A New Day

Today as the sun comes up, it would be because sleep was slow and at the supposed right time

It wouldn’t be to the last moment hassle to resume slumber in the lectures

It wouldn’t be to kick you out of the bed or to scream at you that your class starts in 5 minutes

It wouldn’t be to the ritualistic coffee and toast or to the loudest room in the corridor.

A new day to an unfamiliar silence, the sounds of life that you weren’t wont to for quite some time.

Today as the freshly mowed grass is bathed in the blistering heat, it wouldn’t be to that open window overlooking the campus and the best view in it

Wouldn’t be to the best room in the hostel, with that just right cool breeze and a built in natural thermostat

Not to the road to the endless diet journey, and yet that led to the hostel mess.

A new day with timely meals and not four hands in one tiny lunch box.

There wouldn’t be that din of life, of happiness and sorrows wrapped in the waft of good food and Coke Studio

Nor the need to hide my tears in solitude for the fear of being caught by the too attentive roommates

There wouldn’t be the dread of the days ahead, of the incessant calls and the gravest discussions in the dingiest room.

A new day with lesser worries and even lesser people to grumble or laugh about it with

You have run out of excuses for food binge, will not have ethical dilemmas over Chinese or North Indian

Who would tickle those creative feathers for further demolishing the walls?

You wouldn’t run around booking rooms and sending mails, all through complaining about the lack of infrastructure

Yet loving that alcove nestled beside the lake with music from the otherwise silent smartphones

The new day has a promise of the grown up world – of morphing relations and sleepless nights of materialism

This new day heralds for everyone, brings in hope for some and perhaps fear for others.

But somewhere that insolent child demands that time stops just this once, let this moment freeze for a while

In a room of 3 beds, speakers, the multi-hued crowded walls and those ever present souls

In the laughter and nonchalant bitching, in the shared food and fears, in what felt like a happy fraction of life tucked in a safe corner

In the classes with those drowsy faces, even in those DCPs with their hands up, always

In the rush of local trains, in that mellifluous walk by the Marine Drive in the wee hours of dawn

Let those moments reel back to where it all began

The journey we embarked to carve out our niche, to make a mark on the sands of the slippery mistress called time

I know not if the destination ever arrived, but I remember your laughs, your music, your dance, your dinners,

I recall that idli, and the bhel, the beaches, the late night series, and the not bothering about exams

And I smile.

I smile at fortune’s favour, I sigh at the speed of the time

And I wonder where the diverging roads might meet again.

Surely we will, the insolent child pouts

He cares not of the tempestuous treachery of time and fate, he doesn’t look at what life brings to each.

He holds on to those gossamer threads of memories filled with sunshine and peace

He sleeps to the music of silence under his friends’ loving gaze

He learns to try and hope for the better as he looks back at his tears and joys, sublime and real.

He runs barefoot on the sun kissed sands and hugs you for the reprieve from life

He cracks jokes on you thanking you for never giving up on him, even when he did

And he sings along, high pitched and noisy, to the tune that bound us all together.

As we aged a little more than yesterday, as we set in to lose ourselves a bit more to the world

I hope that the child finds his home by the sea, of azure waves, white clouds and golden memories

And that someday, one new day, we all would find our way back to it too.

The Last Breath

I think I am drowning- at last

I think it’s over, finally.

That mass of land that I held onto

Slipped away, melting away altogether

The salt waters gush in through my senses,

Blinding me, stealing those last streams of sunlight

Cutting off my breath

I hear it gurgling in my lungs, as they seep into them

The last straw floating away from me

I don’t move, I don’t even try to catch it

I don’t see the point

The straw was a mirage – was always out of reach

I realise it was never really there

And all the memories of my fool’s paradise

Come crashing down, and melt away in the waters.

As I slowly drift below the surface, away from the world

I look up and glance at the sun kissed land, and I wish I’d know one day how it was

To revel in hope, and rejoice its realization

To grow in love, and bask in being loved

To be cherished for how wrong I was, no matter how vile I was

To know the sweet taste of revenge, and then heal wholly

I can't waste my last breath in futile struggles

That I know, I have done

That has always ended with a broken neck off the cliff

Every rebirth, every time, was an alter-ego I hoped to be

While I slowly drifted away in false illusions

I see it – the mirror crashing, breaking and falling apart

All the light sucked away from my side

And in my last moments, as the fire ebbs away

I know, I feel it was never to be

My world never really existed

The people, the emotions, the life as I’d known

The touch, the laughter I had felt

Was just the other side of the mirror.

And the big bang of realisation has cleared my mind

So, I wish to slowly fall asleep in the dark.

All the days I spent staring at you,

For the clouds to clear,

For the storm to pass

Wishfully staring at the rainbow on the other side

In the darkness I know –I was never in the picture

And I was hoping through the clear mirror of lies, of mere words,

Of the warmth that never lit my heart

I know my questions are now answered, the mystery lifted

As the veil dropped, people on their safe lands

And their pity and love from a distant shore

I have tried so hard to reach out and touch them,

I have struggled against raging waves to reach their home

Fruitless, spineless and hopeless

Was I not told? Over and over in the mockery and spite.

Did I not know of the thorns and deserts?

I did. I always did.

I just didn’t know that the destination wouldn't last either

And as the ship slowly sank, as my land gradually melted

I held on to the last piece, that piece of throbbing life

And now its time, as the night is the thickest,

And I’ve let go of the rotting lying piece of life

I feel the salt rubbing the wounds raw in me

I hear the lungs gasping in the dirty waters

I see the vision cut to a black screen of a starless sky

I know it’s the end – not of life, not of despair or bliss

Of ever trying to reach, of trying to hold onto the fortress

My source of strength was eroded with the ship, and now it was at the bottom

Musty, corroded and covered in weeds

I don’t wish to die, I don’t wish it to end

I just don’t wish anymore

I slowly float towards rock bottom,

With flashing images of smiles and sighs, of a life in lies

Of brittle hopes, of shielded truths

I was out of reach of the light now, melting away with my life in the smelly water

With no tombstone, no memories behind

No tears or empty houses.

Is this solace? Is this defeat? Is it giving up?

I close my eyes, block all the sound – to revel in what was always there

Forceful, catatonic peace.

A Tale of two murders

I regret to say that I had no choice

But to kill you, quell that irksome voice;

The cold stone floor eclipsed all the bliss

As I watched you fall lifelessly through the abyss

But I think, I hope, it didn’t cause much pain

After all it is a much traversed lane

For you, your dreams and your foolish hope

And the thousand sharp blades you were forced to cope

I looked at you and couldn’t bear

That unspoken torment and veiled despair

You would have died anyway

At a torpid pace, rotting a bit each day.

I feared the lament of your numb eyes

And shirked away from the echoes of your silent cries

I see the unjust creepers writhing in your inside

Plotting, scheming, blocking out the light

Of life, of love and all those songs

As you lay dying in the nights so long

Stop! I beg, please no more

In such serrated bits my heart you tore

They sting, they bite, they cut through me

And yet I’m bound despite your plea

I have to, by some means, free your soul

When the lights dim, it haunts me, that infernal ghoul

I bury your corpse with every sunrise

And a tarnished you comes back, clinging on to lies.

Fool! Begone, you own nothing here

A bit more dismembered you’ll be I fear

Why don’t you learn and stay afar

Imprison yourself in an impervious tower

The little that remains would see the light

And hide from that mirage, and the humour’s plight.

It stabs me to death, your preposterous lunacy

And we are kicked and struck by death with glee.

Forgive me! As I see no other path

I’ve come to dread your martyrdom’s aftermath

Know that with this I cease to be too

Though more lenient it is than the poison you brew

My laugh, my light, my touch would be gone

The cadaver would merely breathe in the sand and thorns

And mature to become a monster of the pit

But then, that’s just how you would fit

In these cavernous smothering tunnels of hellfire

Where numerous such demons were sired

To cage, and mock and rape fools like you

And so, I’m sorry, but I had to, I had to

As my breath recedes on the cold stone floor

And you drown away from the lifeless shore

I smile as I saved a little of you

And set the bird free against the skies so blue

To fly away from the burning bodies and hair

The shell that is left behind will survive there

A drop of your innocence is frozen in my heart

And I’m happy that you always played your part

You failed, but see, that the chains were stronger

Do what you may; you could never feed the hunger

Of the soulless men of this earth

They would suck you dry yet curse your birth.

I slaughtered you, and I plead guilty

to have saved you from the reins of an absurd slavery.

None but I would survive your loss

And find you, once I swim through this malign gloss

So, find peace in your death and in my rest

Bloom in the flowers and nap in the lost nest

Of true bliss, beauty, hidden in the alcove

Of the soft plush meadows and Love's treasure trove.

Mirror on the wall..

Large forlorn eyes stared back at me;

I wiped it clean –

The fluorescent lamp exposed the ghostly shadows in them;

And the death creeping into the pupils.

You wouldn't find the exuberance of sand castles in its depths

Just dank endless tunnels leading onto an impenetrable darkness

And I was lost in those dungeons.

The call of the ocean from afar –

I heard the sound of laughter and mirth;

The smell of fresh grass and sun-

Scratched and bruised – I had to find my way

Today I would reach the door,

The night held no fears for me.

I gazed back into those eyes

And I heard the scream, piercing the silence of my graveyard

The bright light didn’t blind me

It shot through the eyeballs and tugged at the lifeless organ;

The sudden gush of warmth dazed me

And I found my core

I delved into those layers and reached the nerve

Of those hidden desires, pleasures and bliss

Of unspoken wishes

Of the untainted truth obscured by numerous veils.

I found me –

Blushing over love ballads

Drinking in the intoxication of life.

No, that couldn’t be me!!

I prodded the silvered surface and it touched me back

With so much warmth and life

The murky mischief vexed me

The small curl at the corner of its lips filled me with wrath

Its ignorance burnt my soul in jealousy.

No, it isn’t me –

I couldn’t find the drooping eyelids

The war torn ravaged face of a defeated soul.

And yet there I was – all that I used to be

Or, all that I am, choked up by the sands of time.

I sighed.

That surreal realm is oft called an ill wind

I turned away from the mirror

From everything that I miss and rummage in corners everyday

As they retreat further into oblivion.

I wiped the foggy glass clean, to find those desolate eyes again

Pleading, sighing, giving up yet again

As I prepare to walk into another day.