बाज़ार।

बटे है सब यहा आधों मे,

क्या जिस्म और क्या माटी,

बिके है सब यहा दुकानों मे।

 

जननी का दर्जा तू ही तो देता है,

देवी की पूजा भी तुहि तो करता है।

फिर क्यों दबे पाओं, अंधेरे मे दबोचता है मुझे?

क्या तब अपनी मंदिर मैं मेरी टूटते चुरियो की गूंज सुनाई देती है तुझे?

 

जा करली तेरी लेन-देन की बात मैंने,

गोश्त की भूख है, कुछ कम कुछ ज़्यादा, पर गोश्त ही तो चाहिए तुझे?

हूं मैं वही जहा हमेशा मिलती हूँ,

टीम-तिमाते बत्तियों के नीचे, सजे बाज़ार में आज बिक रही हु मैं।

 

इस बार भी आएगा तू, मालूम है मुझे,

अपने शौख के मुताबिक फिर वही राग छेड़ेगा, मालूम है मुझे।

मेरे लाल-पीले पहनावे पर, अपनी इज़्ज़त से कमाई दो कौड़ी उछाल जाएगा,

मेरे शरीर पर तु फिर राम का नाम लेकर सफेद चादर भी डाल जाएगा।

 

लेकिन इस बार ज़रा अपने अंदर के बचे इंसानियत को दफना कर आना,

अपनी आत्मा को मेरे चौखट पर छोर, बस एक खरीदार की तरह आना।

तेरे लिखे इतिहास का एक गुमनाम हिस्सा हूँ,

लेकिन अब तेरे धर्म, जात और ईमान से वाकिफ हूँ।

 

बटे है सब यहा आधों मे

क्या जिस्म और क्या माटी,

बिके है सब यहा दुकानों मे।

TRAFFIC

For the last time that night, she tried to relive a faint memory. It wasn’t very long since she had seen a little boy about the age of 4 or 5;or maybe more, on her way to the varsity. Who knew how old he was, because of obvious reasons, the state of destitution he lived in could not do justice to his age; the pits under his eyes with a larger one following down to his abdomen, had sworn to make him look like a dying labor in his twilight years.

In a perfectly set room, she sits composed. Her face shinning bright as the laptop’s screen flashes. ‘Write something’, a column says. She wants to write to ‘something’, she wants to erase that memory, make it someone else’s piece of thought, wants to make it easier for herself but she cant. She cant because memories stay, they dont just go, fade or die; they hibernate until someone hits the sweet spot again.

Squinting her eyes shut, she thinks of the boy again. With sun just above the head and a film of dust  practically everywhere, it wasnt easy to spot a kid like that. Excusing the indecency of comparison, how often does someone stop to look at dirt anyway? A kid begging for some clattering coins, more holes than material in his pants and arms reaching till the windows of shiny black cars; a kid like him just adds to the background. Hence, it was just another cosmic joke, that she saw him.

Knocking at the windows, pushing the curve of his lips as down as he possibly can and making a bowl shape with his nimble fingers, he halted hopefully next to a polished car. She had a documentary view of him and could see a bold and masculine (in its adopted meaning, ofcorse) hand coming out of the metal body and clumsily dragging the boy a bit closer. Mapping his hands down to his unbuttoned pants, he grops him. Confused, not knowing the nature of the act, he makes a gesture asking for some money and looks impatiently towards the changing traffic lights. Red, yellow, go.

Leaving a whirpool of dust behind, the car goes away. Almost overlooking the incident he adjusts his pants again and walks off the road. Obviously, more cars will halt again and the chances of managing his microscopic economy prevails. It was just some random person, weirdly interested in his pants.

The screen is  still flashing with the same brightness, watchman is on his rounds like always, light will follow darkness and the boy will be on the streets again. Fancy photographers with fancier devices capture them in monochrome and twisted ‘theories’ with foreign nomenclature keep looking for solutions. But the wheel stays upright.

Her screen remains blank.

 

THE COMPLEX.

 

Let me write something.                                                                                                               With colossal words which would convulse your mind,                                                       maybe this would make you appreciate the stiched lines.

I am quite sure the ‘gargantuan’ words will make you think that the complex is beautiful.

But, isnt ‘the complex’ raveled with dilemmas which do not exist in coherence?  which is like a seductress who never wants to be understood, but finds her release by mystifying you?

It is a tool, which people with access to the grey morbid buildings, ‘stuffed with knowledge’, use to create ‘us and them’.

The complex, used with such an attainment just to perplex.

The dilemma.

Can you go and yet stay close? not so far but just the right distance, you see? So that I can still hear your voice and smell your crisp linen when the wind brings it to me. My eyes do not crave your face anymore, I have it memorised like the prayer for survival in my holy book. I do not wait for your touch or the pressure of your face against mine, its just your voice I have dressed my soul for.

Roses. Roses, which could not be accpeted in any other color but red like blood. Symbolising in a subtle yet loud manner that love is like blood which keeps us alive, keeps us breathing. But to you, I have given the color of the sky. I hear your youth in the storms and your whistling in spring. While you are the sky and I am just a glebe, we seem to meet…somwhere.

This distance is so comforting, allowing you and me to grow, create our own little catastrophes and yet keeping our love safe. Safe in the cushion of vaccum between us. for you may not be the one I live for. But its just your voice, I tell you again, that can hold the reign of my soul.

So, sing me that song in which the lovers wait. Lets swing and move to its beat in our parallel universes, while we march towards the point of the absolute, where we meet. So for now lets clink our glasses from where we are.

Why do not my words rhym?

Poems sound like wind chimes. Beautiful poems, ending each line with words which are like relatives to each other. Poems which are as synchronised and composed as a ballerina. But my poem here, does not rhym. The question is why?

How do you expect me to greet you every morning with coffee, newspaper and a smile on my face? How secure are you with your ownership over me? Built me a castle, where you feast lavishly on me every night.

Don’t get me wrong, my dear. I sometimes forget that it’s just your ‘passionate and fierce love’. It seems, it’s in my flesh and blood, to be incapable of returning your fervor.

I settle the bed every morning, when you groom your masculinity. I look at the rumpled sheet, they look like the veins revolting against my skin, when you make me ‘your’s’.

 I have known ways to quit but I decided to stay. Woman’s nurturing and ardent love, you may say.

I have stayed for those little feet, runny nose and stammering nursery rhymes. She is growing now, soon will turn to be a lady. But not ‘lady-like’. She will know ways to quit and stand unshakable even when a man’s ‘passion’ will try to dissolve her.

I will tell her that love is a poem which is not always supposed to rhym. Her mother tried to sing and find a rythm to her words, only to be accepted by a beast.

 But she will write poems of witches burning scavengers, not with rhyming, but with words of-consent. 

Love found me.

 This piece is a reminder to self. I live away from my parents and how many times it has been that their calls go unanswered, the distance makes every thing seem so morbid. But love is stubborn, she (I prefer ‘love’ to be ‘she’) snuggles her way back, more stronger than before..

“Knock, knock guess who?”
Someone just disturbed my absolute monochromatic life.
“It’s me- love! Open the door!”
Love- I knew her.
I lived in a big, mundane house with not much furniture, just the essentials.
She was too vibrant to be at my doorsteps, the contrast made me a bit diffident about my choices.
I slightly opened the door,
Made sure that she dint see my rugged gown which once was as red as the blood in our veins.
     “There you are! I brought you a basket of cookies, jam jars and oh! you definitely missed these- Caramel candies!”
She shrugged away the dust on her overcoat and found her way in. I must say, she was a bit uncouth, did not know a timing for anything.
” Do you know, your mom still does not allow anyone to enter your room? And your dad keeps the lights on , expecting your return?”
“I know, but …” , She dint let me complete my sentence.
” And the boy whom you promised your ‘forever’ plants thunder-lilies in his backyard just to feel the spring he felt with you?”, she was clearly frustrated now.
“Why are you here?”
“To bring you back home.”
          When nostalgia hits you, it hits you hard.
It was then when I saw I small note in the basket,
     “Sent with love”, it spelled. 

Introducing me.

If anyone of you, reading this, has been or is still, a jonas-fan, you would definitely know the song ‘introducing me’. Unconventional way of starting, but- hey! I am Kritika. People call me aanya, and thats what I love. I am 20 years old, with a very tangled sense of comicality and, somehow, over the years have managed a titty bitty skill of stichting few words together and answering the questions inside my head. 

More about me would be that, I am a Jason Mraz fan and would slave to see him perform live someday (believe me), and that I like my coffee cold, feet out of the blanket even when it’s freezing, I love dogs, rolling over the grass and making paper boats sail in the puddle. 
So, thats pretty much me. Do leave a comment if you have been here. Hasta-la-vista!