Works of RK

I caught up with another one of her hairs while sweeping today.  It has been a month since she was last here And here she was again As if she was always right here Living with me In fractal moments Of mesmerizing memories. ( Image )

There are experiences that get encoded into your being. Later,  much later,  when it is time for one last curtain call,  I will look at the faces of nameless strangers in my audience,  and smile as I bow for one last time. credits I know that I will not find you in the crowd.  I know that I will not be looking for you outside of me anymore. I will smile in the fond memory of your lips on mine.  I will tear up with the lingering warmth of your breasts on my being. I will,  for one last time,  run my hands on my body,  and try to redraw the maps you drew on me once. I will look at myself reflected on these screens for one last time,  and find you smiling through the twinkle in my eyes. Out of the multitude of ships at sea, one,  for a little longitude in the time,  sailed so lovingly close to me.

The life we wish to live is often not the life that we eventually get to live.  Time passes by really fast. While the days may each groan and creak, the years themselves would hurtle by like vandals. Before we realize, we find ourselves as old as our parents once were. Friends become rarer and the shadows from the waning sun stay longer.  We recede into ourselves and find new places to hide,  new reasons to be un-found. We become sad in strange places in us,  places that we now don't know how to reach.  We become afraid of silences and try to fill it with noises. And then we slowly hate the noises in our minds.  Slowly,  very slowly,  we become screen saver versions of ourselves.  The Insta Posts of our broken versions, the hurting laughing aching versions of our whatsapp statutes. 

 And then as always, suddenly, I would feel like the city is out to kill me. Its horns assault my senses, its garbage and incivility grates me. As I run towards fifty (age), the glitter and the shine of large urban clusters start looking more like monoliths of enslavement. I feel that Indian cities enslave the human soul and convert us into automatons. Shorn of kindness and joy and art and village greens, we become tools for the relentless advancement of its chaos. As I see it, only the city lives and thrives and we simply die. We die slowly, in sectors and crossings of our being. And then, as always, I packed my bags and went on a road journey. All 37 days of it. Back to the city, the clinical anomie of it all waxes and wanes and continues unabated. Nothing changes. The same set of dirt poor migrants walk back home in the evenings to their shanties, with their infants and their belongings on their heads. A BMW 7 series sounds its horns as it zooms past on the same road to paradiso...

I am not a beach person I am for the rapids, the waterfalls and the mountains. I like far away, offbeat places Places that have nothing to offer to the tourist soul Nothing that would mean anything in whatsapp statuses and Insta Posts I like places that don't call out for attention Nor grudgingly even,  acknowledge my presence. Raging hearts roaring and clouds tearing up Peaks that pierce the silences of the skies And moss and lichens glazing the sides. Unrepentant,  unperturbed,  dangerous Let me be and leave me alone kind of places

My soul is a vagrant It wanders around in time Like pollen and like leaves Caught in the wake of life I find meaning in this chaos ====== In the little moments in time that I get,   I open my windows to a world in which I know you live. I hope I see you on the other side   ==== A butterfly sat on the wings of an airplane As it taxied into an airport One carried me in The other,  my dreams.   Birds of a feather Unknown to each other     ==== Airplane windows are modern day apartments. The one who is inside wants to be outside And the ones who are outside They don't like being there

  On the sidelines of a business meet Or the time spent Waiting for the guest of honor To honor There are moments of extreme clarity Wherein  I can see far into myself And I can also see the journey that brought me here. Across the trail Through all the climbs And the dips; Through hunger and sleep And absence of sleep My longing for you has been The only consistent constant.   The only cross I have carried Through all times Always.