Kafka on the shore,
memories tear you apart.
The vague remembrance
of devotion we immersed
on that coastline,
strike back like the soothing waves
on a scorching strand.
Kafka on the shore,
I quest your existence
in shells and gravels
longing a love so deep
even the ocean would turn envious.
Kafka on the shore,
did we walk too far till sundown
or close enough
to survive the dark alone?
I am recollecting
the speck of your shadow
from drifted laughs,
sinking dreams as grains of sand
slipped easily through our palms.
Kafka on the shore,
memories tear you apart
Murakami wasn’t wrong,
but just as the grains of sand
it is easier to let slip
what you refuse to hold for long.

-

अपने खुद के अभिनय में मग्न,
we live as if it is reel -
क्यों हम किसी नाटक के ख़त्म होने से ठीक पहले
उस किरदार को नहीं बता पाते 
की मात्र उसका वजूद
एक सफ़ल प्रयास था?

(In memory of SSR
/ Continued in caption)

-

The pouring rain
once again called for Two cups of tea.

"You are the only one
who can't parch my heart"
she toasted,

as the mirror reflected her smile.

-

You are the ocean
that brought cyclones
for the moon
I was just another river
waiting to flow
into you

-

Confined his eternal shine
shadowed her divine essence
millions of miles apart
one world parted ways
of another,
and the universe named it
a red-letter affair.

-

जवाबों के तहक़ीक़ में
वह रिंद मय-ख़ाने चला आया,
सवालों से भरे प्याले को
एक परहेज़गार की लत थी|

-

Do not rift this heart
like a crescent moon
at the slackened core
of stygian sky.
I am here alone
with a Universe
flickering between promises
and prayers
like an atheist awaits,
for something to believe in.
Carl Sagan quoted,
"Across the sea of space
the stars are other Suns"
for that matter,
all my wishes still blaze
though broken.
Your altering lunar phases
are but eulogies
to the dangling constellation
and I am here alone
with a Universe;
sinking floating memories
in the black hole -
something you once prayed for
and left,
nothing to believe in.
If stars refuse to flicker
or the Moon ever promises in full,
know that Venus is weeping
on my palms
and the galaxy,
does not know God.

-

When the world
endlessly demanded me
to burn the bridges
she taught me
it is better
to let the gasoline
stroke it on the edge
and watch it
turn into ashes
even a God once manifested
why there's always
more than one way
to cross the water

-

I have clogged up
this ashtray
with the remians of
immortal love
and longing.
Even I don't know why
anyone would ever breathe
in a graveyard.

-

I have seen death
sharpen its beak
on the deserted land
and life hovering over
the starved bones
becoming one with the wind.
If bones and thirst
can persist this abandoned space
I too, could dig out
a pulse through these succulents
as if they might dive beneath the water,
and re-emerge breaths
into mine.
In desert,
the heart itself turns dense
when Sun heats the sand -
which in turn - heats the air,
just above it.

In this way, who was I
to misinterpret thirst, for love
and mortality,
for an opportunity to survive?
What are you
but a mirage
that couldn't reflect itself,
no matter how deep I dived
into death
to dig out life; spine by spine?

/
I have seen your claws
thawing,
one with the wind.

-