THAT WHICH GOES UNSAID...

Those days, hot and sultry as young love, ended with tea and smoke. I never smoked, though...or did I not? Smoke like love is inductive. When all around you, people smoke and drink and love... A yearning grows in you. Which satiates itself in passive inhalation. Much like falling in love with characters from folds of a dusty classic. Forgotten and imaginary, just like me. In the commotion of a roadside stall, filled with smoke layered conversations that oozed out of us, like the departing sunlight filtered through a mess of cracked wall and cobwebs, I had seen you. I had seen you through a gap within the smoke. The snakes and dragons of smoke curled around you and you looked somewhere far. It is as if nothing touched you. That mad unsettled look in your eyes had settled in some other world. You felt the weight of my gaze. I had always wondered how gaze feels like a touch. Like a deep slumber that has touched your eyes and you cannot see. And you looked at me...

He knew the story by heart and so did the audience. Every time he would whet his knife, audience would cuss him silently. And yet, Antonio would not lose his pound of flesh. His wealth would not be his at the end. He would have to embrace a religion he despised and would forever be disgraced. Every time he left the stage in disgrace, the hall would resound with thundering applause.  And how he loved being cussed. And how he loved that thundering applause… the lights shining upon him, the audience dimmed to oblivion in darkness. If anyone was standing at the top of the world, it was him. If anyone was able to part the ocean by sheer strength of voice, it was him…for the waves could not deny the voice if he ever chose to ask them to part. An when the hall was as silent as being empty, his voice would thunder across the hall, “…………………….You will answer 'The slaves are ours:' so do I answer you: The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, Is dearly bought; 'tis...

There was this guy I knew a few years back. Not that I knew him much but we were in general talking terms. He was the kind of person who in general gave out the aura of being in an eternally doped stage, with occasional banters that earned him the fame of being an intellectual lunatic. One day I caught him in the middle of his banters. With blood shot eyes, he started mumbling something. Well, banters are something that does not demand audience per se, although it would not be too bad if banters were heard, even if not supported. He called me, “Hey you budding economist! What’s up? Repo rates up, down or sleeping in your pockets?”. I, unable to find a suitable witty answer to this, tried to say something in the lines—that I am not an economist, you know. Like doctors or engineers getting a degree becomes doctors, engineers etc, but not the poor students of economics….even a post doctorate does not make anyone an economist. He asked me what I meant. Well, I mean, I could become a PO,...

Let’s steal some moments today. Moments of love and laughter… Moments of belonging and holding… Moments of joy and wellbeing… Maybe some Eureka moments and some quiet solitary satisfactory smiles. Let’s steal some moments today. Let’s hold on to bed a little longer, not caring about the alarm… Let’s have a day without alarm today…lazing away with your eyes shut, listening to the rain shattering on your window pane. Can you hear the faint sound of the leaves drooping with water? Let’s listen to the rains today. Let the boiling coffee’s aroma fleet across the rooms, tickling your taste buds, nose buds and memory buds .While away into your memories. While away into the past. And then sneak into a cosy corner with your coffee and day dream… Let’s steal some moments today. Let’s dust the old gramophone player lying in the corner. Select a vinyl record of some long lost songs and caress its glossy dark skin .Relive with your parents the years they left behind…your chi...

Elsewhere is a state of mind. Elsewhere lies another door, a window maybe...where a country flute fills my mind. In a life with no strings attached I have known the feeling of abandoning too many times. I have abandoned lesser times than people have abandoned me.Perhaps the result of a futile attempt to make me love them back.Perhaps not noticing that I run towards and away from love at the same time.In a city you do not hear flutes as much you hear the screeches..the earthy tunes that brings back memories that I cannot grasp..memories that are a part of elsewhere where love and song was all that I had.I have been a fugitive of sorts,while being ashamed and proud at the same time. They told me I will gather no moss, no wisdom coz' I slip away.But even a mossy stone will slip at some time and make them slip too. So whats the point? Elsewhere is the love I have known.Yes! I have known love and never fell out of it. Elsewhere is a music man, who never knew the name of the son...

She stood counting the beads. Each bead a year. Each scar a war. The dusty smoke pilfered life. The bronze sweat reflecting windows                                                         that did not look out. Under the dance of lights Stood a lifetime of mayhem Under the riot of colours blurred monochrome memories It took lifetime of scar and s c a t t e   r  e d beads, to witness the northern lights to empty whatever she earned.

The fire in the kitchen tent had gone out. The moon was still behind the mountain in the east. Just a snow covered peak to the west, faintly shone with the pale glow from a fragment of light. The darkness that stretched below him, in front of him and at the back of him was solid----almost with no beginning or no end. Only if he looked up, could he see a sky dazzling with dots of light. His personal source of light, a three cell torch, lay cold and unlit beside him. He was sitting on a flat slab of stone, quite a few meters below the other tents. It was almost nine thirty at night, quiet an unholy time, going by the chill that had already set in. But it was holy, almost pious, he felt. Rest of his friends had gone to sleep and he had the silent valley all to himself. If one could see into his eyes at that time, all one could see was plain wonder, of amazement, of fulfillment...yet of a strange madness. His mind was full of thoughts that crawled its way out of nowhere and which perha...