The Bestseller

I have been pilfering lust all my life;
At times, hiding my body in the dark,
And at times flaunting it like a shameless tart.
There have been occasional sales
In the markets, and before I could bargain,
My body became my book.

As the weight of the flesh kept crushing me,
I celebrated the rare occasion of being
The concubine and the wife. On every
Bridal night as love invariably petered out
Into lust, I began to learn something more
About men and their kind.

Most of them rejected my face, like
The foreword never mattered for a book.
Shrinking further and further down the
Pages, leaving bold and ruthless signatures
On dark climaxes; undaunted by the cold
Phraseology, they made me readable!

Today, the book wrinkles with signatures,
A handful of whom I still retain amidst the
Folds of nostalgia. But, I have lived a contended
Life full of love for lust, never seeking indemnities,
However, a framed PhD in the closet reminds
Me of the price paid for it!


Now Playing:: Jaane do na........................Saagar

The Notebook Poet

A lonely breath of poetry
Thrashes against me, as I sit for
The umpteenth time, determined
To make a clear work of it.
I wane, stumble, and falter,
Writing a few meager lines;
Surviving on crumbs!


I stop half way down, after
Trying in vain to pump up any
Words, images, notions or apprehensions.
A return to prose beacons, but
The slender digits grow cold and cramped,
Raising a mere prosaic skeleton of some
Mathematical puzzle!


As I break into a nervous sweat
Over the blank unfinished paper, I realize
I cannot write fast enough now, but the
Unhurried movement of my thoughts
Say much more than I can perceive,
And maybe…maybe, I’ve finally become
The notebook poet!

Now Playing:: Dil dhoondta hai......................Bhupinder Singh

Scared at 21!

I don’t know why parents do it to children? First, they raise us with the concept of ghosts and apparitions, and evil beings, and then they leave us alone to sleep in the dark! Parents probably do not know what they do when they leave kids alone in the dark and, leave them helpless to face the gory manifestations of their own imaginations. I am 21, and perhaps I’m a different kind of a grown-up when I confess frequent nightmares in my sleeping excursions. You’ve no idea reader, what a terrible shaking it is to my nerves; to wake up in the middle of the night with the forehead drenched in sweat, the feeling about for a friendly hand, or a familiar voice, when I let out a muffled scream…and then finding none to soothe me, I bury my head under the pillow, for all the unwholesome hours to come! The night time solitude and the dark have become my hell, as they continue to fashion my prosaic dreams into nightmares, and they’re all geared up to try my childish nerves rather more seriously.

Dear reader, I’m almost ashamed of such a confession when I say hags and devils come to look at me by my bedside; and I do know that they’re indeed a figment of my imagination, but I cannot elude their presence and I continue to fight and grapple with them for my fair share of a blissful sleep!

P.S. The sketch is my poor representation of a Kesey masterpiece!

Now Playing:: Chanda re…………………Hamsika Iyer

The Two Kinds

This time the faces and frames
Are much younger. A package of
Juvenile intelligence and
Testosterone has been flooding
The jungle, but “Where are all the men?”
I wonder!

The men sit apart, dreaming about
Fair skin and generous bosoms.
They hardly notice my brown skinned
Body or my college girl’s breasts, but
I loiter around them anyway. One of
Them induces a small talk, and my

Body goes numb with fear and frenzy.
A carnal frenzy that strips me naked
In my thoughts, and the image of
Two entwined private bodies
Begin to loom larger. Someone from
The younger lot hands me a note,

On which is scribbled,
“I love you!” Meanwhile, the man in
Conversation draws me closer and
Whispers, “I wanna make love to you!”
I know not which “love” to choose, but
How long can one resist temptation?


Now Playing:: Hum kis gali ja rahe hain....................Atif

A Defiling Parody!

When he opens my lazy legs,
What does he see there?
Hunger?
Pouring his spittle into
My burning mouth,
What does he feel?
Lust?

Performing the auld motions
Of intimacy, what does he expect?
Passion?
And finally, cushioning his
Fall against my breasts,
What does he pull off?
Catharsis?

I moan too.
But what do I feign?
Ecstasy or hurt?
Oh, what a parody we
Make of the routine, and
Slander it more by calling,
“Love-Making!”

Now Playing:: Breathless...........................The Corrs

Perhaps!

Perhaps he was always there on the other side, but his appearance was different from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. He stood at a distance, and in the dim light of my séance, I could see a strange wildness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity; he was silent like he had always been. Here, was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations, drenched in the cold dank drops of dew, stretching his hand and asking me to join him!

This is the man, whom I hide from the society, but I can’t help it, he always had a hunger for eternity! But, it has ceased to matter any longer, I’ll be joining him sooner or later, but until then, I need others for survival. He agrees too and says that his life was comparatively a dream; but it was a mere dream of infinity and death; no resurrections or judgments will ever come his way. It’s a romance in these degenerate days, and you are not to resist it, he adds.

But this is not to my purpose. For once I want to turn the tables around and get him into the human business of “guilt”! You’re crazy and stupid, he says, how else the demand of something which you know to be false in your waking sense, come to affect me at all?

I am not to disbelieve him; after all there is no canon to judge my séance!

Now Playing:: Woh shaam kuch…………………Kishore