Letter to my Father

I was always a little in awe of you,
The way you explained Marx
Making his dreams come alive,
The way you spun the wheels of time
With Hegel and history's dynamics,
The way you dissected Ayn Rand
When I returned from hostel too full of her,
The way you touched an idealistic core
With tales of Garibaldi and Guevera,
The way you made Euclid look simple
And Freud believable,
The way you turned me away from bigotry
And taught me that Gandhi was indeed a mahatma,
The way you ignited my dreams
Giving them wings to soar
Into a cloudless sky.

I was always a little in fear of you,
Of your silences that grew heavy
Digging roots in the corners of the house,
Of the thundering shadows in your face
That would make us speak in whispers,
Of the deepening frowns in your forehead
As I grew older and started crossing
More and more often
The lines of propriety,
Of the sadness in your eyes
When for a brief period
I became a rebel just because
I had nothing else to do,
Of the way you believed
My dreams would find
A place to rest one day.

I always hated you a little,
Hated that the best you could afford
Was a second-hand, run-down car,
Hated that there was no television
In our home till I was in tenth,
Hated that you hit me once
Even though I was seventeen,
And hated you even more
When I caught hold of the descending blow,
And you never raised your hand again, ever after,
There were also times when I hated
Your honesty that could be heartless,
Your conscience that could be mindless,
Your zest for life, your way with words,
All that in you which could
Make me feel just a little bit smaller.


Awe, fear, hatred, all were there,
But there was love as well,
Like a placid sea whose depth
Is untested, untried and unknown,
The way you purposely lost at chess,
Your pride in my amateurish poems
Which I can't, even now, bear to read,
Your laughter, your wit, your stories,
The way you would ruffle my hair
Thinking I was deep asleep,
Your dragging me out in the rains,
The way our talks would lengthen
Deep into chilly winter nights
Over smouldering embers,
The way you looked at Ma entranced
Whenever she sang a song.

Had I known it to be the last goodbye
When slowly the train steamed ahead
And your face dissolved in the crowd,
I would have imprisoned the moment,
Two days later in Delhi I got the news,
Rushing back to find that you were gone,
The cold, unseeing, unfeeling flesh
Could not be you, and so
I did not shed any tears that day,
And have not done so these past fifteen years,
Though every day I have died a little as well.

Cleaning your closet, I found a book
Of your poems, a testament
To your concerns and tears,
Your dreams and fears,
Your joys and sorrows,
Your life and the way you lived it,
Your laughter rustling the pages,
Your tears staining them brown,
The words faded with experience,
The binding falling apart
Unable to hold such beauty together.

I did not write a word these fifteen years,
It has taken me this long
To come to terms,
With my loss
And my mediocrity.

A friend remembered

On the wings of wind, with you by my side,
In a smoke stuffed car, into the night we ride,
Talking of music, friends, man's longing for the moon,
And of blissful moments that pass away too soon.
Of your unfinished novel- 'The Drought' you called it,
That you crossed out many times, as many times rewrit,
Now forever incomplete, with you amid the stars-
Just like your life. Destiny plays such a farce.
Remember how first we met and talked the night away,
Atop the cathedral, watching moonlight's shadow-play,
(Though why its called a cathedral, I shall never know),
With the lights of Delhi spread deep down below.
Till the flickering dawn said the end of night was near,
You reminded me that night of all my heart holds dear-
(Ghazals, old film songs, Vikram Seth's verses,
Films, philosophy, history's boons and curses,
Saahir, Faiz, Firaaq, Ghalib and Gulzaar,
And of course the girls as also heart's scar),
Till by dawn we knew we would be friends forever,
(Forever, alas we had known, was not for us to share).
Remember how drunk we got during a college festival,
And the slap you earned, we were too much trouble!
Remember the girl we dated, both you and I together,
(And the way it ended, for worse or for the better),
When I wrote to Anu, you just won't let me be,
Insisting all the while that she was the girl for me,
The countless hours we spent dozing off in class,
People wondered when we did well and not just pass,
Too soon the time came to choose our separate ways,
(The army for you, for me the civil services),
Marriage claimed Monica, Roli created such a fuss
For management, (how we teased her on a DTC bus),
Akash returned to Jaipur, Ritesh just disappeared,
Of Deepali after college, no one has really heard.
Our jobs made us slaves, took us to distant lands,
Little we knew of future; a puppet in fate's hands

Though these past years seldom we could meet,
We've kept close- phones, letters, and then the net-
-All of us, that is, except you, my dearest friend
Who went on in your journey around life's final bend.
A few years ago, in December, I first heard the news
Of cells multiplying in your blood, many opinions and views
Of doctors and charltans, of seers and holy men,
All saying you were lost, the only question was when.
We went to visit you, and little could imagine,
Death was so near to see the glow on your skin,
We returned reassured, fate could not be so crass,
After all, bigger miracles have often come to pass.
Till the phone call came, deep in the dead of night,
That you had softly sighed, and finally gave up the fight.
With agonised tears we all curse fate, still unforgiving,
But know this, my friend, it is hard to go on living....

-A true story based upon the poet's best friend.

This, then, is the end

Nineteen Sixty-Eight,
When Calcutta was not yet Kolkata,
Its signs of decay not yet tell-tale,
A Calcutta where Howrah Bridge stood alone,
And suspension bridges buried in the womb of the future,
A Calcutta where trams still regularly chugged the streets,
Wide enough for the occasional cars to pass,
The Calcutta of Firpos, Park Street and poetry,
The Calcutta of coffe houses and Apur Sansar,
Where nights would pass arguing between Ray and Ghatak,
Engulfed in unfiltered Capstan smoke, over endless cups of tea,
Cultured Calcutta, literary Calcutta,
It was here that they first met,
Circa Nineteen Sixty-Eight.

It was the unlikeliest of love stories, as love stories go,
She, a bare chit of a girl,
Daughter of working-class parents, migrants from Chittagong,
Slight and frail, barely five feet out of her sandals,
Dusky, sallow-skinned, slightly protruding teeth,
Curly hair that would never stay in place,
Who wrote poetry, listened to Rabindra sangeet and Nazrul-geeti.
He, the scion of landed aristocracy,
La Martiniere for boys, Presidency thereafter,
Six feet in his stockings, fair,
Who could run hundred meters in 11 seconds,
The heart-throb of countless girls,
Who had read poetry only to scrape through his Senior Cambridge,
Who thought of the Beetles as passe,
Jazz the only thing to listen, with maybe
a little bit of Beethoven and Mozart,
Who liked Charulata better than Pather-Panchali,
And adored De Sica.

Yet, they met.
He saw her first through a tram on College street,
And could understand every word of what she was saying,
Just through her eyes, fleetingly glimpsed,
He jumped off the tram then, landing in a pot-hole,
Then stumbling into a lamp-post,
Acquiring a limp, ever so slight, in the bargain.
'You were swept off your feet when you saw me!' She'd tease him later.
It took a while longer for her,
She was wary of his looks,
Bewildered by his tastes,

'It were her eyes', he told his friends,
'I'll make this bohemian civilised still', she told hers.
It was a Calcutta where the fresh breeze from the sea,
Swept off the sultry days in languid evenings,
A Calcutta where sail-boats fluttered in the Hooghly,
Where roses bloomed in December.

And yet, it was a Calcutta of gathering clouds,
A Calcutta where Meghe Dhaka Tara was a reality on the streets,
Where passions flew high,
And ideals rained from the eye, vying with bullets and tears,
A Calcutta where dreams soared,
And hope painted the sky in colours of red,
An exuberant Calcutta which would change the world,
Or so the city believed,
In circa Nineteen Sixty-Eight.

Cut to Scene 2,
Connaught Place, New Delhi, Two Thousand Nine,
A glitzy Delhi, Delhi of CNG buses, Metro Railway,
Delhi of the ridge, history seeping through its lanes,
Delhi- ancient, medieval and modern all at once,
An excavated Delhi, with jostling buses, autos, motorcars,
Gingerly threading their way around mounds of earth
strewn on its streets, yet a Delhi,
Beautiful and balmy on a late February evening,
When a tall man, fair, slightly stooped,
Silver streaks in his hair,
Fine crow-feet around his eyes,
Stumbled over a pile of rubble,
And fell right across the road from Regal.

'You still fall at the feet of girls', said she,
'No, I only stoop to conquer', said he,
Brushing the dust out of his trousers,
Straining his neck at the voice,
Redolent with the fragrant promise of lost years.
'Oh, so you finally read that delightful play?'
'I even go to the opera now, and know what a liberetto is',
'Liar, you must have a thing going with the soprano',
'No, nothing after the day I lost you',
'You still have that limp, don't you?'
'It has got more pronounced with time',
'I thought it would be cured by now',
Some things, once broken, are never healed',
'True, but one finds other things to replace them with'.

'You have not grown an inch since I last saw you!'
'Silly, it was my twentieth birthday that day',
'And now you are fifty-one',
'You have learnt to add!'
'I'm an investment banker in New York now',
'My, my. I teach poetry at Miranda',
'Still doing all the useless jobs!'
'And what are you doing, counting currency notes?'
'Isn't it a far cry from counting pamphlets at Naxalbari?'
'Then why?'
'Because thats what revolutionaries do when revolutions die',
'We thought you were killed that day on Alimuddin Street',
'Do you think I am alive now?'
'My parents brought me to Delhi after the shooting',
'And mine sent me to the promised land',
'You have turned into a cynic, haven't you?'
'How do you expect I'd retain my faith in life?'
'What could I do? You were rumoured to be dead',
'So many of us died that day',
'Those who survived were scattered all over',
'And nobody knew where every one else went',
'So what could I do? Life had to go on',
'I've been dying bit by bit every day ever since',
'I must go now. Its already eleven',
'Marry me. I've a flight back in the morning',
'I must really go now. Kaushik would be worrying',
'Kaushik?'
'My husband. He teaches economics at D-School',
'Oh, I think you should leave then',
'Have a nice flight. Your wife must be waiting back home',
'I've an empty house to return to',
'What? I thought you were joking when you asked to marry me',
'I dont joke anymore. Something within me is dead, though I survived',
'Will we ever meet again?'
'I dont know. Please don't go',
'I must. I have a job, a family, a husband',
'Well, I guess its goodbye then',
'I guess it is.'

She stood on tip-toes, while he bent low,
She caressed his lips with her fingers one last time,
Before hailing a passing autorickshaw,
While he stood there rooted,
Watching her melt into the shadows of the night.

And finally, Scene 3,
A scene which is yet to play out,
But is destined to unfold just like this,
Bombay, circa Two Thousand and Thirty,
A Bombay of land reclaimed from the sea,
Bustling, teeming, frantic, chaotic Bombay,
A Bombay of bomb-blasts, chawls and open drains,
A Bombay of gang-wars, sub-urban trains, and Dharavi,
A Bombay of contradictions,
Manufacturing celluloid dreams for millions,
Where the Samovar still has an aroma of coffee,
and culture hanging to its table-cloths,
The Bombay of Flora Fountain, VT station, Bandra Bandstand,
Where the sun still sets gently in the Arabian sea,
And the Marine Drive sparkles like the Queen's Necklace at night.

In this Bombay, still the same twenty years later,
A frail woman, a Sylvia Plath book in her hand,
Suddenly rushed across the corridor of JJ Hospital,
Smashing into a stretcher, upsetting a food trolley,
Overturning almost a wheel-chair where sat huddled,
A fair man, bent low with age,
His shirt hanging loose on a gaunt frame.
'Marry me', she laughed and sobbed,
'Marry me, marry me', she whispered and shouted,
Causing a passing nurse to drop the tray she was carrying,
'Marry me, Abhijit' her voice faltered,
'Marry me, please', she pleaded,
While the man looked vacantly at her,
No signs of recognition illuminating his eyes,
'I'm sorry, but I dont know who you are',
'No Abhijit, not this',
'Say no if you want to, but dont do this to me',
'Don't be a stranger, Abhijit, look at me',
'I'm Madhavi, and I haven't grown an inch still',
'My eyes are cataract-clouded, but they still have stories in them',
'See Abhijit, I'm still stupid enough to read poetry'
'................................', silence,
'Kaushik passed away of an heart attack ten years ago',
'I'm retired now, my children settled',
'I live in Bombay now, and I still yearn for you.'
'...................................' silence, all pervasive now.
'Dont you remember Naxalbari? The revolution?'
'The trams in Calcutta?'
'You know the streets are still potholed there, though the trams have stopped plying',
'Don't you remember the shooting? Kisses stolen from the Hooghly?'
'My twentieth birthday?'
'You have mistaken me for some one else',
'I've never been to Calcutta in my life.'
Words finally, colder than steel,
Echoing, bouncing off the narrow corridor,
'You must remember Connaaught Place',
'My fingers brushing your lips?'
'I'm sorry madam, but you have mistaken him for someone else',
'He needs to rest now, all this commotion is not good for him',
'Please go. Leave him alone.'
Voices surround her, as she pushes back her tears,
And turns to go with fumbling steps,
The weight of a lifetime in her eyes,
Which sadly, do not speak anymore.
While he slowly gets up, limping across to his room.

This, then, was the end,
Except that stories need epilogues
to round them off. And sometimes poems do too.
Everything needs a conclusion,
Be it a story, be it a poem,
Be it life itself.

A month later, Alzheimer's claimed Abhijit,
Madhavi died exactly three years later of a broken heart,
Without knowing that he had never forgotten her,
That he could never do so,
Not really.

Some stories, though they come to an end,
Are never concluded,
The same is true with poems too...

The second law of Thermodynamics

When I am gone, think of me
rarely, like an incidence on the edges
of consciousness, remembered
only when the heart is made maudlin,
Perhaps by a glass of wine too many,
Making aching feet climb the creaky stairs
to the attic, wary hands reach
for the old photo album, to dust off a print,
Rememberance of a summer day
long past, the sound of laughter
clinging still to the dust.

On those rare nights, let not
falling tears soak the arid earth,
Instead, with a fond smile and sparkling eyes,
Let the sun curl around
the sharp edges of the night. Remember
the shared moments, hear
the hushed whispers, taste
ice-creams fought over, smell
the sweat-seeped sheets, feel once again
the urgency of my lips searching yours.
Remember the quarrels too, the days
we refused to speak, hating each other
for the sullen silence spread between us,
Also a child of the love we shared.

Let the intervening years fall away
for an instant, the illuminated past
etched sharply in your eyes, like the answer
to a puzzle long unsolved, that flashes
suddenly in the eyes of the mind,
Like your beauty unwrapped
in the stillness of the night, with
the clothes having slowly fallen away.
But do not dwell for long
on days gone by, the present
is fragile always, the future
still unmapped, the past tricked often
by memory painting it in vivid hues.
Shut the door to memories in a minute
or two. Entropy increases with time,
And the pieces of a shattered dream
can never be put together again.

Things which are gone are gone forever,
But what remains must live through its days.

Time to say farewell

I remember the way you looked at me,
As the parting drew near,
Tiny droplets built a bridge on your face,
And I couln't help thinking
Of the fickleness of fate and love.
The hushed remnants of your words,
Mumbled, heard, and yet unheard,
But still understood,
Swept over me as I took a last,
Long long look. The world was lost to me.
Your face as you smiled,
Dimpled like the valley,
Dark and barren, the valley of my life.
I didn't see your smile,
Rivetted I was to the sadness in your soul.
And again, even now, my thoughts wander,
To all that is lost to me.
Won't you ever return,
To calm me in this furnace of life,
And make me once more,
The master of my dreams.

The illusion of innocence

How touching the innocence of young,
Its belief in nights having a morn,
In hope eternal and in dreams reborn,
And in songs which are forever sung.

At the doors of death I cast my eyes,
With sinking heart on a life gone by,
On dreams dead, hopes dying without a try,
And on love that lingers like empty skies.

Koshish ek ghazal ki

Wo khayalon mein jabse samane lage hain,
Kaante bhi ghulab nazar aane lage hain.

Rozi-roti ke chakkar, zindagi ke charkhe,
Aap aaye to sab gham bhulane lage hain.

Kam-aqla humen kahte aaye sabhi hain,
Ab samajhne zindagi ke maane lage hain.

Aap rahiye humesha aankhon ke aage,
Warna mele bhi humko veerane lage hain.

Unko jaane mein faqat ek lamha laga,
Aane mein jinko zamane lage hain.