From far side of me

Construction and Deconstruction is what love is,

or perhaps life itself is.

The sun which breathed its last across the horizon,

only took its baby steps somewhere else.

The land between life and death,

where souls roam about in vast emptiness,

lost one of their own, the day one is born

in the world we called earth.

The reason which grows smiles on my lips,

is just a silent sigh which escaped someone's breath.

Like the sky-scrapers where I search for my home,

And work for my livelihood are nothing but 

tentacles of some underneath octopus, 

which is sucking dry the blood of the Mother Earth.

Like utopia and dystopia co-existing, 

like two faces of the same coin.

Life is like a maze where you walked into since childhood,

Looking for a way, but always get lost.

A series of tunnels, which leads to more tunnels.

A cycle of day and night which never ends,

the story where the characters never seems to agree to the ending.

A search of answers which only led to more questions,

like swimming to the depth of the ocean to be exposed by more mysteries which till that point didn't exist.

Like looking to gauge the black hole in the outer space,

discovering the one which exist inside us.

From the far side of me,

there is clarity in bizarreness,

the lights that twinkle in the river bed,

are diamonds in an alternate world.

A short film, shot by a smartphone.

Memories gnaw at me,

relentless and recurring,

But I try to shut them off.

Sometimes when I open the door,

I see two faces in you,

One of innocence that I lived

Other, a devouring Dragon,

waiting to sweep away last trace of my childhood.

A doppelganger you have become.

Sometimes at night I hear you whimper,

I picture you as a child but I can't lull you to sleep,

Sometimes the whimpers becomes shrill of wails

that threatens to wake my sleeping conscience.

But why would you cry, I wonder.

You have brands to hide your bruised skin,

Pop corns and Pizzas to quench your hunger

Why don't you dance to sleazy item numbers,

amid dazzling lights in burgeoning discotheques?

Why would you cry?

You have shopping malls to live in, isn't it?

Sometimes I feel your innocent eyes peering at me,

Like ember you burn at a corner of my existence.

I try each moment to save my childhood days from the fire

I try not to be weakened by your invisible gaze.

I had bartered my soul long ago

But my last leaf grew in your branches.

Now like a caged bird I am tied to my existence,

My roots have been burnt, my paradise lost,

I have nowhere to go, 

I have no hope of salvation.

I wonder if it was love,
which squeezed life out of our existence?
I wonder whose hand was it?
who strangled the soul?
I wonder who sow weeds in the garden?
Now it lays barren for ages.

I wonder was it love,
which stole sleep from our eyes?
I wonder who poisoned the dove?
whose hands ruffled its skin?
why didn't it cry?

I wonder was it love,
which led us to this impossible journey?
I wonder why there is a vacuum?
have we reached the destination we set out for?
why am I going blind?

I wonder was it love?

We are living a lie,
conversations -- a bag full of words,
grievances and complaints.

love is like rain,
washing down my soul clean,
I want to get drenched now,
but there are no clouds in the sky.

You are still a memory,
my eyes hold on to a photograph,
a slideshow, I switch on to at night,
a dream which I weaved with my breath,
only to break them in the morning light.

We are living a lie,
conversations -- a bag full of words,
grievances and complaints.

Lets flow into the river of silence,
you and me,
still and stubborn,
waiting for the morning ray,
for our time to be born.

Lets flow into the river of silence,
silence is strength,
all that perishes is born in the garden of silence,
silence is also the root of the world,
existence floats in silence.

Lets flow into the river of silence,
you and me, 
forever.

Reminiscence

In you,

morning smells like ragas.

sun smiling soft on my eyes,

breeze cold bringing my soul back to life.

In you,

afternoon sounds like tanpura drone

intoxicating and indelible.

mooing me to sleep.

In you,

evening means incense sticks, 

mud lamps, burning coconut coir, 

and prayer bells.

In you,

nights tastes like silence,

flowing quietly like a river,

slowly burning like ember

like firefiles in power cuts. 

Living in the cities, blighted by the glitters and twinkling sky scrappers can make one blind, drowning in cacophony of the traffic as everyday you go to office can make one deaf. They say even the lallabys of the concrete cities keeps you wake all night. Living such a life and then suddenly giving it all away in a moment can be stupid idea for some, while for someone else it can be the best thing to have happened in years.

I remember hallucinating in the wee hours of my sleep and waking up to a dimly lit room whose walls have not seen light for ages. The windows which only stares at the ACs and coolers of the adjacent buildings , the fan moving tirelessly for centuries overlooking you from the ceiling, every night soothing you to sleep and expecting to carress you out of your slumber. Waking up to mornings, which all look and feel the same in a room which are helplessly adored with inhouse plants to sometimes bring that touch of life and sometimes feeling in the role of a companion.

I remember slipping into sleep every night after a long conversation with the plants – three of them –after being high on weeds. I remember staring at the blank pages of Microsoft words, waiting for ganja to trigger that creative streak in me and complete that master piece which never happened. I remember looking at the empty gold flake packets which lay strewn in my room and the newspapers which pile up everyday at a corner of my existence, only to mock at a life which never changes even though the Timesofindia suggest it is a new day. I remember listening to the rustling sound of the newspapers as they move around my room, fanned by the air from the ceiling.

I remember sometimes leaning against the wall and hallucinating about a ray of sunlight which infiltrate my existence and fall on my face. I see my whole existence plunged into a bright hue that smells like my childhood colours. I see myself in my 14-year-old self running like Forest Gump would run in my by lanes even as the sun sinks at the horizon. I remember climbing the mango and guava trees at my silchar residence and lying on the branches for hours looking at the sun which played hide and seek amidst their leaves.

But all that soon used to get vaporized in the smoke of ganja and all I was left with was darkness of my existence once again. So when I decided to leave the city of concrete and find refuge in my childhood days for redemption, I know I would not be disappointed. Nature has never disappointed anybody ever.

It had been nine years since I had left my skinny bylanes for the streetlights lit alleys which looked so bright in the Tv screens. I left the vacant fields which used to be my playground only to be trapped in the four walls of my so-called successful existence. I left the guava and mango trees which had been my friends only to long every moment to go back to their arms. In fine, I had left my humble existence for a better and successful life which was always a myth.

Now that I trace my way back to the roads which taught me how to walk, I feel a sense of satisfaction to get back my old self which I had lost in the years that commenced in my life. But then in the silent gaze and the conversation of my long lost friends whom I hadnot met for years, I also feel the change that had crept in slowly in me and I realized if I have to get back my innocent days, I will have to shrug off some of the dust that has accumulated in my soul in the last few years.

      (To be continued... )

We talk. We eat. We sleep.

We walk down the road along the morning breeze,

We argue. We fight. 

I can still see you in the morning light.

They say none of these are real

Ignorant, they don't see the truth

You live in my existence,

your existence, a truth the world doesn't want to believe.

I still fight to bring you back.

You exist. You do. 

Not in shadows but in real.

One year has passed since your funeral, Baba.

But I can still hear your call.

You are bored of the story
For long you have been reading it.
Don't you like to know the climax?
I wonder.
The book lies in your desk,
each day, you just watch it dust
sometimes you visit the story
but you are not sure if you like it anymore
You don't complete the book
nor you read something else.
But the story of the book waits,
in silence, patiently.
Awaiting to fulfill its destiny.

Now words fail us,
like strangers we sit,
across a long dark night.
The silence breaks sometimes,
Thanks to the waft of our breath.
I still find music in your silence,
but you fail to decipher the lyrics.
What has befallen you, my love?
What has befallen you?