Uncut Poetry

I am at that age when I see more deaths than births.   And, for some esoteric reason, such news arrives either as an early morning call - these are shriller, as if recognizing the weight of the tragedy -  or as a message deep in the night - when the night lights up with the neon glow of a phone which refuses to predict the darkness it predates.   And I skip a heartbeat. And the news seeps in. And...

So much arrogance!   I see people preen into their power, as if they owned every bit of what they are. Old wealth and position are often the worst. Privilege turns into a right; dissent sparks righteousness; power becomes a press drill; wealth is mistaken for intellect.   People forget they are humans - a bundle of gorgeous contradictions, always at the brink of errors, growing out of contradictio...

So much of our lives, nay, our heart-space, our mind-space, is about flying or falling, of binaries like coming ahead, being there first, being smarter than the other.   We live and die in comparisons.   And as always, when we wallow in shallow waters, we never ever get drenched fully. Without realising that this is the way of the world, that we can be the maximum of ourselves, but never more, and...

Friends, lovers, relatives. People we know intimately. Who do we become when apart? Our bodies replace 330 billion cells every day. Every 15 years or so each one of the cells get fully replaced.   We do not remain the same person physically, then what about the metaphysicality, the psychology, the soul, the belief systems of us?   How much of us is built by the new people we meet? What is chipped...

I was in Emirates business class, on the way to Dubai, en route to a holiday. I was happy with myself, my life. A full meal, two rom-coms, one to go, and the relief of my kids tethered, as they slept after all kinds of indulgences. There was a peaceful sea which awaited me, massages, and sunset walks. This is life, I deserve it. I sighed into my smile.   Then there was static, peculiar to a plane,...

I have always wondered about people who go through tragedy, and then fall into profound grief. Such that their lives change, trajectories bend, and a state of being moribund sets in.   In much of our existences, we are all living half-lives in our own way, pur-blind, half-dissatisfied, fully-disgruntled. The world refuses to work according to our diktats or wishes. And we are being continually reb...

There are so many microscopic things which happen which tend to change our lives - not in cataclysmic ways, but in infinitesimal ways making us the persons we become. A word said in passing, a kindness shown when not expected, a smile out of the blue, a touch when unexpected.   And when a person opens up to you with all her vulnerabilities, bare to her soul, regardless of consequences, regardless...

"My love, of a thousand reaffirmations, we know we will never find ourselves in adequacies. Beyond the blemishes you absorbed,                             the ones I ignored, it was enough for us to have found the places where we fitted."   Who are we if not a pack of confusions and misdirections? Because we are so inadequate in our understanding of what we are, and what is truly important in our...

Sometimes you just know.   As someone once said "I knew you were the one, as soon you walked into the room. There was light coming out of your ass!" Frankly, more often then not, love has less drama associated to its arrival, because it is really a feeling which grows and found incrementally, one conversation at a time, one walk at a time, one infraction at a time. You know there's something happe...

Someone once said "The path of peace goes through power." It's not only the truth, but a reality. Sadly.   In a world largely ruled by men, rules are set as statements of power and domination. Even if someone seeks a hassle-free existence, unencumbered by positions, they are forced to seek bullies as allies, and are blackmailed in the name of security guarantee.   In the sick paradigm of dominatio...

Vincent Van Gogh, possibly the loneliest man in history, once said - “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.”   We are so much, and so little at the same time. As we transverse our fulfilments and relationships, seeing one flourish, and the other flounder. And we struggle to understand why. We find that we are that person w...

Too often, only too often, couples live lives of quiet despair.   Without knowing that's not ordinary, that's not what coupledon is all about, that we can't have lifetimes compromised to the extent that an entirety passes by and there's nothing to show for it.   Life is valuable and nobody, no relationship, has a right to take away from the preciousness of each moment. Because we have too few in t...

Summer is late in the city I stay in. There are discussions about it but no conclusions. Some say - enjoy the extended spring. Nobody minds, as there are high winds coming in from the south-west, and windows rattle. There is more time to get the air conditioners serviced.   But the intimations of summer have not ceased.   Much before the papers announced the hot days ahead, the mornings had starte...

The riches of our lives, even when we are not searching for it, is like the journey of Santiago, the young Andalusian shepherd boy in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. The treasure is always nearby, always close. We just don't have the eyes for it.   The treasure is often our search for meaning, sometimes it is the clarity we seek of what the fulcrum of our life is, so often it is our despair to put t...

Aloneness is forced, solitude is a choice. Loneliness forces me unwillingly to be with myself. But solitude, as the great Montaigne said, gives me a chance to know how to belong to myself. A mental stand - and an entire outlook changes.   But, of course, it is not so simple!   Ironically in our worlds, we have to forcefully claim our aloneness, often to fight for it. It is antithetical, nay, antis...

Coming back, when you've slammed the door  behind you, is not easy. Literally or metaphorically. There is too much history to deal with, to have it hit us again like hale. Fresh starts are rarely as heroic as in fiction, and there is too much pus oozing out of the pores of common history for it to be a conjoinment without terror or distress. We do not always desire recall, because rewinds bring wi...

You have to say it first. You have to do it first. You have to use the words. You have to acknowledge what is burning inside you. You don't have to find a reason. You don't have to wait for an apposite season.   Lack of Reciprocation, fear of rejection, the vulnerability of putting one's heart (one's ego?) on line. Life is a hurdle race and love is strewn with obstacles. In the magnificent tapestr...

I read about the famous economist Daniel Kahneman, author of 'Thinking fast and slow', opting to end ha life through assisted suicide, euthanasia. He went to Switzerland, and died.   A friend and I were talking about it. And I remembered what Tanu and I have often discussed - Not to live if we become a permanent burden on someone.   I told my friend, I was quite clear - I get to decide when I will...

I often feel that as a poet I am destined to live through the infliction, the gain and the loss, the incandescence and the darkness, of a continuing bruise. I have to confront too many truths, and make sense of them, I have to face the world with too much honesty, and to crack open too many of my lies and illusions.   I feel alone, trying to tell the story so I camouflage the truth, to iron up to...

So much of life is of journeys, just the way death is the final one.   Of course, I'm not only talking of trapezing around the world, country to country, city to city, in innumerable trips. I am also referring to metaphorical and metaphysical journeys. The ones which reveal the greatest of mysteries - of what we truly are. The journey inside.   Because that's where the truth of our sighs and light...

What are we if not the ones who crave for second chances. And what is this world if not a place which is spatially abundant but trajectorily linear.   An opportunity lost, a call not made, an apology kept back, a feedback reined, a love abandoned. Life is a compulsive giver. It's we who are blindsided with the cornucopia of choice - mistakenly thinking that life will keep giving. That we will keep...

Love they say Is the mess you invite, The mess you make And the mess you leave behind.)   It's a flash, it's a paint, It's basil in the soup. It's a kite which finds the sky Because its cut loose.   It's a shore being tugged by the sea, It's the moon staying on in the morn, It's the sunshade in a roadside cafe, It's the chef's apron he can't take off.   It's the brownie you crave, It's a drink you...

So much of life is about forked roads and where we choose to lead ourselves. If we are vigorous about living, we would give little time to ourselves to reconsider or think back to our choices. We ensure that our lives overflow, each minute tumbling into another almost breathlessly, with little time left for reflection or regret.   But oftentimes, on a tired evening, when a passing strain of hopele...

I fear disuse. I fear lack of purpose. Not necessarily in terms of conclusions but more in terms of direction. Whatever I do, I feel good to think it adds something somewhere.   No, I'm not thinking of increasing the national GDP or my fame or fulfill a spouse's desire. I think of it more in terms of experience. Where nothing goes waste. It could be anything - a film which knocks the daylight out...

We are all strangers singularly and a brotherhood en masse.   With a seamless earth and a sky being shared between us, in spite of boundaries - of homes, cities, countries, continents, hearts, colour - we cannot but be similar, looking out for each other and being there lending a hand when we see the other struggle.   The tragedy of borders is their illusion of easy divisibility. But a line drawn...