to

to this perfection we strive to seek,
to what's yours and mine and ours,
to being fat, to being ugly, to perversions,
to being an exemplary human being,
to being human unlike the dictionary.

to this perfection we strive to seek,
to not the member, to not of the species,
to not the genus, to not the H. Sapiens,
to not the human frailty,
to not the warmth of human understanding,
to not the human race,
to not the human affairs.

to the perfection we strive to seek,
to what's power and to what's redefined,
to what's diseased and to what's dying,
to what's dead when it doesn't matter,
to time that has gone by,
to the hour that came along by,
to the minute that'll kill us,
to the second that'll conspire.

to the perfection i strive to seek,
to your family who i'll never see,
to another world where i try to be
to what's not mine and can never be yours
to the head that i cave inside,
to the mind that i survive,
to the last moment that was just perfect
to the lines that i'm now out of.

to the perfection, undoubtedly.

i don't have anything to say to anyone

i don't have anything to say to anyone
like hardcore porn on mute
like a pack of clean earbuds
and a pencil stained with earwax
like a yellow notepad with notes
but the doodles cloud them all

i don't have anything to say to anyone
like a stare into the blank
like a plugged in cellphone charger
stares at the paperweight of a handset
like the flap of a fan at speed 5
and the heat it hasn't got beat

i don't have anything to say to anyone
like a pair of glasses with nothing to read
like a rather large man with ice cream
and a rather young child with none
like the stench of an armpit in heat
and of molten cheese on a pizza

i don't have anything to say to anyone
like not you, not now, maybe yesterday
like a dying storyteller with forty
valiums and a blank sheet of paper
like a depression victim locked
in a room with way too many uppers

i don't have anything to say to anyone
like a cat rather had my tongue
like even if i called you
i'd umm, err, oh over the phone
like you'd wonder why i called
and then we'd hang up.

never really

every night i sit back and i look at the sky
waiting for the stars and planets to pass me by
but they never really move, they never really go anywhere

every night i look at the snakes on my skin
waiting for them to fall off my chest and die
but they never really move, they never really go anywhere

every night i think of the people i despise
waiting for their death or my sudden demise
but we never really move, we never really go anywhere

every night i talk to pretty pictures inside my head
they're all colour but i see black and white instead
i wait for them to come alive, turn a darker shade of red
but they never really move, they never really go anywhere

every night the world floats in front of my eyes, the world survives
i wait for a deluge, i wait for a comet,
i wait for it to fly high and then maybe plummet
but the world doesn't move, it bobs up and down in my eyes

every night i sit and shoot blanks at the wall,
waiting for this tail-chase to end, to end it all,
but the wall doesn't move, it never really goes anywhere

tonight i sit and count dreams because the sheep are all dead
waiting for the sheep to resurrect and get back into my head
one by one they jumped like fish from water and onto my bed
now they never really move, they never really go anywhere

every night i dream of a sun, the one i will call fun,
i wait to find it somewhere, some place i want to call home
because i don't want to move, and i don't want to go anywhere.

and you stood there...

and you stood there,
your lips like
thin strips of
watermelon,
and your smile
is the salt i'd
want to lick
before 30 ml
of tequila

and won't you
let your fingers
be the wedge of lemon
that makes me wink?
before i tumble
head over heels
and smash

and while you choose
not to look into my eyes,
can i close them
and pretend i am outside?
and it's raining
and it's blowing
and i can still
see your smile against
the grey and the dark.

and while we look
at other people,
and your eyes move like
lonely tortilla chips
to distract me
from myself,
while my glass mocks at me
for not saying a thing
to you

and while you pretend
to look at me
what if my eyes
refuse to open?
and i am lying
on cold tar.
it stopped raining
and i still hear drops,
will you slip
your warm dry hands
under my arms and
touch me back to life
with the ridge
of your nose?

scar

if you were as cold
and lifeless in parts,
standing on your feet,
i'd want you to
show me the blue
i'd want to ask you,

where's this scar from?
did you give in
to yourself?

when your hurt
is all yours
and you don't
share it with
an inflictor,

can i kiss your scar?
can i wet the edge
of my upper lip
in its warm pain?

and then maybe we could
stop pretending
that we're hurt
and then maybe we could
love the pain like
the wet last stroke
waiting to dry
and finish the painting.

if your pain glows
like a blue flame
and your nights
make you untell,
make you unheal,

can i see you tonight?
you, me in our private
trickle of light?

dab down my back
the dampness of your pain,
let me feel mine react
to the promised smell
of all things burning,
all things cold,
all wounds open,
all limbs lifeless,
and all swallowed.

crush - a pantoum

crush

i've only seen you once
and yet i miss you
like it's been forever
since we talked that night

and yes i miss you
when i came to know you
since we talked that night
and you came to know me.

when i came to know you
i know it never happened, i know
and you came to know me.
i've only seen you once.

i know it never happened, i know
and yet i miss you.
i've only seen you once
and we never talked.

and yet i miss you,
i've replayed that evening
when we never talked,
two hundred and thirty three times.

i've replayed that evening,
every line you said inside my head,
two hundred and thirty three times.
i know it never happened, i know.

every line you said inside my head,
i've only seen you once.
i know it never happened, i know
and yes i miss you.

i've only seen you once,
why do i feel like i know you?
and yet i miss you
but i don't remember any.

why do i feel like i know you
'spite i know it never happened?
and i don't remember any,
i know, i've only seen you once.

Blank Slate

I wouldn't listen. I never have. A lifetime has passed me and I don't remember a single day when I have. I wish I had. I wouldn't be in this dump otherwise. My house feels like a bomb shelter after a bomb went off inside it. The walls and their falling paint patches stood blank while everything within them was gone. In the last three months, I never stepped out of this house for more than thirty-four minutes a week.

Every day, I pace back and forth, trying to retrace my own footsteps on the layer of dust in my living room. With every step I miss my own footprint by a couple of millimetres. The room smelled like the first rain, just not that wet. After the first three weeks, I devised one simple schedule which made living easy - every Saturday afternoon I took a walk.

To buy three loaves of bread, a bottle of jam, seven eggs and two litres of orange juice with preservatives, no added sugar. The girl at the third counter shows me her teeth. Two of the mogra flowers in her hair lose their body, shape and scent to her fingertips. Her eyes sparkle with 'let's get married, have babies, you earn money and I will breastfeed them'. There's a 1:3 chance that she either has the bad boy complex or the heroine/mother complex. No, these are not real psychiatric conditions.

I had a girlfriend a lifetime ago. We studied together. A medical love story. If you observe, most doctors are married to doctors and their children take up medicine in college. Half my classmates have parents who are doctors and specialists. Half of the remaining have either parent in the medical profession. The remaining one quarter got in because their ancestors were of an oppressed backward caste. There are two or three achievers like me who go in because we wanted to be doctors. I haven’t picked up her calls after she hugged me when I asked her to give me some time to get over my grief and loss. For a week, I kicked tin cans at mirrors and blank walls in my house. On the third Saturday, she came by. One part of me wanted to listen to her as we walked to the grocery store. The rest of me was not missing my mother already.

On my way back from the store, I make a call from a payphone despite I own a cell phone. I use it to receive calls only. After fifteen minutes, I walk to the first bus stop on my way back and try not to buy a cigarette from the handicapped cigarette vendor on wheels. While I wait, I chip off flakes of rust from the cast iron rod. Usually, there is someone else waiting at the bus stop with me unless I am lucky. I like the way they react when they see a man with a bleach stained shirt, denim shorts frayed at the edges and a bag of groceries fallen dead at his feet. I haven't shaved in a long time and my premature facial hair has grown wild on select parts of my face. What I am saying though is that I love watching them react. I haven't worn my leather shoes since the day of my convocation ceremony.

Three different bus routes use this bus stop. The other passengers never see me board a bus and never wonder what I am up to. My existence is forgotten as soon as they board the bus they're waiting for. I am that uncomfortable memory which needs to suffocate and die under your carpet.

By then, my man drives to the bus stop on his bucket of noise. His eye brows talk and I hate them. I have tried to not look at them. I even suggested that he start using a helmet. I keep a lot of weed with me. It helps. It keeps me breathing, it keeps me from giving in to my hunger. He is the man who delivers in time of need.

Munchies, that's what my roomie's girlfriend called them. The superficial craving for food that you feel when you are stoned. Munchies are like a hangover. You drink to stay out of it and you smoke more to stay out of them. That way, I save a lot of money on food. Real hunger burns my insides once a day, right when I wake up. After twenty four hours of no food, the stomach is in a knot. The first glass of water inside makes me feel like the contorted tin can at the end of the experiment from school where you prove that air occupies space.

A lifetime ago, three months ago, things were different. I was a good boy, a worthy son and a man under oath. Then, something inside me died. My mother. Take a clock. Unscrew its backside and remove all the gears that you see. Screw it back together and hang it on the wall where it always was.

I scored well nonetheless. If you want to die, I can mark four different places on your body with a sharpie. Anatomy was always my forte. Medicine was the bad child, the rotten sibling. I had no use for medicine and it never appealed to me. For that matter, I still don't know what appeals to me. Meet the clock.

The walk back from the bus stop to the house is always retrospection time. The five odd minutes in the afternoon sun are the moments that I look forward to all week. My father wanted to be a doctor. He was a businessman. I was born to be a white coat. Manufactured. My dad started a trust fund and a built a business from scratch. I was his secret subconscious which pretends to be a medical professional. The trust fund matures next month and that money is to be used to build a clinic for myself. Thirty-four minutes in my week which I spend not hating my father and appreciating the undying love my mother had for him. Father died of a heart attack when I was still studying medicine. Mother would've followed him too but instead she chose to wait until she verified the sign of the Dean and the Vice Chancellor on my graduation certificate and license to practice medicine.

And then, she hung herself from the ceiling fan. Her corpse was smiling. The time was eleven thirty nine pm. It will always be that. I am not an expensive shockproof clock. I wear my mother's watch.

That day on, I did not know what to do. The smell of soot blanketed my pores on my face and my sweat tasted like liquid ash. The last moments I shared with her body, after which I should've applied for a job at a hospital.

I was not good at being the medicine man. I was good at studying to become a medicine man because that's all they wanted me to be. I should've just continued studying upwards, all medicine men do that. The top rankers are good at studying, scoring top marks, being the teachers' assistants and collecting and filing certificates. Now, take me to a patient, a real one, the one who doesn’t have a real doctor standing behind him, ticking a pad. I can't tell you what to do with him.

Two pots lived outside my house door. I threw the money plant in the garbage and waited for the holy basil to wilt and die. The day there was not even a stick standing with its head into the soil, the pot went to the roof of the building I lived in.

There are no mirrors in here anymore. I can close my eyes and arrange the groceries in my kitchen. This is the thirteenth time I am doing this. I turn on the only surviving piece of electronic equipment in the house and dance to it. I have two more minutes to not hate my father before my weekly history analysis class ends.

The song fades into the voice of the host. Music never got to me till my foot started tapping on the floor as I spread jam over a slice of bread. Ah, the sweet sugar-high of low quality fruit flavoured jam. I chew my way to the centre of the room when they play the next song. Looking up at the lofts, remnants of a history before the apocalypse stare me down. The last remaining ancestors of my sadness in a desperate attempt to salvage a dream.

Dust and moths fly out of the corrugated boxes when I open them. Books, eaten, torn, yellowed smile at me. They represent the time in my life when I did something that my parents didn't choose for me. My grandma did. Old mythological stories and scriptures. I am seven again. When I was eight, they asked grandma to stop distracting me with stories. Most of them were in Sanskrit. She would recite the Sanskrit verse and then translate it for me to Hindi. Despite later on, I did study Sanskrit as a second language in high school but I had forgotten about these boxes by then. Grandma died alone when I was ten. With more books, the other box had two swords and a shield all wrapped in an ancient copy of a newspaper from the nineties. There is so much I have forgotten. The sword and shield were a story from a time before my grandfather's. They adorned the walls of our living room till once my father caught me staring at them when I was supposed to be finishing my math homework. This was the story grandma never told me.

I pick two books from the box and switch off the radio. Grandma's room, which over the years had become my study room stopped scaring me.

formaldehyde OR i want to scoop out your brain

i want to scoop out your brain
want to watch it live in pain
while it floats in a bottle
and you drive it full throttle

formaldehyde, my love
formaldehyde and clove

i want to watch it run and hide
want to place it on my bedside
while my eyes close to sleep
and my brain dreams too deep

formaldehyde, it saves
formaldehyde, you crave

i want to see the dreams it shows
want to see my mind controlled
while my soul feels at ease
and my mind climbs some trees

formaldehyde, my love
formaldehyde's a dove

i want to watch it while it thinks
want to be your teasing minx
while my fingers probe its being
and it is such a crazy thing

formaldehyde, my bad
formaldehyde, i'm glad.

italian cuisine

olives, black and green
rolling in my mouth
crushed between teeth
wine, red, nerve ends
on fire at the tip
of my tongue.

warm mozarella
off the top of a pizza
tastes better on you.

candles, you missed
but the darkness needs light
only if we use forks to eat.

feed off me for now

feed off me for now
for i can patiently let you.

use your proboscis
and smile as you
feed your hungry shadow.

that warmth which you carry
between your fingertips
slow-burns me
and my temptation.

feed off me for now
for i can wait
till you stick
your fork and knife
into my ego.

maybe i will stop you
maybe i won't
maybe i'll dust my pants
walk off your plate quietly
into the desserts cold.

maybe i'll stay there
till a warm tongue comes by
and thaws me and melts me
and swirls me down a throat.

feed off me now, i suggest,
for later, i'd be just desserts.
i'm sure you will always
smack your lips and dig
your fingertips into more food,
cooked, marinated to perfect
with gravy and the right sauce.

i want to go to a shady back room and listen to jazz

i want to go
to a shady back room
and listen to jazz

a shady back room
with blurred outlines
of vinyl jazz tracks
and heavy basslines

the first note played
at seven thirty,
the last note at sunrise,
the first note contrived,
the second one a surprise.

i refuse to tap my feet
i'm afraid i will lose
your rhythm

i'd rather live
with the saxophone
and use your throat
for kissing,
and swirling
a wine-flavoured tongue.
don't sing.

the bass notes
your breath,
the piano,
your spine,
the silences, the changeovers,
the bridges, the teeth, the lips,
hungry eaten fingertips.

i want to go
to a shady back room
and listen to jazz

the smell of you
and a shady back room
your sharper edges
contrast with my room
but the jazz,
shakes your borders
and after a glass of wine
you belong in here
in the darkness with me
just like the music does
and like poetry

a shady back room
and its blurred outlines
submerging me and you
in the heavy basslines
the saxophone spinning in time,
the piano playing on thighs
the night living on wine.

i want to go
to a shady back room
and listen to jazz

with you.

nothing on my mind

nothing's tasting as it should,
nothing's feeling like it would,
and all is being like you couldn't.
brush my teeth, my toothbrush wouldn't

chat windows try to talk to you,
i wish they said something new.
you cradle your face in your hand
'cause flying saucers are all unmanned.

zombies call to tell what they want,
cameras try to see what they can't.
your eyes drop down, on to the floor,
pizzas love deliveries to wrong doors.

stories take a stroll in the park,
my poems are afraid of the dark.
your round-neck worn around my head,
inside out, i see worn out threads.

post-it notes stick on black walls,
blank pads try to catch a story fall,
black ink in your gel filled pen,
rite of passage, now and then.

more fake blood and a gory flash game,
jade green t-shirt and a rimless frame.
icy cold rain water in my shower
jellyfish should have political power

volume knobs don't let it fade away,
noise falls in love with them today.
for peace: come sleep inside my mind
a couch, a fish tank, a gel pen,
come, unwind.

Nowhere

It was out of nowhere that he did come by. I didn't know how or when it happened. This wasn't the first time we were killing somebody. This wasn't the first time we were harassing innocent street people. This wasn't the first time that we stopped a car to steal everything they had. He stepped out of nowhere. He stepped in to the scene. From then on, all one could do was wait, watch, wait some more and then wait till you finally choke and bleed to death.

My hands are covered with blood and my tongue can't move. My palm is trying to hold together the slit on my neck. He came out of nowhere. He came. I can barely see what is happening. I don't even know whether I am in pain or I am dying. Tears have welled up in my eyes. I can't even wipe my own tears off. My blood flows out of my neck and slowly I can feel the tip of my earlobe touching the hot thick fluid. I look around to see everyone dead. Each and every one of us.

He came out of nowhere. The night might as well have been silent. We might as well have shut ourselves up and silently watched him kill us like we were innocents. He stepped out, calm, sober. We couldn't see his eyes. He was wearing a black eyemask. It was more like a headband with two holes in it. His steps were measured. His earphones plugged in, hidden and held firm into his ear by his eyemask.

Ganpat had just put the gun to the driver's head asking him to shell out every last paise he had. At the other window Vivek had put a knife to the woman's neck. She just handed her purse out quietly, shivering. I could see their lips quiver. I slipped into the backseat of the car. My palm slid up front on to the woman's neck, feeling her cold sweat and her wincing skin as it tightened and she sobbed. Slowly pushing it down to her blouse, I felt her gold necklace. Tempted, I slid my hand further down on her skin as the man shouted. The nozzle of the gun pushed further onto his temples. His scream turned into a mumble, like the engine of a bus waiting at a bus stop.

"You want him to drive a knife down the back of your neck? It will open your throat up like a gunny bag, squirting all the blood straight out on the expensive upholstery and the gorgeous steering wheel of yours. We don't want you car damaged. In fact we won't even take it away. Will leave your bodies in here for the police to find out." Ganpat started laughing like a maniac once he said that.

My palm slipped all along the edge of the woman's blouse. I remember grinning into the rear view mirror at myself. Then I turned a little to my left to look at the driver cry. I moved to my right to see the woman cry. She couldn't scream with my palm at her throat, could she? Right now, I regret everything, even the fact that I was born, I had friends, I had parents, I had come out that night.

Vinod broke the windshield as the two victims screamed in fright again. I tugged and snatched at her chain. She was shivering, she was getting grossed out, she was getting nauseous. Using my fingers, I undid the necklace at her neck. The sight of her bare neck had me. I bent forward and licked it and smelt her perfume. She fainted as her head rolled back and hit my forehead. Rubbing the cold sweaty gold on my cheek, I looked into the mirror. Right under the rear view mirror on the glowing digital clock, it said 01:18:48, 49, 50... I looked back at the gold in my palm.

Everyone else was laughing. Vinod, Vivek, Ganpat, Shyam, Arun, Kamal. In my reflection, right behind me, on the street, outside the car I saw him. He came out of nowhere. I heard footsteps as he was drawing closer. I was troubled, something bothered me and I couldn't speak.

Every footstep taken was calculated. Yes, I could feel a cold wave of intent flow through us. I looked into the rearview mirror again. I could see a tshirt and blue jeans walking toward us. A grey fading tshirt with a natraj drawn on it and blue jeans which was perfect blue. I turned around to see who it was. His eyes hidden behind the mask. He pulled out his ipod and swerved his thumb slowly over it. It was when he was tucking his ipod into his pocket, that I saw death. A red scabbard hung from his belt.

"Hello, hello, hello!"

Everybody looked behind. I didn't. I still saw him through the rear view mirror. A big cylinder of fear was set alight inside me. It was burning like the tip of a lpg cylinder, and was only a matter of time before it would explode. He didn't say another word. His steps started getting faster and faster. Shyam let his chain fly. Everyone was calling out to him, "Bhenchod! Marnaa hai kya?"

His face didn't change expression. His lips remained the same as they were when he was walking toward us. His steps going faster and faster and before I knew the sword was out and driven through Vinod's chest. Vinod fell on the ground and the rest started at him. The man in the car screaming and screaming and screaming. In a mad frenzy, I would've killed him. I was going to kill him, I was willing to drive a knife into the back of his neck and drive it straight into his throat so that he stops screaming but I couldn't. My body was frozen stiff. I could hear chains rattle. I saw him dance.

His fast walk switched to a jumping sort of dance once he drove the sword inside Vinod. Ganpat pulled the gun away from the man in the car and started shooting at Him. He danced, he jumped, his steps perfect, it looked like the earth gathered strength and awaited his foot to fall everytime his foot would stamp on the ground. His dance growing wilder as he pulled out a gun which was tucked into the back of his jeans and he began to swirl.

His swirls going faster as with every swirl he jumped. Jumping in a semi circle around the car and me the centre of the semicircle. He swirled as he jumped, like a dwindling top but not losing momentum like the top. Everytime he jumped and swirled a gun shot was heard. From my left to my right everybody was losing some part of their body or the other. I heard screams everytime he swirled. His scabbard flying around him like it was a water sprinkler, sprinkling death in all directions. His dance stopped as he landed back again near Vinod and he swept the sword straight out of his body without any effort as the dead body lay there, still bleeding the earth wet.

He started taking long rhythmic steps. Slowly, stretching his leg far, the step wider and then many fast baby steps. His dance hadn't stopped yet. He stood at a place and jumped from one leg to the other and kept jumping, keeping himself in the air, propelling himself up with the push of one leg at a time. The legs started moving faster, the jumps lower and it almost stared to look like he was jogging on a treadmill. All of a sudden he flew into the air, taking the highest leap possible, slicing Ganpat's hand off from his arm. That's when I noticed, Ganpat had been hit on the hand and was still alive, trying to run away.

Immediately I turned around to look at the others and neither of them was dead but was wounded by the bullet. He started dancing again. His head dodging from left to right, his chest following, his fist closed, one of them closed around the handle of the sword. I could see him go from left to right and from right to left as he skipped, hopped and danced his way to Vivek. He started swinging his sword to the same rhythm that he was skipping before this. I could nearly hear the song playing in his white ipod, through the white earphones, into the black dustjackets over the earphones and into his ear, into his brain, through his nerves and in the gleam of the sword. The swinging sword had left as many strokes on Vivek's chest that it looked like someone had peeled the skin off his chest. Then with a sudden backward swipe, Vivek's bullet wounded thigh was chopped off his body.

I sunk behind the front seat, sobbing, the fear cylinder inside me had exploded. The man in the driver's seat had fainted after screaming his guts out. He couldn't stand his own vengeance. I felt like, I was beginning to black out. I wanted to scream but I couldn't. What if he danced his way to me? I couldn't take it anymore, I pushed my head out of the broken car window, "KILL THEM OFF PLEASE! NOT LIKE THIS! I BEG YOU NOT LIKE THIS!"

He sword swung backward and at the next beat his head turned around. He looked at me, I couldn't see his eyes, I wish I could. I wanted to see what that was that possessed so much passion that just its presence would set off the fear inside me. He moved sideways, dancing again, dancing harder and dancing faster once more... Chopping Arun's head off before pushing the sword all over his body, like someone was poking holes inside a thermocol sheet with a matchstick. Shicckkk, pull, shicckkk, pull! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! I screamed and I screamed. This was worse than all our worst nightmares put together.

I didn't even turn the other side to see how he finished off the remaining two. I only heard screams. Only screams. The darkness of the night. The barking of the dogs. The distant sounds of other vehicles. The sounds of everything were just dead. It was only his bleeding rhythm that I heard. His footsteps had become softer. His footsteps had become slow again. His sword was still swinging in all directions, faster than ever. With a few flicks he cleared the broken piece of the glass window. Then he pushed his left hand in there and yanked me up by my collar. The digital clock below the rear view mirror said: 01:28:26... 27... 28...

The last thing I remember is, trying to open the car door to get out and his feet stamping against the car door not letting me. His hand at my collar yanks me through the window. The glass cuts at my waist and pushes into my gut. With a calculated shickk, the sword slashes past my throat. Then, here I am on the street, lying with blood rupturing out of my gut and death sleeping all around me. It was alive and awake. It came with him, out of nowhere. Now it rested, now, here. He left it here, returning to nowhere.

* * *

Writer's Note: Here's a photoshopped visualisation of how this guy might look :) Trust me, spent a lot of time on images.google, flickr and finally photoshop to find the right works...

the coffee shop trilogy

trilogy: drenched, what if i said & espresso romano tonight

drenched

water drips from your hair
and my eyes measure
the length it falls.

your untamed kohl
marks the skin under your eyes.
you try to dab it off
with a paper napkin,
but the smudge still remains.

your hair's messed up.
you act like you've never known.
you look at me matter-of-fact
only to find me in tangles.

drops of water slide down
your cheeks and down your neck.
you wish you could wipe me off
just like them
and leave me dry instead.

"coffee, black. coffee, cold"
our order arrives on the
plastic table outside the cafe,
and i play with a sugar sachet.

i brush away my desires,
and shrug in vain.
making pointless conversation
i’m still drenched in you...

* * *


what if i said

what if i said,
"i love you..."

we'd both know
that i don't make sense,
we'd laugh like idiots
till 'veryone else
in the cafe,
is staring at us.
i would laugh louder,
only to make sure
that you know, i realise
i didn't make sense.

what if i said,
"i think we should
start dating."

you would nod,
cringe your lips
tight together,
then turn your head
to that side of you
raise a drama-queen eyebrow
and both of us would
start laughing.
our chairs would tilt
on two legs, backward.

what if i said,
"should we be more
than just friends
now?"

you wouldn't laugh.
i would guffaw
the moment i see
the distaste on your face.
you'd say, "you're joking,
right?"
i'd point my finger
at you and snort,
"look at your face!"
you would say
"asshole!"
and we'd be go back
to make bubbling sounds
with a straw in the
left over frappe foam.

it's difficult to say it
especially without
the extra cheese.
we both hate this
because, 'lovers'
is such a joke,
it'd be like calling
each other names.

i've finished an evening
out here, all alone.
no coffee,
dinner, not yet.
rehearsing my lines,
rehearsing yours too.
i know every script
by heart now.

i'm tired.

why does it have to be so
difficult, to just
let you know,
that i wanna spend
more time with you?

wait a minute.

what if i said,
"i'd like to see more of you."

* * *


espresso romano tonight

lemon floats,
the sugar crystals sink
while the bitter ecstasy of
finely grounded coffee
envelopes us,
espresso romano tonight.

in the darkness,
the drawing light of
the handmade paper lamp
shines in your eyes.

i try to look away
to see your palm
around white warm porcelain.

our talk
is like the lemon
in your hot lemon tea
and the peel
in my espresso.

nothing seems to stay,
stay like the sugar
at the base of my cup.
may be like the coffee,
the talk will get better
toward the end.

should i stir it?
with a slow walk with you
on the noisy roadside
of this city.
or may be i should
just go home.

* * *

The Coming

zeroeth draft in motion
krukthuskru
Kar

Chapter 1: Shades of grey and brown

It felt like I'd forgotten what the sun looked like. I knew how the candles flickered. I knew the pattern they took once a little air was allowed in. I knew exactly how much air would cause what shapes in the flicker. I didn't remember what sense of smell was, because all the time I smelled the same, things smelled the same. I don't remember if there was air, it all smelled the same. I don't remember when I stopped wearing a shirt but I did. I don't remember when I stopped wearing a pant but I did. I don't remember how long my eyes swam in tears but a lump has colonised my throat. I probably turned colourblind, the only colours that my eyes saw were shades of grey and brown. The only sounds my ears were accustomed to were my breath, my pressed down foot steps when I walked slowly, the rubbing of blanket on my body and the loudest of all was the dripping of water from the tap. And then, once in a deep blue moon, I would hear faint sounds of metal scratching on the wall.

I don't know how many years I've spent staring at the black wall. I'd just wanted to get out, get out and breathe free. I know one thing, till I kill the one, I won't breathe free. I will, I will walk away to see the open skies, to once again breathe air as I knew it. I will destroy every part of God over a million times.

In my moments of loneliness, I think about a past that was pure, a past that was innocent and a past untouched by anything. Heaven, a life I would remember as a pleasant dream to wake up into this dungeon. How quickly it happened, I could only call it waking up. I woke out of a nightmare, a hurtful nightmare where I could feel parts of me burning, burning away to a charred base. My finger tips run over the burnt eruptions on my skin, the edge of the healed burns still hurt. I feel a vacuum behind me, while I sit in the darkness, naked. The candle light casts a shapeshifting shadow on the greyish brown wall ahead of me.

I remember my first sweat bead. My first sweat bead that travelled down the back of my ear and slid down on to my back, burning the then healing stretch of skin. I never knew what it felt like to sweat, I never knew what sweat smelt like, what it tasted like. A sweat bead dripped off my brow to the tip of my nose, I guess it was what they called summer outside. I'd never seen summer, for me summer only was a day that was longer than the night and winter was a night longer than the day. The temperatures never changed. The flora, the fauna that I saw around me never changed. It was like that in Heaven, a city that never changed. Everyone was so different, so un-human, so super-human. Now, I'm not. Angels, yes angels, that word still hurts but that was what people were called. A life of fruitful living would make you an angel.

It has been for centuries that Heaven has been so, we don't know how it came into being, we are not to know of it too. They say, some humans still know. A lot of humans who knew it have been hunted down and they're still on look out for others. I guess I will have to find them, they might be there, somewhere, they might be in, I even shudder to say the name for what we'd been brought up to hate and probably fear for what it is: Hell.

* * *

Chapter 2: A yesterday

I don't know how long I've been here but every day my resolve has been growing stronger and stronger. Hell, reminds me of Zyra, an angel who went on a routine search for humans who were breaking the Celestial Laws and broke them herself. I even shudder to think of that day, it's a memory that brings pain in more ways than one. My hand hugs myself to let my finger run along the healing eruptions on my skin. I didn't know Zyra like friends or buddies, had seen her around, seen her grow up, that's it. Now, we both are seeing the same fate, nursing the same wounds, living the same life. I guess I do have someone to look out for than just randomly throw myself on the streets.

__________________

Zyra

Chapter 1: Search, my purpose is you.

I'd been looking for him since I heard he quit. He didn't really quit. He was made to. Circumstances made him do it. He wouldn't have ever quit because he made the sun, he did. He made the one who gives you life - he wouldn't have quit. There was something wrong. I didn't know how I would handle it but in the different corners of a dark small room where barely a man can fit, I saw a few lines etched.

I have but hope
that I can only feel
but not call my own.

I have but destruction
in that hope
of a resurrection --

haloed and beautiful,
like you always do
and emerge hero in love and war.

The pain could only be felt for one who'd been stripped off, stripped off something so valuable, something as valuable as your arm, your leg. I could feel that pain. We're free, yet handicapped. We're the scum. We live in dark undergrounds, we don't come out but we're the one hunted down for only being. Before he gets hunted down, I will have to find him. The more lines I find out here, the more I want to go look out for him. The anger, the intensity - I know will be fatal because it is strong enough to make him go and do something that he shouldn't.

I hope he does come where he belongs. I hope I receive him at the gates. I hope we all embrace him, for he is our only hope. He is our only hope to freedom and hence he is our discontent against Monotheism. I hope he finds us and reaches Hell safely. I'm sure God must've already deployed Angels to track him down and kill him. That's what God always does and has become increasingly efficient in doing that. Cast away an Angel, and then call him an atheist, orders to kill at sight. God never faced what a fallen angel does, God's never had his wings burnt down to ashes and the skin on his back has never stretched with burns as salty sweat beads pierce them. In the last few centuries, God has never had wings. From what I've heard, God has never had wings. As I say this, a sting on my back reminds of the wound of my wings which never seems to heal. It bleeds no more, but nor does it heal, it pains and the pain reverbs in my head.

Kar's words on the walls remind me of a ruthless decision. My fingertips read the etching on the wall...

My dreams only reminisce
of flight
while my fingertips talk
to the charred remains
where once were wings.

To dream is a forgotten past
which I can't live in,
To live is a forgotten present
which I can't dream of.

It is but a truth
my eyes can't see and
my mind can't believe.
It is a truth that
only my fingertips talk about.
You render my life
without a purpose.

No, but we shall find a purpose, we have a purpose. A purpose we have not forgotten, a purpose which won't be forgiven.

The order of Angels, a new generation of mortal Angels came into being when the kingdom of God came down upon Earth. The honour of the clan who inherited me was shattered when their lovely sunshine broke the Celestial Law. I was cast out, banished for going against the word of God and sent to the underground of mortal sin, dubbed: Hell. And our God is ruthless and doesn't forgive. In Heaven, a sin is punished by casting you overboard, your wings are burnt down to ashes. I committed a sin, Kar must've too. I yearned to know what happened to him, what did he do to incite His wrath. What I had done was beyond forgiveness, not that I expected any, not that I wanted any.

Before the Guardians track him down and kill him, I will have to find him. It's already been a few months. The only thought that haunts me is that may be, may be they've already killed him. Why am I looking out for him so much? Probably, because I know that only he can understand me and I can understand him. May be because we're both out here in the darkness for the same reason and may be we might find purpose together or at least show the other a path to walk. I've been walking randomly all these years and now I might be able to help him. My fingers find more etchings on the wall, on the metal table, on the bed.

In a thought,
may be a passing one
hides a memory
which is the only thing of you
that I carry with me
for I don't wish to know more.

I think,
I know,
I want you...
dead, not alive.
I want to...
kill, not nurture
the faith,
extinguish your halo
rip apart your aura
and claw out the powers
that you possess.
I wring your hand,
you're powerless,
yet you won't plead I know.

Shifa tells me Kar is no longer an Angel. I don't even remember how his face looks. It's been ages since I've seen him. We grew up together, I'd seen him flying around Heaven just like I'd seen the rest of them. Shifa is the gatekeeper of Hell. Shifa has sources on the inside and can tell a lot about what happens in Heaven and the rest of the world. It is rumoured that Shifa has been on Earth even before the Coming. Outside his doors are words written by Milton, Shifa says Milton was an ancient poet, long before the Coming. I could only imagine what the days were like then. Shifa says, world was a different place before the Heaven and Hell both came down on Earth.

"Many people thought of Heaven and Hell as figments of imagination, faith and fiction. And then, they saw Heaven and Hell coming to them." He had said.

Shifa doesn't look as old but I never asked. He knew a lot more about the way humans lived before the Coming, before Angels like I was started to rule the world. It used to be ruled by men elected by their peers or ones who climbed to positions of power. The Coming was a time when God just announced his absolute power and nothing more.

The words on Shifa's doors say,

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."

The thing did not make much sense to me then. I looked at him and asked, "What does this mean? Does it talk about the mind of God? Is this a religious poem?"

Shifa just laughed and said, "Not now, you will not understand it now, Angel Zyra, later may be some day." Angel Zyra, he knew it hurt, he knew very well that that it brought back searing memories and I would walk away without really inquiring much. I wasn't the first cast away, I was the first to survive for so long. They say that the Guardians are still on the look out for me but they're not as dedicated now since I've kept a low profile all these years, not caused an inch of harm so I am not a potential threat. Not being a potential threat meant only one thing today, not being killed. In this angst right now, I can only think of one thing. I pull out that sheet of paper where I copied all of what Kar had etched on the walls.

Like an illiterate
you show off
just what you do best --
smile enigmatically.
I keep talking to you
not saying what I want to.
I keep talking,
but you only nod.
My insides cry out,
"I want to kill God!"

The last line gives me hope. It gives me solace, it consoles me and leaves behind traces of content.

* * *

Chapter 2: My sin

The search for Kar isn't because I was looking for someone who could understand me. It was because I could understand what Kar was going through. It was because I understood the way of life here, outside of Heaven. I had to save Kar for he had not seen what life was in an unprotected environment, in a land so un-virgin that it has been fucked and fucked and raped many times over. I don't think that they even left him down here with clothes. My mind's been racing wild as I think about a naked being who looks just like the perfect man ever, all naked... being shot at by a thousand surveils and the one guardian who managed to track him down. Surveils were machines who patrolled the dark streets of the world. Thousands of them scanning every inch of land, on the look out for wanted people, on the look out for people who went against the word of God.

Guardians originally by virtue were the guardian angels as the scriptures described them. Their job was to look after the human allocated to them. They had to balance the good in the life of the individual with the bad that he takes on himself. This was the tradition in the ancient religions or so did I read in Heaven when I was training to be a guardian angel. There were a few who wanted to venture out of the perfect heavens and see the world outside. Guardians was the job for Angels like these. I was an Angel like that, but I wasn't an Angel after my first night out in the world.

The world is so much different than Heaven. The world is so much real. What I felt then, I never felt again. I was enthralled, taken aback, depressed, excited, something inside me exploded and I fell to the ground and cried. The emotions all over were overwhelming. A flood of emotions coming from all directions hit me and I cried. I couldn't take it anymore. It was like every single being out there was lonely, was dying to communicate... They were in pain. People of the world had tied themselves to their respective existences without venturing out in the open. Why was it so?

Time slowed down for me. My thoughts were running at a speed they'd never run before, every step I took seemed like it took me days to lift my leg and step ahead. My wings shrivelled in fear. I couldn't dare to uncase them and take a free flight. I'd forgotten what 'free' ever meant and my memory didn't help me imagine it either. The element of free was missing and that's what made me sink inside myself. In that moment of insanity, I ended up doing something that I don't regret but it made me an enemy of Heaven.

After I split from the whole batch of Guardians, we were sent to our respective humans to look after them. The job of a guardian is the most misused job ever. Guardians have ended up being killers more than protectors. They protect only one thing, their control. The minute someone is a threat to their controls, the guardians thirst for blood. Every angel cast out of heaven is seen as a threat. May be we don't have wings, but we have the same power that they do. Probably, I have been the only one who hasn't tried to kill a Guardian and gotten killed in the process. It is not so that killing them is impossible. There have been others who have killed them, once even a human. But the job has to be quick and you have to vanish like the dust. The human died within the next fifteen minutes. Killing a guardian is not only a sin but a foolish mistake, because even making an attempt brings all of them flocking around you like vultures. It is impossible to touch one.

I never tried killing them because I never had any complaints against them. I was and am still trying to get in terms with reality. There is a lot to know which I don't. There are a lot of questions unanswered. The questions about the past, about the world, the human way of being. The only I hope I see is Shifa, but he wouldn't talk. Everytime he looks at me from his round dark glasses as they reflect white light into my eyes and says, "It is not yet time Angel Zyeera... not yet time." Then he smiles and walks away. All this while I have been keeping low on the surveil radars, away from where the guardians are to be seen. I've been trying to find more, trying to find what in the ancient world they called a library. There were libraries in Heaven where I'd never seen an Angel be. Angels in Heaven are self indulgent, narcissist, innocent but still proud. They're simple beings who would rather sit around in flocks than go to the library and immerse themselves in the texts. I've been to the library once, taking a book, "Advanced Theology and the Rule of the God after the Coming" The concept did sound interesting but I couldn't finish reading it. I'd wanted to know what it was like, what it was like to stand there and see God descent upon Earth with his Angels. I wanted to feel what the overwhelming power of God felt like. Being born in Heaven, we never felt that. I wanted to know as much about the Coming as much as I could. I still do, but just that the perspective has changed.

I did feel overwhelm but by the presence of pain and imprisonment in the air. I breathed a different air and I felt overpowered. I open the side of my coat once again and read at the last line of Kar's poem.

My first time out as a guardian, I flew around to see dark and empty roads. Black and grey buildings towered over the streets where surveils roamed freely tracking everybody down. I went straight to the house of the human assigned to me. The other guardians laughed at me but I was sincere, wanting to prove myself and to prove to myself the beliefs that we were brought up on. I wanted to believe badly every bit I read about God and the one true religion. There, I saw him curled in his sleep, his deprived innocence hanging above him and and his lips tight together as his eyeballs moved under his eyelids. I went there and sat next to his bed, caressed his forehead. As to what I had read about him in the brief given to me, he had tried killing himself. As his facial skin eased my fingers dug into his hair and gently moved on his scalp. I could see his body loosening up, the curl break and his lips free of each other. His fist uncurled and his sweaty fingertips gleamed in the light. I felt unconditional love for him, it probably was only sympathy... I wanted to mother him, nurse him. But the laws of God said, we had to grow no attachment toward the subject. Our job was to protect them from harm and nothing else. But what protection is worth, if it can't help his mind feel secure. That was the only thought running through my head.

_____________

Libre

I'd never known the truth. I wasn't ever told the truth. I'd always thought that world was this small and world was so green and fresh. I didn't know that the world was so grey, the world was so dark. I was brought up and trained in the Bermuda Triangle. Trained, trained to fight, to learn, to rationalise, to think.

I've learned from books compiled from whatever was left over of all the texts that my master could save when God took over. I'll call him God because you know him as God. I know them as the end. They were the end and they shall end. I have recieved what you might call the treatment a hero recieves in a story where his clan is destroyed and he is being made only so that vengeance may be served.

My clan is you. I don't know that when you read this I will live or I will be dead, nor do I know if I will have succeeded or not but if I have not then at least you will know the truth. There is a lot more to this which you need to know, there is a lot more to this which you will know. You were my clan, you were destroyed, your freedom taken away and you were made slaves to Monotheism. The world was tired, tired of war in the name of the one true God. Then, the one true God came himself to take over the world.

* * *

re: ...and Action!

Priya Moorthy from Caferati posted her first poem titled "...and Action!" A very tight and awesome piece and such poems always wake up the sleeping poet (by mistake) in me. Here's the original by Priya and is followed by my reply:

...and Action!

Why do we put on this act?
Making a stage of the ground beneath,
actors of all we meet,
props of what we touch,
an audience of every eye that catches ours.
Is fear the only dialogue we deliver?
Can we for once believe that the arclights
could fade away,
leaving us in darkness?
What then?

Reply:
Then...
In that darkness again
you will talk fear.
But...
this will be a monologue,
a voice over.
Your eyes once again
will yearn to be blinded
by the arclights.
For, that my fellow-actor,
is the only job
we actors are good at.
In darkness, we're nobodies.

Death Incarnate, The

Death has a soul. I say this because I've seen Death closely. If you're a Hindu, you know that the soul leaves behind a body just like old clothes, in search of another. If you're a Hindu and you've ever been to a crematorium, then you definitely know this. You know this because it's written in big bold letters in a crematorium. The soul is immortal and can not be harmed, fire can not burn it, water can not wet it and air can not dry it. You can slay the body but you can not slay the soul.

I turn on the power of the electric furnace to heat it up. The coils take nearly an hour to heat to the temperature that is required to reduce a human dead body to ashes. Despite the fact that we offer a day and night service at the crematorium, we rarely work at nights. I look at the clock as it strikes twelve. Normally, the family members wait for the sun to rise before they bring their dead ones to be cremated and the smoke to rise and take their souls to heaven. As for me, it is a vague hindu practice that does not make sense. Your soul casts your body away and goes on its own path without caring for your body or your relatives. The soul is selfish. It is not me who says this, it was implied by Lord Krishna in the Bhagvadgita.

Tonight is amavasya, a moonless night. The man who died must have been a sinner. His family must've hated him to cremate his body at midnight on amavasya. The soul of a body cremated on the night of amavasya never rests in peace. I don't say this, this was said by the elders who come to the crematorium, by the pundits who come with them for the rituals.

There is no one at the office but for me who lives here. Sometimes, I wait only to hear the chants of, "Shree Ram, Shree Ram!" I concentrate on the softest human sound in the night. The electric furnace room starts to heat up a little. I walk past the quotes from the Gita about the aatma as I light a beedi. While I wait for the procession to arrive with the corpse, I hear the phone ring, "Kandivli Electric Crematorium?"

"Yes?"

"Are you open at nights?"

"Yes sir, we are. I've been waiting for your call."

"What is this nonsense?"

"I am sorry, I don't have the time nor patience to explain this. Please come fast."

I knew before hand that someone was going to die. Why? I don't know. Death has a soul. I've met the dead before they die. Death has a soul and I think Death died a few years back. Death is an agony aunt, Death takes you away from all your agonies. I look out at the asoka trees in the premises as they sway with the dark breeze of the night. I can see a few bulbs on at the slum behind the crematorium.

I was born in that slum. My father was a drunkard and drove a rickshaw when he was sober enough. When he was not, he beat my mom up. One morning in a drunken fit, he knocked down the vessel in which water was being heated for his bath. He burnt his foot and in a burning rage he chased my mother with a cricket stump. He swung the stump once and it flew straight hitting my mother's hand. My mother ran out of the house but by then her depression had driven her to her mental limits. She lost her mind and ran out, running into everything and everyone. My father ran out chasing her with the stump, swearing and screaming threats. She ran out of the shady darkness of the slum into the sun, into light and a truck ran her down.

An iron railing of the inclined slope connects the hall and the pathway to the electric furnace chamber. I extinguish what remains of my beedi on the iron railing. Yes, I knew that man was going to die because I remember talking to him before he died. I remember him regretting his life because he was dying. I talked to him, not consoling him but encouraging him to die, just like I do everytime. Yes, this is not the first time this has happened. Death has a soul and Death's soul like any other soul likes to change its attire.

I stare at the back wall of the crematorium to read the fifteenth chapter of the Bhagvadgita only to say it aloud without reading. This is the only piece of text my eyes have ever seen since I came here and that is a long time ago.

I remember my father lighting my mother's pyre. I stood at the gates of the crematorium, crying because that was the only moment when I realised and felt that aai had really died. I was twelve then. My father died in some religious riots in our area. Since my mother's death, I'd always thought that he was too drunk to live. When the flaming torch in my hand touched the pyre, I realised I no longer had anybody whom I was related to. There was nobody who I had to care about and nobody who cared about me. My sister was married to a school peon in Nasik and I rarely visited her. She came to Bombay once in a year but they never stayed at our house. We had one customary dinner at a hotel combining raksha bandhan and bhaau-dooj. I was eighteen when my father died and I didn't know where to go. I couldn't go back to my house because there was no one I had to go back to. I sat outside the main building of the crematorium and sobbed.

I had nothing to do in all the time that I had for myself. I would sit at the crematorium steps to watch people. I don't know why I did that but it made me feel airy and light. I would feel that the dead wanted to communicate but they were given no chance. People were hurrying them in without waiting to listen to them. I felt that if given enough time, then the corpse would start talking.

At the crematorium, there worked an old cleaner, Rajendra. At times, I would lend him a hand in whatever he was doing. Soon enough, I got used to the atmosphere and the atmosphere got used to me. Everyone knew me like I was just another employee. After a few months when Rajendra retired, by default the job officially became mine. Officially meaning that I would be paid for the work I did.

In the silence of the night as my ears strain to hear the chants, I don't hear a thing. That surprises me. They should've been here by now. This is strange. I take a stroll down the inclined slope and walk to the entrance of the building. I was about to light another beedi when I heard a silent procession walk towards the crematorium. I throw down my unlit beedi and head back. At the entrance of the chamber room, I dish out instructions of what to do and what not to do, what is allowed with the body and how many are allowed in the furnace room.

The procession climbs up the inclined slope from the hall to the entrance of the furnace room. I've already begun my charade, my professional facade. It's different when you've just had a heart-to-heart with the person who just died. I order them, "No shawls, no flowers, no garlands..." Before I finished that sentence, they lower the body and keep it on the floor. There are no flowers, garlands and no shawls. There was no sign of any religious rite or homage being paid to the dead man. Instead, two garlands; one of burnt rubber chappals and the other of stones, decorated the body. The man was right, no one really loved him. I am surprised Death doesn't know anything about the people around the man who dies and has to take his word for the truth. This man had gobs of saliva on his face, some streaks of paan stains on his body too.

The brutality of this killed me. I have never seen this in my short tenure as Death. Yes, I am Death. I am the harbinger of new life. I am the cause of the apparent end. I am the one spoke that runs this wheel of life. I am Death because I know who dies and when. I am still not Death 'officially'. Soon I will be, just like I became the caretaker of this electric crematorium.

I asked them to show the death certificate. After confirming the required document, I okayed the cremation. This is usually done by the government officer who comes here in the mornings but in his absence I am allowed to do this.

Death has a soul. It resides in me now. I am the new pair of clothes that Death bought when it last died. I am the child, to be nurtured, to grow up to become mature and efficient Death. I am Death. I am Death, reincarnated. I am Death, the messiah of the end, your end. I am Death, the one whom you talk to in those last moments where you recall your entire life. I am Death, I take you to your judgement. I am Death, your door-to-door service to the next birth.

Looking at my astonished face, one of the men turned to me, "Stop staring and get to work."

In a daze, I walk away from the corpse to prepare the trolley that carries the corpse into the furnace. I turn to the people and say, "Please remove the chappals and the stones. That won't be allowed in there." I point to the electric furnace. It is for the first time that I underestimated the intensity of emotion that the people would feel towards a man who died.

Everytime a dying person talks me, he has an exaggerated view of what emotion people feel towards him. I never contradict them, I only listen. Some people talk about how they've always disappointed everyone and how no one will turn up at their funeral. I smile and I listen. I offer my condolences and prepare for their funeral pyre.

Subtracting the right amount of exaggeration from what he said to me, I set my estimates of hatred accordingly. This was not what I expected. This is far more than even what he expected. No matter how much you hate a person, when he dies, you respect the phenomenon of Death and be nice to the dead. The unsettled myself inside me started settling down. I started ordering them to place his body on the cane stretcher that we use for cremation.

The process doesn't take long, his body is ready to be pushed into the furnace. I look around and ask the people, "Anyone from his family would like to touch the trolleys as it rolls inside symbolising torching of his pyre?"

"No," says one of them.

Settled amongst their hatred, I shrug and push the button which opens the furnace door. People turn away from the heat. Most of them start walking away. Few of them stay back to see the body enter the furnace. The heat from the furnace warms the cold rainy night a little. The sight of the orange flames inside, make my eyes feel good amidst these shades of black, blue and grey. As the body enters the furnace, I push another button that closes the furnace door. I look at them, "To collect the asthis please stay back for an hour. I'll cool them down and keep them ready."

"There's no need for that. We're not going to wait."

"Then please sign the register if you want us to keep it for more than twenty four hours before someone collects it. Also deposit a photocopy of the death certificate."

A man rudely says, "There is no need for that. We don't want the ashes. You may keep them as long as you want to or throw them in the gutter." The man hands me a five hundred rupee note saying, "Here's the chai paani which I think you would've asked for. Finish our job." I pocket the note out of habit but I know I will think about it later.

In a few minutes the crematorium was just as empty as it was when I started talking to you. Once again, one could hear the monsoon winds howl. The only other sound that increased the density of the air around me was the sound of the furnace. The furnace makes particular sounds at every state. It makes a different sound when there is something burning inside and it makes a different sound when it's heating up. The sound when there's nothing inside is different again. The transition between all the sounds is very slow and subtle. It takes trained ears to pick up and understand the current state of the furnace.

As soon as I light another beedi, I feel the difference in the pitch of the noise made by the furnace. I turn off the furnace allowing it to cool. I don't bother to pull out the trolley to collect the ashes because I can do that later too. My fingers rub my sticky skin as I inhale the sooty fragrance. The fragrance becomes addictive when you're Death. You smell it all the time, all around you. That is when I see a man standing at a corner of the hall right where it said, "Sribhagavana uvaca..."

"You didn't leave with the rest? Or there is some sympathy still living in men?" I ask mockingly.

"I wanted to talk."

"You wanted to talk? With me? Why?"

With a calm and probably serene smile the man walks towards me, taking each step like he was stepping on mines and he didn't care if they exploded. Then, he looks at me and says, "Because I see a different intensity in your eyes. I see some truth that you're trying not to show."

"I don't know why you're saying what you're saying but you're not making any sense." I am beginning to feel strange. I feel naked as he looks at me and smiles. I feel like he can see through everything. All of a sudden the warmth of the furnace dies and there's a cold wind blowing through the hall. The lit end of my beedi flares up in the wind.

"I've been noticing you. You have a particular way of work, you make me feel like you know the man who died. There is a sprinkled amount of a detached attachment.

His eyes still piercing their way into my soul like they're looking for something. I tell him, "You mean to say that I must've met the man at some point in my life?"

"Yes. Perhaps, it's more like you've seen him somewhere but you're not straining to recollect who it is. You're just letting it be since you know he is dead."

I drop my beedi and crush it with my rubber slippers. In the silence, the wind makes the trees weep. Something about this whole situation makes me smile and I start walking towards the man. The calm on his face doesn't show any haste to know what he wanted to. Suddenly, a vague callousness starts to have its way with me. I sit down on one of the chairs and light another beedi. The man comes and sits next to me. I ask him, "Who are you?"

"Why does it matter?"

"It is not a good omen to stay back on the cremation grounds after the body is burnt. I don't say this, the learned pundits do."

"So, why do you stay here?"

"I belong here."

"Why do you think so?"

"Let's not get there."

"But that's where I want to go."

"I think you should go home."

"I am in no hurry."

I give up and ask him, "What do you want to know?"

"Don't you feel like you're death?"

Taken aback, I ask, "Who are you? What are you talking about?"

The man smiled and said, "Don't get me wrong, wait, let me reframe the question. See, technically, when they die, they come to you. They're pulled towards you by death. Pushing the point a little further, can't you be assumed to be death personified?"

"You think a lot, more than a human is required to."

"Why don't you want to?"

"It's not my job."

"Then is your job only to be death? Is your job only to kill these poor people?"

"I didn't kill them!"

"But you're Death! We just concluded that you are. You're the cause of their death. You're the phenomenon personified. You're the reason these people die. I came to you too! What did you tell me? You did not give me hope to live! You asked me to die."

The beedi slips off my lips and burns my hand. I don't know what to say. I scream out, "Who are you?"

"Do you tell everyone to die? Is this what you live for?"

"WHO ARE YOU?" A blanket of fear wraps me in itself but in that instant I feel a courage rise inside me, I am Death. What am I fearing? The expression on my face fades into a smile.

"Don't you remember me? Don't you see the faces of the people you kill? Are you so bored of your job, come let me relieve you."

I smile again just like he did when he started this conversation. His face now is covered with lines of fury, "You fooled me into dying."

"I didn't, you were about to die. You came to me only when you had to die. People call me, they talk to me only when they're about to die. You die yourself. I am there only for a final confirmation. I am the medium not the phenomenon."

"Who are you?" The polarities have reversed now.

"I'd rather know who you are." I ask him as I smile.

"My ashes haven't even cooled down."

"What? You can't be that person. If you are, then you have no right to avenge your humiliation. I am not responsible for that." He starts laughing as soon as he hears me say that. It feels like he sees fear in my calm eyes. I am not afraid. I know I am Death.

Finally after some laughter and some silence, he says, "Who do you think you are?"

"I... am Death. Since you're dead, you might as well know it."

He starts laughing again, "Say that again."

"I AM DEATH! The inevitable! You can't run away from me. I am your sole purpose in life." That is when I gave a dramatic pause and make a mocking remark, "I was your sole purpose in the life that has gone by. You're dead!"

"So you're sure I'm the man whom you cremated?"

"You said it."

"And you believed me because I said it? You claim to be Death even when you don't know whom you helped die?"

"Death is too busy to remember so much. Death is my soul, I am the body."

"So... you're sure you are Death, but of course, a milder mortal version of the soul of Death?"

"I helped you die. You need any more evidence?"

He smiled, and the warmth that had vanished, returned in a burst. All he said after that was, "Then who am I?"

* * *

Unfulfilled

Right now, I can hear Duran Duran's Ordinary World start off, fading in slowly. The gentle strum captures as the words go, "Came in from a rainy thursday... Where is the life that I recognise?" The strumming continues and I hear a distinct vacuum in my heart. My heart's beginning to cave in, the rest of my insides being sucked in to it like a black hole. All my blood's beginning to vanish inside that cave. My heart has stopped pumping blood like it used to. Outside the window, I look for hope and I see the rain dance. The skies are grey, the same grey that her eyes reflected and yes it's Thursday.

The first time I met her, the first time we talked, my blood was rushing all over, each capillary burned with friction, every capillary overloaded itself with blood and my heart was ready to explode outwards. My feet skipped a few steps as I swayed to the song in the background, "We're never gonna survive, unless... we got a little crazy..."

It was a phrase, a paragraph, a scene in our little story, our little movie. The problem was I wrote it for myself, the problem also was that I turned it into a story and started looking for a climax, a happily ever after... I'd probably forgotten that every song ends and every chorus can be repeated only n times before it gets boring.

After we met the first time, everything else in life seemed to have lost focus. All I could see was her. The fact that she didn't even want to talk with me as badly as I wanted to be with her was killing my insides. There was a storm out my window and the weather reports kept saying, "Light showers."

A strange paranoia creeped its way inside me, I feared being neglected, forgotten. I felt that no one liked me anymore, only because she wouldn't take notice of me. She wouldn't return calls or reply to messages. The thought that my social life was going to shambles haunted me. I... I felt like none of my friends were ever my friends and there was no one I could go to. I'd been locked and left alone in a dark room with nothing in there. I felt like I was a hollow chinaware doing the fall after you pushed it off the edge of the table it rested on. In a few fractions of a second it would shatter into a million small pieces.

I tried to call her but I couldn't. I was too afraid that she might feel I was intruding upon her personal space. I was paranoid about putting someone off by pushing yourself on that person. I've always been this paranoid about spaces. I smsed her but she didn't reply. I was too much of an introvert to insist on a reply. I still hadn't figured her responses out, she was that enigma for me which I was dying to solve. I started doubting the genuineness, the honesty, the depth of the emotions I felt for her as soon as I'd said that to myself. I was afraid that once I would figure her out, my fascination with her would just die, fade away. Was it just a child's fasination with his new toy which, once he pulls apart, he doesn't care about?

For then, I just wanted to know what she thought, what she thought about me and everything else. It didn't even matter if she thought of me as a loser because that would've helped me move on. It's this cloudy sky that left me depressed. If it would've rained, I would've been happy or even if the sun shines as the clouds part, I would've been happy. The clouds permanently hovering over my head, darkening everything I belonged to and everything that belonged to me. This killed me, day and night. It killed me again the next day and it killed me again the next night. This went on.

After a couple of weeks, I decided that she didn't like me and hence wouldn't care to get back to me. That helped a lot. All of a sudden, I was free, I'd broken every rope I'd tied myself with. Things were coming back to normal and Rufus Wainwright was singing, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk..." I'd told a friend of mine about this girl but not what I felt about her and she'd asked me, "That means, you're falling for someone?"

"Nah... doubt if she cares if I exist and that's fine. Not that I fancy her or anything." I lied.

Then she said one thing which sent waves of electric charge along my spine, "May be she likes you." I was sure she was pulling my leg but I wanted to hear her out. The masochist in me wanted to whine again. "May be she is scared of the same things that you are. All I'm saying is may be, may be she likes you."

That was enough to have my blood rushing for hours. It rushed like it had been dammed not to flow and the gates were suddenly broken by the sudden rise in current. The control over my emotions was lost like a weak dam. My blood rushed to my fingers, wanting to explode out of my finger tips like fountains. If I had a diary, I would've written: "I have to meet her NOW, I have to!"

It was Saturday night and I could die to party with her. All I wanted that night was just once dance, one long dance with her. I didn't care if we didn't get drunk, I didn't care if I didn't get laid. All I wanted was just to stand behind her, her body leaning on me, my fingers in her hair and her head back on my shoulder, my palm on her waist with the music doing it's thing.

By the time I was done torturing myself by fantasizing her dancing with me, I nearly let out a scream. My eyes were shut tight and they opened wide. In the pain of longing a catastrophe hit my self esteem, I probably just wasn't good enough for her. I was too big for her, may be just too clumsy, too normal, too predictable. I didn't look like Brad Pitt. Why would she talk to me?

A faith restored under a false pretext is much worse a wound than blind faith. If you believe, then believe with rationale or don't believe at all. There I was, with possibly everything in life but losing the meaning of life. Separating myself from life, landing up alone, losing the purpose.

I didn't know anything. I didn't know how to amuse her or how to make her laugh. I didn't know how to get her involved in a conversation. I wasn't wild enough for her tastes. I wasn't spontaneous enough. I never tried to know what I was or what I wasn't. I never tried to talk to her.

May be she hated me or she didn't want to see my face. She didn't want to hear my voice. May be she despised every time I smsed her or worse she'd gotten my number blocked or even had her number changed. I was being the pain of her stalked life. I was the stalker that no woman wants. I was the pricking thorn in her colourful bright flower of life. I'd killed her freedom and happiness. Thoughts started pouring inside my head which all started with just one sentence, "What would she think?!"

I started feeling weak. I started losing myself. I'd begun to hate myself for what I'd become. Ashamed of my weakness, I couldn't see my face in the mirror. The weakness in me fought against my mind when it talked about desire. My mouth went dry, I couldn't even swallow water and my eyes moist with tears just before I was about to start sobbing. My knees began to feel weak and I fell. I fell on my knees as they hurt but the stinging pain was forgotten. My hands stuck to the side of my body, I fell forward with my head falling on the pillow with big drops of tears wetting the pillow cover. In my sorrow I wasn't aware of how I got there. The background choruses: "Feeling guilty, And I'm worried, and I'm waking from a tormented sleep 'Cause this old love, you know it has me bound, But this new love cuts so deep."

I woke up to the sun shining right over my head. I didn't even know that I'd bathed, changed and was sitting at a cafe. I didn't recollect how I got there. While I was trying to figure out things for myself, I saw her walk towards my table. I forgot everything else that was on my mind. I stood up and pulled a chair out for her. She gracefully sat down and we smiled. We spent a lot of time talking, chuckling and smiling to each other. I don't even remember what we were talking about. I tried to inhale her fragrance but I couldn't. I only choked on cold air filled with moisture. That moment, I saw my coffee simmer out. It was boiling like someone'd placed the mug on a stove. I ignored it and kept talking to her. Soon, it started flowing all over the table and then off it. My thighs were being burned by boiling hot coffee. My trousers started melting down and my skin began to burn but I couldn't move my eyes away from the gleaming white star in her eyes. In the background I can hear Shirley Manson sing as the bass guitar helps the heat melt my clothes and skin off, "I am lost, So I am cruel, But I’d be love and sweetness, If I had you, I’m waiting, I’m waiting for you, I am weak, But I am strong, I can use my tears to bring you home, I’m waiting, I’m waiting for you..." Her laughter disrupted the song and she looked away. Her coffee cup suddenly exploded with all her hot coffee flying toward my face. I screamed and then... I woke up.

I woke up to an intense stinging pain in my knees. I remember that I'd fallen on my knees and had ignored the pain. I'd fallen asleep suffocating myself with my tear moist pillow. I didn't even know when I'd fallen asleep. My feet ached as I rolled over on my back keeping my legs folded. My feet had gone numb too, this adding to the intensity of the stings I felt because of the hurt.

Probably, all I wanted was some release, some relief from my madness, my weakness, someone on whom I'd empty out the dark energies of the load I'm carrying inside me. I needed that and all of a sudden my gut said to me that I did. I'd believed my gut feeling when I fell for her, I might as well believe it again.

That evening I went to a club after work and tried to drown myself in vodka. There I was blowing more than I earned, on vodka, on trying to impress women around me so that someone would come and talk to me. I didn't look all that bad. Oh yea, I didn't look like Brad Pitt, but I wasn't ugly and unappealing. I needed to drown myself in alcohol because I had to release my mind out of control to do something like that, I had to balance the weight of the loyalty my heart showed towards her. I had to numb the pain that my obsession was causing inside me. The pain wouldn't die. I couldn't touch a woman. The last thing I remember is forcing my hands to touch. A woman was sitting on the bar stool right next to mine and my hands were pushed on her ass and my thumb dug inside the back pocket of her jeans. The next thing I remember is being thrown out on the street and my forehead bleeding.

The next day, I didn't go to work. For the next couple of days I didn't go to work. Everyday, I would sit alone in my room, curled up in a corner. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I would spend hours staring at the ceiling. I was dying to see her once, I was dying to just be with her, and may be have a dialogue. My eyes burned and I couldn't keep them open. My bloodshot eyes kept closing down but I craved to see her face and so I didn't close them or fall off to sleep. May be, she would walk in and show me her face. I was too scared to go out into the sun and meet her somewhere. Days and Nights stopped making sense. I didn't sleep at all, I was scared that in some dream she might come to me, laugh and then walk away from me like she did the last time.

A whole weekend went by, I'd called in sick on Friday and missed work today. No one from work called since they assumed I was still sick. I was. I really was very sick. I needed medicines. I had decided what would cure me, I had decided what would get rid of my illness, the vile inside me. I dug out my mom's old medicine box. I knew it would come useful some day. The day she died, they'd told me to throw away the medicines or donate them to some hospital. I didn't do it. I had a gut feeling that it would come useful someday. Her prescription drugs, the pink sedatives, the aquamarine anti-psychotics, the fuchsia analgesics, the orange antacids, the blue laxatives...

I powdered a whole strip of valium 10mg pills and dunked them in a glass of Lemonade as I looked out of the window. The only thing I wanted to see was her walking toward my house. I knew that was not to happen, that would never happen. She hated me, she hated me more than I could measure. She hates me more than what is required to envelope the whole world. I knew it, I just knew it so well. I know it, I know it too well for my own good. I stand here trying to remember everything I know about her.

I stand here trying to remember how she looks, how her eye lashes pierce out towards the outer end of her eyes, how her lips gleam in the light... I stand here trying to remember if I have a picture of her with me... I wanted to see her once before I died or at least tried to die, I know she wouldn't even let me die in peace. I know she probably won't even let me die just like she's not letting me live. Once again, it's time for the great fall... I place the glass carefully on the table and start sobbing, falling once again on my knees. I'm sure this time I cracked my knees. I don't care, not anymore.

Hitting my forehead on a chipped tile edge on the floor, I begin to bleed profusely. Blood pours out of my forehead, it might as well spurt out like a fountain, I don't care anymore. I get up and blood drips down my neck, my chest and my shirt starts soaking my blood. I fall again as my head bumps right at that place once more. It pains but I don't howl. If I were in a normal state of mind, I would be howling and driving to my doctor's for stitches. I don't. I am calm, I am peaceful, I am enlightened, enlightened to embrace hatred and indifference. I am enlightened so that I can kiss apathy on it's lips and suck it's juices out.

Oh God! Once, just one call and I swear I won't die. God, if you exist, she'll call me right now. She'll call me, even if it's a wrong number from her, a cross connection, I don't care. I just want to hear her voice once and if this happens then I won't die. I'll see it as a sign from you, a message, a message that tells me not to lose hope in love. I've lost all hope in love, God! I've lost all of it. Five minutes pass and I decide to gulp my lemonade down and my phone rings. Thanks God, thanks a huge lot. I kiss the floor as my own dried blood touches my lips and I get up to run to my phone. I fall down hard, I'd forgotten my hurting knees, the pain paralyses me. I can't really move. I throw the glass of lemonade away to use both my hands to get that call. I know it's her, It is her! God, you do exist! I believe in your powers!

I fall and crawl my way to the desk where my phone's ringing. Every time my hands push the floor back to drag my body ahead, I thank God and praise him. My bloody fingers push the green coloured button which kept lighting up along with the rest of the phone as it rang. I knew it was her, I didn't even have to see the number to know that. God had answered my prayers... I see hope and light at the end of this dark tunnel of love I've been walking.

"Hello?"

"Sir, I'm talking from Orange company, would you want to convert your current pre-paid scheme to post-paid billing sir?"

"MOTHERFUCKER!" I shout as I bang the phone down. It splits into two parts. I can feel someone driving a sword inside my neck, pushing in deeper effortlessly, I can't even scream in pain because of the lump I feel in my neck. Someone's pulling the sword down carefully, splitting my ribcage open right at the centre and the pain in my neck starts lowering itself towards my heart. Suddenly, I howl and start crying loudly and my heart starts aching and burning which makes me scream.

I hammer my cell phone hard with my fist in anger. Nothing happens to the phone but the back of my palm starts bleeding. In my anger I crawl my way to the tool box which is kept under the wash-basin, pull out a hammer and crawl back. I start hammering my phone to powder. It's glass screen is now a million white crystalline pieces. I hammer it all down to uncountable pieces, splinters of the plastic flying in every direction. One comes flying straight to my eyes, I close my eyes and it grazes past my eyelid which starts bleeding. Once the phone's completely indistinguishable from dust, I try to get up once. Forgetting the pain in my knees, I get up once and scream, "Fucking Bitch! Why won't you even let me die?!"

I told you, didn't I? She wouldn't even let me die. She's enjoying this, she's having tons of fun watching me suffer like this. I hear the volume go up on what had been playing since I crushed the valiums - dark metallic electronic beats and a voice scream, "I got the poison, I got the remedy, I got the pulsating rhythmical remedy..."

* * *

college life in cutting chai

the days go by
and so did four years
formica layered
on wood, dirty shade of blue
and a metal frame
hours went by till seven
always high attendance in
the corners haunted by professors
than lectures taught by them

special slow-mo samosas,
wada pao with sweety sauce
and coconut chutney,
and long evening sessions,
experimental dahi wadas,
disastrous sev puris,
nuclear kaanda bhajji,
toxic misal pao
and mutant egg omeletes
rubber poha with lemon...
















a cutting chai, two rupees.
at times with
a pack of parle g,
at times brown sugar water
aerated to perfection -
acid digested conversations

the glass that was filled
to different levels
by anna's extended family
hours went by,
dipping on biscuit, sipping on tea
four years went by
and now the glass's empty

bittersweet

twisted dark floating green leaves
eclipse orange walls of buildings
the colours taste bittersweet
but sound like water
in a glass kept still.

to hear the prussian blue
i stick my neck out,
to see the moon glide,
i pray.

tonight, poetry must taste
taste like nothing ever eaten
as i roll on my tongue the intangible
bittersweet of that lunatic in me.

no, the moon can't come!
or it won't come?
they built them walls too high,
too close and trees alongside too.

they leave me hungry
to do nothing but stare
at eclipsed orange walls,
twisted but dark bent leaves
and long shadows of strange,
while i reminisce
the bittersweet sound
of the echoing deep blue

re: Post-its

Read THIS by the Wizard of Odd - PJ. The following was written in reply to THAT.
I tried my best to do justice to the work which I tried to reply for even her casual mush deserves a salute. It sure was a tiresome and draining task - matching standards which are like dream-levels for me.



Do you know what its like

to be able to take

nothing?




For what could I take,

I who have given nothing but a light,

hearing your hums and verses from the other night?



A lifetime ago, I would've known what to take:

sonnets, fingertips, vampire bites.

Tall tales, snickers, fake wake-up alarms to talk.



A lifetime ago, we would spend the sun to buy the moon,

Blog material with esoteric keywords for you to grin,

balance empty coffee cups on your waist till one breaks.



A lifetime ago, I stared at my msn window

waiting for you to smoothly pop in around the corner

A lifetime ago, my muse Alex would boil your bunnies, Anne.



A lifetime ago, we may have met.

on a stupid sunday evening

at a noisy cafe, just being you and me.



Yes, we met like two druggies in a dark corner.

Was it just scars we saw? It was really

the nothingness that made those shapes, did we see?



Once the pain died, there wasn't anything

anymore left to be given or that

I could take beyond comfort.



We alternated guard duty at the gates

on our stormy nights. At least

at a moment, one slept comfortably.



Do you know what its like

to be able to take

nothing?



There are no dewdrops. It's early at night.

There is a moon. But in clouds, out of fright.



Two Quixotes or two Sancho Panzas?

We are, that there wasn't nothing left to give, take

nor did the tale get out that night into the day.



now at times, you stare and laugh

like a fable told before sleep, I laugh in sync

then we close our eyes and forget. Really, do we?



Do you know what its like

to be able to take

nothing?



No dvds. No conversations at night.

No contorted wild faces. No light.



Call me snoogy woogy, for bitsy pookums i'd say

and yes snoogy woogy you'd reply



Call me cacophile for it's just chaos that I seeked,

to resonate with and I found you.



I could touch those scars and shapes on you

for when he was there, there were none.



What could I take from you?

A cig when it was the last one

on this starry and cold night out.



May be that back rub you swore you were good at?



or that sandwich, bitten to a heart-shape by you

and some cheese and ketchup and corn



a crossword, you solved with our names at

1 down, 3 down crossing LOVES at 4 across



hugs



bad yoda imitations,

think you do Ingrid Bergman worse

(kiss me, kiss me as if it were the last time ever)

with the whole stare and all.



you laughed so hard at Jerry Maguire

(i love you. you... make me complete)

and you mocked back, stupid fellow

(you had me at 'hello')



Lies we found on the couch in fronta the tv



A life time ago, we did not meet.

you kissed your happiness goodnight

and I kissed mine.

then we met on that lonesome street.



A life time ago we will meet.

I hold that small post-it note of verse

you left by the pillow one night.

Take me back to a lifetime ago.

russian roulette

click!
you're alive.
is that a sign, a miracle?
is that my bad luck?
was that the fifth blank?
you stay on baby
to live, to mate,
to sin for pleasure.
my prayer
for salvation,
to them.

click!
we survived. we did.
isn't that a sign, a miracle?
isn't that my good luck?
wasn't that the fourth blank?
we stay on baby
to live, to make love,
to make life miserable.
our orgasm
for damnation,
to them.

click!
click!
did you have to
do that again?
you very well realise
how you and your little game
always turn me on.

now,
turn on the lights,
i wanna see you sprawling
all over the floor,
your amorous odour
and juices
wrapped in my screams
and satin.

then,
hand me the gun.
let me click out
the last one fifth
of life,
as sweat drips
off your forehead
in to my cleavage.

Part I: Tukaram Gajanan Kolte

"Ssshhh..." Raghu shushed us all, "I think I heard something or someone."

"May be it's just another animal, Raghu. Haven't you been to this part of the jungle before?" His wife, Ganga shut him up. She was way too happy to be in the new place tonight. We had it all set, a new place, a new time. We were probably famous enough that people knew us here too, but we were going to catch them unawares.

My elder brother Raghu and his friend Shyam started this. Their wives Ganga and Ketki were just as involved in this as any wife could be in her husband's bed.

"Put that beedi down Tuka!" I couldn't help but smoke. I was worried. I was nervous probably just like any one of you would be in your new school or in a new neighbourhood or even at a new job. For me, this was all of that combined.

"Once we see all the lights in the town go out, we get out of our hiding place and go about as usual. You remember what we did in Ambarnath, don't you? Or a few weeks of farming has erased it out of your brains?" Shyam said to us.

Raghu shushed him too and started whispering, "I hear someone around. I think someone has seen us. Let's go some place else."

"Shut up Raghu. No one has seen us and you don't need to worry about that." said Ganga as she pressed her body against his. Ketki couldn't help but put her hands on Shyam's chest. And they started again! They did this the time before we hit our first house at Ambarnath. They did it again before we did the next house. They did it again the next time we picked on this old couple living on the ground floor of a nearly empty building. They'd made it almost a ritual to have sex before we left. The worst was, they had to do it right where we were hiding. I was supposed to move a few metres away, look out if no one's around while they humped around. The darkness wouldn't kill the sound for god's sake! Raghu squeezed Ganga's breasts as she nearly yelped. The bhenchod couldn't hear people's foot steps nor could he see their eyes glitter behind the bushes any more! Ok, I won't say that Ganga wasn't a good take but not at that moment!

I was so goddamn nervous. After a few minutes of moans and leaves rustling under their nearly naked bodies, Shyam emerged smoking a beedi, tying his pyjamas back on. I can still hear Ganga sucking in air through her mouth as she pants and the rhythmic sounds of the rustle go in rhythm with the crickets. Shyam leans down and picks up his sword from my side. The moonlight reflects straight into my eye as I turn my face and close my eyes. That's exactly when Ganga screamed, "Tukaaa!"

What the heck was that?! She's a damn fool! Raghu immediately shouts on her face, "What?!"

"Tukaa..." as she's trying to gather her breath, "I think we need to get Tuka a bride. He sits there alone." It's so silent after both these couples have climaxed that I can hear every bit of what they're saying.

"But why are you thinking about that right now, Ganga?"

"That is because I just thought of him while all four of us were having our fun here. And it would also be better omen if all of us got to do it before we went about work."

Only foolish Raghu could've bought that lie. I couldn't stop chuckling to myself. Shyam put a hand on my shoulder and winked as I turned to him.

I picked my sword up started swinging it around, checking my grip as if I didn't hear a thing. Ketki walked out in between Shyam and me, her hands picking her own sword up. We oiled our swords with that special oil from our village. Then we oiled ourselves. Everything about what happened five minutes back was forgotten. We were back again into the dark night hidden amidst trees and foliage.

Raghu climbed up the tree to check whether all the lights in the village were out or not. And what was supposed to be a quick look turned into a long gaze. He wouldn't come down. He was stuck up there. As I shifted positions to be able to see what he was doing up there, I saw his eyes and mouth wide open. He was staring straight as if he'd either seen one of those firang tourists naked or the great demon who was the villain in all of grandfather's stories.

"Raghu?" Shyam shouted, "What happened?"

After Shyam, the two women called out to him but in vain. Raghu was lost somewhere. I decided not to waste time and started climbing up. When I was at a branch almost parallel to his, I tugged at his hand. Without turning around Raghu just pointed his finger in the direction of the village. I could see hundreds of torches burning and a huge mob was walking towards where we were hiding. Unlike my extremely foolish brother, I started climbing down but Raghu wouldn't budge. He was scared stiff. I tugged at his ankle and when he nearly lost his balance he returned to his senses. He started clambering down with me. Shyam asked us, "What?"

That was like asking a dead man what was it like to be dead. He would have no answer, would he?

"Run bhosdike run!" That is all that escaped this dead man's lips then. I grabbed my sword and started running. Raghu followed me and Ganga followed Raghu. Still not being able to comprehend the seriousness of the situation, Shyam and Ketki started following us blindly. We could've easily bumped into any one of them and died. The cause of death either would be excessive bleeding or being torched or stoned by the villagers.

As we ran for our lives, Shyam turned to me, "Why are we running?"

Ketki and Ganga chorused from behind, "Yes, why?!"

Panting hard, the only word I said was, "Villagers! Run to highway!"

It's not that the running tired us out because we were used to running so much. But it was more of the shock of running without a purpose for the others that exhausted them. Raghu and me were exhausted because of sheer fear. We crossed the highway and started climbing up a hillock. I shouted to the others, "Keep your swords low or the moonlight will get us killed."

On the other side of the hillock we could see a lighted up resort and a lake. The neon lights on the resort said, 'GreenHill Resort'. "Now what?" Raghu asked me.

"Now... now nothing. We keep running, way past the resort. It doesn't make sense sitting here, the villagers might come here too. But if we cross the resort, then they might think we've gone some other way."

We ran past the resort as our dark oiled skins shone in the neon lights. As soon as we met the road on the other side of the resort, Shyam asked me to stop and explain.

"The villagers. They got our scent like dogs would. I could see hundreds of them carrying torches." And what I hated to admit was that for once my elder brother was right.

Ganga put her hand around Raghu, "No wonder he was so scared." And her hand went straight where it shouldn't. All I could think then was, "Oh no! Not again!" It seemed like they heard me. Raghu suddenly had a distasteful expression on his face. May be he was reminded of her howling my name when she climaxed. Anyways whatever it was, right now we had to think of something to do, "Now what?"

"We go back and rest."

"No, we can't go back."

"Why not?"

"We can't go back when we are all prepared without plundering one house or killing even one person?"

May be Ketki was right but I knew she wasn't. But still I thought she was. Well that doesn't matter because we did go for another attempt then. We had not been to this side before and had no idea where to go. We decided to walk along the highway and take on the first village that came by. Probably we were just too pissed off by what just
happened. We'd never been outwitted so badly. Raghu was right all along, someone heard us there, someone was in the bushes. Well, not that it matters now.

Walking our way into the night silently we hit upon a road sign which pointed right to a cobbled road cutting through the jungle. The road was wide enough for a bullock cart to pass. It said three kilometres from that right bend there was a village.

Raghu smiled at Ganga as they wiped the dust and leaves of their swords. Everyone smiled at each other once again. This was when I gave in to my doubts, "Listen to me, this may not be a good idea. Let's go back." But Shyam and Ketki had already begun kissing and broke away panting, "We don't care but kill we must."

Ketki took off, running down the muddy path to the village as the pointer pointed. After the bright resort neons this darkness just had me blinded for sometime. Soon enough we saw a clearing with say fifty or sixty houses. There was one concrete house there while the others were all kaccha huts. There seemed to be electricity in this remote and small village because one of the huts was very brightly lit. There was just one concrete house in the village but it was dimly lit.

"I want to kill a living person when he's awake. Only that shall avenge our run from those villagers."

"You've gone mad, Shyam?!" I nearly screamed.

"No, Shyam is right." Ketki and Raghu voiced their opinions. I was outnumbered. I didn't even look at Ganga to hear what she had to say. We made it to the hut which was brightly lit. There were voices heard on the outside, sounded like a few men talking. Raghu and Shyam climbed up the roof, to jump from the top. It was always easier that way. The door looked lightly bolted which could be broken into. We could actually tell now by just looking at the doors. The women decided to run into it. It was decided that at the count of three we would barge in. I could hear three distinct male voices. There wasn't a woman in there or she didn't speak. Generally we were right about our guesses. But I guess something had to be wrong about our guesses that night.

One...

Two...

Three...

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" The five of us screamed as we barged in. Raghu and Shyam from the roof, the women from the door and me right behind the women. My eyes hurt as soon as we ran into the bright room from the pitch black night.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! BangClink! _Gunshots_

* * *

The Story Lived...

"Ahh what a story!", the man said to himself as soon as he woke up. He realised he'd slipped off into a trance while he tried to visualise a story. It had layers, multiple layers and an unending array of characters. The tale had life, it lived. It had evil, it had good, it had good pretending to be evil and evil pretending to be good. According to him, it was the perfect story. It was the perfect plot. It had pleasure, it had wealth, it had power, it had duties, it had liberation - it had everything that any devout follower of the universal religion would consider his ultimate goal.

"One good story can change the world!" He talked to himself. He knew he was right. He would have to write all of it himself. It was too long or vast for himself to think of everything and write at the same time, "The mind thinks much faster than the mouth speaks which is even faster than the hand writes. The mind can think in depths unknown, which the mouth can't speak nor the hand can write." He stroked his beard as he tried to think of a solution.

He was stuck in a muddle, a muddle this vastness had created in his mind. He could neither sleep, nor eat. He was beginning to choke on the immense magnitude of words and ideas that were stuck inside his mind. Before the end of the day, the calm thought transformed into rage. In a fit, he took his stick and started walking out of his village into the forest his saffron robes flaring right behind him as he walked.

* * *

The captain was angry. He was the best man for the job in the forces, perfect in every way but with a slight anger management problem.

"I don't care but if the system's not working then I'm going there myself."

The subordinates and scientists accompanying tried in vain to convince him, "No sir, please don't. We have no tests of how to survive on this planet."

"I don't care. I don't have time. Our government is not going to spend so much again and this is our chance for recognition and fame and to beat the damned Frinchan country. Prepare me for getting down and that's an order."

Out of fear the crew agreed, "But sir, you can't go there without a disguise."

"What do you mean?"

The scientist said, "I mean camouflage, disguise, you need to look like them. They may be hostile."

"Ok but quick! What data do we have in here?"

"There are a couple of incomplete transmission pictures. We'll have to study them before we develop the disguise."

On two different screens something that seemed like a head and the rest like a body with limbs was what the scientists could figure out. They created a fully equipped suit was conceptualised. An online simulation made the scientists comment, "Sir, this will fail in mechanics and hydraulics - after checking the gravity of this planet. We'll have to blow up the lower body a bit."

"Do whatever you want to but quick!"

* * *

In a few minutes after the suit was dispensed from the atomiser the captain was out, "Frax to Base. Hello? Do you hear me? Over."

An electronic voice said, "Base to Frax. Loud and clear sir. Over."

"I feel movement. I hear someone coming. Over." The captain draws his blaster-ray and loads it as he peeks, "Frax to Base. I see a man of great power walking here. His face is different from my disguise. He has a trail of saffron fiery material which is flying and a long pole in his hand."

The man hears a rustle in the bushes. He sticks his stick in there to poke the captain. With no choice left the captain emerges pointing his blaster-ray at the man, "We come in peace but I'm armed!" which obviously the man doesn't understand.

"Divine truth! Oh lord of dance and death you understand the power of the tale inside me and you send help!" He raises his hands up and looks at the sky.

"Frax to Base. I don't know what is he doing. May be he is greeting me. May be he comes in peace. Over."

"Help me, Lord!" He falls at the captain's feet touching them.

"Frax to Base. Should I blow him? He just touched me. Over."

"Base to Frax. No sir, this being seems peaceful and gesture seems to be of welcome. Over."

"I do not understand anything. I think I'll have to use the thoughtplugs here. The electrical impulses should pass on images and thoughts that can be used for communication. I hope their minds work in the same pattern as ours. Over and out."

The captain connected the mindwires. The electrical impulses were too strong but of the same nature as the species from his planet. Every thought emnating from the brain source made the captain realise the power of the tale and feel it. He realised the wisdom on this planet just by being in contact with one man. The deal was struck in divine communication, divya drishti as the man would think of it as. The captain promised to return at dawn and help the man out.

At the space shuttle, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the planet is safe and great. I made a deal with the earthling I met and I shall return with a tale about the deeds of this planet and about everything that is found on this planet. Lietnant, please keep trying to contact home to inform them about our success. The others are allowed to take trips of the area where I met the earthling, to collect other evidence and pictures." Many such orders were dispatched.

At sunrise, the captain put on his disguise again and was at the man's hut. He was welcomed with offerings which he did not touch but insisted on starting work as soon as possible.

And thus Vyasa started to end without a pause, "What is found here, may be found elsewhere. What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere."

* * *

Problem Statement: Take a world-changing event. Go back a bit - a few days, a few weeks, even a few minutes. Put an extra-terrestrial being into the mix. Now, build a credible story around an action - or series of actions - that alien has taken that cause that event. Make it clear only in the ending what the event you're referring to is.
[A product of the Science Fiction & Fantasy exercise on Caferati - the writer's forum]

Happy Birthday, Chuck!

Starting off with a piece dedicated to my favourite writer which I wrote on February 21, 2006 - his birthday. Chuck Palahniuk, is one of the major reasons that I write and also a guru!

[Cross-posted on the Birthday thread at Chuckpalahniuk.net fan site forums]

I rapped on the door, the bloody door wouldn't open. It was fucking time I left. I had to walk out, walk all the way to meet this fucker who reigned a kingdom or so you could say. Wiping the sweat of my forehead with my sleeve as it leaves brown marks of dirt on it. The darkness of the room started encroaching inside my skin, my flesh. It penetrated through my cranium, finding it's way to my medula oblongata as it flowed through it and wrapped itself around my brain. Every minute I could feel the pain as the darkness burnt it's way into my neurons, one neuron at a time. Every second I could feel a synapse being eclipsed by the darkness. It reached through the layers of neurons, capturing every nucleus within it's seductive grasp.

That was when I lurched at the door and ran into it sideways. My arm hit the door as the hinges gave way and the nuts and bolts were strewn around. On the outside, on the evening grass I saw this man sitting on a huge arm chair and it wasn't fucking morpheus. He smiled as his sunken cheeks pulled back. The grey in his eyes coloured the dark moonlit night grey. The gleam in his eye was the moon. His fingers came together as I could feel him drill the darkness into my head still, even after I had broken out of the room.

I managed to pull out that gun and the only bullet remaining. With whatever ounces of sanity that remained, I could only load the gun. With whatever ounces of consciousness that lived, I could only point the gun right between his eyes, point blank.

He said, "Your clothes will be stained with dark blood."

"What the fuck?!" is all I managed to mutter.

He smiled his madness once again at me.

I lost the grip of my gun as it fell onto his lap and I screamed with the last bits of my soul and my energy shrieking out all the charge residing in every atom of the chemicals in my body,

"Happy Birthday, Motherfucker!"