Once

Once, 

I heard a country music

in the showers of yesterday

where the smell of coconut trees
weaved with the white of clouds.

This country where I had lived,
this country
of wet muds, of rivers and riverines,
whose boats are long dead floras and who must
forget what it owes, to this land and to the
sea, to rivers that flow to thee.

The rains had wet me, when I was young
and I had buried a coin beneath that mud-
when the floods came another year
it took my mud home with a sear, but if


I am not mistaken today,
you can still find the bushes of yesterday,
the coconut trees
still stand right there,
like human beings
that grow in fear. 

Evenings with a Pen

My love for yesterday’s April thunder,

why must you rest asunder?

My love for tomorrow’s  golden summer

only begins when the skies grow dimmer!

My love for every season it seems
is a condition that my weak heart grieves.

..and seasons change and seasons grow
this love is an old friend,

this love is a foe.

Sympathetic

I let in the air sometimes and I let in the light most of the time. When nobody is watching I pat my own head gently. I have always loved dogs and sometimes I adore myself like that, I pat my own head. Perhaps that’s why I am stuck here, perhaps it wasn’t wise to pat my head in a world no body pats their own head. It will rain today, I know this gloom. The smell of mangroves blotting the air in my room, so I am patting my head again. I have kept the window open, let the air in Sinok; that’s how everyone calls me-Sinok like Sindbad.

 There’s a bald patch in my head, the constant patting has made its own sculpture. I think it makes me a bit of a brain-boy: after all I remember when I was little they used to hit my head hard just to make me gulp the value of pi. The value of Pi is three. I don’t believe in decimal places. Speaking of 3, there are two windows in my room and one door. Pi never leaves me alone. Three strands of hair falls out of my scalp every time I pat myself on the head. The other day Mr. Desun arrived with my sketchbook and asked me what I had intended to draw as my last sketch. What could I have told him? It was an experiment to check the girth of lead pencils?

Mr. Desun has a bad habit of snooping around. I don’t know why they make me sketch when I have told them repeatedly it’s not my thing. These uncouth people in aprons- but I kinda like Mr. Desun, at least he lets me write. They all claim to be helping me- I don’t know what’s wrong with patting my head; if I like myself I am going to pat myself in the head.

“What are these lines Mr. Sinok? Why would you draw them like these?”

“I don’t know”

“Well at least you could sketch something? What about those leaves that you see from your window?

“They are too real.”

“What do you mean they are too real?”

“I don’t see the point of sketching something that is real. It already exists there. Why would people look at my painting since it’s already there?”

“ Well, maybe you could paint them differently?”

“But Mr. Desun, I painted them differently.”

“What do you mean?”

“These are leaves from the Planet Moira. They are packets of symmetrical lines, they appear as undulating waves since they flow in a liquid atmosphere of an unknown gas called mero”

“Now where is this planet Moira, Mr. Sinok?”

“I don’t know, it’s not real.”

“I see. I am impressed I must say. So that’s what you mean.

  Let’s look over the crossword shall we?”

“Desun, one more thing…”

“Yes?”

“I still think the value of Pi, is three.”

“We have been over that, Mr.Sinok, haven’t we?”

“But you must listen to me this time, you asked me why I thought so when the whole world was saying otherwise. I think I have found a satisfactory reason for my aberration.”

“Carry on, I am listening. I must say you haven’t patted your head a single time while we were talking.”

“That’s nice of you to mention Sir. It’s just that I know and we both know I don’t belong here. Yes, I have understood that a man is supposed to lose their loved ones by death and then he must grieve. Once the grieving is done he must get over. But as you see, I have always ignored the decimal places, because I think I always took existence as a whole. By rejecting the decimal places I have rejected the inevitability of death from the whole of life. That’s what struck me doctor.”

“That’s one of the most interesting things I have heard in recent times. How is your writing going? You know we won’t look into your notebook. So you are allowed to write absolutely anything that you want to.”

“So you think I am ready to get out of this place?”

“In time. Of course, Sinok.”

It’s been a while I have been here in this place. My room is okay. Lots of stuff to read. A pen to write. Mr. Desun is my supervisor. When I was put in this place, I hadn’t eaten well in days. I had kept patting my head grieving death- death the judge of life. I tried eating a chocolate one day and felt really sick. I had started patting my own head with my right hand and they said I made dog noises, and sometimes I would crawl about my whole apartment. I didn’t receive my calls or checked my mails and my phone had been off for a few days. It was those stupid neighbors who rat me out. Luria and Gage, the nice young fancy couple called up those apron guys and that’s how it all started- my life in the confinements of this villa. I don’t think this villa is for mad people, though in all essence I am still the professor Sinok with a high intellect- a controversial academic whose argument on the rejection of the decimal places had brought forth a new scientific revolution. I wonder what the magazines wrote about me when they heard I was put in here. I wonder how all my rivals and critics had reacted. I have stopped worrying now. I have resigned everything to my fate- very unlikely of me and it’s been okay here for a while.

I am telling you all this so that you don’t think I am mad. I am the guy whom atheists love, who refused to accept the standards the world set. I am the person who believes in the whole- in the absolute, with no vacillations. I am different, I am so different that I am the only person who grieves the death of his servant- I am a loyal soldier. Brucie my dog, my lovely big dog, left me alone here, and what do I do?

I weep and grieve like he would have done, if it had been
me. Am I mad, doctor? 

My Boys.

This boy I was tripping with yesterday was dreamy enough for me. I decided to meet him once again. I knew something irrational would come out of it- something to rekindle my interest in men-folk. 

I knew I was in for a surprise or a disappointment, but sometimes disappoints are surprises too. This is where this story begins -in surprises and in a heart who­se melancholy beats constantly outrun its slow paced and walled life. My story begins on a Monday morning when I should have taken that bus to office, but instead I chose to stay back at home with my pen and my paper. I chose to chew on thoughts and that’s when the bell rang. The boy had arrived on time- he carried with him a paper notebook just like I had instructed. I asked him to read out everything he had written in that notebook since yesterday. He looked a bit perplexed and then opened and started reading it. He minced on as if he was reading from memory and not from the book. I wondered if he had written at all or if he was indeed reciting from memory. I don’t know what he was saying, I paid no attention. I was already craving for him, him as a whole, and not those eyes that were not like eyes. I don’t know what’s with me and all these men who read, I always want them. I want them to read on, I want to play with them, I want them inside me and outside me, and this was one another little boy- who was reading on and on and on. His story was one of the old kings, sphinx, revenge and I don’t remember. It’s always the usual.  

A lot of time must have passed between us when his voice grey heavy and caught my attention. His eyes that were like eyes were glowing and my head felt light. I don’t know what came over to me then. I fell asleep and I must have slept for a long time. My dreams were only about him, it was as always pretty frustrating- I was hoping he would kiss me, fondle my breasts, ravage me, but all these men who read, were hardly such brutes. They were predictably nice. When was the last time I had a brute?

I must have dreamt for a while, and then I woke up. I found myself in my bed, it was well made. I looked around and the boy was nowhere to be seen. I found a notebook by my side, and there was my pen, cap open, my bed sheets stained in the Prussian blue. I would have to summon him again tomorrow, he my unfinished man, they all meet me and then they vanish away, they don’t exist in flesh- they don’t make love to me, they only make me wake up for a while and then they bore me to sleep- my men are mostly one page long, faceless, and with a reading habit.

And I am their mother. 

For Little Jyoti.

Little Jyoti, I hear you are sad, I hear

you are very sad. Sometimes life is such,

and our sadness is like this stain in the

shirt we can't get off- and we feel like

shouting at the top of our voices and we

wonder why life is so sad and unfair- and sometimes

it's just how we feel because we know we can

feel and then one day when all of this sadness 

goes away through the long days of a happy struggle 

and we are 'okay' in happiness, even then we 

always find a little sadness. May be on such days

when you are walking by the streets and you are 

a little sad, smile- think of the days 

when you were really sad and may be life

will fall in places where it's easy to laugh.

Look at those ugly faces around you- take your 

tongue out of your mouth and face the mirror,

you will see how funny and beautiful you are. 

It would be your own happy moment and no one would

know; you will be happy again. You and the 

mirror, and no one would see you, although 

I would secretly wish to, always.  

Little jyoti, you must write on such days when

you are sad, and know that I carry your song

in my heart, your sadness too. Write even when

there's nothing to write, and one more thing

little Jyoti - you must love, like you always

have. Won't you?