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.

lies

i know how it is to fly,
in complete abandon,
anchored by your love,
and believing so.

i push boundaries
defy convention,
to prove myself
over and over again
for no one but me
or was it for you?
that i did what i did
aim, achieve, reinvent and
chase elusive success
as you watched,
quiet. proud.
and almost made me believe
that it was love i saw
in your eyes.

i would have gladly clipped my wings,
and chained my heart
if only i had known
that you wanted me to trade my freedom
for your infidelity.

hurt

drip
drip
drip
blotches of red
on white canvas
mars the picture perfect world
that i have drawn within
my mind.

Hurt.
Stark, deep,
when it invades the idealism
i hold so dear
the lofty principles that i sadly cling to
believing that the world will one day see
beyond me
beyond what makes me.

it is now that i see
reality.
money is perhaps everything.
and because it means nought to me
i will have to live through it –
a blotch of red
permanently etched
on my stark white canvas.




there are people sizing you up wherever you go. your shoes, your clothes, your bag, your social standing. you mean nothing if you don't belong. you cease to become a luxury of acquaintance. you become a necessity that one must live with, when one wants to. society and its ways!

hero. villain. anything but human.

man. sometimes woman. many a time, a child. searching, discovering, learning, unlearning all the time. about who i am.

and here you are, making a mockery of all that makes me. displaying my hidden organs that bear no resemblance to the turmoil that i undergo within. teasing my urges, decreed by the very nature that makes me, me. the very nature that unearths the villain in you. so that you may make a hero of yourself, by making me a sacrifice.

i cry. you call me woman.
i rage. you call me a man.
i stammer, stumble, pick my broken remains. you call me transgender.

and people read, watch, discuss me.

because it is easier to vilify me. than unveil your own hypocrisy.




pinky pramanik. what matters who she is? when all we care is what she brings?

of alms and beggars

She must have seen better times. The glint in her speaks of them and yet, she stands, knocking glass doors of transitory vehicles that have stopped impatiently. I wind down the window and feel the gush of the afternoon sun invade the luxury of conditioned air within. I sigh, place a few coins on her calloused palms. She smiles. And reaches her hand above my head. Gently. And plants a blessing.

With it, she enlightens me. I know now, who the beggar is.

Contrasts

staccato notes
play, echoing
the sporadic bursts of pain.
the black notes sear,
the white cause a tear,
black, white, black, white...
rise and fall in orchestrated will.

at least there is music when you play.
there’s only silence when i cry.


written on the same day as Bare - listening to L play the piano on a rather sad day. and the notes must have found their way...