This winter .

//

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This rat,
lying there in the middle of the road, innards blown away.
Did he come under a vehicle?
Multiple tyres perhaps.
A planned mishap.
Definitely.
Life had left him long ago,
still the bikes and cars were going over him.
As if he was a bridge made up of dead cells.
Then someone,
with a plastic and a stick, picked him up
and carried him to a safe distance.
Under a tree.

We can care for others even when they die.
And if they are taken care of,
do they really ever die?

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A hundred years later

//

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A shared souvenir.

//

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This monsoon

//

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I want to be an object that rotates and makes a whooshing sound. I want to learn how to swim and unlearn about boat making. I want to run in my new shoes till summer spells my sweat. l want to remove my skin in a cold bathtub and memorize my tears. I want to eat tomatoes. I want to eat tomatoes from your palm. I want to eat tomatoes from your palm with my hands tied back. I want to rock in the branches of philosophy. I want my room to be filled with stories. And stars. I want to count my mistakes without smiling at my father. I want to report about dogs chasing sticks on 9pm prime time. I want to look at the sky in the middle of an empty highway. I want to roll around in the grass and offer green prayers to my trees. I want to tell you about my mother. I want to bury my anger like a seed. I want to be an architect who makes tall buildings non-stop because if he dares to stare at his hands, they would become wings and fly away. I want to squeeze lemon on bees. I want to make a treasure box out of your laughter. I want to apologise in your blue T-shirt. I want my arms to be longer. I want to see what a ceiling fan does to your hair. I want to be that fan.

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He walks back from the field. Probably for the last time. A potential farewell. A definite heartbreak. He sits in the dugout. His team loses. It doesn't matter. Isn't a borrowed book more likely to be lost? The screen shows his eyes. They blink a couple of times. So resolute even in sadness. The home crowd erupts in madness. A descent into celebration. The screen shuts off. Sports, casually being sport, in one picture.

He goes back to sleep. Atleast tries. No dramatic music settles in the folds of his summer dress. In the dream someone consoles him. Or was it the reverse? Whatever it was, this was clear: as we grow, our tears become smaller. He wakes up. Stretches his arms to cover the curse of distance. Or, an imaginary hug. Again he isn't sure these days. What t-shirt to wear today? Not yellow please.

Birds chirp. The crowd erupts. He walks back from the field. Probably for the last time. Cracks in the wall. Ants streaming in. Out. Like a refugee on the borderline, a packed suitcase in the doorway, the story depends solely on the direction of the feet movement. A soft "thankyou Dhoni" leaves the mouth. So much noise. Thank God, he wasn't there. Thank God, he was there.

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Sunset. Like a colour trying to fit into a bigger colour. Like a child trying to walk in a grown-up shoe. Beautiful yet sad.

I love you, l confessed to a fallen leaf. You were in a hurry. Your palm was filled with water. Water, like a fish. Fish, like a hunger. So you stomped over it. You reached your home. Your doormat rubbed your feet. You threw it in the washing machine. Then you hung it on the clothesline. Things evaporate. It takes time. Oh the rain. Your ceiling, leaking at corners. Why don't they make triangular rooms? You banged your head into the wall. Minor injuries, a little stitching and a sleep on the hospital bed. You got a bouquet on your bed side. You didn't touch. You just stared across the window. A breath shaped into the wind pressing itself against the glass and few lovers breaking promises under a tree.

A bird's shadow falls on my page. If you were god, you would have known why my sky doesn't pray to feathered gods.

You love every season and I'm the absence of trees.

Anger is beautiful. Ask a rebel.

Survival is beautiful. Ask my father.

Leaving is beautiful. Ask sunset.

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Real imagination

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Hurting things.

//

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