Oh Dear Twelve Year Old, Do Not Grow Old

Oh Dear me,

Small, young and naive
to you, whom the girls call cute
and teachers pat on the cheeks
look around-
there's immense joy, and,
freedom that you have
with just one routine:
between your games and sleep
school, home and school again.

Your mom dresses you, combs you
and you say it hurts on the head.
She packs your bag and keeps your tiffen
in a little steel box that you hate.
She calls you by that home name, and you keep hushing her in shame
Your sister, at school, she teases you
in front of her friends
and back home her melodramas
for which you're always punished.
And, your lean self, of which your cousins
tease you.

There is your father's bike,
that you so desparately want to ride
and that car, of which,
you just tap the horn and play around
with the steering.
You see with curiosity, how they drive it
and think when you too would do the same.

Then there is your Grandma,
who tells you stories and things
that your parents never tell.
And that old Grandpa,
who leans on a stick and walks slow
but rewards you with candies and
pocket-money.
Tell me, oh little angel,
do you have a better friend than him?
Who shares your secrets
and saves you from your father's warth
who when goes to your PTM
the teachers dare say that you're spoilt.

Do not grow up,
Oh! You twelve year old.
Life is a rat trap,
a maze, that goes round and round
with swirls that pull you down.
Nothing, but false hope
a cruel bait
that feeds on greed
and insubstantial happiness.

The day you grow up,
big, tall, and,
fat beyond that childhood insult
you'd miss
the comb that spiked your head,
that firm grip of your mother
that held you by the jaw.

In a far off city,
one day...
you'll miss that steel tiffen
that had your mother's cooked meal.
Your ears would long to hear
that teaseful name, but,
seldom would someone say.
Someday in your free hour,
at office or at home
you'll think of your sister,
who's wedded by now
and you would miss,
say, whatever you can possibly think of having done together.

You'd no doubt be riding bikes and cars,
but only between office and home,
struck annoingly between jams and red-lights.
Some absurd FM will replace your old Granny.
And, there would be no further need of pocket money
but Grandpa would be missed.

There will be a new girlfriend,
but all friends lost
a lot of luxury
but all comforts gone.
A youth forever desired,
but the childhood so badly gone.
Long vacations in different states
but the hometome left behind.

There will be, a lot of things
but, a missing self.

Oh dear twelve year old,
do not grow old.

R-4 Again, The Room

This new room—

the same R4,

of a posh colony

that if you know, any closely,

is somewhat like what Ruskin Bond describes

in his old books.

Small,

dingy

and with just the bare necessities of survival.

Such rooms, you’d see in

old movies of the 80s,

where the villains make a hideout

or you’d have read about them

in books describing struggling artists

passing through their miserable

pitiful youth.

Such rooms, you’d find them

equipped with a bed,

that’s shaky.

an old table that has missing drawers

and a cupboard that has no lock.

The windows wouldn’t shut off completely,

and the attached toilet

for which you’ve been charged extra

would have no hand jet.

So you’d be left with using the common bathroom and

Sleeping with your head tucked inside

the blanket and the fan dispersing the

lingering mosquitoes.

Once in a while, you might,

also spot a dancing centipede

in the washroom.

But no roaches or lizards.

The common species just don't exist

in places like these.

Such rooms, of which

your mother would disgust, and,

the girlfriend loathe,

you wonder if

you really need to hear them?

But, to think of a change,

you’re held back with the freedom of expression

and acts here.

Every night the guy next door

empties and stacks three beer cans,

just besides the gallery

and the maid dutifully takes them away in

one two or three days.

It's like an open inn,

where you're free to walk in with anyone

anytime,

have late night parties, and,

hoot like noisy generators

and nobody would mind.

Oh! and the best part,

that makes you do not mind anything

is the generous landlady,

a rich woman with no marriages and kids,

just a lone wanderer, sailing across seas and

flying across countries,

and just not bothered to ask you for any rent.

It’s been two months, and I am just piling up my debt.

While she remains busy facing the north wind

on the deck of a ship

or peeking through

the window of an airplane to the floating clouds.

I here

smile to these blood stains on her wall,

of all the mosquitoes that I’ve mercilessly slaughtered.

Two Rattraps

This life, that I am
already standing 27 years ahead of,
with little achievements and assets to count upon
I only have degrees, even of which I haven’t yet payed the banks back.

As I look back to see…
so many years have passed since being YOUNG,
and, so many DREAMS have died since I’ve become a GROWNUP.
From the benches where there were cheerful friends around,
I am now sitting on an alley,
and there are human robots on either sides instead of walls.

The LOST YOUTH, or the EMPTY MANHOOD, whatever you call them,
they hardly have time to think of their own lives.
They won’t feel bad either. Because—
they’re scared of dreaming and deprived of hope,
caught in a routine and joyed by their woman’s grope.
Dysfunctional they seem by their wiped off hairlines
Protruding, yet ignorant.

And not just around me in my work space,
I see theme everywhere:
at the barber’s–haggling over being a regular visitor,
at the cinemas, buying the front rows,
fueling their bikes with the cheaper petrol
and at the McDonalds, buying Happy Meals.

But, happy they aren’t.

Instead, burdened with fake promises to kids for new toys
And trying to defend all long lost arguments with the wife, in some of which,
they are accused of being incapacitated either ways,
or the jewels that they couldn’t yet afford.
and a few vacations that have been postponed year in, year out.

I think again, this time of the difference
that they and I carry, as of yet.
It seems I still have a head start
and a chance to do something better,
to make a little difference,
and to prove this existence.

I had once written, as a thought, that—
The biggest responsibility in this world is your name,
do not let its reverberations die from this galaxy.

But just if you let the dreams die, the soul might follow blindly.

In this bigger maze, where we hook breads to rattraps
We have our own cages too, but unlike the caught mouse,
that has only one, we have two:
one to where we head in the morning, and two—


where we return back at dusk.

From The Balcony of R-4

This February, on the 4^th, to be precise

I rented a new house. R-4,

that is what it reads.

A double story and park facing

It stands in the heart of a posh colony

surrounded by big houses and busy people.

Everyone here carries a little ego—

the maid that comes to cook my neighbor’s food, just cooks.

By that I mean, she doesn’t clean, or wipe or dust, even if she spills.

The stove is black, dark black with stains of spices, flour and turmeric mixed with oil, gravy and all that ever fell over it.

The sink is bad too, miserable. Black and sticky.

Then comes the lady who mops the floor, she just mops

she cleans the rooms and stacks the waste besides the kitchen, and

God knows, who picks it up from there,

but once or probably twice a week it is gone,

and the little dustbin that is all covered in a paint of vegetables and chicken gravy stands relieved and empty,

for a few hours, until the heaps start coming again.

There’s a balcony, too.

Which overlooks the road below, and a big house on the opposite side.

In that house lives a girl, probably in her approaching 30s

who is frequently visited by a friend, or maybe fiancée.

He comes in this navy blue Mercedes SUV,

Sometime after dusk, and when he halts the giant car, and opens the door to get down.

THEN! YES THEN!

There is this mesmerizing blue light

that falls from the bottom of the rear-view mirror

and projects the Mercedes logo on the dusty road.

Some five seconds later, it shuts off,

but, it has already cast its magic and seeds of desire sprout.

Then as he opens the trunk of the car, and fetches a hundred-rupee Parley-G packet

all stray-dogs come wagging.

I have seen his love for them, he feeds them every day.

And I have seen their love for him too,

when he leaves somewhere at eleven, they follow the car till the end of the road.

He leaves me in thoughts of luxury and of doing something good…

Well, that is all that's good about this place!

Hundreds at a Moment

Every morning when I wake up

I see—

just another day in the run.

And even before I

open my eyes

the start-gun has fired

I miss it, and,

I miss it every day.

When I get on the streets

there are people running everywhere.

Perhaps they have heard the gun,

perhaps they have a head start,

perhaps they are happy to be ahead.

But when I pass besides them,

in my slow, sleepy gait

I see them sad and gloomy

tired in the morning

and dead in the evening.

They’re all walking (as it seems)

but actually dragging sacks of burden,

that does not seem to be there

but, they know it is there,

and I know it is there.

Then I look at myself,

at my feet

that follow these men

in haste and chase;

at my hands, that push them

and make space for my chest.

At my head that has long back

stopped thinking and acting wise

but only following where the crowd goes.

I think for a moment, I am trapped

or that I am wrong

but, then I see

hundreds of them doing the same shit

and I wonder—

how could hundreds at a moment be ever wrong?

Lost In The Darkness

LOST in the darkness
I had LOST my pen

A cigarette in my hand, but,
that too had LOST its light.

The matchbox also LOST somewhere
and thus no scope to smoke-up some more.

I LOOKED beneath the bed
and I LOOKED above the cupboard
I also LOOKED near the basin,
kept that cigarette aside, and,
LOOKED in my pockets too.

Nowhere I found my pen.

Then I found the matchbox
and picked up the cigarette
from where I left it.

Oh! I  realized,
it was my pen.

I come, I come. Unstoppable I come

A long, endless road
and an awaited destination;
few beloveds there
and a sweetheart, waiting,
to see the first sight of
the face that marks their dawn.
They await in anticipation, with,
...plates waiting to be shared
...gossips in hold to start
...and hugs that would break the long gaps.

Here I go, here I go...
I go North, against the rivers
and, through these mountains
on swirls and treks
not surrendering to the winter chills
and the cold that bites my fingertips.

I see through the dense fog, and,
across the blue skies,
there-
on that mountaintop
somewhere besides that temple
is my final stop.

I go, I go...
Suppressing my upset stomach
and tolerating my expanding bladder
that urge to pull a drag
and to drink a little wine.

For there is my beloved,
who awaits in hunger
imagining my shaved smooth face
and, recalling my scent;
there she is, thinking of me,
UNSTOPPABLY.

I go, unstoppable I go...
in miles per hour that's far more than
what she warns me to exceed,
and drifting bends which she,
wants me to not climb.

But, I violate,
all her expectations, and,
make my own rules
for, I am desperate to see her too
and hear her bangles chime
her smooth affectionate touch
and those kisses, which would greet me.

I am tickled with memories,
and hungry with love.
I little dizzy with hope
and green with memories.

I come, I come..
unstoppable I come,
through these mountains
and by the river side,
steering the fog, and killing the frost;

I come, I come...
Unstoppable I come,

Oh! Dear Mom, here I come.