Document1

Today I sit down
just to write a
poem.

I stare at the computer screen
where a vast expanse of white
-- a blank Word file --
looks back at me with
mocking silence.

I shut it down.
I want inspiration . . .
no, I already have inspiration;
I just want to sit down and
write.

I open up my notepad
and start scribbling,
but by the time I reach the second stanza
I think it's all
fake:
bloody
all of it.

I was wrong, I think,
that I had inspiration.
All I now think that I really have
is a void of unimaginativeness,
a chaos of conflicting languages.

I wanted to write so much
about
Bombay:

how this
City by the Sea
is truly
Maximum;
how it is a city of one contradiction
juxtaposed besides another.

About why I love the second class of the local trains and avoid the first,
and how I love the air that flows in when you get the window seat of the bus;
about how milk-white the skin of beautiful women here is,
and how filthily rich you have to be to touch every bit of it;
about how much I admire the absence of gates in the Gateway of India,
and how much I hate the Thackereys and their posters and hoardings;
about how, sometimes, the ugliness of this city is dazzling
and how, sometimes, it's beauty, appalling.

But, you see, I cannot:
I am not poet
enough.

All I can do is stare at the colorless face of Document1
and wonder
if it is only a reflection
of the white, wordless void that lies with me
inside.

The Outsider

I was just sitting and working at a client's office the other day when a man, probably in his late-twenties, came besides my cubicle where my colleague was sitting.

'I'm an auditor from the Capital Market Review team. Can you please give me the details of ... (financial-data blah blah I knew nothing about)?', he asked my colleague.

'Sir,' my colleague replied, 'I can't help you, I don't work here. I'm an outsider.'

'Oh,' he hushed. He paused for a moment and then asked, 'Well, "Outsider"? Where exactly have you come from?'

'Outside,' I muttered.

The last gift of love
dropping from my trembling hands,
the cold
biting into my wounds,
blood shining like mercury
from the corners of my lips,
the bejeweled
ring
- the ring that took you away
forever -
in your fingers
blinding my eyes
into sodden spoonfuls
of salt,
kneeling,

I saw you
going.


You
left me there,
like all perfumed damsels
declutch their cars
and
leave a rotten beggar
across the glass windows
behind.

I want to read a newspaper, a poem, an unread Ghazal, a new book; I want to play ShukranAllah on my Flute; I want to listen to a new Rahman song; I want to watch a movie; I want to surf the internet meaninglessly; I want to write.

I want to cry. And I want to sleep.

Sunday Shers #14

1.
अभी ज़िंदा हूँ लेकिन सोचता रहता हूँ खल्वत में,
कि अब तक किस तमन्ना के सहारे जी लिया मैंने।
साहिर लुधियानवी

Abhi zinda hoon lekin sochta rehta hoon khalvat mein,
Ki ab tak kis tamanna ke sahaare jee liya maine.
Sahir Ludhianvi


2
कह देना समंदर से हम ओस के मोती हैं,
दरिया की तरह तुझसे मिलने नही आएँगे।
बशीर बद्र

Kah dena samandar se ham oas ke moti hain,
Dariya ki tarah tujhse milne nahi aaenge.
Basheer Badr


3.
खुशियाँ पेश आई तक़ल्लुफ़ से मगर,
ग़म बड़े हक़ से मेरे घर में रहा।
राजेश रेड्डी

Khushiya pesh aayi taqalluf se magar,
Gham bade haq se mere ghar mein raha.
Rajesh Reddy