A poem dedicated to my past lovers, make believe friends, and the universe.

Its been a really long time. 

Since I last kissed someone. 

That I feel now that I have never been kissed at all. 

The space between my ears and shoulders has been long empty, 

Forgotten that if it even exists. 

My hipbones and my knees,

They have forgotten whose lips they miss these days. 

The contours of skin are hugged only by sweat and fabric lately. 

Why should this piece of land suffer so much? 

If the mind fails to find love. 

The land has its own list of needs.

Sometimes governed by lust, sometimes confusion.

When you call me fat, 

I hug my mother, 

And lose myself in her breasts. 

When you ridicule my pain of hunger and laugh at my loneliness, 

I feel like eating ice cream from a bath tub. Full of it. 

I imagine myself to be in it too, sometimes. 

I am slowly becoming ignorant to your opinions. 

Does my existence oozing out from my skin is so threatening to you,
that you greet me with insecurity? Each time that we meet?

Go get a life.
And a sandwich for yourself maybe.

This body of mine has been keeping me together. 

Others came and went. 

The body stayed and So did I. 

And you kept running after others to complete you.

There is nothing which can complete us. 

As I am the universe and the universe is me. 

With the flaws and the miracles embraced in one long breathe.

The ghost of Cafe Garden.

chai mein idhar ab woh bhaap nahi,

garam rehti hai fir bhi hamesha

chini-mitti ke pyaale mein.

Yaadon mein ab woh baat nahi

fir bhi basi hai idhar ek bhoot ki tarah

Got a yes in confirmation earlier. Was happy to be making plans about it. To capture it forever before it could be taken down. Like all the other things in life. Before the ghost could consume me, I had to bury Cafe Garden in my own breath for eternity.

Such simple choice of words today. 

Went there a couple of days back. Sat there. Sketched. Wrote. Endless cups of teas and received innumerable number of looks glancing towards me. Took pictures and footages. Thought I will go ahead and make my move. The old kitchen was being broken down. I heard the flooring is going to be changed. I later heard that the place will be shut for a month. Shit. How will I paint on my canvas now? How will I ever going to frame it on the walls of my memories now? For a change I sat for more than required. For a change I romanticized with my reality with this city a little more in all it's glorified loneliness. For a change the bill was not of Rs.78, but of Rs.130. A cup and bun maska extra. I was scared if the yellow old dirty walls and ceilings will be replaced too. So much change, so much irony, so much symbolism with regards to my own reality. 

But luckily I have been missing the ghost by a few minutes or hours or days every time. So much so, that If I ever come across this ghost, the ghost of cafe garden that is, it won't be a mere co-incidence. It will just be a resident ghost visiting his own yard of thoughts other than his mind. And me, the haunted migrant to this city, picking up the pieces of my past to be taken and submerged away in the deep waters of some delta forming zone of the world. At least someday. I am not sure the pressure of the water bodies will be enough though. Deltas seem slow. Like the end of certain relationships. Like the end of the relationship of the river with the land beneath. 

good for nothing rolls. But pretty looking rolls. Panchgani ones are better.

Not for me. Only for the people at the cash counter.

I feel like this cup sometimes

Maybe the ghost sleeps inside the middle one

And when Im not here, It sits on that chair.

Back to self-obsession.

Just another attempt to shoo away the ghosts.

The Almighty one which has almost seen it all. But the ghost knows better. 

It lives in these chipped off crevices I think

I change my position. Some sort of scarred symmetry.  

That place seems safe. My favorite spot. The last one in the corner.
But not that day since the flooring was going through renovation.
Water tank issues. Yes, the tank had broken down that day instead of me.

Who knows whether the recent changes are bothering him as well?
It's a an old establishment. From the 60s. Or maybe he is just submerged in his phone.
Look around dude! The plug points are more interesting here. 

What if the ghost breaks through this 'roshan-daan'? 

Or make this part of the ceiling rot too? 

I bet it can't break through the metal part of the ceiling.
Maybe one day I will be as solid as those beams and balance myself out too. 

Does Munna, my imaginary friend, looks at his reflection
in this only available mirror sometimes? 

Munna is not the ghost, you know. He is the migrant.
But that table used to be my favorite too.
But now nothing is permanent.
'Favorite' changes. 

So much uncertainty was today. So much dilemma. This place is dilemma. Some people scratch nostalgia out of dilemma and call it romance. The yellow here speaks of pure melancholia at times. Is that what I have been assuming as romance all this while?

I assumed that the place did not want to be captured. Maybe it wants to be captured by someone else. Who 'maybe' loves it more than me. Feels more possessive about it. I am certainly not. I need to go one day. I am practicing the art of detachment everyday. Surprisingly, the forces have been going strong. I like to tell that myself everyday. 

The universe opened up and gave me other options. Opportunities. That is how it is going to be. 

A similar ghost once asked me, "Shubhanshi, why do want to be a film maker?" 

I remained silent. Like always. After a few hours I realized, maybe I will myself know the answer, once I have made a few good films myself. 

After an year, even though I still haven't, all I can say is, or ask myself rather, why is it that, films want to be made by me? What have I done to earn such respect from a story that it wants to be made by me? Hope I get the answer soon. Otherwise I am wasting everyone's time. 

That evening I think I saw the ghost. That night, I could not sleep in my bed. I twisted and turned till 3:30 am. Then I thought of the ghost. The ghost put me to sleep. The more I saw the ghost as that was the only time I could spend time with him, the more my eyes and body refused to move. Probably he was the best place to visit in all of this city after all. I had comfort to myself at least. I din't feel haunted anymore. I just had to accept the ghost. 

I sat on my second favorite table next to the grill at cafe garden today. After a long walk through the dastur meher's and the taboot gali, I sat. To my delight, Naseer khan was back at the cafe post gallstone surgery. I could have asked him for permission to shoot there. But by that time motherearth had given me what I needed. I thought to myself (and dear Pragya, this is for you), somethings better be non-judged-non-analysed-unfilmed ( vocab-lord is gonna kill me) and what not. I understood the importance of the word 'personal'. The ghost was trying to tell me something. No matter what I do, I cannot capture the ghost on film. Maybe someone else will one day. Good for that person. But to see your personal feelings getting criticized is not a nice feeling.  

Capturing this personal space is like filming yourself having sex with your loved one and sharing it around with the world. The only thing being disrespected and at stake is the experience itself. The experience will be so upset with you that it won't happen to you ever again. The same happened with Rajhans. But I am happy about it. It was some sort of a brainwash. But it wasn't happy when it happened with the other ghosts. 

That's why I did not try for the permission. Let the place be. At least for once, one emotion of my life should not be made public. Images are fine. Soundless, movement-less, harmless. 

Also giving a chance to the one who gave me priority first was important too. So Plan b is not always like a bad compromise all the time. 

The ride back to the dusty land was unusually beautiful. I was without my camera so I was soaking in the visual tapestry of this world even more. 

Enough abusing of time. Time to sleep. Without the ghost hopefully. 

Incomplete व्याकरण

lakdi ke takhat par
naram baazu ke sirhaane
kat-har jaisi neek gardan ka
maathe se chhu karke ghisna
aur talvon ko ek dusre ka araam

geeli kaayi pe nange paav chalke
silvatte pe pisi mehendi ki bu
umas mein liptee aagosho bhari raat
ke baad jo garam silvatein dekhi thi
taaze bistar pe
angoothon ke chimti ke khel ke baad
hota edi ke ragadne se ek abhaas

jaise deh ke rongton ne ki ek dusro se kaanafoosi
toh girti seelan se ladi deewar pe ki papdi
baahar sadke bheegti iss boonda-baandi ke shor mein
phir bhi pardo ke gali se khambo ka rukta nahin 
kabhi shikaayat karna
aur kaano ke daaton tale kutarna
taalu ko yaad rehta hamesha
aur anishchit karvaton mein
has-ro ke ghum hojaana neend mein

udhaar rahega mujhpar yeh
adhoora saraansh tumhara

Sahyadri and the reclaimed lands.

he wakes up and looks at the ceiling. Ceiling Fan.

She is already in the kitchen. Boiling Milk.

he closes his eyes. the Sayhadris.

She looks out of the window. adds tealeaf.

He comes and stands behind her. kiss on the nape.

She covers the heated vessel with a lid. Brings down the boil.

He talks about erosion. How he feels at par with the western ghats. How he remembers the crayons and the monsoon and his childhood packed in a crayon box. The color of the transparent water in the lake nearby. He is vanishing and feeling eroded like the Sahyadris. He says.
The Western Ghats and it's magical days.

She tries to forget all this. All of this.
 The sound of bacon frying in its own fat.
The horrible lustful smell of it.
 Through the window she sees the white flowers falling.
 She throws these images outside the window.
Out of each and every possible window.
Color temperature of life SHIFTS

Pours herself a cup. Sits on the sofa. It's without milk this time.
Not like the last night. Not like the last morning.
Nothing is the same. A is not equal to a,
And B is not equal to b.









Looking at new flowers and rays.
Fitting feet in the painful leather again.
Without hanging onto the past again.
Stepping out, once again.
Mosaic is more romantic than marble she says.

She will soon go to the shore. Let the old memories sink into
the sea along with the golden drop of Sun.
The people standing against this background
in a silhouette will too forget her soon
The unfortunate maternal love
this land presented her with,
will happily disown her too 

 A drop of gold. She likes to call the Sun.

* Parts of Stanza 1 and 2 are inspired and partially taken respectively by the works of an upcoming Indian writer/ photojournalist and film maker Ishan Sadwelkar. The Sahyadri metaphor is a part of his extensive study and understanding on the region. 

* The pictures have been clicked by me at Sinhagadh fort(lies in Sahyadri range), my lovely Kitu Gupta's house in Mumbai and the 'arabian sea-the shore-the all and ever accepting endless horizon' seen from Juhu Chowpatty. 

bhaari post

There are some days in MITID, my college, that make me feel like I am actually in a college. All thanks to some really talented friends and faculty which know how to teach and inculcate the habit of expressing ourselves on a regular basis. It is just that it is not so often that one does so. The open elective course in our 6th sem brings out the best of us. I did mine last year which made me go through a carrier change and a reformation phase in life. Well it's not that hardcore too. I don't mean to give any wrong ideas here. It's a course in which us 'design' students are made to choose from a list of activities other than their own departments.

You will come across a Retail student working on a sewing machine figuring out the stitch for his vest, a product student dying endless ropes for an elective in weaving, a graphic design student understanding how zeebrush works. And same goes for everyone else. It's like acquiring a new skill-set all together and not being under the pressure of doing it to get marks, but to have a product by the end of it all.

This year's highlight for me was the comic illustration O.E. conducted by Aroop Sir from the animation department. Some of the panels were so good that made me laugh at and enjoy the very reason of our existence in this place. Humor often comes out from a tragedy. And the students came up with hilarious visuals of the day to day life we spend here at mitid. Some choose to sulk over the problems and some come up with light hearted comical visuals to eradicate the misery temporarily, which does no harm to anyone :-)

I don't really know who has done what, but just sharing the stuff students had done during the course. These were one/two/three panel artboards for comic design. Took all the snaps in a hurry as I had to catch my train to Mumbai. Was lazy to crop and compose (like always). Also, scanner was not the feasible option at that moment. The folks currently at Mitid would empathize with me :-P