the sky is always blue

Sometimes
I take a colouring book
And paint the sky black
At other times
I paint it with hope
And no matter what colour I choose
When I go out and look up
The sky is always blue

I want those words today

Long ago

I wrote a poem for a girl

talking about her eyes and her smile

her love and her dreams

May be if I look around

I can still find the paper 

with the words floating in the air
I want those words today

when they dissolve my ashes
into the quiet river
with wet eyes and broken words
I want those words today

May be the poem cannot heal me
as I walk into the nether world
I just want to remember her once more
I want those words today

she wields her silence like a brush

she wields her silence like a brush

painting the magnum opus

of pain and more pain

on the canvas of my heart.

My tears add tinge

to the heavy melancholy

of the lonely spots of ink

as she paints effortlessly.

The pain is red or black

she wonders, and sprays

copius silence around it

as my heart slowly dies.

She wields her silence like a brush

the painting is complete

she leaves the paint in my heart

to dry forever, in solitude

if silence was ever so lucky

The room was dark, deep and dirty. The smoke from incense candles danced around and took liberty to fill the brain with fear. As eyes looked hard to penetrate the darkness, a tiny, ugly little witch, with unkempt hair and obtrusive teeth could be seen mumbling a spell. The mocking smile was stamped on all over her face, especially on the thick, brown lips.
I simply had no choice, I had to go and beg her to repeal or remove the spell she had cast on my beloved.
I remember the day clearly. I was talking to the girl who has stolen the peace of my heart, of all things that make absolutely nonsense to anybody who is even half born on this earth. Her words. My words. She and me. That’s all that mattered in that second. That was so natural for me. Perhaps it was not. The jealous witch, who had been eyeing our happiness, cursed her to infinitum silence. She literally sealed her lips!
Without hearing a single word from her, I was dying. Death is so much easy, but silence? I think it is the death of death. What could be more painful than all words frozen in a state of suspension in a desirable heart, dying to break free and reach an ever seeking consolation of a restless lover?
Sealed lips! How could any witch curse like that. If she had made her sleep for one hundred years, and imprisoned her in the highest tower of an impregnable castle, guarded by dragons in the morning and Dracula in the night, in a far off land at the end of the world; I still would have wore armour and rode a stallion and would have saved her.
But sealed lips, I simply can’t imagine, what to do.
So I went on my knees before the witch (how romantic it would have been, if it was only before my beloved), begged her, threatened to kill her, cajoled her, bribed her. Finally she relented. She said, if I can touch the lips of the girl, whose lips are sealed forever, she promised, the words will break free. Of course, there was a catch, my dear lady witch had the humour to bewitch her heart and make her hate me. So sweet!
In despair, I died and chose to be reborn as a rose, in her garden. I just wanted to be sure, that her mother picks me, when like every early morning she chooses the most beautiful rose for her daughter.
The night before, I dug my skin deep into the thorn, bleeding myself, to soak the petals and make them reddest. When her mother picked me, it all seemed worthwhile. However, my angel simply threw me on the floor, and stamped me instead of kissing me, like she did all the other roses!
Dead again, I was reborn as a boulder. I hit my head repeatedly against bigger boulders, breaking myself into pieces. And then I was crushed between rollers and weathered into sand. I chose to lay myself in the road that leads to her house. As she stepped out, the southern breeze, embraced her (am burning with jealousy). Her duppatah flew, and she was tying to hold it onto her bosom, the southern breeze carried me to her lips. But she covered her face with the duppatah, and I died yet another silent death. Et tu duppatah? How many times have I caressed u, as I walked beside her, enjoying the cotton fabric in my fingers?
Dead again, I was reborn a droplet of water in the ocean. Born there, lived there all my life. And then one day I tore myself apart, from all kind of love, to mingle with and form a cloud. Call it friendship if you want. As clouds wandered by, I learnt new lessons of life. One day, I was traveling above her house. Like a free spirit, I left behind my friends, metamorphosing into a warm drizzle, and fell down on her forehead. As I traversed slowly, down her nose, she simply wiped with her that sweet smelling handkerchief.
Dead again, lost in hope, not sure how to make her speak or how to break the curse. I died again. I had lost hope and decided to give up. I couldn’t think of a thing that would allow me to touch her lips, and break her silence and lift the curse. Dead again, I was never reborn. I became one with silence. This silence she embraced and broke the silence forever. If silence was ever so lucky…

Ice cream story

Preface

Even though I am a spendthrift, I am a miser when it comes to spending money on girls. A mature head on my shoulder had warned my fragile heart that spending money on girls is obsessive. So, I never indulged in it. Last week, however I did break the rule, all for an ice cream, for a girl who is decidedly leaving me in search of a career, and that too when I had very little money in my pocket. So I dedicate this story to her.

Love story and an ice cream.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who had a heart problem. The doctor said –‘anytime, any day’. He was not afraid of his death, because the heart had developed a big hole, in the process of making a door and accommodating his lady love. He had wanted a big comfortable room for her in his heart, and that reflected in the big size of the hole.

One day he decided, ‘let me go and meet my love just once before I die’.

If ever, silence had spoken so aloud, it was when the absence of jingling of coins in an empty purse bereft of rupees, talked to him, teasing him with her smile. How could he ever on earth leave a chance to be so close to her, if only to observe her smile (one day, he decided, he will freeze that smile in time, carve it out with love and display in the land of desires). His ego was also in love with her. So, it also, as romantically and as restrained as it could, asked her –ice cream? (Please say no dear, my heart started praying)

He had only forty rupees in his purse. Why he carried so little when he went to meet her is still a puzzle. As if she sensed it, as only lovers could, she ordered the costliest name that ever rolled on a lady’s lips, to tease him as only girls could. His despair bulged through his eyes………

His heart shrank, filling the hole in his heart and killing him in the process.

Moral of the story- love does not kill, but spending money for your love can.

MV, its yet another valentine's day.

The air is laden with love.

There is hush hush

There is mush mush

There is crazy crush.

There is swish-swoosh

There is goose goose

There is frantic push

There is tak tak

There is puck puck

There is lady luck

There is hick hick

There is click click

Oh, All this is sick sick!!!

I will stand beside you - forever

I know

The dreams have come crashing for you

You have always said

The four wall were too small for you

There was a promotion on cards

A possible US trip too.

I know

Yet

You have chosen to leave

The job you have most desired

To bear our child and rear her too.

I know

It’s another four months of patient bearing

Pampering, advice and ‘goodwill hearing’

In lonely moments, you would think

Is it worth all this suffering?

I know

Yet

In all those moments that you would cry

You would give a hug and steal a smile

You would rebuild dreams and remake plans

Our baby would be our world, you would declare

I know

It wasn’t easy for you to decide

Nor any easier to walk on this road

I promise, MV, every second, every moment

I will stand beside you - forever