Sunday, May 18, 2014 1:12 PM

Traffic Police

There was a slight drizzle in the air. Cars honked like they had a flight to catch. Bikes swiveled like it was a belly dancing show. In the midst of all that ruckus, stood he, drenched in the uncanny cold July rain, raising his hand in élan as every odd guy stopped. The CEO and the spare part, all having no choice but to halt in emergency. As water drops trickled down his muscular torso, I remembered bare torso football boys soaked in a brown gravy of mud creating ripples in my teenage soul. He reminded me of a man who I dreamt of, a real man who was more than solitude and less than a crowd, who makes you feel like a woman again, after all these years of domestic decadence. O police, the controller of traffic, take a break. You could do better than put sense into the madness of these indiscreet souls.

12:57 PM

Sarkhej Roza

It took a long walk through the debris. Through the lost glory of the ancient. Through the untold stories. We could hardly imagine the opulence, the extravaganza of the time. Embarrassed by the aura we chose not to speak a word. Oh! Our silence was so damn appropriate for the place. Suddenly azaan emerged from the collective silence creating an apt mood for the perfect sunset. Thanks to their royal highnesses Arbaz and Muddassir for allowing us in their empire. Am sure they will be great successors.

12:49 PM

Coincide

Bird says once you hold someone’s hand you hold it forever. Bee says you have two hands so you can hold more than one hand at a time. Bird says either you are with someone wholeheartedly or you don’t. Bee says enlarge your heart; love as much as you can. With the bird I have learnt that the love is blind. Bee taught me how only eyes can do the talking. Bird showed me how bright is white and how dark the black can be. Bee pointed out the 50 shades of grey. Bird showed how sexy a broken promise can be. Bee demonstrated how to keep a promise without making one. Thanks to the titans of my life, I learned they coexist and I learned they are forever.

Sunday, May 19, 2013 7:59 AM

Mise-en-scene


I thought airport would be the backdrop. It doesn't matter where I am going, doesn't matter where he is. I am wearing a saree, coincidentally his favourite colour, and pretending to read a travelogue as if I never noticed him coming towards me. The writer is describing the solemn calmness of the river but only I can feel the tsunami within. My God! Am I going to die? He asks ‘my goodness, are you reading something in English?’

I thought it would be a rainy day. Am working to meet tomorrow’s deadline. My glass is half full with solid and liquid and half with air. Door bell! Am not expecting anyone, but again. It’s him, drenched, shivering, like a little boy who has come home with a guilty face after playing in the rain and awaiting his mamma will clean all the mud and the mess and will forgive him as always. It’s really the rain or he cried.  He doesn't look well. I pass on the towel and he holds my hand. He is burning. I take the towel and come closer to him. Is he shivering or is it me? He looks straight in my eyes and asks ‘are you drunk?’

I thought he questioned a lot. I thought now I would be with him and he would be with her and we would pretend not to know each other forever. But I will for sure think of more and more backdrops until forever. 

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:02 PM

Dev-D Dulhania Le Jayenge Or Kaun Kambaqt Bardash Karne Ke Liye Pita Hai…

We don’t care if Humpty Dumpty were gay or not. But we really care for the poor Devdas (poor as in ‘fellow’, not the anti-rich guy, coz his father had a 20 mile long balcony, a 30 mile long courtyard and many more things Bhansali could afford). We have shed gallons of tears for him, haven’t we? After getting fucked by Parvati he still had a sexy option to fall back upon, I mean millions of Indians can just die for that ‘dhak dhak’ woman, how can he ignore her? What the fuck was he doing with those bottles man?

Look at our Dev, Anurag played a completely unfair game with him. No Ash no Nene, firbhi, he didn’t give up. He showed his maturity, kicked those bottles and picked a frenchly leaner and thinner version of Chandramukhi (the only option), our very own Kalki. Well, Anurag knows the new age Indian youth has moved from voluptuous to more size zero fantasies, so our Dev is not that oppressed after all. ‘Jhankar Beats’ taught him a simple lesson: ‘Chandramukhi ho yaa paro ki fark paenda hai yaaro’ and believe me, he has never lost focus since then.

But I have this curious little feeling it’s not just that Devdas didn’t get the opportunity to watch ‘Jhankar Beats’ and fucked himself up. It was more than that historical impossibility. Did anybody care to clarify the content of those bottles? Well, Dev was drinking Vodka and Devdas, probably Whisky. And there lies the key. No wonder Devdas was screaming ‘kaun kambaqt bardash karne k liye pita hai?’ He just meant: bullshit all bardash-wardash, I drink because I just love it and I won’t leave it till I die. So, the moral of the booze is, I mean, the prose is whisky is any day sexier than Vodka. Whisky is a drink for which you can leave Madhuri Dixit. Whisky is a drink you can die for. So reconsider the ‘Genie in the bottle’ before you call Kashyap smarter than the melodramatic, extravagant Bhansali.

Thursday, August 11, 2011 1:07 AM

Tattoo

I broke my pen after scribbling his death sentence. Black ink stained my fingers, my skirt, my reading glass and the white paper that soaked the dark liquid like a gluttonous whore. I screamed and threw away the pen in fear, and out it went through my window. I picked a blotting paper that was lying close by, beneath my table; as if it was waiting for the day it would hear its calling. It rose to the occasion, and somehow managed to save not the whole ‘sentence’ but just a word, the name of the guilty. I felt like burning it to its end. I wished to bury it like it never existed. I thought I would cut it into a thousand pieces like the dead leaves of fall but I ended up crying for a long time holding it close to me. I loved it, I enveloved it.

Monday, November 16, 2009 4:19 AM

Birds of a feather….


Bawra man dekhne chala hai ek sapna…

Once more mummum
Once more please
No dear it’s too late now, don’t you have to go to school tomorrow?
Why I like this song so much mummum?
You tell me, why you like?
Umm…because you like (suddenly hugs her mother tightly).
(She smiles and adores her daughter) my crazy little girl! Now sleep my darling.
Mummum! why you like this song so much?
Now sleep my dear, do you know what time is it?
Please tell me mummum. Why you like?
Umm……….because it’s ours baby…..
It’s yours, it’s mine. It’s ours only.

Have I ever told you about that little bird from whom I have learnt this song?
Which one? That talkative blue bird who never takes bath?
(She smiles) no no this is a whitish little bird….calm & quiet…….exactly opposite of my naughty girl (embraces her).

Is she your friend?

Umm….first close your eyes……….I am telling you about the bird.
(The little girl closes her eyes)
She loves to sing, loves to dance, loves to fly across mountains, across seas…..
She wanted to fly the highest.

Her fantasies don’t have any periphery.
She envisions having dinner with humans……..
She dreams of getting married to a gladiator.
She believes there must be a great musician in the moon.

One day she was flying……..flying high, higher and higher and finally reached to the moon.

It’s like trillions of halogens are overflowing and some music… the music is unknown yet so involving. It seems it’s so easy to comprehend yet every moment it changes its direction and generates a new meaning. It’s like an addiction, it’s like a ‘dream comes true’.
She is the happiest bird in the world now; she is singing, dancing, laughing on her own. She is looking for the musician. Yes, her prediction was correct. And she is about to find that magician….the musician.
She is searching, following the tune, she is searching like anything. Everywhere she looks, it is milky white…….may be a whitish glow, she assumes it must be the aura of that Godly musician. She is searching.
She has been searching for days, for months for years and she doesn’t even realize that she has lost her vision; the extravagance of moon-light has taken it from her. She can’t see anything but that whitish glow. She doesn’t realize that she has lost her hearing. The music stopped playing long ago. It’s the amazement of the music that she is carrying in her ear, in her heart, in her mind.
She hasn’t found the musician but now she is dying to tell the world that there is a great musician in the moon and she is the one who understood the music, she is the one who has danced on its beats. But alas! Now she neither can hear anything nor can see anyone. No one understands what she is saying, no one believes. Her behavior seems anomalous to the world, like any disabled creature. But she doesn’t care. She tells about the music again and again and in that way she lives the music, lives those moments yet again. She feels the music in her wings, in her feet, in her neck, in her beak, in her blindness, in her deafness, in her heart, in her wheeze…….

But where is that musician mummum? Does the musician really exist?

Don’t know dear, she visited to the moon several times after the incident, hoping to listen to a slightest hint of the music but neither the musician nor the music was there………or may be she couldn’t hear anything because of her deafness, may be the musician was playing a different tune.

Mummum!

Hmm….

Does the bird still visit to the moon? Is she still searching for the music….the musician?
I also want to search for……..

Now sleep you naughty. If you don’t mummum will not going to love you anymore.

Noooooooo, I am sleeping mum. Look! I am sleeping.
That’s like my girl (kisses her daughter). Sweet dreams baby.

Mummum! What was that music, the bird liked?
(Adoring her daughter) Ummmmmmm, no more questions mummum, sleep tight.
The mother starts humming the tune Bawra man dekhne chala hai ek sapna…

The baby is sleeping now holding her mother tightly in her small arms.

Now the bird will start her flight…she will fly high, higher……higher, to the moon. She will again search hard, harder, hardest for the musician, for the music……….

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 11:21 PM

The Couple and the Author


She is beautiful, when she smiles like a child
She is beautiful, when she is coming out of kitchen wiping her hands in her anchal ……….a mixed smell of spices and a smell of her own
She is beautiful with her healing hug…….it’s like troubles never exist in this world
She is beautiful, when she is wiping the vermillion from his hand while gulping……
That she has just got married………
She is beautiful, when she silently puts her head on his shoulder to convey……
That she is just not getting him
She is beautiful, when sometimes she sobs wordlessly assuming someone else in his mind
She is beautiful, when she devotes her entire to his desires
She deserves him because she is beautiful
She is beautiful because she belongs to him
She is beautiful because he loves her

Monday, August 24, 2009 11:38 PM

Cut to Cut


He loved me as if it was real; he loved me as if he loved someone for the first time

He loved me deep, deeper……….

He loved me like a child; he loved me like a father

He loved me like he was lost; he loved me like he had just found himself

I love to leave some marks of my affection on him; I wanted him to do the same

I wanted him to mark me so ruthlessly that it stays till the next time he loves me

But he never did.

But when we loved each other for the last time, before we departed forever,

I got a deep cut on me by him, accidentally may be.

I think it’s going to stay for a long time ‘as I wanted’

Sunday, August 23, 2009 9:58 PM

Fool Feeling


…..And I thought everything was true

Silence means cowardliness

Silence means love and commitment too

One path is chosen by me, and one part is chosen by you.

Saturday, February 14, 2009 3:16 AM

Kingfisher Beer

Friday, February 6, 2009 12:29 AM

It’s Not about Love

Ok Rahul, tell me what was the colour of her nail polish on the day when she first sneezed in front of you? Your options are: A) red, B) black, C) nothing. If your answer matches with your girl friend’s you can win a couple pass for the film ‘Love Main Low Balance’ at Inox on Valentine’s Day.
If this is for FM radio listeners, news papers readers are not neglected at all. Write love message for your special person in 10 words which will be published on Valentine’s Day. Best will win gift voucher from Café Coffee day. Through out the month, Nik Nish, Archie’s, Pantaloon’s etc have created an off season SELL only for the love day. You can see the advertisements of audio or video CDs accumulating romantic love songs specially released for Valentine’s Day. Music channels decorate themselves lovely with red hearts and other sensational props. And we, the victimized metropolitan youth never miss even the Valentine’s Day special beauty tips sponsored by L’Oreal Paris. Flowers, chocolates, gifts, lunch, dinner, party, romantic songs, dresses matching the occasion, romantic games these are what the Valentine’s Day blows. Did I miss anything in the list? Yes may be I have missed the love. If most of the readers didn’t notice the missing ‘love’ then may be we born to be victimized. A very few who missed the love on the Valentine’s Day, for them I only have an incident. A girl is very upset as she has broken up with his boyfriend. She is telling to her friend how the boy had called her to a coffee shop and told that he didn’t want to continue the relationship anymore. The girl is crying like anything when she is telling the story to her friends. Suddenly, one of her friends says, which coffee shop did you go? Is it Barista or Café Coffee Day? You know, Barista complements break ups more than CCD.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 10:54 AM

please, rewind


She is committed to him, committed to him forever.

But he never believes

She said, ‘you are the man of my life’

He smiled, and ignored

May be she refused to kiss him thousand times

May be she was late

May be she has slept with others

Can all these stop her from searching him in her cushions, bed sheets, books and mails?

In her mornings, evenings, days and months she is searching

He says ‘one more week’

Thursday, January 15, 2009 5:12 AM

Brand: Indian IT

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:26 AM

Chip

Name of the Brand: Chip
Type of Product: Gadget Magazine