Just another Angel story

His father was the only martyr in the local factory lockout

The police-station said “Go back home, it’s politically sensitive. Too risky to even lodge a complaint.”

The workers’ party had organized for a ceremonial one evening. One speaker even shed tears on stage

The money that the local minster promised- never came in however.

The mother eventually started going to work somewhere-deep in the night

And every morning she would come back & cry for some odd reason.

One night it was raining heavy & some drunken men dragged her out of home

No one knows why she hasn't ever returned after that .It’s been more than a year now.

A 10 year old boy & an even younger sister at home – perennial hunger for company

Just when he was convinced that the world doesn't care, a messiah came knocking at the door.

It was early morning and he had brought rice with him ... some milk for the little sister

“There’s another world beyond the world you've seen” he said “Come. I will take you there “

These days, he goes for early morning classes: they've shown him videos & narrated incidences

Countless are suffering around the world. “And you will stand up for all of them”- the messiah said.

Next week, his training to be a suicide-bomber begins: he’d overheard. “What’s that?”- He asked

“We are training you to be an Angel. And then, you shall fly to the other world”

My maid and one bottle of water

In all the last few decades, it’s this year:they say is the heaviest drought in Maharashtra

My taps & my washbasins however have a lot of water

Some I brush my teeth with, twice a Day. With some I take bath with exotic shower gels

And the rest flows out, non-stop & free-flow: as I talk on phone or one of the other 100 reasons

Now, if I can afford, why do I care? Anyways ‘water day’ and environment are all mere tokenisms...

 

The maid who comes to my place lives in one of those slums that dot the entire city

And every day she fills a bottle of water that she’ll carry back home.

(Her slum does not have regular water supply & some such story she’d said once)

My maid, the old and fragile lady we lovingly call ‘Bai’, often says ‘Babu don’t waste so much water’

And I teasingly reply ‘Bai, don’t be jealous. Take back as much water you want’

She doesn’t reply , smiles slightly and proceeds to other household chores...

 

But that day she said something very scary.

Her son works as a ward-boy in a large city-hospital

An insignificant job-profile, a meagre salary but he is learning a lot on the job she says.

A very rich man was admitted to the hospital...

And as he was breathing his last one night, my old and fragile Bai’s son was the only one by his side.

‘Get me a little water’ ‘Get me a little water’: the rich man kept panting

The last voice he heard before death was cold and unaffected

‘Sorry Sir, today the hospital has run out of the last drop of water’

 

These days I wake up at midnight, thirsty, sweating- hangover of a nightmare

As I drink a glassful, I get up. Check my taps and washbasins again, seal them tighter

Don’t know the water that I’ve started saving now: where it goes and who stores it?

But all that I know is:

Soon I will be old & senile and I will be dying.

And I don’t want to go to the same hospital, that same ward: the same ‘insignificant’ ward-boy.

 

‘Sharabi’ *

Why do I get ‘drunk’ every time I sit to have just 'one drink'?

This evening and this place, that evening and that place

Why is it that as I drink, I think (of you)

Of that you and about all that time that we ever had together

And all those dreams seen with both our eyes, but realized by none …

What if you were here with me now?

What if I could talk to you, if I could feel your breath? and if you could be mine, till the end of time

And with all those ‘if’, I take that one more sip

And with that sip, I take the dip deeper and deeper into the enigma called ‘you’

No regret and no fear, just we together and together we travel a light-year …

Why is it so …that as I think more (of you and you) … I drink more

Till all circumstances and surroundings drop into forgetfulness

Till I fail to remember that there is a house to get back to and things to do

Till me, the bloody ‘sharabi’ gets pushed out by the waiter

No sense or no conscience …me the king ‘sharabi’ sleeps nightlong by the roadside gutter

And that finally gets some peace … and there is no worry and neither any pain

Just to wake up disturbed in the sunshine of the day and again question …

Do I get drunk to forget you or get inches closer each single night?  

 Is it the haze of your absence or the mist of the drink?

And life meanwhile continues to be just another interval between two alcoholic drinks

*’Sharabi’ in Hindi means drunkard

Butterflies

Sweetheart, Let me start with the story of 'Those butterflies’

Remember the first time we had met

Me, just the college going lad, spectacled, a little out of fashion hair …rolled up shirt, slightly torn denim

You the princess@ next lane, no idea how many heart- fails your beauty had caused by then

Ohh those stunning eyes and sparkling skin, radiant hair and the joyful heart within …

You remember first time that our gazes had met …that ‘red and red’ blush you had all over your face

You know what I felt then?  Let me see how much you know me .come on give it a guess

Ok let me say … that very day ,I knew you are my first love and will be my last love

And that is when, ‘they’ came,they hugged , as I kept looking at you ,‘they’ invaded me, and gently kissed my eyes

They spread with élan, from my eyes to  my heart and to my stomach, and all that is mine,the story of ‘those butterflies’                            

 Sweetheart, you need to hear me out still, today is a ‘nice’ day and I want to put our love-logue on reel

That red on your face … painted my heart red ….like red perpetually and red without end

And since that day …to make you smile, I could walk a thousand mile

The 1^st thing I ever wanted was ‘you’ … the second thing I  wanted was ‘you’ and the only thing I ever wanted was ‘you’

(That thought puts me to a nice dream …let me wake up)

Haha … if I think, it makes me grin … how strange all these passing years since then, have been

My spectacles have given way to lenses and the college boy in me has grown into a man

My love for you grew exponentially as you grew up to be the most beautiful lady in this planet

(Although the ‘red ‘ on your face these days  seems less natural and more the cosmetics that you apply)

And your love ...ohh your love has grown, bigger, better and ripe

... not for me ,but for all the other men that have come into your life

Sweetheart how could it be, that same ‘you’ loves someone and that someone is not me

And you my sweetheart never for a moment  thought you would have to pay a price

For breaking my faith, raking my brain …taking away all ‘those butterflies’ …

The first time you ‘cheated’ … I thought my fault still and I had slapped myself hard, consoled my heart

Thus, First time slapped

Second time slapped (as you cheated me again)

Third time slapped (and yet again)

And the Fourth time I have stabbed and I have stabbed with a big sharp knife,right here today,right  across your heart

And now my sweetheart as you lie in front of me, still and tranquil, and so beautifully closed eyes

And that lips and that skin and hair and majesty …sweetheart I can again feel the butterflies

And this is the story of ‘these butterflies’ and they will stay with me forever and ever

Now no more he, it is just you and me …ohh in demise you did such an awesome surrender…

And as you lie, still and dead ,With the blood that’s oozing out from the big knife injury , I shall paint you red

Now no more he, it is just you and me …that same room of mine, in this same bed

Sweetheart, You remain still …and just feel …feel as I touch you, one one inch one one time

And with the butterflies all over now, I shall make love to you as if I was making love to you first time all over again

As if it was just the college boy and just the 'princess of the next lane'

We shall freeze this moment, preserve this love, the ’red’ in you and the butterflies forever from now

( A dangerous fictional character somewhere deep inside us ,just murdered 'his girlfriend' ... )

Crisis

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

Is it what the school-book in geography said?

One billion plus of diverse populace, lakhs of kilometer square of green splendor…rivers, sea

A bounty of beauty between Kashmir to Kanyakumari, islands of dream, valleys of tranquility

Is it what the history teacher taught?

The ‘jewel’ in the crown and all the Badshahs and kings. Those temples and mosques

The valiant freedom fighters. ’give me blood and I shall give you freedom’ … ‘swaraj is my …’

The Right to freedom, collectivism and all that is written (and buried perhaps) about equality

Or is it what I see every day?

The story of open pot holes, dustbins and of all those who struggle to get an ounce of rice, inches of shelter

Those children who polish shoes, begs at signals and get sexually abused in the pavements at nights

All the elegant men in town …who never care, pause to share and as if Darwinian “Survival of the fittest’ was just meant for them

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

I travel with fear and I do not talk to strangers … I get shot by the Maoist, slapped by terrorist

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

I blow up trains in Mumbai, open fire in Delhi…murder countless in the northern valley every day

Is it me or my alter ego?

At times I am equality in diversity and at other times I divide my men on language and state

I decide whom to kill and when to kill but never get a chance to ‘choose’ when I would die.

I play ‘just a man’, a super man , the oppressed meager, the naked king ,best dressed city men

It is neither me nor my alter ego

who can tell ‘what should I do?’ where would I find a shoulder to share my insecurity, to cry out loud’?

There is maybe, nothing called ‘me’, no place here that I belong to

I am just at mercy of all the shadows that carry the detonator and the trigger and kill men everyday all around

Feeble me, do not even have strength to call a zihaad against them ‘all’

'Loss'

(One of my friend's grand mom, whom she lovingly called 'ammu' from childhood lived a low key selfless life, so much so that leaving herself possibly there was nobody in her immediate family who cared for her in the final days. ‘Ammu’ passed away a week back ...)

She lived a life that was nothing but misery

and then she decided ...she would 'sleep forever' from now on

Her ailing husband realized what a darling she had been

Her errant son finally cried

Stubborn son in law stood speechless

Daughter stood defeated, daughter in law as if the roof over head had just gotten apart

When she lived she had lost the battle of life

But in death she won over all whom she had lost to.

Just that small girl sitting and silently weeping in the corner

Her 'ammu' was the best all the time she had lived

and now she knows her 'ammu' will never wake up again.

The old lady won it all in eventuality… but can never compensate for the 'loss' to this girl.

Illicit

I am in pain and the pain I don’t know if I should share

Don’t know whether to say this or to with hold, I don’t know if you even care

I have a girlfriend whom I want to marry

Another life that I want to live

I have planned the name of our children with her

The colors of the wall of our home …1st,2^nd trips after marriage

I wonder if to someone ‘third’ I could tell it all

But yes, my heart does fetter, soul and conscience in a constant brawl

I love her but I come back to you

And I love her more just to come back to you more and again

What is love and what is ‘illicit’?

So many times I ask and every time I have no answer

Probably its better being  in the darkness of ‘self-denial’.