnosed me properly.”
I nod sympathetically.
He looks so shriveled,
and skinny that
one of these days,
I feel he’d just
turn into a wall paper.
I feel sorry for him,
because he was a doctor himself
and yet suspects his own clan.
Perhaps he has his reasons.
“I think the nurses
are trying to poison me,”
Now he’s suspecting them too.
“Uncle, they are doing
their best.” I say, “I mean, they’re trying
to heal you.” He misses my gaffe.
Doctors perhaps, make
the worst patients.
“My teeth are becoming
powdery,” he whispers.
If I’m an 86 yr old like him,
I’d be very glad if I
just had my teeth. Powdery or not.
“I am in this trouble all because
of your aunt,” he claims, “She
had no business to leave me like this.”
Bless her poor soul. Even dead,
she is blamed by him for all his ailings.
So like the unfortunate women of her generation.
“Take me to some other hospital,”
he pleads, and I nod, though
I won’t. Sooner or
later, he’d realize he
can’t trust me too.

If the other branch
is not taken,
would my mute presence bother you?

When a tree falls- paradox

When a tree falls in the
forest and no one is around,
does it make any sound?
Maybe they are so
close to each other,
it merely leans on its neighbor.

A Lose-Lose game

Hi Love, How are you?
Your mobile was switched off since the afternoon
(Me flopping in the chair wearily)
Sorry the battery was down.
But you have a car charger
(Wondering why I didn’t grab a
bottle of cold water before I came in.
The bottle here has ordinary water)
I was driving the van today.
Then put a charger in the van too
Ok, sorry. I will tomorrow.
(I stare at the pale blue walls of the hospital.
I’d been driving around in
the hot and dusty roads the whole day
and am feeling so caked with grime,
that if someone took a section of me,
from the rings of the dirt
he’d know which part of this city
I was at what time of the day.
Just for a moment I wonder
if the pale blue wall were a
pool, how, I could have dived into it.)
You don’t know how difficult
it is for me waiting the whole day
for you to come in the evening
(Coming out of the empty pool
feeling more thirsty and dirty)
I’ll come early tomorrow.
It’s so damn depressing here
(Looking at the sudoku puzzle in the newspaper nearby)
You’ll be out in a couple of days
And the pain
(Ha, I know where #7 comes in the 9th box)
Yes I know and I’m sorry.
What do you know about pain and
don’t gimme this sorry -warry.
(Taking my eyes off the paper)
Look I can relate to it.
You can never relate to the pain of anyone
who has just had her insides scooped out.
After all, you are just a man.


I have no words.
Neither has she.

The overhead ancient fan
creaks apologetically, and
blows down more hot air into the
tinder dry room ready to
turn into an inferno if one single
word is uttered.
We wait silently,
till one of us is spent of
of our own rage and misery and
holds out a tentative flag of regrets.

Meanwhile, its getting darker outside.

Well, this was the poor thing I wrote about in the earlier post.

Condemned

On seeing recently a beautiful but deadly adult Russell's Viper being killed by the roadside. I just was too late to save it :

Five minutes ago fifty bucks
would have freed me and the snake.
Now I carry it lifelong.

Forever

Luscious fluorescent green caterpillar eating
away my expensive palms leaves.
Capturing its beauty in
various angles, exposures etc.,
I flick it
off and squash.
I’ll enshrine its pics
on the internet.
Like the trapped insects
in translucent gum
from the Jurassic age.

For Junior

There he lay
in my palm.
Wet and rubbery.
So shrunk.
A miniature
me, who couldn’t
wait till
count nine
to be free.
Jumped the
gun in four.
“If it were a
girl,” the doctor
says, “this miscarriage
wouldn’t have happened”.
Meaning
guys don’t
stick on.
In or out
of the womb.
I burn his
delicate features
in my memory.
So if I were to
pass by him in
a specimen jar,
I’d say, “Hi kiddo!”
and move on.