Growing Up

He said, "I see you growing up." 
And suddenly I realised,
The drops of Youth were beginning to
Dry on the rim of the Life's cup.

There is silver in the clouds dark
That were once tresses
And lines of life and heart are on the cheeks, not palm, alongside my birthmark.

My large heart and narrow waist
Have exchanged place
And strongest in my mouth amidst all others
Is this new acrid taste:

The taste of complacency, of growing older and growing sober, of falling in line and losing that shine, of apologies and failed ideologies, of safe play and dried clay, of polite smiles and unwoven wiles.

Yes, I'm growing up.

Love and I

Love and I- 
We don't see each other any more. 
No sir, we don't see eye to eye.
He used to stay just down the street where I paced every evening.
Love, was his name, and he had eyes mischievous yet stunning.
He caught my eye, once in a while, and tipped his cap.
And suddenly one day, my heart was his, as if in a snap. 
We walked the clouds, we sailed the blues
With our destinies, we made a truce.
A lifetime later I found him gone.
I waited for him from dusk to morn.
He came back with a scent unknown
And I knew that the diamond had become a stone.

Ever since, Love and I do not get along with each other.
He is not to be trusted.
And I do not really bother.

Et Cetera

Show-worthy things get mentioned, while the rest clubbed as 'and the rest.'

Et cetera is not irrelevant 
Nay, far from it.

Acknowledged in anonymity, 
et ceteras are your being in collectivity.

Nobody knows the pain of being pushed to margins
More than the et ceteras.

Et cetera is the demure wife of a sailor
Patiently weaving the yarns of desire
Only to unravel them in the nights sapphire.

Et cetera never speaks, never complains,
You bundle it out to the margins where
It licks its wounds and dresses the pains.

The one left behind on a crowded platform is et cetera
And the one that got lost on a journey
is another et cetera.

Words slipping from the corner of your mouth and drowning in the coffee mug;
The faint laughing lines on your face
-A face that is otherwise cold and smug;
Green Dhaniya leaves in a bowl of daal
Or a television series named Chaupaal
An unopened packet, a broken dart
Or my memory buried deep in your heart

Et cetera,
They are just that- et ceteras. 

Diwali

मन मंदिर में जब कल साँझ दीप दमकते होंगे,
तो एक लौ की छाँव में अलसाते कुछ स्वप्न तुम्हारे होंगे
नीले, कुछ धानी और कुछ सुर्ख़ लाल होंगे

The Peacock Bra

The cold night of Diwali

And the morning aromas of

Chulha, leepa and saani:

Suddenly they all come alive

And drown the din of trial rooms.

Holding the peacock bra in my hands

I am sitting and weeping

In one of the many trial rooms.

Hot stream of tears on my cheeks,

“How do I look?” pouring in my ears

Filtered down from different directions in different voices,

And an entire lifetime in my liquid eyes:

The peacock bra and I in one of the trial rooms.

When he first unhooked, with fingers fumbling  

There was a reward awaiting,

I remember how in a matter of few hours, a lifetime changed.

Years later, I miss the fumble and sob

Clutching a peacock bra in one of the trial rooms.

She smiled, sucked and slept:

The pattern she followed clinging to my breast.

Now, she runs and recites, she consoles and fights.

I see me in her, and snippets of her in myself

She bangs the doors, to find me, of the identical trial rooms.

   

Dancing peacocks, fumbling fingers, moist lactating teats,

Childhood treasures, grown-up pleasures

Pains of childbirth and all else that is worth

Remembering and cherishing

I remembered and cried

Trying the beautiful peacock bra in one of the trial rooms. 

It All Ended There

A bullet pierced his heart and it all ended there.
No, not the battle
For he was a soldier mere.

The last breath he took had the whiff of his daughter's shampoo
Am I just imagining it all or is this what people really do?
Inhaling their lifetime in that last breath
Content perhaps,then, and  they embrace death?

She, who called him not to share trivia every evening
But to ensure that his pulse was still running,
Whose own pulse raced with each ring going uninterrupted
Who, with all her veneer of bravery was still not to this fear adapted

She laid beside him in the pool of blood,
Wearing her hair loose, adorned with a red rose bud.

She will never dial his number now for she has no care,
A bullet pierced his heart and it all ended there.

The Female Humpty Dumpty

"Woman woman sat on a wall,
Woman woman had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make woman where she was before."

After all how could they, when they are the ones who perhaps photographed the 'fall' (the first four-score) and consumed it too (four-score more and more). Or maybe not. Katrina Kaif's bikini pictures with her alleged beau Ranbir Kapur are all over the print and television media today. Why do I get a feel that her bikini has a bigger role to play than anything else- holiday in Spain or even Ranbir Kapoor? The angel-faced actress, who we easily forgave for being Sheila and Chameli (though we cheered and leered), sporting a bikini on a private holiday is surely a big thing. How could she! And if she could, we are very well within our rights to bring it to the world- thus spake the unidentified photographer and the team of Stardust and other media. 

Kaif is completely justified in being upset at the invasive nature of media. But we the people and media do not want to allow her that either. Just because she is an actor, female at that, puts her in a doubly disadvantaged position. She is not supposed to separate her public and private selves: each aspect of her life is up for consumption. She must deal with the voyeur in each of us, for she chose to be an actress. We, the voyeur, have an upper hand always and she must submit. Laura Mulvey of Visual and Other Pleasures clearly states that "Voyeurism has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt, asserting control and subjugating the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness." So yes, we may 'forgive' her, but she remains guilty. 

As a female actor in the Indian film industry, Kaif clearly is devoid of the power that another victim of this low breed of journalism the Duchess of Cambridge wields. A formal investigation has been initiated against the publishing head responsible for the French edition of Closer magazine and two photographers for Kate Middleton's topless photographs published last year. Many things are in favour of the Duchess: she is, well, a British Royal and she was holidaying with her husband and not an alleged beau. I doubt, therefore, if any such investigation or even an advisory will come the way of Kaif's photographers and publishers. Alas, Katrina Kaif, you are no queen. Not even of our hearts. You are perhaps just a female humpty dumpty. Your 'fall' makes us laugh.