One of the things she is made up of

I don't have time or the mind to put individual captions to the pictures. The week I spent in Allahabad was full of reminders of how my life could be or would have been along with the 'nots'. 

Education, childhood, wedding, freedom to do certain things or not do certain things. 

To get married when I want or don't want. To follow the rituals that take place the entire night. The gaali singing, so many people, old and young. Some with central Indian influences and others with bengali. All mixed up. The aaltaa and the haldi and the orange sindoor. All mixed up. 

Things that are exclusive to the culture I belong to. Then I feel what is this culture that I really belong to. My roots that span out from a small village in Uttar Pradesh-Bihar and till West Bengal. The eastern Uttar Pradesh Belt. As I retire for the night and brush away random thoughts which are both negative and positive, as I realize that I have nothing left to say, signing off on a visual note will be apt. I feel I have words but nothing worth mentioning here. 

Last few chapters

Dipping feet in puddles
as I wash the muck away
stuck in my black and green methiyadi's
for 45 minutes I've been doing this,
Infinite number of deja vu's
flash right across my eyes
in the form all the red buses

one goes to kothrud
next goes to Pune station
the other one goes to another destination
where I don't belong to
I wait as my offwhite ikkat kurta
continues to get drenched.
The only time I get rescued from the drops
is when an occasional cover from
a stranger's umbrella
pass by me, to catch that
Kothrud or Swargate or station bus.
Sometimes it's only till Shivaji Nagar.

What if one of those Umbrellas have
the same destination as mine.
Now I get a burp.
I can taste the night
in my mouth.
The whiskey
The Tobacco
The laughter
and the pain

I see an old man.
Waiting for a bus. Shivering in this rain and cold.
We are in a similar state of mind it seems.
He is limping. I am numb.
He is pale. I am scared.
I think I am him.
And he is me.

The wait has made me
acknowledge the taste of bitter things.
Spiked with subtle sweetness,
CHEAP BLACK COFFEE.

Mint lemon ginger has vanished
all of a sudden.
Comfort has been replaced by a kick in my face.
The throat misses the warmth of my favorite tea.
I have stopped dreaming these days.
And the smell of the horrible black coffee
brings me back to reality each day.
And keeps me awake and awake.
And lets me forget the embraces and the warmth
that I don't deserve anymore. Or need anymore.
At least that is what i tell myself.

I am standing on a little slope now.
Under the Katraj bridge.
Where buses to my destination refuse
to be on time.
And the rain continues to flow down
like a stream.
As If Im walking down the Katraj hills.
Shall we make paperboats?
My chappal decides to get off my right foot
and goes with the flow.
It wants to join the frolic of the puddle maybe.
Accompanied by a small make-believe paperboat?

I wake up again
Smell the imaginary coffee.
And still wait for my bus.
To be greeted with the cup
of lemon ginger mint tea in the end.

Yeh hai rang mere Sulemani ka. Aur Tumhari? 

I am bad at haikus. And short-lived happy experiences. I hate common names.

Red ants trembling 

on skin

- of warm bodies

aloe vera mixed with sweat

his scent on my skin

-a breezy hilltop

rain outside the window

drops on the rickety bed

inside.

warmth of the 

textured bedsheet

- a substitute lover

lessons in kissing

through the deep forests 

of your body

- nothing but waste.

As you exploited my space. 

Questions. 

What makes you go silent? You and me on that hill.

3 things you think about the most? one...two...three

What kind of a lover you are? Needy and a Provider. You suck. 

And you have sucked the need out of me. The need to provide anymore. 

He often complained about her not looking back with a parting smile and a 'see you again' smile on her face. By the time she learnt how to do it, there was no one left behind to say bye to.
He was long lost in the woods he came back from.

Kal Nazaara tha lekin yeh aankhein nahi thi.
Aaj aankhein mili, toh nazaara gaya.
- by some big shot shaayar whose name I can't recall right now.

Sex

Films

Past mistakes. And you. Three things. 

These days in this cold weather, every time on a lazy afternoon when I am contemplating life and other mishaps, and the electricity goes off and the wifi stops working, I realize how useless the ceiling fan is. I try to save electricity as my surroundings provide all the warmth that I need to heal myself. And then when the electricity comes back and the fan starts moving again, I turn the regulator to zero. That's what I like to feel sometimes. Zero. But infinitely warm.

He said he could not sing. Then they both had conversation through dreams and bodies.
It was her turn to ask now. " How do you feel?"
His senses broke into a song by James Brown called ' I feel good'.
She found love in the mad unstoppable laughter. She found love in an honest but yet to be discovered lie.

Poem time. Because Haikus are painful. And short lived. Just like you. 

I will not attach
The beauty of the weather outside
To my words anymore
All you need to know is that
The ink I am using
Is green on paper.

I take you through the woods
we are leaving a trail of footsteps behind
On the wet laterite soil
And fallen leaves
How we have been/seemed hungry
For the lush, the alive. (this is my favorite line too)

As we walk and listen to
The rain falling on the trees
Protecting us from the white sun
I can smell the scent of jackfruit ripening
From a distance

I can hear
your breathe on my back
The rhythm of the pace
Releasing me of my thousand million knots
I don't know where is this poem going
Just like I don't know where we are.
( hell now I do)
Maybe we need to sit.
And follow the path of this poem
and the road and the white sun
And maybe live our entire journey,
the journey in this small friction of a second.

And now you have became a painful knot.

I wasn't kidding about the Jackfruit though. 

 Also these days, It only rains when Im feeling sad. What relation you have with me rains?
I used to be happy when you poured yourself down on me. Earlier. This year, you have been just laughing at my pain. I miss when you blessed me with your lovely 'paaus'. And your 'kosaa-bosaa'. What happened this time? But since its almost 11:30 in the night and you are happening again over me, I shall dedicate this to you. You make me happy even while mocking me.

Our last poetry together.