Umbilicus

It seemed as if
Everything that I had owned
Was gushing into the
Ancient whirlpool of
The navel,
When he said,
‘You’re a peculiar child’,
Not a woman,
Not even a girl,
But a child…


Now Playing:: Lean on me.....Bill Withers

Apology

No one at his club knows our secret, or so we
Would like to believe. They know me by another
Name, they know me as one who writes poems.
I flutter around wearing mother’s sarees and during
The brief time-outs when I keep to myself, men float up
And settle on either side of my couch trying to know my
Age. I smile and laugh with all the flamboyance of a flirt,
And occasionally one of them would politely ask for a
Picture, in memory of an evening spent with someone who
Writes poems. Once in a while I catch him staring at me from
A crowded corner of the hall, and then, affecting nonchalance
At the pretty sight of me clad in a saree and lost in the company
Of other men. “There is pleasure in this side of the world, too”, I
Tell him, when we later resign into the night. Raising his soft,
Liquid eyes he kisses me gently on the forehead and as I nuzzle
Closer I’m invariably reminded of another face,
Another set of arms,where I had found
A similar unsatisfying warmth…


Now Playing:: Wahin chal mere dil.......Suresh Wadkar

Remembering

It must have been a thousand years old,
That face in the humble darkness,
Which speaks of a singular legend;
Of Love's unsatisfying embrace,
Of Man's slow swim into the forbidden.


Now Playing:: Itna na mujhse tu pyaar badha......Lata & Talat

Nothing Like the Sun

" It was all a matter of a Goddess-- dark, hidden, deadly, horribly desirable. When did her image first dawn?"

Too Early, Love

There’s a new man in town,
Who takes me on clandestine drives,
And we sin casually,
Very casually,
Because
There’s nothing much that
We can do for each other.
On dark, deserted stretches of concrete
Where his manhood oozes out
On my female stillness,
A smile breaks out in my mind
Because
Love has now become
A detached thing;
A mere force of habit,
That comes to us like madness,
Madness,
That grows and stirs, and
Then lies meekly exhausted
In casual smiles and goodbyes.

This, too, is love,
This passion in the breast,
That beats for casual affairs of the night
And makes a mockery of souls
For the rest of the day,

Yes, there’s a new man in town,
Who takes me on clandestine drives,
And makes me sin casually,
Very casually.


Now Playing::Jiya Jale........Dil Se

Yet Another

And on nights like these
When the eyes are empty of sleep,
I realize how easy it is
To fall out of love with you;
To breathe the air
Reeking of wantonness,
That lies just outside of love,
How utterly easy it is, darling
To abandon the heart,
Just for a while,
In search of a peace so adult,
And settle in another's arms
For a night,
Yet another,
And yet another...


Now Playing:: Raat hamari toh.........Parineeta

Mood Music

Tumhi se janmoon toh shayad mujhe panaah mile...

Taking Leave

I remember you telling me, ‘there’s nothing
Like the sea.’ What made you say that, I would
Never know, but don’t thrust its shapeless,
Roaring ugliness upon me…how could you endure
That wave upon wave vulgarity that it perks on
Your face so shamelessly? I’m filled with repulsion
(of late I have begun to hate everything you like),
What's this country where there's no stirring of desire?
In the sun-drenched late afternoons when i'm speaking
without any listeners, see how the sea howls unabashedly
Like the voyeur who, couldn't take his eyes off me when
The curtains fluttered in the musty sea breeze. I long to
Hear a night-bird's cry, sweet, dull, and un-muffled in
The pesky yell of the sea; have you ever seen them
Coming down from the loftiness of the coconuts and the
Casuarinas? The sea alone survives here, darling, it
Survives with its illusion of the horizon and a pale sun
Settling in its womb, it's the same as everyday. I wish
There were someone else here, not you, someone
Equally corrupt as I. Don't look for me; I'm leaving,
I'm going home...there's too much sand in my hair.


Now Playing::Teri mehfil mein.....Lata & Shamshad Begum

Between Us

It was the only unpleasantness between us;
He smelt like a man,
Like rough,
I was forever
Rank with dampness,
A mere
Locked-up smell,
Gushing with
Margins of errors,
Pining, Pining
To be, filled…


Now Playing:: Jajabara.........Akhaya Mohanty

At Dusk

If you could just wait for a while,
I would tell you how I met him.
Have you ever been alone with anyone
In the graying darkness of an evening?
No, there wouldn’t be any secrets
Between you and I. It was him, darling,
It was him again…
It’s terrible, it’s terrible, and there was
Something terrible in me too,
He was strong, darling, very strong,
I was wild on breath…
It’s terrible, darling, it’s terrible.


Now Playing:: Raat ka shauk hai...........Guru

Fermata

It’s quiet now; he has stopped playing the piano,
He might resume it sometime later. It’s quiet now.
For a while. I can’t recall faces anymore, an eye here,
A nose there, a body waxed thin in the memory,
Each looking like a clone of the other. Faces contradict
The names; it’s always an alien hand that leans over to
Touch me. It flounders for a while reminding itself of my
Crevices, gently mocking at the carpet burns on my back,
Lingering on every memory that my body holds as secrets.
It’s not easy, darling, to erase a man from the body,
It’s much easier to measure longings…
There are other things, darling, that I wish to tell you, but
Oh, that wretched piano…


Now Playing:: Neele neele amber par........Kishore Kumar

Roué

Why do you speak strange languages, darling,
You see, I don’t know all of them. Oh, what was
That word you wrote last night? ‘Roué’, was it not?
Oh, it hurt me when I looked up for it, how could you
Say that to me?

But now that it’s over, I shall go out for a long walk
That I had always wanted to. You never understood it
Darling, it was only your smell that I was after. Maybe,
I’ll take the walk tomorrow, the bloke at the end of the
Street has just begun to play the piano.


Now Playing:: Aapke anurodh pe.........Kishore Kumar

Not a Love poem

You’ve grown older, older than I had expected
You to be… how wretched you look, how
Handsome you talk! Meet me at the old junction
Sometime, I promise I’ll behave. Weren’t we sixteen
Together? Do you dig into time, often? I do. I would
Tell you how much I missed you. No, I promised
I would behave. I would probably drive you down to
A crowded coffee house and we’ll sit softly amidst
Modern Love. You can talk books, Rumi if you prefer?
I would read him one of these days, I would say.
We would stay as long as the coffee in the cup; we’re
Older now, we know that works. I would drive you back
To where you were picked, and we would shake hands to
Seal the monotony of an evening that we don’t want anymore.
I promised I would behave…


Now Playing::Aakhon se jo utri hai........Asha

Vox

For a long, long time, a private voice had echoed
In the phone; a voice that had set something in me
Free; a voice that sounded like bliss; a voice that
Reeked of a secret language; a voice that talked and
Talked and talked, never pausing to listen, never…
How long has it been, since then? A summer and a
Winter? Will you be back this summer? For a while?
I do nothing these days; I read in the mornings, and
Then write for long hours perched at the dining table…
Mother says, it’s a long life, sixty years for everyone.
Drop a Hello, once in a while; a long tired breath for
Every call… it’s a long, long life darling and I do nothing
These days… at nights, I fancy the phone ringing, and
When I answer, it’s your punctuated breaths again…


Now Playing:: Iktara........Wake up Sid

Maazi

I could never lure him into loving me,
His taste in women was odd;
Emaciated cleavage with the bone
Sticking out, seldom made his gut rot.

You’re too much in love with me;
Shed it; undress; take charge of the skin;
Be a furry creature; ape the apes;
Please me, the way you please words…

That was once upon a time,
And I’ve loved other men since then,
Loved them the way I wanted to;
Loved without shame or rage.

Today, the equality of sexes bore me,
I long for my maazi, whose desire
Made me female, and my shy panicky
Submission that rendered him, male…

Yes, it breaks my heart to see others in love,
Yes, it breaks my heart to see myself
No longer awake, even in dreams…


Now Playing::Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi...........Kishore

February Muse

During one of his kinky streaks, he asks me if
I could work the lather on his five o’clock shadow;
An ordinary man with saggy man-breasts and
Hirsute complexion and a brutally loveless face (that
brought me to him), how often, he seems so unattainable.
What am I growing into? A woman who can no longer find love?
I agree. Therefore, I try harder every day.
As I shunt in closer I feel his heat getting stitched
Into my breath, buzzing a dull fever in the folds of my anatomy.
Come to me. Stay.
The day wanes in the summer dust of his slurping slippers,
And the future unfolds like a Faustian bargain…


Now Playing::Om namaha............Gitanjali

Love

What time is it now?
Since when?
All the poetry there has been...


Now Playing:: Om namaha...........Gitanjali

Clichéd Heart

Day by day winter is coming to an end; soon
It would be spring and the singing birds would
Stay for a while swirling their songs with anger
In the fragile crucible of my body…the heart is
Bitter, all it seeks is the brutal indifference of summer…

The heart, like a flat-chested prostitute
Looks for love in small exchanges;
Nothing to barter, it waits for rest and
Peace and a silent sunny dream to make friends
In dark crannies, once again.


Now Playing:: Kabhi Kabhi sapna lagta hai...Kishore & Asha