Escape.

The moment of despair began with a morning of unfulfilled promises,

when everything came undone,

word by word,

inch by inch,

memory by memory,

I shook my mind as I prepared for the day,

where even the most exciting possibilities seemed sordid,

when food tasted rubbish,

and books held stories I couldn't mouth,

as the day began to progress,

the noon turned into a gloomy little evening,

with a sunset too bland,

on the dinner table, as I sat across my own reflection,

I realized that no one escapes unscathed,

from this wretched thing called love.

You Signed Up for This.

Every time I say you signed up for this,

I wonder if you imagined our togetherness differently,

Because life is built on unfulfilled fantasies and

unchartered territories,

The idea of love as shown in movies is a fable that we are miles away from,

Even if we're grappling in the dark praying to reach the shores of the kind of love we fancied, we might not,

The standards, I guess, were always a fabrication of our silly minds to mock us at what we cannot score,

Maybe I cannot promise you the fantasy,

Maybe I should not,

Because what I can offer you is, a different kind of love,

The one, that's ours, and probably not a figment of imagination,

On days when the sun refuses to shine and you gnaw your own mind, I'll remind you of the person you are,

I won't be the one rescuing you, but I will turn every dark day into a funny poem that you can recall on a day you'll not have me around,

On nights when you find my reason beyond any measure of sanity, I will rather give you a reason, to look beyond the measures,

Because who decides what's sane and what's not?

And on afternoons when time comes to a halt as we sit facing each other at a lunch table, I will  try not to fill the silence with words,

Even when words come easily to me, I will let you be,

For I don't squander love and words,

For when they are uttered, they ruin the possibilities of fathomable probabilities making way for the ineffabilities that my heart isn't made for,

So, take my silence and inability of expressing our bond,

But don't put them in that big brown box with labels, that is due for a return,

Instead, help me in carving them for our wants and needs.

A Little Luxury.

When I was sixteen, I was given my first mobile phone. It did not have high-end features, but it had a radio. For reasons many, I was content with just that. I frequently stayed up late for studying or reading and found FM as my only companion. Sitting next to the window, I listened to the late night talk shows which were catching up in those days. Radio jockeys with an intense human connect, people going home from work or movies, and lovers going through heartbreaks - no matter what, everyone poured their souls out without any fear of seeming vulnerable.

Even before I had the freedom of exploring blogs and platforms where people had the power to share their experiences, I heard people talking about them on radio. I could hear them, sense their apprehensions, understand their joy and often hear what's unsaid and listen to their suppressed tears. I knew regular callers and I knew what exactly they would talk about. Maybe I saw a pattern in everything they shared. Or every failure they tended to ever so carefully.

As a child, I was told by my elders that a radio was the single most powerful device which connected you with the world outside. If my grandfather knew about India's independence, it was through a radio and if my mother heard a movie review, it too was through a radio. I mean, imagine the days when there was no TV, but only a certain voice emanating from a device. A certain voice without a face that everyone relied on.

Over the number of years, the way we procure information has exponentially changed. Now that I think about it, I don't plug in my earphones to hear the news on the FM as I did when I was a teenager. Because Google Assistant religiously updates me, every morning. Funnily enough, I don't even read them. On odd days, I turn on the radio on my way to work only to be bombarded with advertisements. And with so many of them.

What must have thrilled people around 60 years ago (or even 8 years ago), definitely doesn't anymore. A lot has changed in these years - my mobile phone with all the greatest of features that one can ask for does not even support something as basic as a radio. I remember being shocked at it when I was unboxing it.

"How can it not have a radio?"

I asked a couple of friends who never responded to my fury, appropriately. But as someone who literally spent several nights discovering new artists and albums on the radio or by receiving book suggestions from certain RJs, I wonder if our next generations will ever enjoy this simple luxury.

If they'll ever know that they can simply plug into the radio to feel a little less lonely during nights.

An Unsung Song.

I remember the first time I saw you,

I was younger, and so were you,

The lights, like you, were at a proximity which was morosely faraway.

There was music in my head, which kept me oblivious to everything around,

Maybe even to the music that was played in the coffee shop.

Reticence and silence were lying astray in the air between us,

Like an unsung song whose lyrics I knew, but never the tune.

But even before we realized, we build a fort around awkward hushes and masked emotions,

The secret path to this fort, as someone once said, was not giving in to the urges.

We could have given in to it. Maybe we should have,

Instead, we made a deal with our mystical little minds,

To replace our hearts desires with vague reassurances and unsure answers.

Because in a battle between wants and needs, we were neither,

Maybe we were in-between but never enough to create symphonies.

Going back to the day when we first met, I now realize that,

Love was never our cup of tea,

It never was our humble abode.

Respite.

(Originally written for Paragraph.)

On a walk that deemed unfit for a cold winter night, he set off in a direction he never took before. The soles of his shoes were barely firm to protect his feet, but the condition of his windcheater was even worse. The streets were desolate as he paused under every streetlight before he moved any further and the wild wind did no good to his chapped cheeks. For a moment, he wondered if he was going in circles agonizing over the only shelter he left behind. Having no option left and no human in sight, he ran, engulfing himself in darkness and cold. He came to a halt when he saw a distant light. Catching his breath and senses, he approached the light. When he came close, he noticed that it was an all-night library. Glad to have found a roof for the night, he went in to find himself surrounded by large bookshelves and his long-lost lofty dreams. Life and blood rushed back to his cheeks as he held the hardcovers and inhaled the scent of the paperbacks. Maybe the world of fiction did more to the homeless than reality.

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Twenty For a Friend.

Too many worthless days were spent in search of a friend,

Who could fill the void of afternoon shadows.

The nights were also spent in vain,

For I found none who could ease my 3 AM panic attacks.

In an inordinately self-conceited manner, I pursued my search,

Sometimes, there was a sign.

The other times, it was just my imagination.

One evening, I was taking a stroll in the neighbourhood,

The sun was setting afar and the birds were cooing in silence.

Familiar face turned up at the park I was walking by,

Lost among those familiar faces was an unfamiliar one - a street hawker with a hoard of second-hand books.

Funny how I ignored and walked past his space for the next five days,

Because who knew I'd find what I was looking for, right there?

Late one rainy night when I ended up near his store for shelter, he insisted I take a book.

But for a person who never read, what am I to do with a book?

Leaving me with no choice, I quickly began to scan the books,

There was Munshi Premchand, Robert Ludlum, Jeffrey Archer and more.

Tucked in the corner was one Raymond Carver's book with fuzzy ends and stains,

Even weeks after I bought it, it only rested majestically on my wooden shelf.

Dust and mites became its friends and it kept gathering more in time,

Before I picked it one shameful night to discard it away.

The first page of it held a handwritten note:

"Nights are brutal and mornings are cruel.

But for all the moments that are unpleasant, fill my words and love to your heart's content."

Fascinated by the little note, I delved into the short stories hoping to find an inner meaning,

When I found none, I spent more worthless days and nights in vain,

Trying harder and looking deeper for something I had no clue about.

But when all else failed, I found what I was looking for - a friend,

A friend who sometimes was my pillow of comfort but mostly a reality check I desired,

A friend who was the best 20 rupees I ever invested in.

Do friendships always come with a price?

The Discomfort of Looking At You.

One...two...three...

She kept counting till hundred to avoid the discomfort of looking at you.

With a daylight of difference between what you both were and what you both aren't,

With months of space between being in love and being broken by love,

And now with just a tiny, largely inconsiderable amount of distance from where you sat,

She found her thoughts fumbling and lips trembling.

The sound of your name and the familiarity of your scent did no good to her fleeting emotions. But she had to avoid the discomfort of looking at you.

So, she looked across the room to shift her focus and the broken heart from your twisting fingers. The girl on your side was having her wine with no little interest and the man beside her was struggling with his shoelace.

She counted 5 chairs, two inflated bean bags, and an unkempt bed sheet. There were bookmarks without any sight of books and a box of vinyl records without labels.

And then there was a flickering bulb and shattered pieces of glass from last night.

She always knew your friends were wild but you, you were different. You were the solace to her calamity and the silence to her chaos.

You never liked mess just the way you never knew how to make one.

Everyone around you knew she was regarding things in the room to avoid the discomfort of looking at you. Maybe you did too, but you chose to ignore it. Even when your eyes met, ephemerally. A lot of unsaid, unsavoury words hung in the air and more importantly, the luscious days of youth you spent together brought back flashes of memories she refused to revisit.

One hundred...One hundred and one...One hundred and two...

She kept counting without a pause to avoid looking at you.

But as she sat in this room with you, living and breathing the same air as you did,

She only hoped that she could rebuild her life on words, and this time, without you in between the lines.