i cant believe
how that first kiss was
that im now
out looking
that ive had
pieces of that thing
stripped away
by the howling wind
and the plague
of our times
but i am a rebel
of the weak word
offering the last fight
i am biting my lips
kiss me for
the first time

a street cur named desire

the first time hyderabad really made me laugh was over aloo parathaas at the rajasthani's. the drum major and stringsense told me about how they had seen the locals chase away dogs. even when the mongrel is a docile one they will raise their fist as if to hit and bring it down with a loud ho! roared out as if it really was some lion and not a common canine. now i havent seen this method at work but me mates promised me that that was exactly how they chased away dogs in hyderabad. believing that the story cannot be too offensive to anyone i thought it fair to see the humour in it and join in the joke. for it can be easily ignored, but at the time i found the demonstration hilarious and we couldn't stop laughing. because it is better to laugh at stupid things than try to be funny in my opinion. unfortunate things have been said when all that was intended was to bring a smile to the lips. we might well believe in the absolute beatitude in being the one that makes everybody crack up but that enterprise is fraught with pitfalls. like waiting for the vendor at work to hand us our free coffee i couldnt help remark to a city reporter i can scarcely claim to know very well as he jostled out space for himself at the counter that in this country we line up for things meaning we stand in a line at counter meaning that it is about as funny as einstein was dumb in brief we indians are only ever standing lining up for things but what is empathy in such terms to one i learnt was fresh off the boat from middleeast. not that it took me hours for that faux pas to register because the girl that accompanies this kid of ours gave an absolute look of horror no sooner than these words had escaped my mouth meaning she completely saw how fucked up that statement was. i got my coffee before him. not that i have been a runaway success in personal magnetism that this episode should make me remember it with alarm. most of the security at work is from my home state which makes me pally with them and to have security play ball is something that can never harm and so i am always the agreeable person with the men in uniform which is an unproven strategy of trying to stay out of real adult trouble, at least one of them. i generally exchange a word in the lingo with my people and we get along fine. there has to be this one mister i offended during initial exchanges or maybe he is plain autistic but this puny guard looks straight through me when i say hi. sometimes he does me a favour and finds somewhere else to look as i pass him. other times he is quite trapped. like he is always trapped when he is posted at the main gate. there his post means that he is right there as i enter office. those are the days of the numb look. but he is trying. one day the moment he observed me crossing the road, he started doing a march up and down the gate. kid you not but a proper military march in all seriousness. maybe he does not hate me so much as he hates his job. i agree that any kind of loathing takes away acknowledgement. that is, we never acknowledge that which we loathe although here the substance of our loathing might be like hammer for stone, shaping us in every possible way. that is also the case with love but there there is the sense that one is in control when one is really enjoying it. but loathing, we do not even talk about and it carries on its chipping. although i have never been able to figure out what was so loathsome in vegas. it did look like a shocking affair what with all the drugs making me feel like the both of them would explode but there was nothing loathsome there if it wasnt the going over the top and excessiveness although they did leave a christian virgin in the lurch. i imagine what was loathsome was what they glossed over in the movie with the drug odyssey. loathing might be the reason why these fuckers were doing what they were doing in the first place. sanity or being and staying sane can be loathsome at times, more loathsome is trying to drink it down or smoke it away among other ways of dealing with it. i have for as long as i can remember studiously avoided finding an escape in them items but i have definitely looked for a ticket whenever i have hit it. if one is getting high because of sadness and the other is getting exuberant for it then it seems to me that neither mood is in its nature. but what is all in the mind, how long does it stay there and how long does it stay the same way.

dawn on the third day

i gather thorn flowers
they are tiny and blue
i count them by the prickles
on my fingers
and tie them in a bunch for you
that is what i do
and id do it still
if it wasnt for you
i have come to
the barren land
so far from you
walk through the lands
you know thorn bush grows
if you come
looking for me
and look they are
roses for you

there is no fear
but senselessness
that im not here
a hopelessness
that i dont care
an aimlessness
of a last decadent age
and on wild seas
dozens of geese
fly overhead

here and there

calcutta on air on g.
a dream lived
and now delayed
for that seems
like a time to come
the time already spent

we would walk
straight from dp
to maddox square
after the rides
only to go back
for more and then
to ballygunge cultural

what is to say
all this has happened
and i havent closed my eyes
unforgettable the number
of people on the roads then
and like ice in a glass
mixed in the drink
cowboys and gypsies youd think
on streets the soul craves
in sunshine in rain


II
travelling with men of
straw, of steel
of the wild
along an open brick road
i stumble, i fall
far away in the distance
i can see
walls of an emerald sheen
and remembered what
i have set out for
only while
the sun is in the sky
and i
a more cutthroat dorothy
camel in the desert

trip the ghostlight fantastic

so much i wont speak about
because i cant, a criminal past
stays hidden away inside
faint to myself but shining
a dead blurry light
deep in the fog
of an winter sea
on a skiff
a little out waiting
as it always has
i was born with memories
and in my life have relived
the cycle of darkness
followed by light
but that has all gone awry
what shall i tell
how i came to this shore
have i lost my boat
was i flushed from land
convict or master
i do not know
i shall not speak therefore
i will wait till im found


everytime, everytime i set out to put down things i remember from my earliest childhood i can never bring myself to it. i do not remember the whole of it, and here the question also arises where is the cut off point for the notional juvescence that is now left behind. that departure doesnt bear reflection, as do no other departures. for i think it is in acts of leaving, itself seen as a trope for leaving behind, that i have put on age. this argument can be developed only there would be so many details that i would never be able to present for second-party scrutiny. not that it needs examination. but a little digging never yielded anything but either treasure or trash. now if i was superman or a startrekker then kryptons, vulcans and altogether suchlike cosmic noodles would be my entanglement with my past. here my past is not fully it. im living with it. i protect it. sometimes i also feel revisionist. the now is one threshold ive always jumped off but am always never prepared for it. maybe if my present could be devoted to ordering my past, then, somewhere down the diary i would have closure. till that time peter pan remains a ghost lurking inside my head, hook, his freudian (or is it jungian) reading a phantom menace i have to live it. the only comfort in all this is that it makes sense only to me. not my past, not entirely, but that i was a child once.

so hyd/quickly and happy birthday/it all ends

and he said
do not give me
information
instead give me
anticipation
give me experience
share with me
that many times
you fall in love
and are always
heartbroken

what if your ong never barked

party and its discontents
the truth in the innards of things
needs laxative
and then a calmative
and sometimes you are
so sapped of strength
in the middle of it
when at day's end
youd promised to live it up
and it isnt over yet
youve promised yourself
the strains of the guitar
enter your head
your evil grin
so truly flashed
has promised you heaven
youre honest
an honest thief


they came to speak
they came to praise me
under the village tree
it's a small world
a small circle
soon they will
know the culprit
because a thief
knows hiding
not charity


today is a tiger's birthday. jisko kahte hain roomie. abhi roomie ki socho. zindagi jungle hain to my sher is my roomie. share khan is stockbroking portal. or is it brokerage. now when you like there is a price to pay because it's worth something. corn and cheese. no more, no more will i say