We'll never turn back

Had I known it was the last time I would see him...

- I'd have kissed a less harder

- I'd not have called him as soon as the translucent grey puff of smoke from the bus that took me away, disappeared into the sky.

- I'd not have spent most of the night watching him sleep.

- I'd not have let him hear my heartbeat

- I'd have told him that I loved him. Just because he didn't deserve it.



For you see, all along he knew that it was the last time he'd want to see me.

A life less stationary

Copper sulphate. Its a shade of blue. And that's how identities are. One used as a reference for another.

It was always like this. An illusion of freedom. There was a world out there which I could see. Glass cages all of us are trapped in. Go... but where? The answer to this question is never sought. Just go.

A life less stationary was all I asked for. Fate is a cruel joke as always. One must be careful what one wishes for.

Bubbling away and going nowhere on orange-violet flames was the freedom with a string attached. A life less stationary.




-------------------------------------

People all around me went everywhere. And I stayed right there. If there wasn't so much of a hustle around me everyday, I might not have minded all that much. But wanderlust... and its urges. I didn't want to be the one to die where I was, with the travel inside me.

A life less stationary, that's all I asked for. Less. That's the wrong word I used.

The lay new railway tracks. Now I lie all alone. Unused. Unrubbed. Untouched. Noting around me moves much. Except the pinched-cheek, runny-nose children who carried rusty tins of emptiness and the yellow withering flowers that grew around to die. A life less stationary.

Bombay dreams

For a small town girl like me, you'd think Bombay was an experience. It was.



I loved the anonymity in the trains. Pressing against unfamiliar bodies. The stale smell of sweat and the intimacy of another person's odor. You frantically lower your head and soak in the familiar smell of your own body and take deep breaths. Refuge in the known.

I loved bargaining with the shopkeepers. We both knew I was lousy at it. But the sense of importance you feel when you quote a ridiculously low price, the mock horror at his being almost robbed, the pout that is reluctant to leave and his coaxing of your petulance. All the world is a stage.

I loved standing by the waterfront, the arabesque sprays touching your salty skin. Our umbrellas flap recklessly. A scarf that's curved fashionably on slender necks tugs to let go. If alone letting go was that easy.

I loved sitting at marine drive. An old friend and past conversation. Somewhere in between we'd stopped making new memories. So this time we made an effort. Her eyes are watchful of the many bags of won deals that I have carelessly scattered around me. She is on her guard, lest someone nabs what she considers my recently acquired possessions. I don't have the heart to tell her that I never wanted most of what I bought. They'd remain in mothball scented cupboards, a memento that I'd never bother looking at.

And the stars... Oh, we never saw any.

A Shadow A Song

He is

…an S&G song

…a huckleberry friend

…the now missing mails in my Inbox

…an unwritten letter

…a husky laugh

…a wood scented voice in the head

He is a wavery watery shadow of a person gone. Of a person who perhaps was never there.

Nooks and crannies

So we were lying on hopefully-washed-hotel-sheets. Separate sheets of used white. The space inside one feels too lonely. So I crawl into the barely enough of the other. The shifted warmth of a body that moved aside to make space for me, the sunken hollow of the bed that becomes ready to now contain my tired body.

I slept well….Our fingers bridging gaps and forming almost a prayer.

The key that doesnt open any door

He asked me why I came back.

He never asked me why I went away.