Now I understand

What the angel tried to say to me

The purple angel with singed wings,

And now I have to take my life

As your lovers often do,

And you still stand so close,

And my fingers can almost touch

The amber- coral smell of you.

You tantalise without meaning to,

Or do you know I pine.

The purple angel nods.

She has burned too,

And knows a devil or two.

And as moments spin themselves into hours,

And the another nights dies a fruitless day,

I have made myself a bundle of foolishness

Called love

And I wait

For you to throw me away,

For in spite of what the tired purple angel says,

I have to learn to die this time,

I am going to burn my wings in your fiery cool.

Now I understand,

That I have to take my life,

As your lovers often do.

X

Square fingers, square toes,

I tread the soil of my soul.

I prepare to follow my nose,

Down the yellow brick road,

All this while she stayed indoors

With her doors shut windows closed

And I like a fool, peeped and probed

With my square old fingers ands toes,

She refused to let me grow,

I writhed on the floor,

And waited outside her door

An eternity and four

As she left a bloody trail,

On the soil of my soul,

And I forgave her some more.

The lazy smell creeps through the GAP,

And my body runs for cover,

My mind is now a blue purple FOG

The day is just half over.

My wish tonight,

A green wall high,

My fingers don’t reach

The other side,

And the nest rests,

On the green wall high,

And orange flowers bloom

On the other side,

Let me live a night,

In its citrus light,

Give me a push towards,

The green wall high,

Where rests a nest,

Overlooking the orange delight,

My wish tonight,

To scale a green wall high,

Help me climb

A green wall high,

My wish tonight,

Before I cry.

Cold hungry November lions

Cold hungry November lions

Perched up on my mind

Leap at the thought of

Your return to my womb,

And prepare to feed.

Dead scattered brown backyard

Swaying in the autumnal wind

Moves an inch closer to the road,

Awaits your return to my grave,

Where I still live.

also like this

As I stand in this windowless room,

the last button falls

With a resounding tinkle.

And you come just one step closer,

And you think its just one of those nights,

And you would move away in the morn

But you are 75 years too young,

Too young to know

That tonight I can gobble you up,

And the wine has sharpened my teeth,

And my insides await you

Just like my skin.

Jump!

Toes on the edge of the brick wall

Fingertips holding on to the ceiling

Just let go for the last freefall

Nails scraping and the cream paint peeling

Off the wall.

Jump!

27^th time I stand at this place,

Call me back quick

For it’s easy to lose the race

Too easy to quit.

Jump!

Sun is on the wane

But the eye in the sky never blinks

Rocks below wait not in vain,

And now I will die I think.

Jump!

Silver buttons pop out one after the other

And now the sheer silk underneath shows.

And I stand amidst a pool of some gauzy fabric,

That was once next to my skin.

I wore them in the evening,

And I now want to wear you,

For I am cold,

I want to wear you

For I am not.

And I do nothing,

As I stand in this windowless room,

And the last button falls

With a resounding tinkle.

And you come just one step closer,

And you think its just one of those nights,

And you would move away in the morn

But you are 75 years too young,

Too young to know

That tonight I can gobble you up,

And the wine has sharpened my teeth,

And my insides await you

Just like my skin,

And you are so young,

You will be trapped soon,

And I open my legs,

And you gasp for breath

And then drown.

And you now know not what you saw

In my eyes tonight,

One kind of life,

Belies another death.

We moved to Hyderabad in1993, and since then 13 years have passed and I have become a strange creature who fits nowhere, neither in the suburbs of west Bengal where my roots are, nor in the pockets of telegu land in the more or less cosmopolitan hyderabadi world of mine. I cannot speak the native tongue of this place but have nonetheless lived a life filled with inter-personal communication. Sometimes it’s a lot of hand waving and pointing, but communication nonetheless.

I am not comfortable with nosy neighbours, or ‘get-togethers’, and have lead a lonely but wonderfully unsocial life and have loved every minute of it. My mother complains sometimes, but my sister and I love retire into the shell of anonymity and non-comprehension.

But all that changes once we go to khardah, my native suburbia. My sister and I are suddenly plunged into the cold dark waters of familiarity, loud outbursts and the common knowledge of shared roots. And then it sinks into me, this is alienation isn’t it?

And it’s very difficult for us to stand it even for more than a few days. The constant “you were this high since we last saw you”…etc. but then as they say ‘blood is thicker than water”, and the yearly Calcutta trip leaves me loving my community and hating it at the same time, and makes me want to go back every winter.

The funniest thing about stereotypes is that they are also clichéd.

Most stereotypes have been that for such a long time that they are almost invisible to our eyes though they might be right under our noses. Usually it takes some time to notice it.

And no matter how radical one is in thinking and political behaviour, one can still miss the ‘stereotype’. And if you consider yourself a liberal minded person, and you then realise that you have missed that stereotype that was right in front of you, you are going to feel very foolish.

I remember this incident in my university, where a ‘liberal’ friend had called a classmate of ours a slut. This was extremely ironic, because we were then beginning to learn about stereotypes in the courses we had takes. And when I protested, he called me a feminist.

There! Two stereotypes at one table, I had thought.

And my two years at the university have been tough. It required me to unlearn a lot of what we had learnt through social conditioning. And now I can notice a stereotype from miles away. Sniff!

juslathat

I UNWRAP

MY PLASTIC AFTERNOON

WASTED WITHIN ITS BLUE CELLOPHANE COVER,

PLASTERED WITH CONCRETE

MY HANDS,

MOVE SLOWLY

OVER THE SYNTHETIC FOLDS.

CHIPPED GRAY NAILS

OF THE DEAD,

ME

PICK AT THE

TAPE.

A SMALL BIRTH BEGINS,

WITHIN ME.

WHICH WILL DIE A PLASTIC DEATH

AT THIS PLASTIC GIFT

THIS PLASTIC AFTERNOON,

WITHIN THE CONCRETE WALLS,

THAT IS ME.

Something akin fear,

Swims in his

China blue eyes.

Several moons hang,

Almost full,

In his china blue eyes.

I wait for

His severe beauty

To break me down,

Instead

Tears well up,

And now something akin sadness

Swims in his eyes,

And I look away.

Old friends,

float around

in the outer bounds of the greens

That is my failing memory.

And I am whole today,

Supported by the bright

Plank of time.

Forgetful

of the once green friends.

me at 24

My sweet cousin of 13,
says with a sigh
I want to forget
those days of black and white.

It’s a strain on my nerve he says
to think of all those things.
and i loved her he says
and she never loved me.

of black and white it seems
the days now in my dreams.
and I bleed and it hurts
and she has left me.

I tell him o sweet brother of mine
it gets worse than this.
the black and white will twine
and make a gray abyss.

and you are still young and whole,
you should see what’s within me.
one bright eye and behind that
a decade worth of dead bodies.

or just like this may be!!!

Shadows on my hills,

Shadows on my window sill,

And the purple purple clouds,

Pass over without.

Glancing my way,

Just like your violet eyes.

And I die like the rain.

And tonight it will

Be dry

Just like your violet eye

On

Your side of the bed.

Shadows on my hills,

Shadows on my window sill,

And the purple clouds

Pass over without.

Seeing

Violet skies and

Violet eyes,

Look to me to ask,

If I

Am willing to live without,

Your violet eyes.

And this season of flux,

Sudden rains,

And sudden droughts,

I look to see the sky.

And

Shadows on my hills,

Shadows on my window sill,

And the purple purple clouds,

Pass over without.

Glancing my way,

Just like your violet eyes.

And I die like the rain.

And tonight it will

Be dry

Just like your violet eye

On

Your side of the bed.

And from where I stand,

Purple clouds sing and dance,

From the ceiling.

And this time,

They stay awhile,

As I cry and cry and smile

Through the purple purple clouds.

There are times,
When,
Alone in me
I see so much.

My own shadow and I meet,
And I am loving,
And I am hurting
But only within me.

My silence talks back to me,
And promises are made,
And spring blossoming,
And I am a woman again.

Till I open my eyes,
And see that I am still stuck in the gray.

8 things about meeeeeeeeeeee!!

My mother was almost going to die while giving birth to me.

I am a virgin.

I think I am a virgin cos my mother was almost going to die giving birth to me.

I love young boys, especially if in uniform…sigh!!

Astrologers have predicted that by the time I turn 40 I will renounce the material world and become a sanyasi (spiritual leader)

They have also predicted I will probably marry twice….(no wonder I will renounce the material world)

I have always felt that I will never be able to have babies.

I have diabetes and high blood pressure and am only 24.

The warm marshmallow dream you had last night,

Is Miss Lilly pink’s Creamy childhood.

She lived in a sweet pea and corn land

Your warm marshmallow dream changed into your day

Miss Lilly pink’s creamy sweet pea and corn land changed too.

Some say it rots at the mouth of our cynicism.

Pick out the worms,

Add some additives,

Add some colour,

Add some salt

And some pepper,

Fry it

Rinse it

Pickle it

Put it out in the sun.

Try it.

But Miss Lilly pink soon notices,

It still smells sharp and sour.

Melancholia you realize,

As your day begins.

It Rained on

The road last night (hard and unending it seemed),

on the lone lamppost outside my window.

It rained last night on the broken fairytale

On my window sill. (almost everywhere)

It rained on my dreams. (and they melted!)

And some others sprouted. (So soon I thought)

Where the road now,

Where the window.

I am naked now.

A little bruised here and there. (and all can see!!)

But I have said all this before.

And I have cried out the same name, (again and again and again….)

And I have said this all before.

And I have…..

attemts at Haiku - 2

Cold under the bed

amidst orange green red socks lie

pieces of red glass.

Red bottle falls like

my empty heart, breaks and gets

swept under the bed.

this winter

And I hang on to your shirt sleeves
Shirt sleeves -- Heart sleeves
I hang on to your heart sleeves
And the cloth of your newness
Warms me
Excites me
As we speed by life
Or something almost like life,
In our freewheeling wheels
Which will last the 1446 hours
Of this winter.
I will hang on till the seams give up.
Seams of your shirt sleeves,
Seams of your heart sleeves,
I will hang on till the seams give up,
Or,
I will hang on till summer,
Whichever comes early this year.

when you hurt me

fat little raindrops fall from my soul,
and collect somewhere
in the the crevices
of your skin and flesh.

and you hit me last night,
hard and surreptitious
and i watched with awe
the cold silent fist
making contact with my virgin lips.

the puddle of my sadness
creeps through the floor i sit on.
and you sit closeby.
just as wet
just as hard
and i watch with awe.

She died not

Heart beats.

And hurts,

But Its now a habit,

All those memories,

Kill them, I say

Obliterate them

So cruelly my brain separates us

And yet bits of you persist within

And you speak out from inside me

My heart and its beats

And you speak from

My teary eyelids

My mangled wrists,

My blue blue skin,

And still you speak

From within.

It’s strange that Am alive

Even without you.

It hurts all over and

Its difficult breathing

And I cry out for a drag of breath

And I die again,

But living is such a habit

You seem to be with me

In the darkest dawns

And I can’t seem forget you.

Oh but I will

For living is such a habit

And you are with me in

Brightest nights,

And I smell you in me

And you are dead,

I wish I were too

But life is such a habit,

And I live.