Come now

come
let's look out
the same window

see
differently
together

lift tinted panes
make real
our lives

don't pay heed
to frequent reflections
come now.


let's find
a window

that cajoles
to re arrange
our insides

as it shows
the changing
outside

so we have
only each other
as constant

Published in The Punch Magazine, the Byword on 14/12/2019

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/her-marred-maang-and-other-poems

Architecture and motherhood

You feel like a design problem

I am working on, 

whose submission date 

is not yet fixed, 

by indecisive studio professors 

who want us students 

to work, just a tad bit more.

On nights before a pre-final,

like a tracing full of ideas

yet to be finalised, 

you have the power 

of lingering in my subconscious,

making me jump out 

of intermittent sleep

Each night, to engage with you.

No paper to draw on,

you draw from me what is yours now.

No name plate either;

for your loved ones 

use sounds and words

borrowed from seven languages

whose alphabets cannot be lettered.

I wipe your eye secretions, 

tears and milk stains after a feed,

and your face becomes

a completed cartridge sheet;

smudge free with a few guide lines.

Your few hair strands I comb 

so they settle paralelly

like meticulous 

brick and stone hatches 

drafted within walls.

Every once in a while 

I stick my ear to the floor 

to watch an exactly angled ray 

of sunlight works its magic 

on a sleeping you.

A roughly 1:3 scaled model 

of who you may be 

in 20 years, 

stares back at me;

your myriad expressions 

changing by the millisecond.

Surprised, I have 

an obscenely satisfying thought 

that crosses my mind;

did I just happen to create you?

**Sleeplessness invokes poetry. Written for Chundo :)

Published in The Punch Magazine, the Byword on 14/12/2019

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/her-marred-maang-and-other-poems

Marred maang

Two flailing oiled chotis
slap me out of stupor.
The Goddess arches out
hinged at the pole,
her saucer hands clasped
below mine.

A hooting call answered
with crystal stare
from wideapart eyes
that grazes my shoulder,
wounding me. Incoherent slang
shot through with a nasal twang.

A crisp line scarred
by ghosts of stitches drawn
on scalp with the edge of a comb
down, down the valley
of her marred maang.

The milkmaid, having borne
the consequences
of an agitated udder,
the warrior princess
sporting the memento
of unanticipated victory.

An ecstatic partner
with clammy palms, thrown
off a phugdi rotation,
Devdas marks Paro
with expressions of love
garnished with glass shards.

*** This happened one morning as I shared the foot board of a Mumbai local train with a most astonishing girl, standing in front of me. 

Published in The Punch Magazine, the Byword on 14/12/2019

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/her-marred-maang-and-other-poems