LIZZY

There you are peeping
From behind the speakers
What are you looking for?
Did the music bother you
Should I play something else
Something maybe more peppy?

Or something soft and soothing
Like a lullaby
And you can go back to slumber
From which I’m afraid I disturbed you.

Maybe you mother is anxious
And looking for you on some other desks
She too peeping
From behind the jungle of laptops and speakers

Are you not scared?
Here on this desk all alone
A little thing
Next to my booming speakers

Go home Lizzy
To where you belong
And in your lizard world
Maybe you can make your own song!

OF BOXES & BOOKS & INSPIRATION

Last night I discovered something which gave me my excitement for writing back! I was opening and going through my cartons of books packed during my last shifting. As it is, I find the exercise very nice, opening the boxes, sifting through books – some which I had thought as lost, some I would like to read again, some I had altogether forgotten I owned. Is it not the most joyful thing to swim in the pool of books and come out with new or rather old finds! The musty smell of old books, the crisp pages of new books, the oldest books with yellowed pages, their spines so soft that I find myself stroking them before I coax them open just so much that the pages don’t fall out. I even have an ancient copy of Catch – 22 (I must tell you I don’t lend it to anyone). It is so old that each and every page is separated from the binding. I have kept it in a small box and each page has to be picked, read and kept back in the cover. I am so crazy about that book that I had bought 2 more copies so that I can lend those to people who ask for Catch – 22 instead of my dear old torn one.

Coming back to my boxes, I had gone on a re-arranging spree last night which led me to opening the boxes and diving into them. And I discovered this notebook filled with stuff written in Hindi and because the note book was full, there were additional sheets of paper from some other notebook attached at the end.

It was my own Hindi translation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I find it hard to explain what I felt when I found that notebook. I had done this translation in 1994. I was (as compared to now) a kid then. And I had inexplicably undertaken the daunting task of translating one of the “ten books of the century” into Hindi. I leaf through the pages and see the conviction and dedication, the discipline that I claim to no longer have. And I think to myself, if back then, I could throw myself into such an activity, why can’t I do the same now? I had even translated the songs in the book and my stanzas rhymed!

I have decided to keep that book handy all the time for the way it inspires me to try yet again, to write yet again.


And I will.

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.