Sent Items

Only lonely days
I visit spam folders

What if
By mistake

Star Crossed

when struggling with distance
i try holding you with memories.
between Remember That Time
and Next Summer We Will

i miss you.

Come Soon

Work is hard sometimes
I am often not very good at it.
We call so rarely
That you receive with a -
Hello? (Who is this?)

When I reach home
I close the door behind me
And it’s so private
I think of you.

Loves Inspite

Through unsubtle baiting my mother made me a reading child. I read in the dark and on moving cars and lost some vision. I read before tests and lost many marks. It gave me tools to judge everyone so harshly that I got lonely and under-confident. All her fault.

Mummy Culpa.

For teaching me of loves inspite.

I had traded my three pound breakfast for the laundry service that morning and taken the long walk to the supermarket. One has to be careful when the weekend approaches if one believes in buying one's own drink.

I averted my gaze from the rows of apples and stoically replenished my stationery. Walking out with the bags sagging from fisted palms ,my legs sighed.

Oh who is it going to hurt if I tuck away one apple from the shelf?


No. My hunger does not give me a right to the food.

But my hunger isn't three day old or many generations deep.

Superficial Unproductive Hypocritical Gold diggers

I am not writing in outrage. I am merely curious if you have realized the precise nature of our predicament. The micro-realities that shape one’s big decisions.

I could walk to my friends place in ten minutes through a narrow bylane. I have to instead take the longer, well lit, car congested road .For women can’t afford to take shortcuts especially after dusk. On vacation we can’t save precious holiday time by taking a night bus.

Our time is less precious.


Our belief in the clear green rationality of public transport breaks down. We must make do with painting dustbins from home. We are friendly with rich boys who have cars that can drop us home. We don’t even like them.

We cannot afford our convictions.

We join spinning classes to tone our legs. This involves paying an arm and a leg to pedal wildly on a stationary bicycle for twenty minutes. We know that using our mobile bicycle or merely jogging would get us the same results but we must forget this fact.

Our life has hidden costs.


We rent apartments close to our working place. Where the air is noxious, rent is steep and buildings mostly ugly. Unbroken panorama of steel and glass.

Aesthetic judgment is reserved for our apparel.

Child Anatomy

Baby, your head is transparent

I can see the machinations

And us,

Twisted round your tiny fingers.


In the soft light of the afternoon

Your talcum smeared chest heaves

With each gentle parting of your lips

That utter lie

Upon lie.



Baby,

Who never cries when no one is looking

Hymns in church in little frocks.

London Town

Rain makes white noise. It had dampened our shoulders and shoes sending shivers with each gust while we waited in the tube station.

There you were, Marley ,back from the dead.

“Oh, my little darlin'
Don't shed no tears
No womahn no cry
Nooo womahnn,”

You outsounded the rain

“…No cry.”

I stood in the corner of the corridor a little afraid. Of the light that swam above your head against the blackness called EXIT. Of the walls that performed a capella for you and your harmonica. I stood clutching the coins ,incapable of giving you alms.

To Lovers and Ethnographers

Would it have been different
If you hadn't been sitting there

Saying nothing.

(School) Teacher

These are not good grades, she complained. He is not studying. How do I make him study. Can you give him extra work? I will sit with him through it. I asked the doctor if there is anything I should be feeding him to improve his concentration. I’ll take that phone away I think. Yoga helps, no? I wake him early every morning to do his yoga exercises. Do you take private lessons? I was telling him-see,with maths its practice. Regular practice. Speed improves. I mean now he takes the full time to do the question papers. I’ve said do it in half that time. He shouldn’t be taking two hours to complete that paper no sir? What do you think? You’re not saying anything.

I laughed and said that at his age even I would take two hours to complete that paper. You need not panic.

I saw the panic leap greater in her eyes.

The Lighter Tragedies

In fairy tales so often:
The parents die
Siblings are unkind
Houses catch on fire.

We are told much later of grief
From losses that are made

Not happened to.

What Stupidity Looks Like

What stupidity looks like:
A little like blindness
(How can you not see?)
A little like immobility
(From here.To here. Its such a small step.)
Akin to stalemate.
(Neither this move works nor that.)

What your impatience with it looks like:
A little like blindness
( He's doesn't see my question.)
A little like immobility
( Is there no other road to walk me down?)
Akin to stalemate.

Say,how do you work?

“But what difference is it going to make? knowing all that?
What’s the use if there’s nothing you’re going to do with it?”


The little you would get stern orders before we went any place –“Don’t touch anything. Its not yours to fiddle with.”
You, head bowed, a little subdued, not very sure what was SO wrong in a little bit of …those mysterious things looked down from shelves so fetchingly….

That’s why family homes were so much more of a relief. They didn’t really mind when you picked up the old toaster, the new radio, the nodding doll ,the cuckoo clock and took it apart.

Oblivious to the sighs of exasperation and resignation you persisted in sending your swank new toy car hurtling down the flight of stairs.To see at what point it would shatter.

Our grandfather took up a contrary viewpoint.
“Why are you scolding him so much ?Its good, he should become an engineer.”
Indulgent smiles went around.That’s right.You would become an engineer.Build bridges and machines.

Big word.Engineer.I don’t know if you knew what it meant.I don’t know how much it had to with why you were compulsively prising open covers.


Funny that I should have to explain to you now.

Your Thing of Beauty.

You earned it the hard way.
Paid for it,
Signed documents,
Set up sentry.

But I can steal just by looking.

Ceremony

You were grieving the loss of your mother
You told us on Facebook.
It was a confusing matter of nettiquette
Whether or not to 'like' the status.
I followed the beaten path
And decided in favour of it
But prudently added "Be strong.She is in our hearts"
To balance it out .
You know.

Rajasthan

The child was looking on with puckered brows at his mother watering the plants. Serious,in his vest and knickers and surnburnt littleness.

The jet of water caught the sun before it broke against leaves.

She glanced back, noticed , and with an impish grin turned the hose on him. Like a startled animal he squawked and ran leaving wet footprints on the ground which simmered and disappeared .I remember dipping my finger into sandalwood paste and drawing such footprints towards our idols on days of pujas.It meant-A god has been here.

But suddenly the game changed.He padded back ,curious, what?she won’t come after me? Another sudden drenching .Giggles.

In retaliation he tore off his clothes.Darting around,now gloriously naked,the water would not leave him be.His mother behind it,relentless and laughing.
What a young mother,I notice.

I will turn off the tap while brushing tomorrow.
Let’s leave some water for others to waste.

You Know Poet

You know poet,
Once you're done
So much is no longer mine.

I feel.
Then think-Why isn't this just what...
Then feel,
But self consciously.

You know poet,
Once you're done
You lose me my voice.

I speak.
Then retract-Why,it's so commonplace!
Then speak
The commonplace.

You know poet.
This,
MY afternoon
Is sun washed?
No...drenched.
I try soaked
Then give up.

You know poet,
Once you're done
So much is no longer mine.

Confession

Sshh...
But last night
I crouched in the bathroom,hidden
Cutting my wrists,gouging for blood.

Sshh...
I shoplift on Sundays
Lacy lingerie,nailpaint.

Whisper in my ear,
You would find me as interesting
Even if I hadn't done these things,
Wouldn't you?

My friend,
Sshh..
But I pretend.
I have no secrets
Really.

Logic

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man (right?)

So, we killed him.

Everyday Epiphanies

The Sunday market experience was a little bit odd. A little bit problematic.

So we were driving into what seemed like a perfect little slot in the parking area.But just as the car was nosing itself in we noticed a stray dog serenely sitting there.
Honk honk!
Some more serene sitting.

HONK HONK!

“Saala.”Said my father .A single word of wonder and annoyance.What’s the bugger thinking?This is our parking space innit?

It is ,I suppose.(What are my premises?)

At any rate,once in I stand around near the maachwala(fishmonger).He was chopping fish.His job and I’m no Maneka Gandhi.The Bengali in me sees fish solely as something to be eaten.
And he clinically proceeds to put the mouth of this fish on a blade and efficiently delivers a blow with a block rendering it lipless.Quivering edges where a mouth had been.

Funnily enough what popped into my head at this moment is the sophisticated argument I’d been reading in the morning regarding the exact meaning of human rights.I realized that the implicit assumption had been that rights were an inalienable part of life on this planet.Not something just thought up to expend superior intelligence.