Summer

The summers had always been wonderful. The beautiful clear evenings. Skies, pink, blue and all shades of sunlight red. They spent all their days reading by the window or cycling along the winding river – racing each other. Eating juicy mangoes in the shade of the old trees. Oblivious to the sands of time. Meera and Anamika.

They were a fiery pair. Always getting into mischief. They had spent their childhood in the same orphanage. Begged on the same streets. Made their way in the world together. They would have done anything for each other.

One such summer day dawned with Meera, coughing blood. Her health spiraled out of control. And life - just came to a standstill. As if trapped between the frozen hands of a clock which has run out of time. It became apparent that only a rare transplant could save her.

Anamika stayed with her all the time. Trying to ease the pain. But it was futile. She would lapse into nightmares seeing of her best friend, her sister, just withering away. She asked around for donor. It was as if, finally fate had succumbed to jealousy and had decided to tear them apart.

The next summer. Meera sat on the same window. Looked at the river outside. And the old beautiful trees. Filled up her lungs with the preciously fragrant familiar air. Tracing the path with her eyes, where she would never cycle with her friend again.
They would have done anything for each other.

Florentine

Crimson nails and a crimson mouth
Dense shadows of lashes
A walk so serpentine
O Florentine

My death you will be
As I lust for your touch
Devilishly divine
O Florentine

Under your gaze I tremble
In feverish passion
A shiver crawls down my spine
O Florentine

To have you is my destiny
The bittersweet welcome death
The end when you are mine
O Florentine.

Change

Do you recognise me?
I am a different me from yesterday.
I changed a little over last night,
And a little while you were away.

Oh, I still sleep with a book in my hand.
But changed are the books I hold.
I pour my thoughts in the same diary,
But have new secrets in it's folds.

My love for you has changed too.
Grown in some ways, and lessened in some.
I still have two left feet,
But a different tune now I hum.

Do not be scared, I pray
Of the changes you see in me.
Every moment I change a little.
And the same in you I see.

Lollipop

It was unbelievable. Amazing. Fantastic.

The colours! All of them. Red, blue, green, yellow, pink.. In beautiful swirls.

And it tasted heavenly. Sweet. Never ending. However much you lick! Even if you took a sumptuous bite, immediately the missing part would reappear and the lollipop would be a whole again. Lovely!

Amy could not believe her luck. Here she was walking around, starving, looking in bins and cans for something to eat. When she came upon this innocent looking lollipop, lying there, peacefully. In its wrapper too! Now she would never be hungry. Yeah! Might get a bad stomach ache or rotten teeth. But never hungry again.

Blissfully happy. Skipping away she started back to her little home in a big pipe. She should have not closed her eyes in ecstasy! She tripped.

She gazed at the dark clouds above from the hole in the pipe. She sighed! Will have to go hungry again tonight. She could almost still taste the lollipop.

Crumble

And she saw her world crumble
down in the dust
Her sanity taking a tumble
her resolve almost burst.

No she does not gather
the shards of her broken I
She knows now she would rather
set them free and let them fly.

To spread where ever they would
The bits and pieces of ONE
For people to make whatever they could
of the strangest one under the Sun.

Little Heart

I heard somewhere, that your heart is the size of your closed fist. And i always wondered how tiny the heart of a little new born baby would be. So small. So tender. And oh how hard the little thing must beat when the child cries out for the first time while clutching your finger tightly in its teeny ones.

A collegue gave birth to twins. Not a bosom friend. But I was excited about twins. They sound so awesome. Especially twin girls. All the fun twin-sister stories that I read as a kid came to my mind.

One of the little premature babies' heart gave up today. Its strange how you have not even seen the babies. You are not even close to the mother. But still in your heart there is this heavy weight. A deep sorrow. A choked throat. At the tiniest fingers that are not clutching your finger and the little teeny heart thats not beating any more.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me. - Robert Frost

BAD HAIR DAYS

Have you ever wondered why we have bad hair days? Well, I will tell you a story about the fight between the wind and hair which might explain things a bit. There was this small town once, where everyone had beautiful hair. Nice, shiny, long and straight, which rippled and shimmered in the wind and sunlight. The only problem was that these people were a so proud about their beautiful hair that they kept teasing the wind about it. They said that the wind was totally insignificant. It was created just so that it moved and made their hair ripple and look even prettier. The wind did not have any beauty of its own. It was plain and invisible and when it moved it got noticed just because the beautiful hair moved. The people teased and teased the wind, until the wind developed a huge inferiority complex and went away from the town to sulk in the woods. She spent quite some time flying about in the woods, feeling sorry for herself. But soon the trees became her friends as the leaves of the trees really enjoyed dancing with her. One day the wind told her woe to the trees and the trees decided to help her. The leaves rippled and passed the message from one tree to another until it reached the oldest and the wisest tree in the woods – The Old Banyan Tree. When the old banyan tree heard the wind’s sad story he summoned her and gave her a very nice idea to teach the hair a lesson.

Next morning the wind went back to the town to see how the hairs were doing. As soon as she arrived the hair of the people out for their work started jeering at her, making fun of her that they knew she’d be back as there was no other way that she would make her presence felt except by making the hair look beautiful. At this the wind said yes, I have come for the hair only. And then she started blowing gently at first, that the hair enjoyed it. But then it blew so hard that the hair got entangled badly and stood on their ends beaten by the wind screaming for her to stop. After that the people of the town with beautiful hairs always had bad hair days every time the hair went back to their pompous ways and started teasing the wind.

So whenever the wind is blowing too hard and messing up your hair, you’ll know that it’s happening because the hair was getting pompous about its beauty. Tame them.