Showing posts with label Proetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proetry. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Happiness

All that they tell you
about happiness is
shit
it is not found under ancient trees
nor in the caves of lofty mountains
or on the banks of pious rivers
happiness is to be fished
from the filth of your
everyday life

It is to be found in
clean, sun-dried underwear
(and stained too);
in the release
of a painfully full bladder;
in a person
humming the song
you were trying hard
to recall;
in clean and cold
water to drink on a
hot summer afternoon;
in looking at a photograph
in which you’re grinning
into a camera, wide-eyed,
when you’d no clue
what a camera is;
in sleeping, knowing
that the alarm won’t
go off in the morning;
in waking, knowing that
there’s another hour
for alarm to go off;
in a condom
that fits your size
if not your ego’s;
in dreaming about
the house where you’d spent
your childhood;
in seeing someone you love succeed
and someone you hate fail;
in eating first mango of the
summer
and first gazak of the winter;
in finding a comfort in a
a tale that you’ve read/heard
hundreds of time and knowing
its details like you know all
the arbitrary shapes on the
cemented floor and walls
of your old house
that you dream about;
in the shade of gray clouds
that have wafted over
out of nowhere
on a scorching May afternoon;
in thinking about home
when at school/work.

happiness is not an illusion
grandness is
infinity is.

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

2015


Your story is written

by an unseen hand

in a long-winded sentence,

which doesn’t really say much.



Year-ends come

like commas, marking

a pause, to allow

you to catch your breath;

But then some

are like semicolons:

you know

it might as well have ended

here;

but it didn’t;

it won’t;

it

just

won’t...

~ aviD



Wednesday, 9 December 2015

Naivete

For an irrational moment
I had thought our fates
have been sealed,
among that multitude
of books, some as old
as civilisation, and some
new as your youth.

A quiver of thrill ran
through me as I introduced
Odyssey to you.
Even Homer would have seen
the affection that glazed
my eyes as they darted
from the book to your face.


“Iliad too must be about!”
I’d said looking away impulsively,
eager to conceal that very affection.
Would I sail the Aegean sea
to reach you? Would I launch a thousand
ships to have you?


No! But I was willing to share
my books with you. And my food.
And, believe you me,
that’s a bigger endeavour on my part
than the ones epics exalt.

All the while we walked
those semi-lit alleys
of Connaught Place,
I’d secretly hoped that you’d
place your hand around my waist,
or plant a kiss on my cheek.
All the while we talked
in the frail chill
of an early December evening
I’d secretly hoped that you’d
tell me one thing that you like
in me.


When I dared to probe your feelings
you said that you’ve been
meeting other people, and that
you treat all of us equally.


Never had egalitarianism
sounded as ridiculous and offensive
to me before.
What was I to put it down to?
Your naiveté or mine?
Yours could still be extenuated by
your age. But mine should only be
damned.


~ aviD

Friday, 2 October 2015

How do I thank you?

How do I thank you
for making me a
hot cup of coffee in
middle of this autumn-flavoured night?

For grazing my legs
with your foot as we sit
on opposite chairs on the verandah with my earphones plugged in and
Gulzar's lyrics tugging at my heart?
For gazing at me from the opposite
chair as though there's been nothing
more important to you than gazing at me thus?
Ever!


For continuing to gaze at me
when I avert my eyes from you and close them,
conscious and shy,
from all your gazing, and pretend to concentrate on the lyrics?

For leaning forward to kiss me;
but then tousling my hair
pulling my right cheek instead?

For then, as the watchman beats
 his stick on the ground somewhere
in the distant background and as the
trees murmur in the light breeze,
wrapping your arms around me
and nuzzling at the cleft between my neck and my shoulder?

For taking one earpiece and humming
along with me as we spoon
under the half-bitten moon?

For being so tender, so thoughtful, so perfect?
How do I thank you--most importantly-- for not being?
~ aviD


"कोई आता है पलकों पे चलता हुआ, इक आंसू सुनहरी सा जलता हुआ
ख्वाब बुझ जाएंगे... राख रह जायेगी
रात ये भी गुज़र जायेगी ...."
~ गुलज़ार

Friday, 3 July 2015

Hopelessly Hopeful



It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

The promise of a better tomorrow, better still, the illusion of it is what drives one today. This tomorrow feeds off the hopes one raises today. Every evening the sun hides, unable to bear upon itself all the burden of hopes one invests it with as it rises. Then the night falls. Enough time for one to recover from the momentary realisation that the perishing of those promises is as inevitable as the rising of the sun the following morning. Also, enough time for one to weave a new tapestry of hopes that one expects life will fulfil. 

One adds a dash of that hope into tea one brews in the morning. One slathers some of that hope with butter on a piece of bread. One pours some of that hope with hot milk into a bowl of porridge. And one opens the newspaper with the hope of finding a possibility of that promise, pressed neatly between the folds of those pages, resembling tiny ants fighting for space, materialising. The newspapers have enough material to demolish all the hopes of having such hopes; and yet one, incurably and hopelessly bitten by the bug of hopefulness keeps hoping.  With the pages of that newspaper the hope gets recycled too. It’s presented to one afresh the next day in a new form, new variety. 

They don’t make a big crashing sound as they perish, these promises. They don’t go all BOOM and BAAM! They just fade away. And fizzle out without much fanfare. A silent death mostly. And then, even before one is done mourning for the lost hopes, new ones start budding and replace the former. And one begins to chase the newly arisen hopes. One knows it’s a bait. Yet one is drawn to it guilelessly and helplessly. Just a certain GPA , a certain degree, a certain job, an apartment with a certain number of rooms in a certain neighbourhood, citizenship of a certain country, a certain person…just this one thing, or that….just this one. And then will commence the gilded age. Does it though? Even if one gets all of these and maybe more?

It’s a Sisyphean task: one tries to claw their way out of this pit, a hopeless pit made of hope, and having come out of it somehow, one finds themselves in an even deeper pit. The pit only multiplies, and one is plunged further into multiple pits simultaneously. Hopeless pits made of hopes.

All of life is this: digging new pits, trying to get out of them, only to envy the pits of the others and wanting to dive into them right away, or to pity the pits of others hoping to never get pushed in those. But a pit is a pit. Hopeless pits made of hopes.

It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

















Monday, 20 April 2015

The Gentle And The Men, Drove On

The gentle and the men
Drove on,
Driven by the yen
To extinguish the anguish
That life and living spawn.

The gentle and the men
Drove on
On the roads that bend
As they please,
Refusing to be predictable,
Refusing to cease.

Two rivulets rushed down
The hills
Like streams of milk
Oozing out of breasts of mother Yashoda
Upon seeing Madhav
Return home at dusk,
 Spent and worn.
The gentle and the men
Drove on.

 The stately hills looked on.
Or did they too giggle
At the banter produced by
The gentle and the men
As they drove on?

The clouds and hills squabbled.
In a bid to be one up,
The clouds cast shadows
That eclipsed the hills; and
Hills, they raise their heads,
Impudently,
To touch the very clouds
They won’t fawn
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.

The clouds gloated
Over their mobility
And fluidity,
Mocking the static hills;
The hills took pride in stability,
In their simple forms and regularity,
Changeless since they were born,
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.


Who could say whether
The mobility was not freedom
But punishment?
It came at a cost—the lack of belonging.
Everywhere but nowhere.
Wasn’t the stability an act?
An act under constant attack from
Forces of nature—the winds of desire,
The torrent of temptations,
The quakes of urges.

Neither was better off.
They laughed at the facades
The hills and the clouds don,
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.



~ aviD

                                                                         



Thursday, 1 January 2015

28th October is Here!



27th October 2013

A bachelor's den. Taps running dry.
Impetuous arrival at the ceremony.
Bashful attempts to hide the creepy footwear.

28th October 2013

And the night descended.
Youth shone in all its (vain)glory.
Narcissism in all its hues.

A wedding procession soaked in mirth and wine.
Amused like a six year old, He saw it wide-eyed. And attempted to snatch the merriment as much as He could, however unwonted.

Trying to mingle with the dominant flavour.
Supressing and deliberately ignoring his own.
Maybe this was how it could be gotten, joy.

Donning new ethos, he beamed and jigged. Unimaginable. Liberating in a way nonetheless.

Dichotomy-- an old companion. How could it remain far behind. Two hundred meters away someone had ceased to be. A road-accident someone informed. There He was in the chasm between life in all its glory, and death in all its pervasiveness. It was easily brushed aside. The illusory and elusive mirth had to be insulated from reality after all. How precious it was.

One bed.
Four contenders.
Night-long nudging and pushing.
Errotic snores.

29th October 2013

Blobs of butter melting on hot paranthas, munchable sandwiches.

A hub of capitalism.
A world of fantasy.
The luster of the wares gleamed in their eyes as lust.

On ice glided the charmer, from this end to that. That smoothness incredible.
On the frozen ice He could feel his heart melt.
"You were much better towards the end," were the parting words, punctuated by a smile. And an endearing accent.

Upon returning home, He smiled as he nursed a bruised knee and fanciful mind. :)

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

कुरु यदुनन्दन



Rub some salt of hope
On my wounds, so that
I may sing.
Shriller. And shriller still.

Bind me in darkness
Delirious, so that
I may dance.
Madder. And madder still.

Drown me in solitude
Delicious, so that
I may float.
Lighter. And lighter still.

Impale my imperviousness
Immense (and noxious), so that
I may heal.
Quicker. And quicker still.

Stifle my meagre mind
With wishlessness, so that
I may breathe.
Easier. And easier still.

Underline my eyes
With kohl of oblivion, so that
 I may see.
Clearer. And clearer still.

Push me from the nadir
Of my vanity, so that
I may fall.
Deeper. And deeper still.

Stoke my soul with passion, and
Fill my body with love, so that
I may fly.
Higher. And higher still.

And then shatter into pieces
My heart, so that
I may grow benevolent.
Kinder. And kinder still



O Unfair Master! I pray to thee:
Colonize my heart,and

Enslave my mind, so that

I may be set free!
Freer. And freer still.
 

~ aviD

                                                                         
 

Monday, 24 November 2014

There

Like
fair play in the world;
'b' in subtle;
reason in love;

Like
sight in Soordas and Homer;
'sense' in nonsense;
intermolecular space in solids;


Like
stars during the day;
meaning in life;
God in an idol;

Like
righteousness in Right;
feasibility left in Left;
equilibrium in Centre;

Like
Change wrought about by time,
day by day,
in things sub-lunar;

Like
my literary talent;
escape in sleep;
beauty in death; 

Like
Eternity in a moment;
Cosmos in a granule of sand;
truth in what poets write;

Like
Radhika in Bhagwatam;
Sensation of pleasure
and pain in a dream.

Like
the sixth Pandav;
originality in Shakespeare;
and efficacy of prayer.

Like
the weight of air,
you, O beloved! are always
there yet not there.

~aviD

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Laughter

Smile gathers
around your lips
slowly
and then becomes
laughter,
all at once,
like the new season
which slinks in,
day by day, night by night,
and then ushers in,
all at once.

~ aviD

"No pic, no reply"

I said:
My mind forbids
pinging you
but my heart doesn’t comply.
All they said was: “no pic, no reply.”
Pictures are not people;
People are not pictures.
Understand.
At least try.
All they said was: “no pic, no reply.”
We could make it meaningful,
deep, lasting and beautiful.
Let us take this beyond
the mere demand and supply.
All they said was: “no pic, no reply. ”
Together we could share
our lows and our highs.
We could laugh together,
maybe even cry.
All they said was: ” no pic, no reply.”
We could walk on the shore,
Collect shells, build castles.
We could gaze at stars
under a moonlit sky.
All they said was: “no pic, no reply. ”
We could do long drives,
musical nights, shopping sprees.
We could explore new eateries.
Heck! Even barbecue, bake and fry.
All they said was: “no pic, no reply. ”
Then time flew.
More impatient I grew.
I learnt my lesson by and by.
One fine day I too wrote:
“Golden rule apply;
No pic, no reply.”

~ aviD