It had not rained in a while, Not a torrent, nor a downpour nor a drizzle It had not rained in a long while, three thousand six hundred sixty seven days to be precise, Though no one has been precise lately, it’s the haze they said, it’s the haze that induced the daze The old counted time in the number of teeth they had lost, The young thought of the children they have sacrificed. They sang poems of the trees, They told stories of the…Continue Reading “The never never rains”

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18 till I die she said. The gods heard. A speeding truck crushed her on her way back from the birthday party.

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Jack and Jill went up the hill. On the hill, they saw a clearing with lots of people and hi tech gadgets. A big corporation was scouting the place for mining. Jack and Jill were killed and hung from a tree. The papers read that two Christian lovers were killed by their caste communities. They had converted as their castes didn’t permit intermarriage. When they cut the ropes, Jack fell down and Jill came tumbling after.

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There were two paths in the woods. He took the one lesser taken. Chances of someone discovering the rotting body were much less if he buried her on this one.

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You are strong. In your own swaying in the wind way, you are strong. In your standing on one feet on a precipice way, you are strong. In your never steady, almost too fragile way, you are strong. You thought you won’t last a day; an eon has passed. You are strong. You are strong the way no one else is, the way strong never was. You are strong for a moment, an interval, an interlude. Not always, no one is. Eternity is too powerful…Continue Reading “You are strong”

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Ek din mil baithenge zindagi Jab tu mere shareer se azaad hoga Aur puri karli hogi maine teri miyaad Zameen se saatve aasman ke beech ke safar main Kagaz kalam leke karenge hisaab Kagaz tu lana, ya phir likh lena aasman pe Kalam main kisi se maang lunga Badi si ek badal pe baith ke karenge hisaab Meri zindagi kitni maine jee Aur kitna jia tune mujhe Kitni dafaa maine mauka dia tujhe Kitni baar tu dagabaaz nikla Pehli baar mujhe darr na hoga tera…Continue Reading “Hisaab”

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Teri mohabbat bhi raat ki andhiare jaisi he Na kuch aur dikhta hai, na main khud Subah tak hi pata chalta hai ki Kal sham ka main main nahin reha Jis raah par chal nikla tha bade gumaan se Woh raah, woh seher, nahin reha

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Akele hone ke vaham se Akele hone ki saccchai tak Yuhin beperwah zindagi se Laparwah ees lamhe tak Us waqt ke gumaan se Ees ghadi ki guroor tak Kabhi na kahi soch se Kabhi na sochi soch tak Kya jaane kya kya dhunda Kya jaane kyon kuch na paya Har dhaage ke ant tak dekha Har rekha ko padh ke dekha Maqsad aur matlab ke chasmon se dekha Taqdeer ko thoda suljha ke dekha Zindagi ko thoda uljha ke dekha Kya jaane kyon kuch na…Continue Reading “Dhool”

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Yeh seher Kiska hai Kuch raaston pe teri yaad beechi hai Kuch asmanon pe mera naam likha hai Kahin tera naam liya tha Kahin gusse main Yun hi tera haath choda tha Yeh seher Kiska hai Kuch ped jinke saye main khade the Kat Gaye hai Kuch dukanon pe jahan chai Ki chuski li thi Band ho chuke hai Ees badle maanchitra main kitna hamara tha Kitna mera hai Aur kitna hai tera Seher ke kone main woh chidiaghar yaad hoga tumko Woh mota aalsi…Continue Reading “Yeh seher kiska hai”

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Where do stories come from? Mostly from the places babies come from. Birds, bees and angels. But far too much credit is given to alternate/inebriated states of mind, solitude and staring at mountains; far too less to people around us. Sometimes, people are tools that you open cans of stories with. Sometimes, people are the cans of stories. We put the people we meet through the steps to see how much they hold, turn them sideways, upside down, claw at the corners to get every…Continue Reading “Where do stories come from?”

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It is said that in the last moments of your life, you see the faces of all those who are dear to you – a slideshow of near and dear ones, of sorts. But this is not how it happened with him. In a 300 hundred kilometer drive this must have been the only ambitious overtake. But there he was, directly in the path of a massive truck, in the wrong lane, hemmed in by vehicles on all sides, being offered like a bride. Nothing…Continue Reading “10 seconds to impact”

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2.11  am. The night of 25th January. It was drizzling outside in Delhi. My phone rang, a call from my uncle who was in Koliatha to tend to my ailing grandfather. I have written about my grandpa a couple of times, many who have never met him, think I am influenced by him. Anyway, the uncle kept silent. I should have understood. But we had never agreed on a code of silence. So, it was appropriate for me to ask him matter of factly “what’s…Continue Reading “In fierce memory of my great grandfather”

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My grandfather, who never wrote, inspired the literature in many. He once said that one must enjoy or endure the weathers. One must sweat in the summers and shiver during the winters. The body, just like the planet, has a cycle of its own and it must not be deprived of its sustenance. When we were children, he would make us sit under the tree, not under a fan, and tell stories about all that we could see – the well, the banana plant, the…Continue Reading “My great grandfather”

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The mornings. They are the hardest. The dreams have not yet died. Memories of other times and other places still linger. You reach a subtle compromise between the stubbornness of sleep and the righteousness of waking. All you ask from the day is a few moments in which you travel a thousand miles.

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You feel it when you see a happy photo of a friend, your ex-flame in a happy moment, or even a stranger who seems to have more than you do, or sometimes for no significant reason at all. It is a singularly powerful emotion.  Jealousy. You will not find another instance in life when an enotion that is so pure (pure as juxtaposed to good and evil), so natural, so obvious and so uninhibited has been villified as so much evil. I don’t understand why…Continue Reading “Why we must celebrate jealousy”

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The terrible terrible urge to recreate perfect moments. The yearly trips to the spots where one proposed, the playing of songs that caused timeless memories, the wearing of clothes that may have been worn when something important had happened…the longing with which we try and hold on is so powerfully unique. The belief that the past was better, that the future will only be a shadow of the bygone, that we will make what’s coming so much more palatable only if kept looking back. But…Continue Reading “Cosmic Ants”

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It was a Wednesday morning. I don’t remember the year. He woke up with a flutter in his heart. It wasn’t a pain. Definitely, a sensation. But not acute enough to be called a pain. He was worried for a second, then he remembered it must have been about the last evening. Her nails had dug into his hand while they were crossing the road. All night, he had pondered over taking a knife and making the lines of that temporary depression permanent. His heart…Continue Reading “A little confusion”

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