Seasons :)

Buds bloom into blossoming beauty.
Spring saunters in with a spring in his step.

The stars singe the soothing sky.
Summer saves me some of her sunshine.

Rains rain upon rows of rainy days.
Monsoon manifests its miraculous magic.

Winds weave a wave of wishes.
Wistful winters wage a war on wisdom.

Seasons stay. Seasons change.
Destiny smiles upon distant planes.

Seasons stay, seasons change.
My destiny remains steadfast, same.

Seasons stay. seasons change.
And I, I sit by the window sill, and wait.

"The Don't Knows in My Life"

Yes, there a hundred, thousand, million
and maybe more
don't knows in my life.
Yes, there are so many greys,
that even my rainbows
seem black and white.

No,  I never felt the need to define,
to depict, to word, to highlight
what goes on inside
the angelic and devilish realm
that is my mind.

Because, more often than not,
uncertainty is
the only hope
of the certainty
of a happy ending.
And not knowing, what the future holds,
makes it far easier
to hold on to presumptions
of happily ever afters!

I don't know
Why
I don't know
What
I don't know.

But, this, not knowing
is safe, comforting,
Free
from expectations,
and commitments,
and calculations,
and boundaries,
and limitations.

Because there can only be
a certain number of things we know.
But, not knowing
is infinity.
Is bliss.
Ignorance might be a deception.
But, not knowing things,
I don't know,
may be
A liberation?!

Made in Heaven

Jingling gold bangles on both wrists. Handcuffs.

Vermillion on forehead. His stamp of control.

Mangalsutra around the neck. Asphyxiating noose.

Wedding band on fourth finger. Binding chain.

Red wedding veil on face. Seclusion from the world.

We all have our prisons. 

Everybody thought hers was “made in heaven.”

Rainbows :)

I know a rainbow isn't magic.
There is a science of light governing

The colours that pop up
On a rainy, sunny,
Contradictory day.

Seven bright hues in a dull grey sky;
paragraphs of golden sunlight,
Punctuated with silver drops of rain.

An exercise in storytelling.
A phenomenon called dispersion.

I know dispersion.
But there is no magic in knowing,
and calculating the angles, ratios and time lapses
And in predicting rainbows.

There is magic
when
You are typing away furiously,
Stabbing at the keys of your laptop,
And the rain starts stabbing
at the glass windows.

And suddenly
Light through shut panes,
An inverted smile
painted upon the gloomy face of the sky
welcomes you.

A happy, carefree, magical VIBGYOR.
Rainbow.

And you are six again, or seven
And heaven
And rainy skies and chasing butterflies,
And being naked, drenched, replete in rain
The be all and end all
Of how happiness is spelled.

And love is still a possibility
and not a distant, hazy dream.
The sky has fathered rainbows
And all is well with the world, again :)

Gaps

They will seep in when you are least likely to notice them. In a leaking pipe, between two torn halves of paper, inside the shattered glass remains of a broken window, within long distance phone calls, among the closest of friends and confidants.

Gaps.

You cannot run away from them. They will catch up, sooner rather than later.

The phone calls will become infrequent. Birthdays will be forgotten. You will run out of common topics to discuss.

New friends will grace new photographs while the old pictures sulk, in your slam book. Threads will snap, memories will blur and distances will grow.

Small talk will try desperately to fill up those gaps, but they will remain.

Like the three dots that mark an unfinished sentence.

Like the story whose sequel is yet to come out.

Like 31^st December, the loneliest night of the year.

Like a park bench that is vacant on a cold winter morning, bereft of the warmth a human touch provides.

Like a railway station where the train never stops. 

Like blurred pictures clicked through windows stained with the dirty splashes of rain.

Like your favourite song cut short on the radio.

Like a book left unread, the bookmark sitting inside the anticipating pages.

Like a power cut that ends only when your favourite movie on TV

has ended, too.

Like a full lunch box that you have nobody to share with.

Like words that sit inside your heart, but are too timid to come out from the safety of your mouth.

Like mascara spoilt by tears.

Like when you have earrings in your favourite colours, but your ears are not pierced, so you can’t wear them.

Like everything that does not make sense, and like nothing that does.

Gaps.

There are gaps that people can fill for you. And then there are those you have to fill for yourself. The day you can tell them apart, perhaps they will start to disappear. Till that time, be prepared. Because they will stay.

Gaps.

Labels

What if I labelled us "friends"
and "forever" decided we did not qualify?

What if I labelled us "soulmates"
and the universe rejected it on a whim?

What if you labelled us "happiness"
and tears accompanied our smiles,
inseparable now that they are?

What if we labelled us "us",
forgetting that I am me and you are you, first?

Maa does not label the containers in the kitchen.
The spices are familiar, even if containers change.

Labels are futile.

Salt is salt because sugar is sugar,
not because it was meant to be,
But simply because we labelled it in bold,
to be spelled as SALT.
And now calling it something else is blasphemy.

So if we label what we have, nothing will change. But we might just.

The spices In the kitchen know who they are
and where they are needed.

I wish we knew too.

Labels would be redundant, don't you think?