the benches outside my window

There are two benches outside my window. Old and brazen, they sit facing each other over the crumbling earth. They speak to the leaves and the trees around. Not to me. Not to each other. Like an old couple.

Once in a while, they grunt when someone sits over them. What are you doing here, I ask them everyday. They don’t tell. The little plants outside my window told me that the benches are waiting. They told me how happy they were a few years ago. Then they had a fight once, over a cigarette bud a girl left on the ground. Whose side it was on? No one could tell. More fights followed. Both the benches threw dead leaves over each other. None got hurt. Disturbed, they stopped talking to each other.

They’d flirt with my window sometimes, but my window is in love with a snake. She tells me all the stories about the benches, all night long. I don’t like her lover though, the snake. I have told her that he’s not a nice guy. One early morning, I saw him cuddled with her. I got angry and started hitting the window. Upset, she didn’t open herself for next few days. The snake still comes over, as the little plants have told me. He sits under the benches and hisses at my window.

The benches like him because he doesn’t like me. But they still don’t talk to each other. The snake keeps them going. He doesn’t let people sit over the benches. The benches like that too.   

They can’t just break down anymore. It will kill the snake under them. The old stones keep going, waiting for the snake to go, the time to come, the trees to fall, and the people to leave ... Two empty benches outside my window, a grumpy old couple. 

---

Mrs. Rosy

Mrs. Rosy did not cut her nails. But her nails are cut.

She doesn’t remember.

Mrs. Rosy didn’t go out for a walk. But she has the groceries.

She is confused.

Mrs. Rosy has read yesterday’s newspaper thrice, today.

Mrs. Rosy can not swim. She flies.

Mrs. Rosy does not know it.

Men love Mrs. Rosy.

Mrs. Rosy loves her dog.

People say Mrs. Rosy knows it all.

Mrs. Rosy doesn’t know anything at all.

She floats.

Mrs. Rosy, just floats.

________________

The Death of an Idea

Oh sweet birds,

With sheer diligence,

I watched you flutter,

In the cage of my head,

As your feathers grew week,

And will stronger,

As you smashed your head,

With the inside of my temple,

As I shivered in your pain,

While you settled in my agony,

Amidst the chaos of my numb brain,

Inside the darkness called future,

I said to you,

Don’t flutter,

You are just a thought,

But birds have wings,

Little tasty wings,

This won’t let you settle,

And the birds shall be eaten,

All the birds shall be eaten.

__

The Purpose

So many doubts,

that I try to see through;

and when I finally do,

you change my doubts.

       Relentless I was,

       but for the wind and the trees;

       when I tried to stop,

       you stung me like wild bees.

I stood there in the rain, 

as the trains passed by;

smoke went into my lungs,

as the fresh air passed by.

       The sky stared at me,

       as I wished the earth would hide me in;

       not again an eye shall look into mine,

       for an eternity called time.

I sold my soul to angels,

for a few more days to live;

how can I give it up,

for a heaven called hell?

       Then you ask me,

       the meaning of life,

       sitting under a dead tree,

       with the sky staring at you;

       and I ask you why,

       why can't you wish to hide into the ground,

       sink into your own eyes,

       and burn whatever you thus find.

When I Met God ...

“Cut me some slack man, I am god.” said God, frustrated.

“Why should I care? You torture me.” I said.

“Everybody gets equal chance.” God spoke.

“That’s bullshit. Everything is unequally distributed, from intelligence to money ... everything.”

“But everybody gets chance.”

“Huh, earlier it was equal chance ... now it’s just chance!”

“It’s you who makes your own life.”

“Then what the hell do you do?”

“I make you.”

“For what ... Torturing me, watching and having fun? Dude, if it is true, then it is sick.”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“What?”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“Why?”

“I’m not dude.”

"Aien ...”

“I’m not dude. I’m god. “

“Chill dude, answer my question.”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“Ok fine.”

“What was your question?”

“Why are you so unfair?”

“What do you want? I can’t fulfil everyone’s wishes.”

“Then why do you even create them?”

“I like how humans roll.”

“What?”

“I mean, you people are very vibrant, and persistent.”

“So?”

“I like watching them unravel the mysteries of nature.”

“So you are just like a rich, powerful guy who likes watching people suffer. You are like a better version of Lex Luthor.”

“Who’s that?”

“Who?”

“Lex Luthor! I do not recall creating him.”

“Uhh ... you can’t create Lex Luthor. I you could, he would have taken over the control of this world from you by now.”

“Nobody can do that. I’m almighty.”

“Lex Luthor can!”

“Impossible.”

“Can you slap me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Or can’t do that?”

“Yes, in a way.”

“Then how are you the almighty?”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

“Why?”

“Shut up.”

“Why? Why are you not answering me?”

“Because I’m god.” He said, and then he disappeared.

The Lizard and The Limbo

What a life to live,

Of unfulfilled dreams, 

And broken promises,

Standing over my head,

As I lay under the squeaking fan,

Wishing the lizard would fall over me,

And free me of this limbo.

The images, 

Of her hair blowing in the wind,

Death hunting a friend,

A limping dog,

And an education gone wrong;

Passing as a shooting star,

And you call these experiences, 

I dare not call you anything.

Oh lizard! I damn you,

Throw yourself but not the tail,

It's not the tail that I had asked for,

Then why did I get the tail for a lizard?

It's not a lie that we live,

Yes but what shall be the truth then,

If it's not a lie that we live.

Wordless

This was different. I've been wordless before, like all of us ... sometimes in front of a delectable damsel, or a scolding father, or an angry principal may be. But this was different ... and I was wordless, in the truest sense possible.

I'm not very sure if I'll be able to present the fineness of my experience in an appropriate manner, but I'm at least giving it a try.

The begging children in the local trains. Like any other day, I had my eyes fixed on a novel as the train rattled off to Beach station. A little girl, may be 5-6 years old, after performing all those weird-and-tough-for-Jacki-Chan stunts, turned to her warped up steel plate and started her everyday routine ... asking for money as her mother who was preoccupied with a couple of infants, waited for her to collect from the entire compartment.

The girl came to me, and like every other time, I said no. She didn't leave. The compartment was tightly packed, and I didn't want to move from my place and lose my seat.

"Eh, Po. Chillar illya. (Go, I don't have change.)" I asked her to leave.

She didn't leave, and instead grabbed my hand with both of her little hands, keeping her begging-plate over my lap. I looked around, everyone had eyes to offer. I checked my wallet, and I swear there was really no change, or even paper money. I wasn't lying to her, at least now. Thus I showed her my wallet, and expressed my inability.

She still didn't let go of my hand.

"Enna problem? Chillar illya ma." I tried explaining my situation to her in my broken Tamil.

I shook off her hands and kept the wallet back in my pocket. When I turned back to her, she was standing with her head buried in my lap. I thought I should give up my seat, just to get rid of her. I took hold of her shoulders and made her raise her head off my lap.

She was crying, not audibly, but her eyes were as wet as the soil of the rained-down Chennai. She pointed at her mother and two infants, and signaled her hands as to eat. She was not asking for any money now.


I did not know what could I do. I did nothing.

She didn't leave me till her stop came. Her mother kept shouting at her, but the little girl didn't move. She didn't beg either. When the train reached Egmore station, she tardily left me and followed her scolding mother out of the train.

Don't know why, but I could not look around myself. I took the novel in my hand and didn't take my eyes off the pages till my destination arrived.

Hail the god.
_____________________