Marbles

With muffled footsteps across my mind,
Often this thought gingerly peeps in,
We play the game not ever knowing,
When does it end, when do we win?

Conversations never seem to end,
And yet silence always seems to weigh,
Why is it that in the midst of smiles,
Those dollops of laughter have melted away?

Aches the crystal ball, to fall off the edge,
For never unpunished goes a good deed,
To remind you, lest you forget,
That no matter what, the future will bleed.

No new doors left to be unlocked,
Your dreams too sleep behind bars,
Even God's afraid to play tonight,
Look up, there remain no shooting stars.

Smiles sweeten the air, joy erupts,
Yet in the corner, mourns the clown,
Wondering, with a tear down his cheek,
Have we all grown up or died down?

Sealed With A Miss

Tell me dear, would you have the guts to fall in love with a stranger?

There Walked a Lonely God

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind,
In balance with this life, this death.

-W.B. Yeats "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death"

13th Floor

I think I managed to find a room with a view at the Heartbreak Hotel.

Red Earth

The wind will always taste bitter for innocents have been burned,
Will we ever realize that a gift of hate will always be returned,
I wonder, when will we ever learn,
That war sells cheap, but peace has to be earned.

Cold Comfort

Somehow I feel that all these moments are rough and jagged just so that they can fit into the jigsaw of my life.

Lonely Day

Loneliness is heartening 'cause often, it is in the shade of a solitary tree that the most beautiful of flowers bloom...

Blind Clowns

Life has never been fair, has it? Always given you moments you've never wanted. Always asked for sacrifices you couldn't make. Sometimes, existence seems like a jagged little pill that's stuck somewhere in your throat. You can neither swallow it nor can you scream for help. All you can do it is wait. Wait until it chokes you to death, bit by bit. Doesn't it hurt when all the demons in your head awaken? They awaken to defeat you, to mock you, as you lay huddled in the corner, under the shade of remorse.

The misadventure goes on and on. Right from the cradle of filth to the grave of dirt, you're forced to live a life you never chose. You're pushed into a lonely classroom right when you've begun to appreciate the patterns on the tiles in your home. Then, the rat race begins. Learn things that never seem to make sense and still don't. Get your nose rubbed against the grindstone until the bruises begin to look pretty in the mirror of competition.

Life's looking for a reason to bring that frown onto your face. It'll do anything to imprint the dark stain of existence into your violated mind.

Assignments.
Tutorial classes.
Missing out on a great bargain.
Placements in Africa.
Bosses from hell.
Measly paychecks.
Backstabbing friends.
Cursing the rain on your big date.
Worried that your knees are weakened from falling in love over and over again.
Being sulky because your team lost a big game.
Worried stiff that you're in a college you don't deserve..
Missing that one opportunity that could've changed it all.
Irritated that your mom cooked the same dinner two days in a row.
Scorning when your dad offers you advice.
When they tend to forget how old you are. Or how young.
Lost love.
Brooding over the one that got away.
When your sibling takes your favourite pair of jeans for his farewell.
Frustrated that the very friends who had spent entire days with you haven't called in years.
Wondering when did life pass you by.


Somewhere in Darfur, an orphan sleeps hungry and naked, shivering in the freezing wind, clinging onto his mother's photograph.


A teardrop crawls out of his closed eyes to seep into the parched earth.



Lost forever.

Thirsty Roses

When people talk of romantic cities, Paris, maybe Dublin and several others come to mind. But Bombay never features on that list, does it? They say Bombay is quite like a graveyard that is littered with hearts. It's the place where loves chokes itself to death. A place where you can find people who make a living out of writing beautiful, poetry laced, perfume scented love letters but you can never find love. A place where even the smallest tendril of romance gets washed away in the downpour of routine.

But I think nothing could be farther away from the truth. I think Bombay reeks of love. The air in that beautiful city is thick with romance. You find it in the smallest of corners, hiding under the shade of hope. It crawls out of the deepest of chasms: the chasms of insipidity and vapidity. It crawls out everyday, faithfully, loyally to face the mellow sun of your heartbeats. It lies nestled among the weeds of aridity and blossoms into a blush of joy at the merest hint of a drizzle.

Love flourishes in Bombay. It's all around, everywhere you see.


An elderly couple helping each other climb on board a BEST bus...

Sweet intimacy on board a crowded local...

The watchman who waits for the entire week to save up enough money so that he can run to the nearest PCO booth and call up his beloved somewhere in a faraway corner of the country...

In the tuition classes we all went to as kids...

In shared pani puris with your friends at Juhu beach...

On the rocks at Haji Ali where nobody needs a religion...

The buzz of part time lovers in the numerous clubs that dot the city...

The smile that crosses your lips when the guy beside you at the traffic signal is playing "Romeo and Juliet"...

The intimacy you share with the girl who gets on fire while singing your favourite song at the karaoke night at your usual pub...

Promises carved out on trees in the gardens at Lokhandwala...

The girl with the voice of an angel in your church choir at Bandra...

With Mango Souffle....

The girl with pretty eyes in the by lanes of Dharavi...

The cute one who catches your eye at the traffic signal...

The "gossip" between the vegetable vendor and the chaiwallah at your local market...

The isolated moments of tenderness at Bandstand...

The exhuberance in the sexual tension in the coffee shops exactly opposite...

The girl who waits along with you at the bus stop on a lonely, nippy winter morning...

When you feel the sea mingle with your tears on a 2 AM drive at Marine Drive...

The emotion that pierces through heart as you see parents put up notices about their missing children on the walls at VT Station...

The tears that crawl out of the corner of your eyes as you say a silent prayer and walk away...



You lose your heart twice in this city:

In Bombay...

To Bombay...

G_d

I'd sell my soul to The Devil to see Pink Floyd live in concert once, just once.

Cold Dunes

I sometimes wonder...


Are the wastelands of Hope large enough for us to bury all of our memories?

Especially when the vultures of Loneliness look upon?

Freefall

The winds of change have begun to blow,
I know it's time that I lower my guard,
I'm tired of digging, the treasure trove be damned,
I'm now looking for flowers in my backyard.

iThink

If you swear on yourself that you're gonna die, how do you keep the promise?