चपल, चंचल, चिंतामणि, जिसकी लेखनी न शर्माती ।
इलाहाबाद में बीता बचपन, जयपुर में अल्हड़ घूमें ।
पुणे में इंसान बने, परदेस में साहब हुए ।
दूर रहकर मिट्टी से थोड़ा कुछ जो सीखा,
पन्नों में ही रह जाता था सरीखा ।
कॉमिक और फिल्मों का प्यार न छूटा,
फिर एक दिन YQ का छींका फूटा ।
सोते शायर ने करवट ली ।
लेखनी फिर बोल पड़ी ।
आज कुछ महीने हो चले हैं ।
अभी भी हम तो बस कह रहे हैं ।।

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Me - “Do you?”

She - ”Do I?”

Her eyes - “I do”

My smile - “Okay”

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//Request//

“Can she leave with me? We love each other!” I asked her father as loudly as I could.

The din of the room was obnoxiously eerie. I tried looking at him eye to eye as he started shuffling around maybe gauging my weight to find a suitable spot to pounce on. It had been an eventful weekend.

“Ab dulhan ko to dulhewaale hi le jaayenge na” he said with nonchalance to everyone around him

We saw eye to eye as he walked up to me. My hated breath apparent under my diminutive demeanor. I felt like lunging for the window as I knew the comment was not well received “Beta tum kya apne se baatein kar rahe ho, lo laddu khao shaadi ka ghar hai, aur abhi gaadi nikalwaata hu 50 dibbe aur le aana Nehru Market se, Kam pad gaye hain” he said.

“Ji Uncle” I said ritualistically as he handed me a list. It had been a long weekend, indeed.

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//Castles

I remember when I used to create my own castles with pillows as ramparts and newspaper turrets. My pillars were books and imaginary soldiers. Everything was safe in it. That bubble was my dream.

This morning I opened the newspaper, looking at snippets of rape attempts, murders, shootings, bombings, I reminisce that warmness in my walls, my closure with the world outside.

As I see around me I see my walls sitting beside me, drinking tea and listening for my sighs; responding to my disappointments, even without me stating them.

Keep your turrets sharp, keep your walls close. Family is strength. Live your dreams, together.

-

My mother gets annoyed when I never do household chores.

I decided to surprise her one day. I went to the local market and started buying all the vegetables I could find, fresh and available. It was okay until potatoes, tomatoes, gourd, carrots but I also got a pumpkin. Since it was heavy, it took me some time to get back home.

Once there, I went straight to kitchen and washed and diced the pumpkin and kept it in a plate. As my mom walked in she asked “Ye kya hai?” I said “Ye mausam ka kaddu hai maata!”

After a minute’s awkward silence she said, “Yahi karne ke liye sabzi lene gaya tha?” I smiled, she knows me too well.

-

Wide eyed, she sat in the Emergency Waiting Room.

Slightly relieved, she realized how bad her son was with knots.

She still tied his shoe laces.

-

Every challenge is a brick laid down in the utopian yellow brick road of fascinating outcomes. Some which are mere imaginations than reality. What’s real is just a recycle of what you think is your best work but arguably was a little less than perfect. So you try more. You reach more. You grasp at straws that never exist. You live with, die through , resurrect and resuscitate your own self-pity manifested as effort. Then it’s worth it all.

All of this is a byproduct of a neural synthesis called hope. There is no people here who never do this, everyone irrevocably goes through this vicious cycle. There are no winners, and no losers, because it is never a race, it is just an understated but regular-enough-to-pass-off-as-good cup of tea. You like drinking it, you keep sipping on it.

And that ..... is life.

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She waddled in, muddy, smiling like a drunk monk. Spread out her arm in fist. One look at her gave me a jolt of anger. All work through morning, cleaning the floor, fixing breakfast; lay wasted. How else was a single father going to have his own me-time? I wondered if she imbibed any of her mother's qualities.

As she opened her hand, my frown became a smile. Locked in her hands was a life. This love for beetles was definitely not me. I hated bugs, but I loved these two women.

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Monday (Serves 1)

Ingredients :
1 disgruntled employee
1 uncouth superior who suggests work to be finished on Friday
1/2 tablespoon morale
12 ct. broken dreams
1 shitty cold morning
1 tablespoon each of head ache and neck pain
1 cup coffee
1 burrito from an unknown food truck

Recipe -
• Break sweat and dreams to wake up with a head ache and neck pain
•Tip toe across the hall and revel in the shitty cold morning (do not find slippers to ruin the temperature levels)
• Procrastinate on taking a sick day while cursing your superior and the night out on weekend which ended up eating in your whole of Sunday and resulted in late night work
• While doing the above, miss getting ready for a bike ride to office
• Add the morale to drop an email for a sick day after brush
• Drink coffee remembering that burrito you ate from the “new” truck down the street
• Fart and realize the headache and neck pain go away
• Rush to get to office now, terribly late.

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//Snowy Sleep-ins//

This morning you asked me the reason for my smile.

Questions are meant to be answered, at some point; I agree. Though this time around it was harder than usual so I smiled more.

You see this time it was about melodies and music, is hard to explain. I had a song stuck in my head and I knew exactly why. I woke up today to your hand over my head, still fast asleep and dreaming. It had snowed last night so the winds were quiet and I could hear you breath.

It was in those sleepy, unintended, drowsy, silent, close and yet heavy moments I opened my eyes ever so slightly and so did you. We glimpsed each other and your face curved into a crack of a smile.

You slept again but your hair ruffled enough to remind me of that smell that lingered the day we met, a small bistro a solo violinist and a classic beat, and now I can’t get the song out of my head.
Do you think I need to explain all this again, isn’t it easier to just smile again?

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