Fragments

It's funny

When eyes, lips, smiles,

Laughters, voices, poems, photographs,

Smells, footsteps, colours, gestures

Come together

And manifest into one person

Who you dream about every night

And find next to you when you wake up.

Photos on the wall

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
(Robert Browning's My Last Duchess)

And she joins me
In the cruelest smile we give at life.
We come together
Only to vaporise among the ruins.

Curtains

They keep secrets

They hide light

They change shape

They cause fight.

Mrs. Munshi, the Nostradamus

On a sultry summer evening
You professed
That a fish eating, brown eyed, luscious girl
Will distract him beyond measure.

The girl came
Like an evening shadow
He walked away with her
And as they turned to give one last look

You said, but she’s not you.

He sings

It's an ugly fight.

Denials begin,
Accusations follow,
Obstinacies compete,
Threats continue.

And then there's silence,
There's no sound until a long time.

And then he sings,
A soft, sad hum
A fluttering feather in vacuous void.

In a month's time

In the next thirty days,
My name will change.

I will have two sets of parents
In a different home.

The address that I rattle out
Will be unlearnt.

My letter-head will have
Another address, yet mine.

My windows will open to a new world
That remains to be explored.

My hairline will never remain the same.
Nor will my life behind a closed door.

Lovesong

The ruins on the hilltop from a fairytale
Will carry the dark fragrance of your innocence
When the first snow of the season
Settles softly on my fluttering eyelashes.

It is then that I will step into the pages
Of the book lying open on that old table
To clutch your clanking fingers tight into mine.

The snow will then drop down like sparking diamonds
And my blood embedded into each flake, like rubies.

(Sir Rushdie, a simile is from your Midnight's Children. Pardon me!)

Chak De? Forget it!

Don't be misled by the title of this piece. I will write about the movie some other time.


I saw the first day, second show of Chak De India at Cineworld, Sheffield. The show was nearly houseful. About 95 per cent of the audience looked like Indians to me.

Chak De India had moments when I couldn't sit put.

I exclaimed not-so-softly, "This is the statement of the year", when Mary and Molly remarked about being called guests in their own country. I counted 15 nasty glares.

I swooned loudly when Shah Rukh jogged with the girls in that black track suit. Again, some 20 heads turned.

My arms were up in the air at the beats of Sukhwinder Singh's rendition of 'Chal De India'. Two elbows poked my waist from either sides. Even my friends were irritated now.

But when Jana Gana Mana played before the World Cup final, even the seat couldn't pull me down. I stood up. The peanuts and popcorn that lay carelessly on me fell with muffled tick-tacks. My purse dropped on the floor with a clink. My friend grit her teeth, "Kya kar rahi hai?"

Countless head turned, eyes looked, faces smirked.

I was standing, all alone.

"Shayad hamara National Anthem tha," I was loud as I picked my purse and sat down. I knew I had attracted attention even then.

I was wondering how loud my Chak De! is for my India.