Baqaya

Hai thoda hie keher baaki teri rukhsat ka raghon mei

Hai thoda hie keher baaki teri rukhsat ka raghon mei

Koi jumbish teri yaadon ki na pi jaae ye darr lagta hai

Hai kuch boond hie bas aur jo risne ko hain raazi

Koi bosa tere labon pe phootey zeher lagta hai

Tu bunn jae koi chaadar ki jismei chand nazar ae

Mai likh jaau koi ghazal jo teri ankh mei bhar aae

Koi majlis se farmaan ho saza e kafiri keh de

Koi phoonk na jae kaano mei fikar lagta hai

Hai thoda hie keher baaki teri rukhsat ka raghon mei

Koi tujhme mujhe na dhoond jae ab magar lagta hai

Mai koi zaat pariyon ki nahi jo khushbuein pehnu

Na koi noor jannat ka utar aau toh hungaama

Mehez ek raat hu behosh jo ansu ugalva de

Patthar ke badal ko jo bottal mei nigalva de

Na mujhko shayari keh ke dilaase vaaste dena

Na mujko nazm me gadh ke samajhna aayatein keh di

Agar jo ho sakey toh edhiyon ki chot keh dena

Be kharonch be raushni na tu reh jaae ye darr lagta hai

Mai tujhko tolna chaahu taraazu dhoond de koi

Mai gar kuch bolna chaahu talaffus dhoond de koi

Mai tujhse mil ke vehemi hu ya vehemo se hie sehmi hu

Tu moh hai gar mai paheli moond de koi

Hai thoda hie keher baaki teri rukhsat ka raghon mei

Hai thoda hie keher baaki teri rukhsat ka raghon mei

Koi jumbish teri yaadon ki na pi jaae ye darr lagta hai

Dear convenient arrangement.

It’s not the same, we could pretend all night, playing charades of being lovers in the moment. Sometimes intoxicated and sometimes, regrettably not. But I’ll never make you feel the way she can, she who can kiss away the frowns on your forehead and unclench your stubborn fingers.  She who can melt into you like wax in flame and ice in rum, who can leave without leaving a trace and still leave your soul as hollow as a pitted walnut shell.

And nor are you he. He who can walk into a room and change the very air it contains. Who can make my guts clench into a tight pleasant knot with nothing more than a half hug, he who makes me want to crumble into a heap of peanut brittle in warm chocolate, whose hands on a discarded earring feel like a warm patient caress down my bare back. He who has become my temptation, it’s like I’ve been living in a dark Iceland with a fortified igloo around me and suddenly he decided to become the sun and come visiting. It’s like I’ve been welding an intricate cage around me for ages and ages past and in one snap of his fingers, the locks are undone, and the walls are none.

Dear convenient arrangement, my mechanical fingers make you live your fantasies; your experienced hands make me live mine while we accidentally moan a name that does not belong to anyone in the room. And later, we smoke in silence on either corner of the bed, half dressed and fully veiled. “You should come over for dinner sometime…soon…ish.”

I mumble something about a 9.30 meeting and begin to leave, physically.

And until next time we will continue, with our insulated emotions lodged deep into the no escape room of our corroding mind palace. And when the walls are threatening to give away, when the roof is about to collapse, one of us will message the other to get the cello tape and come and the other will promptly oblige.  

And another night of temporary repairs will commence.

“Can I bum a smoke? ... Thanks”

#ItStartsWithMe

Well the news and the stories are rife on the net

And the newspapers for all eyes to see,

While we sip our tea and we click our tongues

There are those who say it starts with me

Would you still go on with your daily life?

If you knew of the kid mutilated by knife?

Would the shake of the head so passive be?

If that molested kid was a kin to thee?

Did you know of all those drugged on the street?

To beg, to bleed and do the dirty deed?

When all hope is lost from their nascent eyes

Gouged with a spoon in the broad daylight?

When girls no older than 4 are sold

To the rich for their pedophilic fancies bold,

And even younger are raped and fed to dogs

While the housewife reads and the policeman hogs.

We preach and preach for a better world,

While under the streetlight he lays curled,

That skinny boy with purple skin

Some still know how bright he had been,

The children are a country’s future they say,

But we owe them a debt we have to pay,

A debt of a future as bright as can be,

And to that I say, #ItStartsWithMe.

Every 10 seconds, a report for child abuse is filed, the estimated number of actual abuse cases is three times more than the reported ones.

1.8 million children go missing every year, many abducted from their homes or backyards.

Child abuse is one of the most serious issues ailing our society, pledge to change it, visit the link and help UNICEF eradicate child abuse! 

Husband

Husband,

Hi there…

Sorry I addressed you as that, but it’s all right isn’t it? In the sense that time will be still somewhere when I think of you, and in that moment you will always be him… Husband, it is only when time will realize that the moment I breathe in now is different from where it is standing still that it will know that you’re now what people call memory.

But that’s okay too isn’t it?

When I fell in love with you all I wanted was for you to be happy, when you fell out of love with me all I wanted was you to be happy. So I got up, wrapped my leftover-ocean of love for you and puddle of self-respect in the shawl around me and left as fast as my feet would allow me too.

You know how I am, how I attach life to inanimate things, how the shirt I stole from you was the one I’d wear when I needed strength and how all it does now is weaken me further. I bought a bottle of your perfume the other day, yes the same one that I bought for you and you started getting “all that attention” in office because suddenly you were “smelling good”.  You still do, in my head, but I hate it when the smell on your shirt was fading away even as I held it (TFIOS much? Yeah yeah) so it still gets its daily dose of AXE. And I still make Khichdi when I miss you.

Don’t expect me to ever heal from you, which might never happen. But don’t expect me to pine for you either.

I have a human heart that can sometimes be broken in so many million pieces that it hurts like a glass shard piercing you eye every time you breathe. But I have super human will, I will never ever want you back, even if you want to come back someday. Because what we had is now gone, it was perfect even with your sloppy sense of humor and my begrudging romance it was perfect. And now it’s just that… “was”

Just give me this… stay happy.

I’ll find my happiness don’t worry, I always do.

Love,

X

Bring Back The Romance

Oh where to has it vanished?

The charming and the chase?

When did men decide?

To skip the wooing phase?

When talking to her once,

Was no less than miraculous fate?

When it took guts and glory

To ask her for a date

Wooing was an art,

To be taught and told

And flowers in full bloom

Were by the dozen sold

Why don’t you come and ask me

“Honor me with a dance?”

Dear men it is upon you

To bring back the romance

Woman don’t be afraid to

Test how earnest the advance

Mon Cherie it is upon you

To bring back the romance

The ardent letters inked

In scarlet desires deep

Let your eyes reveal

The secrets your mouth can keep

Dear men learn to bow

To the beauty of the mind

Invest in conversation

And a diamond you will find

Ladies stop feigning dumbness

Be fierce and fear none

Why settle for a flame

When you’re meant to be the sun

Oh court her like a Queen

Like she is your only chance

Dear men it is upon you

To bring back the romance

And if you crave the stories

That waft from the streets of France

Ladies its up to you,

To bring back the romance