Uncut Poetry

Loss is embedded into our lives. Its advent has both unpredictability and inevitability written into it. It never comes as a stranger - but never ceases to break us. As humans, we are too embroiled in the now, too sure that the inertia of happiness will never cease its trajectory, to even mentally (leave aside emotionally) prepare for it.   The definition of loss, for each one of us, lies in wheth...

There’s nothing like tragedy to make us feel dreadfully alone. The particularities of what afflicts us is so personal that very few can find ways to hold us together as we fall apart. We seek the shoulder of those whose contours and smells are familiar and make our desolation feel less lonely. But often their presence is merely a body to hold onto, even as we tear up inside.   So, paradoxically, i...

Bella's Meadow* * inspired by Rumi’s Field by Bella Mahaya Carter. A little help from Leon.   We have all been asked one question from time immemorial - “What do you want to become when you grow up?” Or the more sophisticated variant - “What do you want from life?”   When I think back, I’m bemused with the varying answers, I would have given as I grew, and do give now. When I was a child, it was t...

We are terrible at recognising symbols. That’s why much of popular art believes in high jinx, and the subtler softer art of hidden stories and allegories find their home in empty art galleries.   For me, one of the greatest joys of living in a world full of wonders is to find symbols and messages - where probably there are none. But stop me!   It all started in my childhood, when I and my mum laze...

One thing which I celebrate with a fullness of heart, is the normalcy of a strong relationship, which allows for consent, dissent, conversation, dissatisfaction, honesty, fun. The pleasure of knowing one can be one’s own imperfect self, and still make a relationship stronger for it.   Life, as it were, throws enough seductions to test us to our weaknesses - of faith, of belief, of purpose (and I’m...

Time and again I have wanted to die. Oh there were reasons enough. A bruising fight at home, an extreme embarrassment outside, an absolute absence of intimacy when I was bereft of everything I cared for.   Of course there was an absolute lack of balance, a misreading of circumstances, an extreme reaction. But far more critical was what the universe laid out for me in those times.   I found an irid...

"He made love to me, smooth as a colon, and when he went down on me my body waved like a tilde."   Secrecy is an aphrodisiac. As powerful as pursuit, it is often mistaken for ardour. It is by and of itself an indulgence. Its translation into a stronger emotion, into love, is a different genre of effort. Chekhov once memorably said “There’s a proper order for a woman to become a man’s friend. First...

This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, republished with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it.    "There's always a road waiting for one of the lovers to depart."   The saga of love is a play of light and shadow. There is incident, coincidence, an assemblage of adrenalin, a bellowing of blood, a singling out of songs, a resurgence of senses. Love arranges it's own a...

When someone we love dies, everything changes. The normalcies of routine possibly give an outward sense of balance, but the turmoil inside resembles wreckage. We sink, wish to remain sunk, everything around us seems trivial - almost as if we can see through the artifice of the world, unable to tell everyone how they were missing out on the most important things in life, as they fought over the the...

A lot of what we are, the comfort of living, the beauty of how we view the world, is when we know we are cared for, and the ones closest to us are people we have implicit faith in.   To know that love is a thought away, that nothing will take away the presence of the person we care for  the most, is to know that the primary foundations on which our esteem, worth and respect lie on, is immutable an...

So much of our life is a reaction. As if it is determined by someone else’s priorities and emotions and needs, and we become byproducts of their ambitions and needs.   It could be anybody - a father for whom we become the fulfillment of failed dreams, a lover whose hauntings of failed relationships find shelter in our quiet nooks, a brother who leans on us when he needs validation or unquestioning...

We are often given chances in life to go beyond ourselves. These could be random happenstances, things which only we notice, and which we may choose to ignore - or not.    If we pay attention and choose to clutch at those moments and do something tiny, unwittingly we invite, if not the appreciation at least a nod, from the universe. Maybe nothing changes, maybe nobody notices, but here’s the thing...

There is nothing worse than politics dividing family.   I have seen people develop distaste for their dearest and closest because of being on opposite sides of the political divide.   Something which is (mere) belief, takes on an expanded definition to include a commentary on character, and acts as an unsubstantiated and unsavoury revelation. And with astonishment we exclaim “What! You support —-?...

We live multiple lives. Each one of us have variations, but everyday our paths fork out. And we move from the secure to the stormy; from standing naked to being armoured; from garnering the blessings of the universe to ploughing through the detritus of the denizery.   Often we are able to navigate this transition in the simplest way possible - we remain the same in every world, raw and uncluttered...

They say, in actuality, there are only two kinds of people in the world - fighters and survivors. I have often thought about this grim prognosis of life, and without attributing anything dire to it, I really think it is close to truth.   In seeking acceptances, we often have to struggle with the true us and the version the world wants to see. Because we are first a subset of a larger expectation b...

I went to Varanasi a few weeks back, and spent time wandering the lanes, in temples, on the ghats, sitting beside the river.   I was a non-sequitur: a non-believer in a holy city, amidst people who had the name of god continuously on their lips. And I saw holiness and ordinariness mesh in seamless ways. Almost like a message that a spiritual search did not entail you to be anything other than what...

Whenever I see couples getting hitched, I say a silent prayer of thankfulness.   Because every day the couple has a ringside view of each other, of things which they say and do. They crack a small joke, they fulfil small wishes, they stop someone from stumbling, they secretly make someone’s favourite dish,they listen with their bodies, they stand beside the window and see the morning sun drop on t...

We are such carriers of burdens. We have nothing to lose, but we carry the weight of such unnecessities. In the end, irrespective of what the Pharaohs believed, we have to leave everything behind. Which then probably is the only time we truly travel light.   But here we are - seducing, desiring, acquiring - and if not for things, we are busy burdening ourselves with myriad feelings, emotions which...

So much of the good we have, things we are proud of, our looks, our most innate traits, are in truth merely gifts. They are an inheritance in our blood, nature’s largesse for us to build on.   But what we become is a factor of what we do with what we are given.   We can hold these gifts as talisman, to seek the good beyond them, to figure out our dharma, the very core of why we are in this world....

So much of what we are is because of abandonment. Often as reality, often as feeling. We talk but we don’t get through. Our silences are many, none find a resolution. Our words come out with warm intent, but when conjoined sound harsh. We love to death the very person we find the most fault with.   But in this morass of disintegrating hope, we are firm on continuums. We are not ready to give up. B...

This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed with the hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it.   "We walk under boughs heavy with fragrance, petals touching our cheeks with infinitesimal tenderness, and think back to how meaningless was what we’d said.   In a universe of a million possibilities, we could be a certainty, but we suffered our uncertain inequities.    We...

It’s one of the ironies of life that relationships which have persisted for years, often have hesitation built into their fibre. You know everything of each other, but are still not sure of your place in their lives. The important thing which keeps haunting you is - what do both of you mean to each other.   You say the things which you have been saying for years, she reacts the way she has been re...

As I gear up for the Ed Sheeran show, I’ve been trying to fathom the excitement in me! I’ve seen some terrific shows - Kylie Minogue, Kate Perry, Michael Jackson (omg - goosebumps!), Norah Jones, Michael Learns to Rock, and the innumerable gigs of favourite Indian singers and jazz bands - and somehow when I see tour rosters of my favourite artistes, I keep wondering if i can match my travelling pl...

Ranjit Hoskote, the famous art critic,  poet ,writer wrote an amazing piece on Gaza and the humanitarian tragedy unfolding there. It was a piece which broke my heart, truly, as it brought out in sharp relief the incredible carnage taking place with impunity and for days on end.   But then he interlinked Gaza with Kashmir.   And that was something which he did casually, as if he was duty-bound to d...

I have often been cruel. Knowingly, unconsciously. With people closest to me, and invariably  because I take them for granted. So it is a mini tragedy, when I sit down and have a conversation - and I’m short, I’m angry, I’m sarcastic.   Take my mum - she is frail now, though her voice still has passion, but is veering towards gentle tones now. And I can ‘win’ any battle by the sheer dint of volume...