My will

To you, my daughter, i gift my smile
Take it with you when you build those bridges,
For it will better stand the test of time.
Use it often on the old and young,
For a smile speaks of hope,
Where words and gestures fail.

To you, my little one i give my dreams
For it is they that have carried me this far
Carry them in your sleeve,
Wear them in your heart,
Drown in them each time you come upon
Unknown terrain, unseen fears,
You’ll find them handy enough to mould
Your life the way you want it to be.

To you my parents, i leave my memories
Dwell on them, each time you cry
And listen to them sing you lullabies
With time, they’ll teach you to let go
Like you have done many a time before.


To you, the one who shares our parentage,
I entrust my hopes, for it will be up to you
To carry forward the wonders of our lives,
To remind the future of where we came from,
And where we belong.

To my friends, i wrap around you my warmth,
Lest you ever feel the empty spaces where
We laid over endless cups of coffee,
Our threadbare lives.

And to you, my love i leave nothing.
Nothing save freedom from everything
That binds you to me.

on flipkart!

my first book of poetry! on flipkart! gosh! thrilled, yes. nervous, yes. :)

'The Voices Never Stop'
Writers Workshop, Kolkata

and now, me

For how long will you remember me?
Gone as I am already from the pages
Of your newspapers
And headlines on your television

You will remember me of course,
In fleeting glimpses
When another like me is molested,
Another girl child is drowned,
A mother’s foetus ripped because
She will birth her own kind,
a bride's cries stifled,
or set afire


You will remember
When my tormentors are brought to book,
When they are hanged
Or sentenced to life

When governments swear by their children
And their mothers
To never let this happen
Only to play witness again
And again
And again.

And then again,
You will eulogise me
When you light candles in my memory
Year after year


Alas!
You will also forget
In the mundaneness of your life
In the everyday struggles you must meet
In order to survive

You will forget
When you see beauty around you
Happiness, joy and innocence
And you will then
Foolishly believe
That life is still beautiful.
And that there is still hope.

You will forget
Because it is scary to remember.


How many more of us will it take
For you to not just remember
But never forget?



numerous verses on the internet on Nirbhaya. but for how long will we remember?

borderless

Take me back to a time
Before borders separated men.
Before flags proclaiming nationhood
Fluttered against a borderless sky.

Take me back to those moments
When love was free to exchange
And humans held on to the ability to wonder
And smile at differences between them.

Take me back to the world
That once was one.
Where it didn’t matter how rice was cooked
Or meat was had
Or jewels worn
When all that mattered
Was the gratitude of being alive.

Take me back to the terrain
Where the earth still smelled like herself
When the sky and seas were still azure
And didn’t need the illusion of perfection,
For they were already so.

Take me back in time
Where women knew their might
Without having to proclaim so
Where children grew alongside the wild
Without knowing fear or despair.

Turn back time
Will you please,
For I do not understand
Why we must draw lines between us
When all we have is just one earth
For all of us to share.

lessons from a broken plank

she sits upon a broken plank,
cracked from the weight of people
and the sun, the winds and the rain.
beneath it flows a turgid sewer,
greyed with the dirty linen
of the city.

upon her lap lies an infant
and behind her an older dame
who picks nits from the lady’s hair
whilst running a commentary
on the lives of their neighbours,
tv soaps and their men.

i wind down the windows of
my air conditioned car to watch
this curious sight
of huddled thatches. homes.
and the lives they hold within.
but my conditioned nostrils
suffocate.
my oesophagus retches
at the smells.

between the glass and me
lies this unknown world
and i shudder at their misery.
then i look.
i look and see
that infant smile.
and the lady plant upon its cheek,
a wet kiss.

this must be happiness, i think.

and all this time,
i looked for it
in my wallet.

for Malala

shoot me again, if you must
but listen first.

Let me shake your memory a little,
Lost as it is from truth.

it was i that birthed you
watched you slip,
bloody from my womb
and said a thousand prayers
for sparing me a child
in whose warmth i could forget
the emptiness of my heart.

it was my breast that you suckled from,
drinking from my life to keep yourself alive.
yes.
the same breast that now feeds your lust
and calms your depraved mind

it was i who taught you
first to walk. To talk. To think. And to love.
And sheltered you from the wrath
of your father and his tempers

i that you ran to when you were scared
it is still me that you come to
to spill your genes
so that i may birth one like you again

shoot me if you must
but listen to my last wish.
kill me until
i disappear in entirety
until i cease to exist

what a befitting way it would be
to end yourself.
All of you.

bottled. hope.

young little men,
whose moustaches struggle
to display maturity
of responsibility
whilst all the time belying
the frailty of hope
hidden in their eyes.

these children play with death
everyday.
every other night.
by throwing caution to the winds
and fear to their weekly pay.


and when payday arrives,
they hand over crumpled notes
to their weary mothers
and save some to drown their sorrows

just like their fathers did
a score or two years ago.


disparity is stark. it's everywhere. young boys of 18 or so need to work to keep hearths burning.they toil, play with dangerous stuff in factories and give up their own dreams. before long, they are lost.