My teacher, during the class said
"Women are Paralympians".
I had never heard a truer sentence.

When the tale of the kite wraps itself around your neck,
And yet continues to fly, freely
You should now know that freedom to one comes at a cost to the other.

But you must wonder, as Jupiter and Zeus watch this storm,
that leaves nothing more than dust in their eyes;
It's funny how kites are a symbol of freedom when they are actually tied to a glass-coated cotton string.
The same cotton, that another boy who looks directly into your eyes could have worn.
It's funny how when one side of the coin is painted in platinum
and the other side struggles to know whether it's still a coin with value as it is being corroded.
Yes, they were one coin. Once.

The tulip blooms fade before the foliage dies,
every flower that dies is not reborn
But on the land it does, is.
When the flower is no more,
the green stem still remains.

But did the flower die from the wasp
that stung its nectar and perhaps even the pollen
or did it die from the feet that stepped upon
because they were inside the duststorm that disallows them to look at the ground.

Do all flowers that die are reborn?
How many flowers can one wasp even sting?
How many times can you stomp over one flower until it has no petals but only your footprints?

As you wonder,
The tail of the kite has been detached from its throne,
You look, as you wonder, if this is freedom or that was.

And another Hassan chases it yet again.

My dear, you are not the sun.
You do not need to blind others or overpower someone's light to shine.

You are a star.
You shine the brightest along with all the others,
not without them.

I like women's day.

It is the only day,
When men finally respect women

For 24 hours straight.

This is one interesting day
when my father gifts makeup kits and concealers
to my mother

To hide the slap marks gifted to her a day ago.

The shades of the summer sky are nothing more
than the skins of every person in this Republic.

The sky in the morning,
Yellow, sun on the sunflower.
Basking winds and ‘dark-coloured’ skins.
It’s the skin of sweepers and sleepers,
who sweep the streets while their bodies become *****
and who stay awake all night, so we sleep.

The sky at noon,
when sun’s at peak.
Bright, blinding, unapproachable- Masculinity, it sounds like.
Of every man who’s bold and macho enough
to slap a woman
and then cry on every video game he lost.

The sky at one,
exhausting, tiring, perspirable.
Its every worker’s flesh that burns in
shinny kerosene, dark mines, bright flames and
stinking rupee notes.

The sky at three is
Foreign invader, refugee.
Like those who are unexpected, uninvited, unwelcomed
and either beaten or enslaved.
So, we make refugees regret seeking refuge
and perhaps being human.

The sky at five is
Settling into all colours and hues of the day.
It’s pastel and rainbow.
farmer,
who sets and rests smiling after everything the day does to him.
So,sky plants seed for the day coming.

The sky at seven is
blue, ultramarine, trying to become black, accessorizes itself with stars,
like girls who themselves as ‘woman’
and boys who try to become ‘black’, ‘strong’ like ‘men’.

The sky at nine,
all colours into one,
and all differences that can be distinguished to be appreciated.
It is every religion’s turban, tika, kufi and cross;
mixed into one India.

The sky at ten,
Dark, bleeding, silent, cold and warm.
A kiss after a slap.
It I an beaten,
her scars deepened,
her wounds opened;
silent.

The sky at twelve,
Black, starry, formed after mixing all colours
garnished with the moon.
It is the skins of all migrants coming to this republic
and calling it home
because they know they are farthest and closest to it.

The sky after twelve,
quiet, crying, waiting and hopeful.
It is every empty stomach’s hope and every broken heart’s faith.
It is people on the sidewalk and inside the palaces.

Right now, it is the sky at dawn.

Dark – trying to become light,
Hope- trying to be.
My skin- trying to become the sky.

These are all, the skins of every person in this republic.
The shades of the summer sky are obviously nothing more than this.

The brave at heart, deal with their brains before other's bullets

When 2 persons are in love,
it is not love anymore.
It is home.
And in this world full of homeless souls sleeping on pavements,
I think we need more of it.

Her job always has had an inflated demand
and ironically surplus production too.

The men’s job, I wonder if
it is their hobby or job.
So, the men’s job has demand amongst themselves
and production too.

Hers is a common and a well-reputed career,
until it is achieved.

The men or at least a man
might choose not to opt
for this career.

She, however, has no choice, as always.

So, she looks at her ancestors,
Her great grandmother who was a wife.
Her grandmother who was a wife.
Her mother who was a wife.
Now, she too has chosen this job.

There is no other choice, of course.

This job has not been her job
since history began.
This job has been her job
since her-story began.

Her job does not require
travelling nations and crossing borders.

Her job requires
staying.
Confined, caged, in-home.

That’s home for him,
not home for her.

That’s her experimental laboratory,
She conducts experiments.
That’s her cricket field,
She plays.
That’s her hospital,
She cures and treats.
That’s her restaurant,
She cooks.
That’s her engineering workshop,
She creates and invents.
That’s her writing room,
She writes.

And that’s her prison too.

And in this prison,
she is her own jailer.

Her job requires only
a few tasks to be taken care of.
Tasks assigned to her sound easy and self-fulfilling.
But she must do them dutifully.
For she, is a wife now.

Nothing more,
Nothing less,
a wife.

But her husband,
is not just a husband.
He is a man.
The man.
A child.
An experimenter,
A cricketer,
A doctor,
A chef,
An engineer,
A writer,

A politician and A king.

And his kingdom,
belongs only to him.

In this highly reputed job,
this only job that she is supposed to have,
and stay loyal to,
with her body and soul,
she is expected; expected of a lot
but never supposed to expect from
and express to.

So, she is expected to not wish.
Because wish leads to worry or somehow even vanity.
Wish kills her work
and that is her tagged happiness.

Thus, she must work,
so, she is called happy.

She must be a wife,
so, she has something worth living.

Her job is the one that requires
her to reach nirvana,
before she starts living.

It is not forced upon her
to choose this job.
It is bought to her
in a jewellery box,
as a necklace,
that she continues to wear
even after it hides the tattoo of her personality,
carved on her neck;
chokes her every time she tries to speak
and eats her words before she births them.

She still, however, continues to wear this necklace
because she has been conditioned
“Beauty is pain, Pain has beauty.”

Songs like “beloved wife” and “my wife”,
make her love her job, but hate herself.
So, she listens to them over and over again.

She avoids reading the newspaper or watching the news
because she knows that if she reads them,
no husband, not even her own,
would be able to look at her in the eye.
And she will not be able to look at them without crying (or killing).

In her job, a resignation letter is the same
as being expelled.
So, it is made sure
that if she takes such a step,
she is not capable of moving anymore.

But out of all these, what makes her job the funniest
is the irony within.
Like she has freedom
but should not be free for her freedom.
Like she is protected but from others
in danger of her own self.
Like she has all the happiness
but she shouldn’t smile too much or make any noise when she laughs.
Like she is a wife
but she is not loved and has done nothing to deserve that love.

What was her mistake that she should not be loved, you ask.
Well, nothing and perhaps everything.

Sometimes, when she is tired and exhausted of her job,
and you go ahead to ask her
“what is more difficult, to be a wife or to be a mother”
She would look at you, for not more than 10 seconds,
and say,
“to be a woman”.

If there is something, she needs to be wary of,
It is people and words.
Because there are certain words,
that if used for her,
would disrobe her in a public square,
where her husband
would be a witness
or perhaps a member of the disrobers.

So, all she should be wanting
to be called
is a word or a name,
to get disrobed by just him
or disrobe herself only for him.
There is much scope in that.

In her job,
she is expected not to wish.
But she does.
She wishes too much sometimes
and on somedays,
just one thing.

She wishes not to be his wife
or ‘a wife’ at all.

But she does nothing more than to wish.
She cannot do anything more.
Because her job always has had an inflated demand
and ironically surplus production too.

That’s all it takes to make a woman quiet,
to silence her.

A slap, a word, a scream, an eye
and perhaps a kiss too.

But there’s a different story for my mother.
For the three words, she spoke
while her heart was struggling to keep alive,
She was given a slap.

A slap whose loudness,
I still hear somedays
when I go to bed and when my mother wakes up.

I think she has been silent for too long
to even count now.
So, I pretend I never heard her speak in the first place.

But there is a different story for my sister.
For her Thumbelina sized request,
she was shouted on like Lady Tremaine did.

In a voice so loud that
It was all she could hear for years to come by.

So, while hearing that, she forgot to speak.
She did not know who to search for
when your ‘Prince Charming’ becomes your ‘Wicked Step-Mother’.

But there is a different story for her.
For tears in her eyes
and the words that were just a zygote in her mouth’s womb,
she got a stare.

A stare, that froze her down
and her words had to go through a miscarriage

So, she went through an unplanned abortion
that made her mouth infertile.

But there’s a different story for her.
However, somehow, they are all the same.

Because that’s all it takes to make a woman quiet,
to silence her.

A slap, a word, a scream, an eye
and perhaps a kiss too.

Often, I read poems that I wished to write.
Rarely, I write poems that I wanted to read.

When Sarah Kay said "we all sound the same underwater"

I realised some people belong to outer space.

We are not feminists because we want to win,
We are feminists because we have been losing.

I will turn the pages this time,
Not the tables
But the pages

For the chapter is over now.

"He is such a ****, why did I date him even after knowing he likes James Potter."

2." My award ceremony is tomorrow, I want to attend it."

3."Why was my last food a Margherita Pizza, I want a White-Sauce-Pasta for my funeral."

4. "I wanted to tell mom that I gave her son the idea to drink the toilet cleaner for an easier death."

5. "Dad, I am sorry."

6. "Am I dying?"

7. "I anyway had too many debts. I think God saves everyone from this life."

8. "I want to hug him. Just once. Please."

9."My new CD will be a waste. Mom will scold me...oh yes now she won't be able to."

10. "Our trip to Goa was my biggest dream...why am I dying before fulfilling it?"

11. "Why did I even come here!? I should have listened to mom.."

12. "Mom, I love you"

13. "I wanted to let you know that you were going to be a father of two kids."

14. "I heard their conversation and saw their faces. I need to catch the terrorists."

15. "At Taj, guests are our God and I need to protect my Gods."

16. "Which music am I hearing? What song is it? The hymn of death?"

17. "I don't want to die! Please."

18. "Let me be reborn as their daughter once again. Please"

19. "I think so many people are pleading so thank you for this life."

20. "Don't ever let her read the letters. She will be heart-broken."

21. "I cannot do it anymore but I need to stay awake. Stay aw..."

22." I want to eat a burger."

23. "Mom"

24. "Please let him die with me. He will not be able to survive without his mother."

25. "Please. Not today."

26." She is stupid. Who even likes Snape? I like James, he could marry his love. I want to marry her."

A colon stands for something;
a semi-colon stands before something.



I think I am the former.

'Of all the stories you have ever written,
       how many have you forgotten?'

They asked.

And suddenly I remembered you.

Would they have still been remembered,
if they lived for each other instead of dying...

I walked down the snow-covered land.
It was windy but I could not breathe.

As I walked, the snow under my feet whispered,
'there are lovers more in love than about who Shakespeare wrote,
but such stories once heard get stuck in the throat'.

So, there I lay down on the snow,
the snow felt warm.
It narrated the story of a man and a land.
How the land love the man and the man loved the land.

The man's love was the one that would last forever.
It was not the kind that would sink into your heart
but float right through it so your waves long for more.

The man loved so much that,
the cold snow on the land made the man's blood boil
and the land stayed warm.
The land loved the man so much that,
her rocks became his stage
and he acted his last act with love.

The man love the land and so much that,
his breath made her tricolour hair fly.
The land loved the man so much that,
her shrieks turned him into an artist
and he painted it all red.

The man loved the land so much that,
his blood left his body to embrace her
just the way Bhagirathi descended on mother Earth.
The land loved the man so much that,
she embraced him tight under her snow blanket to protect him.

The man loved the land so much that
his body lay on the land
while their stories loved each other.
The land loved the man so much that
she let the man lie on her
while she was crushed under all the weight she held.

His body was still holding the land,
the snow was still red.

The man loved the land so much that he died for her.
The land loved the land so much that she lived for him.

The 'Uni'-verse
is one song.
And you are every word
in its lyrics.

When I finally embrace death,
I want him to tell me
I am warm and comfortable.

Ernest Hemingway said
"Write the truest sentence that you know",

So, I wrote you.

Orange-
Fruit or colour?

Your 'I love you'-
For me or for her?

My eyelashes are shooting stars,
least appreciated for their beauty.
Much trusted for their
'Wish fulfilment'.

And if the universe could make a sound,
it would have been your voice
when you call my name.

But then, how do I express all my emotions in
one poem...

She decided to build herself a road,
instead of taking 'The Road Not Taken'.

I wanted to see everything,
as clearly as the sun does.
But once I did,
They could not look at me in the eyes.

The only difference between
black and white
is that
The danger hiding within black is visible,
while the danger within white is not.

I tried to write a poem on anxiety
but then,
I couldn't.

Only if the words
"as you wish"
meant what they read.

Misogyny tastes like the sanitary pad that has been used by her,
over and over again.
So it is not stained in blood but
soaked in blood.

If you ask me what is more difficult,
'to love' or 'to hate'...

I might answer,
but you will hate me,
If I do.

I think I should stop writing now,
because
I cannot.

Surreal, an Empty chasm.
Darkness with light.
Lighted darkness,
surrounds me.
Devours my skin.
Floating void, uneasy and inescapable.
Voiceless and soundless it seems.
In this known unknown,
Twinklers read the Prophecy.
I am birthed,
source unknown.
Visible, can be seen,
source unknown.
Light up, gleam but not twinkle,
source unknown.
I shall die, conspired by the unknown.
Born again by the unknown.
Untrodden words, silence me.
When Sapiens shall come alive out of
death, disparity, dreams and desolation;
shall I be assassinated in the hands of the unknown.
Infuriated, insulted and inspired;
I behold my Katana and behead.
Falling, drowning, draining in the inescapable.
After every 29 Deathly hollows,
I die, I ****.

My mother told me to leave my mark
wherever I went.
When I asked her what did she mean,
She told me,
How she wanted me to leave
my name and my brand
as a symbol and signature
of my 'identity'.

'Identity', how would it look like...
Will it be tall so that it can
reach success even without climbing up.
Will it be hour-glass with curves
large enough to be liked.
Will it be fair so that it can be lonely too.
Will it be rich so that it can purchase Bugatti and Bentley.
Will it be smart so that it can create its success if it is not provided with any.
Will it be beautiful so that it can make people stop and stare.
Will it be kind so that it heals and saves what has been killed.
Or will it be soft so that it weighs every word before it speaks?

But then my mother told me your identity is 'you'.
But I cannot become my identity because I am not a signature to be looked at or a mark to be left.

So when I looked up in the dictionary
I found how mark is synonymous for
1.Stain
that I got on my sweatpant this morning.
2.Bruise
that has covered my neck like a mosaic painting.
3.Scratch
that has been carved on my legs by my own hands.
4.Blemish
that I have thrown on my parent's name and 'identity'.
5.Blot
that has covered my pages and hands because my pen is broken.
6.Scar
that stays on my heart.
7.Label
that I have put on myself and let others call me by it.
8.Identity
that I do not have.

My mother told me to leave my mark wherever I went.
But, wherever I went,
I gained one.

She preferred to be 'the villain'
instead of 'a hero'.

Every day, as the clock ticks
and I sit to write a poem,
all I receive is an interruption
and another interruption.

So whenever,
I pick up my pen to write a poem,
I get interrupted.
My mother shouts from a corner of her room.
Her voice crashes to every notorious wall
that claps with its ears.
She asks me to do her a favour
and every time this happens,
the favour she asks me to do,
somehow slit the throat of the wire
that holds the chandeliers of my words.
In the end,
my words fall into the wells of my eyes
and my poems turn me blind.
So every day, I sit to write a poem,
all I receive is interruptions.

So whenever,
I turn to a blank page to write a poem,
I get interrupted.
The clouds race with each other
and the sun becomes their referee.
They chase the wind that carries out the Great Prison Escape organised by Bushell.
The lightning cheers for them in awe
and thus pauses in Argentina for 16.73 seconds.
When they finally reach across the finish line,
It looks like my negative 1 has turned
into positive after crossing 0.
They shed all their sweat like a camelia bush.
My words disappear and what remains is a wet page,
Still blank.
So every day, I sit to write a poem,
all I receive is interruptions.

So whenever,
I sketch some lines and curves to words,
to write a poem,
I get interrupted.
My thoughts begin to perform flamenco.
They lift their filters in the air
so that I can see my imperfections,
to which I chose to turn blind
as the pieces of the chandelier have left nothing in my eyes.
So when my thoughts finally conclude their performance.
My pen stands dried
as if someone stole the gold thread,
I was going to perform kintsugi
on my paper with.
So every day, I sit to write a poem
all I receive is interruptions.

So whenever,
I begin penning my words to write a poem.
I get interrupted.
My surrounding performs an orchestra,
While I run to my words like
two lovers separated by fate.
My hair race with the clouds that just stopped,
for they were tired.
I jump through the hurdles that
the leaves outside
and the people inside my window create,
and while I jump,
They pull my hair
and a few strands fall.
With every strand,
my poem disappears.
So by the time I reach
and kiss my words,
I become full of words
but 'poem-less'.
So every day, I sit to write a poem
all I receive is interruptions.

If the blood in the body
was a dictionary,
Yours would have skipped the word love.

He enjoys listening to me,
but hardly understands or believes
what I tell him.
I think for him,
I am nothing but mythology.

If the twinkling of stars could have created a sound,
Your voice would have been the one.

When they look at my body,
they giggle between their teeth that are crooked but they call them curved. They perceive how curveless I look
and tell me to perform yoga
so that my curves can be defined,
so that I can shape my convexes and concaves.
I smile as bright as I can because probably those are my only visible curves.
I tell them how every time I sit to write
my pen curves on the pages
that are thumbed on the corners
so they seem curved too.
I begin by writing the first letter of the English language
and make slopes and valleys of this alphabet.
I form serpentines and swirling cyclones of my words,
I curve my 'S' to form into an infinity
so that I can hold on to him for as long.
I stretch my 'K' until the end of the earth
and make it look like a single leg shoulder stand.
And as I take all my alphabets,
I turn them from staff position to the plough position.
I make my words turn into Paschimotasna,
and my noun tries to perform Kundali.
My pronouns sit in vajrasana.
My similies stress themselves and flex,
while my metaphors curl into themselves and hide as Marichyasana.
When I am done,
my poems form themselves into Pindasana.
However,
I remain coverless,
as straight and sharp as the pen I use.
I remain 'Arjuna's' bow
so he directs me into my own self,
my own heritage
and I end up killing my Bhishma,
my self-respect.
Hence while my words perform yogasana,
I stand still in tadasana.

He speaks words
that melts my heart
like the fire burning in a Christmas furnace
which releases hope in every spark.

He speaks words
that dance together
on the music of his heartbeat,
on the stage of mt heart.
So with every word he speaks,
I come alive.

He speaks words that spark joy
like the firecrackers on a black windy night.
like the daffodils, Wordsworth talked about.
So every time he speaks
my heart does not skip a beat
But rather doubles it.

He speaks words
that I have never heard
Like the retro songs, no one recalls
And are yer loved by all.
So nostalgia makes me sing his words.

He speaks words
that I like to hear
as a morning song or night tale.
So when he speaks I sink in his stories
of how he wants us to be.

He speaks words
that kiss each other
with love in the consonants
and passion in every vowel
Just like how he kissed me
when I told him I love him.

He speaks words
that belongs to me
Every sentence he speaks
I call mine,
like every inch of his body.

He speaks words
that have poems written on them.
Written but never read.
So every word he speaks
I keep in my heart
like I do to him.

Poems which rhyme are written with rhythm in the ears,
Poems which do not are written with kaleidoscope in the eyes.

I stay up all night,
watching romances I have seen about a hundred times.
Looking at passionate kisses that jingle and rhyme.
I stay up all night,
comparing his love for me to all the loves that have ever existed.
From all tragedies like Romeo and Juliet
to all success like Ron and Hermione.
From all I love yous
to all infinity and beyonds
From all moons and tides that love but never touch each other
to all parasites that touch but never love each other.
From all poems and stories written
to all love letter burned and burried
From Hollywood to Korea
I stay up all night,
thinking if he kisses me with all the love he has
and loves me with all the kisses he can give.
thinking if his words are as true as him
and the truth is nothing but his words.
thinking if he looks at me like the moon looks at the earth
and the earth looks at nothing else but the moon
thinking if he will stay with me forever
and forever will become always with us.
I stay up all night,
but when I fall asleep
He comes and tells me tales of his love for me
with kisses on my body
wrapping me in his dreams so
I stop thinking about staying up all night
and sleep with my love and his dreams

"Gain some weight you will look pretty"
They told
"That's a well-maintained body"
She laughed off

The sun burns brighter today.
I think another poem for the moon is completed.

He says he loves me.
But of all the poems he wrote,
none had me.

I posted a picture on the internet today,
after handpicking the best of all.
While she is left with no choices,
so she walks on the roads that burn
carrying herself upon her feet that bleed.

I took my camera and checked up the lighting,
as I wanted the picture to look 'natural' and 'candid'.
A cameraman rushes to her to click a picture
as he is a magazine photographer searching for stories real.

I sweated and protested about the scorching heat
while I set up my camera.
She wipes the sweat off her father's forehead
on which the glabellar lines cease to exist,
while hers is carrying the roots and branches of it.

I held books in my hand to strike a pose
as my fingers laid in front,
whose nails I painted yellow for this summer.
She holds the handlebars of her bicycle she can no more hold or paddle,
her nails have painted themselves with the colour of mud.

I clicked too many pictures for me to count or recall.
Even after thousands, she remembered how many miles is home.


I captioned my picture
'No more lonely quarantine',
She hardly knows alphabets or words to even ask for help.

I swiped from filter to filter
selecting an 'aesthetic' one.
She drinks the pitch-black liquid,
they tell her is water,
without even demanding for 'cleaner' one.

I finally edited and made a perfect picture,
with my wide grin sealed with a gloss,
And the cameraman too asks for her to smile for once.
She with her deserted lips forms a curve that makes the cameraman frown.

He deletes the picture from his camera
as it would be disliked by all,
It got 1.9k likes,
The picture I posted on the internet today.