All that was, all that ever would be, 
is lost in you, 
what remains are embers in the pyre of fate,
I wait like the stillness of a night, 
searching hope in the smoke that finds its face in the light escaping from the outside world, 
grievances and mercies have piled up on the broken slate of faith, 
night like these i fill them with words, 
no emotions survives in the ruins of uncertainty,
no breath can find its way in and out in the maze of despondency, 
yet I carry this bag of uncertainty, 
this maze in my head, 
walking on a path time left me, 
My legs are tired, 
I am fading an inch everyday, 
I am waiting for the road to turn.

Ode to Rishikesh

These meandering paths and roads,
conjures up memories of an ageless painting,
where imperfections are all put on a canvass,
like moss filled walls that wakes in winters with moisture on its face.

Here the air that fills up the lungs lift weights from the drooping shoulders,
Here colours run free, a place where all emotions packed in the colourful bottles wait to pour themselves out in the holy water.
Here bridges bridge the separate worlds of humanity.

Here candles light up even the hidden corners of an aching heart,
melting the mountains of miseries,
wiping the cold tears of sadness, breaking the prisons of guilt.

Here the constant hum of the Ganges can put the tired soldier to sleep.

The sun soaked morning breeze here can heal all bruises of time,

Here faith survives the icy chillness of an uncertain future,
last embers of life float here half-submerged in this tranquil water,
boats here can reach out to the islands of hope,

they are free; no anchor tries to bind them to the shore.

Here the hazy eyes of the afternoons hold tales of wisdom, they speak stealthily in your ears, half-asleep while you bask in the sun.

Here time ages slowly, like the scars of that mother who lost her child to the Ganges on a stormy night.
At the twilight, here souls set their past and future sailing with a candle on silent nights, The ripples spill bag full of memories, the breeze sway the curtains away, as our breath knits a new story.

Here soil smelts like home, the streams dances in the lap of mountains, sparkling like diamonds in the fading evening hue, here mist falls like dust and brushes off the rusts that covers the soul and stones stores stories of an ageless time. 

I can't live like this,
hanged like a calender from the walls of capitalism,
I feel like a daily wage labourer, who breaks down numbers, sheaving datas, blunting the sharp edges of words. 

Like a photoframe of a different time, posted in an oblivion corner of existence, plastic smiles, meaningless euphoria, like dust pile on me. 

Everyday I feel stuck in a Freudian dream, circling the semi-circles of my life, like strewn papers and polythene bags floating under the summer sun on lousy afternoons, taking half flights, in and out of the loop of sanity.

The smoke that fills my lungs, unwinds those caged birds, old and young, opening doors to the dreams, that run like water in the maze, wafting in the vacuum of an utopian world and melting like tears in the morning ray that illuminates this dystopian world, where everyday I find myself drowning without a trace.

Ashes pile up everyday,
remnants and residues of philosophies and ideologies,
turning into dust that rest over the books, left to rot like these words in some unnamed draft of my gmail.

Of Love, Reasons & Breakups

Reasons, 

enough of your reasons, love,

its okay if you can't love me.

You don't have to hide behind reasons.

I get it now, its all my fault,

I allowed you to open the vault,

now you don't need my heart to cry,

well, I know you are the supreme being,

you can take it with a pinch of salt.

I can't, its my heart which is breaking here,

and I own it all, its all my fault.

enough of your reasons, love,

its okay if you can't love me.

You don't have to hide behind reasons.

Like a black and white painting,

I hung amid your numerous trophies,

You painted me with various shades of grey,

and called me your one and only masterpiece.

No, I wasn't blind,

Its just that I'd closed my eyes,

You called me your peace of mind,

and I trusted your bag full of lies.

I am still your masterpiece,

the crown to your shinning throne,

its your words which made me,

through you I was born.

I'd tried to repair the hands of time,

trusted the tick-tock of my naive heart,

I never knew it will be a never ending climb,

All I am left with time now is this empty desert.

Its all my fault, I own it all,

What lied within the casing,

I couldn't see with my open eyes,

I am a coward, don't believe in much tongue lashing, 

So here is where I leave you,

its time to say goodbye.

When the mountain will roar its heart out in the open,
flowing like death on the green leaves of time,
melting the golden chains of civilization
to free the exiled earth,

when life will shiver,
its feet trembling to the shrilling laughter of the clouds,
raining down, reducing the dollar dreams to a bag full of bones and mud,

when the icy cold breeze will freeze the last tear of innocence, crystallizing earth's womb forever, turning the world into an endless mirror, putting hope to a long white sleep,

when the sun will unleash his dragon, spitting fire through the night sky, when even the eyes of innocence will be plucked out from the last child, to quench the hunger of mankind,

it will the day when we will realise. But by then the price ll already be paid.

---------------------

Find me a home,

a small corner that doesn't weep the slow constant decay of time,

a bed of forest where roots never give up in the face of melting clocks,

a bank where boats doesn't flee the shore when the ocean comes raging,

a piece of leaf, a twig, a creeper that can grow in the concrete walls of uncertainty,

even a dark damp pit ll do, if the stinky staunch can put the traveller to sleep.

You

You are with me,

even when the world blackout, 

consumed by a dark black hole.

even when I am breezing through the cacophony of my concrete reality, I see you in those thousand windows running in the multiplexes of my mind, knitting a sweater for me for the winter to pass.

even when I'm sleeping in the torn pages of my ignominious poetry at night, I find you waiting under my pillow, baring your heart for me to scribble the lost stories of history and time.

even when I'm swimming and sinking in the quagmire of my delusory dreams which I had saved like the coins in the peggybank of time, I can see you throwing a rope at me all the time on the banks of a world which they call illusory.

Now even you have faded, 

weak and wasted like me, 

time has etched all its failures on your naked body, 

so its just you and me now,

now and always.

Till forever betrays.

When Winter Wanes

What will be,

When the winter wanes,

what shall remain?

In winter's night,

The sea brings lost letters,

from an barren island.

Lashing against the salty sand,

corpses of secrets rot,

tattered fabric of love,

silky satin of lust,

battered souls of time float.

In winter's light,

the icy Himalayan winds wrap the sea in snow,

Hiding the deserts under the white dust,

As Amaryllis and Frost flowers grow, 

In abundance, on this cryonically frozen land.

As the day awaits its end.

And so, I wonder, 

What will be,

When the winter wanes,

what shall remain?

Let this story never end

Broken Roads have been mend, 

here we start again,
Let this story never end.

IT has been a long stay on the road,
too many gardens have been devoured by deserts, 

most times flowers bled us most and we learnt to stay with thrones,
together, knowing not whats in store.

Like two missing pages of love, 

floating in emotions, 

crossing the cliffs and oceans like a wave of breeze, 

crystallizing the universe into a cloud of snow, 

that rained down to desert's womb, 

bringing back the green seed. 

Let this faith grow into an old tree.

And together we stand, hand-in-hand.

Because here we start again,
Let this story never end.

Hanging on the distant towers of fate,

Pick-pocketed on our way to salvation,
We are like two arms of clock, dragging each feat,
Deep in the quagmire of time we create.
We have drowned in zillion such insomniac years, 

but like two missing heart beats, 

we planned our escape from the prison of time.

Under the weight of love even time bends, 

And so here we start again,

let this story never end.

Its time to uncork those pent-up bottles, 

stitch that woolens of love for the winter, 

strung that guitar with a melody, 

finish that decade-old song, 

live in the sweet noise of utensils, 

in the taste of tasteless tea in morning breakfast cups, 

together like a biscuit, 

even dipped in tea stays in the same cup and blend,

Because here we start again, 

And let this story never end.

A Ganja Tripping

You take me to a ride,

a pathway to a different land.

You showed me worlds which I never knew existed,

from the depths to the rage of love,

plastic times to when time flowed like the Gangas.

You showed me rainbows that never faded,

tasting colors which born and die in a separate world,

You drove me to wild and disturbing nights,

of Irongmara mid-nights,

snaking labyrinth of ecstasy and floating raagas of PHE tilla.

You also held my hands and walked me in gardens,

a bed of flowers which no world can hold,

You took me to bridges which could bridge boundaries of our neighbours,

floating under the Srinagar sky on Dal lake,

where water is so crystal that you look better in them.

You took me to mountains which smelt like El Dorado,

to oceans which only Poseidon tamed,

You took me to that giant clock where I sat all day once,

listening to the division bell

which brought evenings across the expanding horizon.

Cancer

Like a zillion bees,
Multiplying,Swarming & gnawing,
Their teeth sink into their brethren.

Like building blocks,
plaguing, penetrating & Paralyzing, 
Smothering the breath of life all the time.

From roots to roots,
Skin to skin and blood to blood,
Like ants sprouting out of a whole,
Raising an army on the unarmed,
Torturing,turning and tearing,
Last guards of resistance.

Long walk to home

Sun shines in her golden hair,
hope and despair lives silently in those sullen eyes,
she hums verses of Gita under her breath,
Sometimes she stops and speaks to ujjala,
she glances at the coconut trees, she drifts.
Lost in the quest of questions, she digs inside.
Her hand searching a ring in the mud,
she could feel his hands too.
Subash was singing a song,
Her cousins and friends were enamoured by him.
She remembers the 'hare krishna hare rama' song,
her father had taught her on way to school,
on his bicycle, where he carried his black umbrella.
It rained,the day her father died.
He spilled blood from his mouth in his final days.
The doctors had denied to admit him.
She and her brother had carried him to a local Malda govt hospital.
The cachar cancer hospital is clean.
Here nurses are tribals.
They often talk silly while injecting chemo.
The skin of her veins had gone black,
a dusky black which fall on her room,
every night when pinky tugged her in the bed.
The kaliphosh were yet to kick in.
The night outside the window was more silent,
a thousand mute questions all speaking at once.
Sopna brings her a glass of D-protein,
Pinky had just boiled some local eggs,
Chintu was drinking his morning tea.
Jhuma was chopping the fresh spinach she had bought.
D-protein tasted worse then sugar water.
She can't have sugar. Her father-in law had sugar.
Nice biscuits were his favourite.
He stole and hide them under his pillow.
He had bedsores and used to shit on his bed for months.
The pungent smell still hurts her stomach.
She had given up food for many years.
She can't eat now. Her stomach aches.
Subash had stomach ulcer. He had given up hope.
He cried on his way to Chennai five years back.
He only ate boiled vegetables and local fishes for years.
Boiled food makes her puke now.
Even the spicy fish curry tastes like anesthesia.
She was administered local anesthesia during her eye operation.
It was an eye clinic near Premtola.
Her father-in-law had a cataract operation at red cross,
in the adjacent building Amit was born.
On a rainy night, Chinu was born in Ellora nursing home,
he was under weight then.
Pinky could not sleep for nights when she had her  asthma attacks.
She slept by her bed for nights.
They have all grown up now,
like the coconut trees which soared to the sky.
They have strong roots yet rootless now.
Its going to be a long walk to home now,
The nights are going to be longer too,
days windy, and the sun less warmer.
She hummed Gita under her breath.
Sun shone in her golden hair,
hope and despair lived silently in her aged eyes.