SHE #4

She is rare.

Like an unlit street in bombay
Like an unlit street in Bombay
Like an unlit street and starry night in Bombay
Like an unlit street, a starry night and a deserted Bombay
Like 2 lonely young beings under a starry night walking by an unlit street in deserted Bombay

She is rare
Like darkness, solitude, silence, a wish granted or a shooting star
Like a corporate honcho's heart laid bare

SHE #3

To think of her is to listen to Desert Rain (Indian Ocean)

You marvel at sheer possibilities, infinite avenues

Of harmony, of life, of having a life

Through the murky clogged canals

Of incentives, emi's, debts and raises

(A desolate moonlit night, a brook and a raft)

She wafts through, butter under knife.

She #2

To catch the first pearls of dawn
I need not wait for the sun to rise, nor wake up early
I see sunrise everytime her lips part
And her face make a pinkish smiley

SHE

She smells of a new book
All her stories alive,
Of distant oceans
Of 2 lofty mountains
In their womb, a brook
Her eyes a page mark,a constant reminder
To know more I must strive

A Mid Autumn Night’s Dreamy Reality And An Ancient Ageless Empress

Place- The middle of nowhere, flanked by an unending beach that starts from where roots end.

Time- A Mid Autumn Night beyond any calendar, beyond memory.

A night that gifted me a long awaited dream, a night that ignited many more dreams and a night I spoke to the waves and saw an ancient, ageless empress on her marauding conquest.

                                                                                    

A conversation is on here, between several centuries and me. They shout out to me in their rumbling manner and acknowledge their understanding by lighting up the horizon. It is a sparkling conversation in a very literal sense. We have been talking for sometime now, about secrets tucked away safely in the tiny huts of the crabs we’d seen in the morning, about secrets being discussed stealthily in the ants colony I see so distinctly in front, secrets of time and space they have discussed for centuries, and above all about the enigma that I am standing close to now. The conversation is interrupted at times by lighting, probably because Titan doesn’t want me to know all yet, probably because Titan and the sea want a closer look at her, she who belonged to them since the beginning.

It did not start like this. There was nothing up to 30 mins after the ‘drop.’ I remember Pink Floyd getting scant attention in the room. In a flash however my entire world became the iconic artwork of The Division Bell. I had only heard of the Publius Enigma (I know for a fact, nobody ever ‘solved’ the Publius enigma) but I discovered a new facet of the artwork. Now I know there are actually 3 faces there but this was the one and only time when the 3^rd, the largest, the all-integrating face appeared to me as a whole. I was hypnotized as I stared at his burning glowing shrinking and expanding eyes. Those minutes triggered the mid autumn night’s dream.

Outside, in distant smell of seaweed and amidst thunderous applause of her familiar waves, she was busy creating her queendom. It seemed like I had no further truth to unearth, nor know any more, but what was going on in her tiny little head.  Like an impatient fetus craving for life outside, like a poem that is eager to be put on paper, I probed her about everything going on in the tiny little head. I saw a tree burning, burning bright, burning pink, sparkling but with glisten. Then there was dopey, her firefly, from that place far above the marketplace. I have only seen fireflies in a herd, very rarely in isolation. But it seemed like she was the only firefly left in front of the vast expanse of the sea, she had come on her bidding.

Then there was the boat, a few feet away from the sea, being rocked by the turbulent waves. She put on the captain’s coat and I was this petulant tourist, hell bent on staying at the deck, drunk on dreams. I could imagine being forever in the boat, in the turbulent tides, banished from the distant lands, quarantined from work and bosses. I dreamt of being ghosts that tired sailors see from their masts, before they sip some more of sailor’s rum.

The ghosts wouldn’t leave me, the ghosts of all poetry I read, all films I saw, and every single shot I wanted to take. The waves had become spot-lights now, and I had the camera rolling. In a few infinite seconds I shot all of her, in every angle, in all profiles. She was a coy woman speaking through her eyes now, a proud ageless beauty whose every cell screamed dominance the next moment. I had a lifetime’s worth of footage shot in those seconds.

The empress was now on her conquest, I followed suit like a hagiographer. We were fighting our crusade now, taking religion to far off lands, the religion of questioning faith and freedom. I followed suit to witness history, to document history. The beach was full of moonshine, full of battling waves; the beach was empty so long as our conquest went. I had tears by now, tears of pure joy, of desire, of a new language and its script.

There seemed to be rebellion in far off lands, there was a fire rising, red as blood, sharp as a shot of pain through the spine. Her conquest ended, she went home.

The flight of fancy was now on its waning curve. She wud’nt reveal any more of her secrets. Undaunted, I persist. To know more of her, to look for some hint to the riddle, to unearth that tiny little head. I kept thinking of it, of the layers of thought beneath it, of so many filters that keep out the otherwise mundane world from reaching her.

I don’t know if I slept, I don’t know if I have been sleeping much since. But I keep thinking of her conquest, her queendom and the tiny little head, in day dream, or in dreams; I am not very sure.

Relief

It was just another day. Yet another day, of hitting new lows, of feeling isolated and lonesome, of abject surrender and disillusionment until...Until I got a call from a very special person (best friend is an understatement for him). We don't talk everyday. Infact we talk once in months!. It's been eons i've seen him. But when we spoke, it was as if we were  still teenagers, frenetically hopping from one coaching centre to another, eyes full of dreams, our newly discovered bodies full of experiences! (in a strict sense of personal, self-discovery though, but why am i even giving a clarification!)He was probably high, and I was low! But we spoke as if we were still in class X, as if we had just met an hour back. And I felt so positively reassured, of not having to be alone in Mumbai, of not having to spend too much, of not having to be ALONE at all. Perhaps that is what friendship is, the feeling of absolute comfort, beyond the selfish pillars of P&L accounts. Perhaps it is something more that I am still not able to comprehend. The call left me with a lasting sense of security, of assurance, not only of a comforting person, but of my roots, of my foundations, of my comfort zone. This one is dedicated to you, my comfort zone :)

Sometimes the darkest pall of gloom

Brights up by a conversation most inane

All it takes is a pal, held close to bosom

And memories, of a time carefree and insane

The times ahead will try to gulp

Us, like acquisitions and hostile takeovers

Let’s not pledge, nor be candy floss-pulp

Let’s be us, of the same chai, undies and pullovers!

Us of  teenage, of ambitions and mistakes

Us of  weed, and seeing Time go slow

Us of the unflinching hatred to dictates

Us of reaching new highs and newer lows

Theatrix-Tohfa (adapted from a short story by Sadat Hasan Manto)

A humble effort by Theatrix-the passionate Theatre club of IIM-K, and an integral part of my stay here. It is the rehearsals, the uncertainty till the last second, the thousand goof ups that only we notice on stage- all these give me a welcome breather from the insane, monotonous academic pressure at IIM-K. Theatrix instils pride in each of it's members, a vent for creativity and a confidence to hold our heads high. I am sure to post more of our work here. Like each of my works in this site, my poems or my reflections, the process of labour at Theatrix is similar and the testosterone rush as the curtains fall and the applause begins- no less than being kindly appreciated for a poem.  I wish I had a video of the nukkad we performed at Roobaroo, real proud of that work too

Directed by : Debtanu Dutta
Adapted for stage by : Ashish Tickoo