Poem for an unknown mother...

I wanted to be you
For all this while
I longed for your elegance
And that perfect smile
I picked up your style
I did things your way
How would you react?
What would you say?
Your thoughts your dreams
Your hair & your eyes
To an extent that I wanted
The feet of your size
And then one day I saw you cry
A zillion questions, but couldn't ask why
You said you were weak, I could feel the pain
You didn't even want to stand up again
Life is a bitch, I heard you say
And before I knew you were gone away
I still keep wondering, after all these years
How do smiles suddenly, change to tears?

Memories...

I loved the way you kissed me
Remember,
You were awake the whole night just to see me dream.
I can still feel your tear on my lip; the one you wiped

when you thought you would lose me
You made me sip your coffee to make it sweet
and the chocolate that melted in our kiss!
I remember every small thing
every touch, every breath, every word you said
With you I discovered completeness…
Today, without you
I miss a part of me
for that matter…the heart of me
I can hear a knock on my door again…
Please! don’t send any more memories;
just come back and shut the door.

Old Pair Of Socks

That old pair of socks,
lying in the drawer,
Reminds me of mom, winters and
A long lost lover.
Those fresh white textures
Look worn out and grey
And yet there’s so much
They’re waiting to say
I touch them often and keep them back
I hide them at times or shove them in a stack
Yet they find their way and stare at me
With those eyes of Mumma
Or is it He?
Today they’ve managed to crawl
Under my bed
And I’ve promised to listen their stories
Forgotten and Unsaid

Scattered All Around

I love scribbling on bits of paper
Its like I let go emotions...
One after the other.
Hold all those pieces in my palms,
And throw them all over the place
I spent a sleepless last night
Amidst emotions scattered all around!

MY SUICIDE NOTE…

Your eyes looked at me and you said
I am your fairy…an angel (without wings) sent for you
You said my eyes were beautiful, my smile exuberant
Though you were not very happy with my haircut
You preferred long silky hair
And I remember the fuss you created when I got that pimple on my left cheek!
You said you wanted me with a flawless face, mind and character.
I always thought you were concerned about me
Protective and careful for I was your possession.
But all this started suffocating me
Breaking the shell of a fairy or an angel,
I wanted to be human. Not beautiful, just natural!
I wanted to be myself…
With MY dreams, MY desires and MY needs
And break all the puppet strings entangled in your fingers
I wanted to throw that unbreakable tag around my neck,
which said
"This object belongs to ME and so is precious"

I wanted to live, and breathe and think…
So………I killed myself!

Real Unreal...Its all the same!

Stand in front of the mirror and observe who looks back at you. The eyes that stare might seem familiar but you won’t be able to guess who the person in the mirror image is. They have taught me to believe that it’s ME but I know for sure it isn’t. It’s my mom at times, or my boss or the guy whose dead body they were showing in the news today. Someone or the other tries to talk to me from that transparent glass. Have you ever felt like this? Or did it ever occur to you that most of the time you are not yourself. You are someone else striving to be the one you’ve always wanted to be. I look around, observe people and pick traits from them. I start behaving in a particular manner, my accent changes, I develop a style that was unknown to me a few months back and then I take pride in being myself. It’s weird, isn’t it?
The question of who is real and who is unreal has been taking various forms in my brain. With the habit of classifying things into categories anything that is confusing bothers me. Am I real? Or am I the unreal one who picks attributes from humans around me and pretend to be real? Can I change things? Or do the things that change convince me that whatever happened is what should have happened? I, like a fool, simply take pride in it. I live several lives, I experience perspectives and what becomes of this mixture is “ME”. Everyone for that matter is made of many different pieces of various identities put together. I am my neighbor at times, I speak like my dad often, my colleague says I resemble an actress he’s seen, my friends friend says I remind him of his girlfriend. With so many personalities dissolved in me I walk out every day to gulp some more.
When I look at it wearing the glasses of optimism I realize this could be a blessing in disguise. As a kid I used to say “I want to be a Prime Minister” or “I want to be a Police Officer”. Life fulfills all our desires in bits and pieces. Though we feel that we are imagining things why do we forget that we are “living” in this imagination? Even if for a little while I am what I wish to be. And if imagination does not make sense then nothing should. I write because it gives me the freedom to be what I wish to be. Some sing, some dance, some paint and this is when they are themselves in the truest sense. What a discovery! You are yourself when you are amidst an artistic journey. A journey that lets you be whoever you wish to be.
Enough of watching those birds fly high. Open those two magic wings of imagination & take a leap in the sky that’s chosen by no-one but you.

Let Words Just Be!!!

There’s a light that falls on my eyelids as soon as I close them. The world inside me lightens up as soon as sleep takes over. It’s weird and I no longer look forward to this world of dreams, each one with an explanation. I was fond of it earlier but now I really need some rest, from words…and the thoughts hung all over. As a kid I remember being introduced to words and I loved pronouncing them one after the other. I could see my dad’s face glow when I said “Papa” for the first time. But it doesn’t last too long. Words grow old with you and they lose their charm. The first line that I scribbled was so fresh, so full of art. My scribbling has become mundane now. I have those 7000 words and I try to fit them in moulds, draw sense out of them and give meaning to them. Nothing comes natural anymore. It’s all so decorated. Even the compliments.
I wish to get back to the nursery rhymes. I enjoyed singing them till I didn’t understand a word in it. The moment my teacher told me the meaning I started questioning the thoughts, I started finding meaning in the imagery and I could no longer enjoy it. Same happens with writing. The more you understand it, the less you enjoy. I am quiet when the character in the book sings; I am sleepy when the lover is proposing his beloved. I don’t feel bad for the tragic hero anymore. Words are growing old in my head.
I heard someone sing in the Kinder Garden the other day “Baba Black Sheep hallu hallu bull” and “Sattt” rang the scale with the teacher screaming “It’s HAVE YOU ANY WOOL. Say it again” And then in a meek voice the corrected version followed “Baba Black Sheep Have You Any Wool” I was hurt. I wanted the rhyme to just be. I wanted the kid to sing it the way he wanted. Why all those unnecessary corrections? Why enforcing that perfection? Why can’t we just be? That kid will grow old and say it correctly some day. Let him enjoy the incorrect pronunciations for a while and live with it. Words they say give meanings to feelings but is finding a meaning in everything necessary? I don’t want to know what it means to dream, I just want to experience it. The meaning says: Dreams are a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Is this postmortem necessary?
Let words change their meanings, let’s pronounce them with an ease of childhood, let them go wrong. Let us live words once more and experience them instead of reading them. Let’s try doing it, just for once.