Spare me in this ephemeral moment
thunders lightening the dark borders
of the empty room
as drops of rain trinkles down.

Patterns of light on the walls by the banks of the river; mirrored from the undulating water. The heavy rainfall the night before merely exacerbated the flood through emotional tides.

I wish to recompense you for the time you spent lying by me on the bed undone ...

It stood encamped on the slight rise of the lined eye lashes.

Faded tones of early morning clouds with a hint of cold wind stands testimonial to all those transitory passions, delusional affections and ephemeral remnants of transparent love…. Everything else passes by

The shadow on that wall is yours. It doesn’t have your physical vigour but I can read that pristine mind; The clearness of vision, the strength of understanding, the precision of thought.

Don’t look at me like that. Yes, I am mindful of what had transpired between us last night. I can still sense your leap from the corner of our room. The rest as they say is history, buried peacefully in my recesses.

You called me a lousy dreamer. That we all are. We all are weaving magical dreams. Its just that the fabric is different and the art copyrighted.

He kept walking promising himself at each step, the state of emotions that he desired. But then discontentment is addictive … one despises it .. grows tired of its capers but some where deep down loves its quarrelsome nature like a man in love with a termagant.

Discontentment is deep rooted in desires. “Desires … Bah!”, he thought. And he kept walking further and further towards the prairie. The beauty bogged him down. The landscape humbled him and he wondered, how could all that was troubling him could have troubled him so much. Inconsequential. And he lighted another pack ….

You wouldn’t know me least of all recognise
O Himalayas but I do,
For as long as I remember reading through
books written about you,
My un-sharpened lanceolate blades of memory
drew grains of inspiration from you.

I look up through the haze of vagabond clouds
across visible horizons
Where you stand tall
through vicissitudes of primal living
I wonder again, would I live that long.

31st December 2008. The last day of an extraordinary year. In few hours time an episode of a roller coaster ride will be over.

And all that will be left is nostalgia. All that will remain is the certainty of past. What we will see is a definite place in the history books; What we will remember is an unusual package of love, hate, betrayal .... friendships, bondings, break-ups ...... avulsions and havocs. What we will realise is how real life had presented itself in a garb of weird enchantment.

Tomorrow we will start to gamble again. And if we are courageous enough we will forswear all medial beliefs. We will put wager on the insignificant and evanescent lines of the palmate. Tomorrow we shall take the stage again .... Tomorrow we shall start all over again ...

And for you and me, we take each little step together ....

And in a year's time we would have covered a mile .....

wrapped in its arms
this early June,
the sky spinner sits
for long hours on a low baluster
and spins the woolen clouds
onto a spindle, tirelessly -
shaping the moist monsoon;

and like a giggling spring rose,
evident in boundless joys of unaccounted
profits; winds up her trade for this season.

This morning, I learnt from one of my friends back in Mumbai, that first rains of the monsoon had arrived. I felt celebratory even though I am thousands of miles away. I don’t know why. And it is almost futile to seek an explanation because there isn’t any available. All I can say is Mumbai Rains are special.

Monsoon in Mumbai is different, say from Calcutta where when it rains, it does so incessantly. Looking at the skies you can predict whether or not it would rain and most of the time your personal forecast would hit the bulls’ eye. Mumbai skies, during monsoon, are almost perennially covered with clouds, which look extremely inviting. You can feel the air that says it can rain anytime. But then she is temperamental. She would dress up, looking like she is on a rampage to kill someone with her drop dead gorgeous looks and then she might just slump in her chair and decide not to go to the party. Sitting in that chair she would look outside the balcony as if she were lost in her present surroundings. 

In Mumbai you can get caught in the rains at most unexpected times. Even when you don’t see any clouds, and the sky is as clear as a plain white paper on a canvas, it would just take minutes to form a cloud formation and then .. it would simply rain. Its unpredictability is its highlight. And unpredictability is non-monotonous. There is a beauty in random, non-routine but there is also a definite rhyme and rhythm to it. When it rains in Mumbai, it rains poetically. And needless to say, I miss the Mumbai Rains.

Expressions

ensconced comfortably in cloud’s arms
concealed in her eidetic memory
- from four corners of framed walls;

and as you come nearer, closer
the sense of your fragrant essence
- holds me tight in your lighted gaze;

uncertainty of your first steps
questions my latent desire
- in one moment through eternity;

and let the forbidden evil embrace us
for all nights to come when I am yours
- you the master and I your chosen slave;

Can I make a wish
hold me tight... hold me today ...
for you and me .. yet again.

# pictures taken the night before when it was beautifully lighted by the full moon

speaking of those almost prince like;
charm that breathes fresh air
and spreads the bloom,
aye! such talented colours
on spring’s bosom
has blossomed again;

wrought thou my art, almost ruined
few moments ago on a lonely chair,
in a yard where droplets silently
kissed the grass under her small bare feet
and her eyes that held a glance
over the ray floret blushing pink
and a sense of joy under a gray roof
- a little persuasion for winds to woo.

A country that laments the absence of winter can hardly enjoy the essence of spring. It is late January and the mind invariably returns to days marked by festivities welcoming spring .....the turbid waters of Ganges (heralding seasons of green fields and yellow flowers) swollen with the fragrance of ecstasy..... I am at a loss ..... complete loss .....

the doggerel verses languor
yearning for a form nay
in seasons of spring
even the fritinancy of cricket
yearns for monsoon's frills ...

The hot afternoons gather dust here and I am again taken back in my times where spring would tease the knots of winter slowly .. somewhat steadfastly animating the colours of violet on a wide screen for small mortals like me to gauge and gaze and appreciate.

Sighs! the appreciation is only in memories, memories that has tangled itself with the soil of my skin. I look out at the virile sky who looks madly and deeply in love with the moon tonight with curious onlookers waiting expectantly for them to make their next move and as time continues its enfleshed dreams I see no movement ...... no movement yet again tonight ..... making me wonder what happened to their love stories .... the eternal love stories … there I see desires but desires that are not sought and I look again … this time blankly at the solitary smiling moon … remembering …. just plain remembering ....

give me another moon to last
the moon I saw the other night
of white muslin floating over
memories patterned in black & white
whose dainty feet above slender grounds
whose sandals encased in wimple strides
whose silence draped in charnel nights
whose colours rain radiantly bright ---
whose colours rain radiantly bright!!

let us redo your day
and
make night seem our again;

(- let us redo your day ….)

when air in its subtle coldness
smells the querulous play -
on a day bereft of sun
bathes in clouded rain ...

often found you looking through
pale winds caressing the flowers
breathing wry paints on window sills (and)
making little boxes of yellow dreams ....

(- let us make our night again ....)

when on incongruous pathways
where through leaves in the woods
lay the pebbles that you picked -
realigning your fragile senses ...

(- and )

as I hold on to few drops of your smile
between fingers of my closed palm
holding the stirring chirps in the sky
of countless birds flying away ....

- I await your consent to fly today …

let us begin by redoing your day
and
making the night seem our again ;

contradictions like this passage
in black fathomable words
capers through
flanks of a mountain
on the far west side,
the Zephyr marching
with a pleasant smile;

the mighty but pleasant
oh! No not again -
with your ever penchant
puff for contradictions
look not to rein …
on this fine frosty night
lets make a toast again;

and as temporary -
and as transitive -
the snow melts;
and fluxional contradictions
that mired this passage -
have dissolved into making
deliberate summers again …

That’s only a prelude I thought stately
But wafting through whispering winds
And the loveless trees’ desires
I saw your settling glean
Healing my wounds
To vitality again;

And as death bestowed on barley sheaves
And weary worn out skies bequeathed
In the waning hours of my time
I heard your jouncing steps
Summoning my desire
To live again….

When I thought about you last night -

or was it more like a dream
like beads of rain drops
caressing the moon
in a luminous muse;

You walked across the room -

like frail clouds treading
carefully the rasorial path
for awaited on the other end were
season’s chasm of monsoon skies;

You sat beside me holding my gaze -

like ribbons of moiré
over several gnome ambitions
sewed together
in a singular pattern;

Now that you have come -

stay with me and my times
like deserts' desire
of -
their oasis dreams.

You burnish the moon
on an otherwise inveigh night
see I could still see ….
anew … of only
me and you;

Your body painting
with the innate brush
of my folded fingers;
Firm smooth paints -
and turpentine grease -
filling sense of your fragrance
slow stroking shocking lush
and sudden lurch of sea side rush;

My body craving
for the sustaining love;
Or is it aspersed lust -
to make up for something
that bears close resemblance;
But then red will red
and white will be white
forever with or without
the sprinkled thrust;

Our thrust ….
Your … mine … ours ….

It's one of those gains
When clouds rain -
And unabashedly so;
Who cares for cries of wolf?
Its the life - -
Life that rains -
In no time frame.

Tiers of joy layered
In baskets of several tears;
Happiness counts stratus pebbles
And Bliss is dear;
And Dearer counts -
It’s those moments rather
Sweeter than sour.

Rain … Rain come and breathe
Let me try, if not reach-
Over the spire steep;
If I reach the steeples bell,
Who but me will count -
The scattered drops
Of my fallen sweat.

When pillows rumour of traitorous bed sheets
the blanket stands guard to the night,
The old blanket of yesteryears
still holds fragrance of our stride.

Almost like every other day,
the night looks upon pariah moon
and the braggart stars remembers its light,
When on an otherwise windy day
your skin for the first time smelt as mine.

The lights themselves were no more bright
and the sea rode the heavens and skies,
Conspired to coup de grace, and
through boundless surge of putsch
I was held forever in a moment’s veil.

Your touch is what I live for
it wasn’t indeed a night alone -
for I am no longer the same as before;
Like sods I wear upon your open heart
for all seasons of yesteryears to behold.

It’s that moment
when winds have changed
and days have merged
into its inseparable night again;

I stand between
winds and fire of time
and wait for the Father
and His judgment today;

Munificent as days have been
I add the same to this night
Amidst several jejune thoughts
“Am I afraid?” I ask;

And repeatedly …..
“Am I afraid?” I ask myself

……

“Am I afraid?” I keep asking myself

…….

It’s your fragility that compels me
to be continuously afraid of you;

Breathing your space between my netherworld
could I be brought back to life like that,
your slightest touch is my memory
beneath the tumulus lies buried;

Perceptions vary the understanding between us,
of all the wishes that I were to ever encounter
the vein that bloods the earth and reaps its harvest
would never scorch the field barren;

I am afraid to even touch you; your fragility
compels me to be afraid of you; if you can
just enclose me for the moment and
many moments more borne out of you.