stay away

Little did I know
Summer grew on so
A bit of history
And a collapsible foe

But are you diseased
Emotionally breached
Do I intimidate you
Stay away if I do

I know no signs
And definitely no crimes
That you might define
To suit your confine

Stay away, I care
It’s a season of despair
Want no more to arrive
Stay away till you can strive

josephine

Deep within the woods
Ahead of the canopy
Lay a country quite
And very petite

Nurtured by summer rains
And the winter sun
Bound by mountains
The great ransom

Dale, flourished long
In ignorance of
What lay beyond…
Across the gorge

And in these realms
Where wine and cherries
And farms of mushrooms
Were ever in bloom

Was born Josephine
The daughter of a knight
And as tales recount
The kingdom’s child

With dark locks, black
Of an unveiled night
And eyes that could
Split the trance of skies

Grew she on the moors
And the lush green fields
Where staggered the sun
Did little to reveal

And enigma spared
Rare few
Though most dared not
What she did to

They sung songs
Of great ships that sailed
And woods that lay
A vestige of all tales


And startling voices
She revered of the unknown
Trying to draw closer as
The clocks inched the dawn

For lay this kingdom
Forbidden to venture
Beyond the woods
Of wizards and centaurs


And Josephine waited
In anticipation of
A mystic foray
Someday, to the land across

School

A summer, the bells
Rang loud a chime
The familiar old sound
Recounting all good times

Taking me floating
Through the corridors
Of memories, music
Living again the lore

Stuck in this moment
I wish time
Would cease to be
While the sublime

Circles of joy
Elevate again
Losing me in
Those array of lanes

And under this roof
I can live several such lives
Where a symphony nurtures
And the mind wanders alive

Choked

I came this far
Thinking all is good
In all eventuality, finally
I had gotten over you

I thrived on thee
A wave of myth
A segment of self denial
For you wouldn’t care to be with

But its ironic how trifles
Can still provoke such wrath
When otherwise through enormities
I can numbly steer across

I tried reasoning, I fled
I grieved, even as I said
Tried to surface and delude
Thinking, that might get me through

But now I am tired
And I wish I could stop
Inching away from you
Has contrived me the wrong plot

The walls of which
Gradually close upon me
And left to choke, it dawns
I have been my own adversary

My beginning(inspired from true life :))

I used to be this kid with a bad handwriting, fairly okay grades and a best friend in standard 1. We were in Zakhama, a field station in the east, and dad being a doc in the army, we had an ambulance for a school bus. Abhishek bhayya, my neighbor, was in 10th grade and awfully fond of pulling my leg in the ambulance rides to school and back. He would often call me names like grumpy nut cracker (from a cartoon show about squirrels), jolly molly (jolly is a game and molly was his rabbits name) and baby elephant because the other girl with me, Pawani, my so called best friend, was totally malnourished.
So one day finally, to vent out all my frustration I wrote a poem and handed it to my grade class teacher, who also happened to be his mum. It went as follows…

His name is Abhishek
Stupid names he makes
In 10th class he is
Still eats my Tiffin’s chocolate cakes

He lives in Zakhama
And all the time he does drama
Looks like a joker
In his dinosaur pajamas

After that day, without fail, he would hum this on our way back from school. Far from getting on his nerves, it actually seemed to be tickling him n this would infuriate me no hell. So I came up with better verses subsequently, and got better with time. The rest is history. Now mostly, my hate poems are not inspired, but anyone who has a tendency to pull my leg…beware. I can do negative print publicity as I have done earlier. Grin.

Fly away

They told me
Its just so
An elaborate cage
Before you can see what's in store

The beach lay
On the other side of the wall
And beyond the bridge
An inviting mountain sprawl

Then one day
I just sailed away
Flew against snow flakes
Into the foray

And stayed up for days
In a row
Saw my eyes go red
Under those brows

Saw the lashing sky
Pour down all its wrath
Like unreasonable tears
Those insane drops

Saw crimson evenings
Turn grey and dark
And the philandering romanticism
Rejuvenate back to mark

Swam through conspicuous waters
Walked unceasing tunnels
Till rays broke through
Shining down its tranquil

Now I watch my hair dance
And flutter with the waves
But grown too used to flying
To go back to those caves

The poetry I wrote for the cover page of my college magazine ABHIYANTA-06.

I am a million different people
And a million names
I am a symphony
An intensifying chain

I am a writer
The young wise
An artiste, a traveler
A connoisseur of life

I am a protagonist
The born champion
A conquerer by fate
I am the COEPian

rain(i know its childish)

the day it rained
and all voids were filled
that soaking leaf
and that petal thrilled

a tryst with rhyme
a musical treat
accustomed, the drops
nurtured innocent greed

the prism infinite
the sweet symphony
i raised a toast
to that faceless gravity

and the rivulets raced
the thunders cursed
as stubborn terrains
were lazily transversed

then the ground beneath
acquiesced to the flow
indented engulfed
and devoured shallow

and mitigating wonders
that had left me numb
dissolved away
like nascent crumbs

and it rained all day
and the next
drowning me further
in the enigma of its crest

nostalgic-a mountain melody

I use to love walking zig zag on the empty inclined winding roads of Zakhama. A field station in the east command of military, this tinsel town lay nested in the dormant pellucid laps of the lower Himalayas. One could literally gaze down from the edges only bound by roughly shaped white boulders sticking out of the earth lanes on either sides of the concrete to view Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, bustling with life and colourful maroon dots jostling on meandering boulevards. Kohima must have been half a km below Zakhama and the feet wide and long rock masses were all that lay separating the two. It was a typical early winter day. The pinnacle of monsoon had been reached and now the subsiding rains which were almost a round the year phenomenon there, had not been lashing down as violently as their usual selves .Mornings were usually crisp sunny with sea bound winds shoving through a dense outcrop of conifers .Later starting from afternoons up till mid evenings or even after that, the rains nurtured the placid valley with romanticism it had now become accustomed to breathe into it. The rains and the evening were as evergreen a pair as 1 would sight in this part of the world which comprised of lofty mountains and steep ravines. On such a day as I speak of above, I had set on my usual course for an evening walk. Today was unusually lively and the air feverish and dressed to be a graffiti of extensive colors of mood and earthily beauty.
The rivulets after a heavy downpour were more swift than usual too. I walked along stepping and splashing water from those narrow streams keeping an eye out for cones shed generally during the early spring in plenty. The ones which still stuck to the tree as a rule were soft and small. The road ended a little way off at a junction which harbored a helipad which had been inactive for as long as I can remember, while I had been here. When no one would be around , I would often climb it and speak to myself or some envisaged characters or do some other vocal derivatives such as humming or inebriated (not literally) even sing. This was one of those days. I did it because I loved to hear the echo of my voice reverberate in all its solitary soulfulness. For what reason, god only knows. One of my favorite tracks then was sweet home Alabama which I began to hum, and by the time I reached the notes “Watergate does not bother me, does your conscience bother you?” I was quite lost in a trance singing loudly with eyes rigidly closed and hair fluttering all over my face. I opened just in time to get a whiff of cold crisp air and saw an indistinguishable grey formation on the other side of the helipad. As my eyes readapted to the light darkness and the obscurities diminished a little more, I could distinctly see someone looking at me, sitting on a ball. Wasn’t this Nikhil Roy, the basketball freak and the intern who worked in dad’s department? Had he just seen me acting like insane, singing songs loudly to no one, and what was that he was doing….smiling???
“Sorry…err….didn’t see you” I said trying to keep my cheeks from turning a crimson red although they were almost halfway through. “Yah I figured that out. You sing well. Had no idea. Sir never told us about it.”
“Well thanks …was just a bathroom singer. The guitar thing just happened. And the band luckily followed. Stars….never know how they align themselves.” I said unsure of how to reply and so terrible fast that I missed out most of the syllables myself. “Really. You play a guitar for a band? Well….that explains your absence from most parties. Must be really busy…studies and this.”
Wow, had I just bragged? Told him about the band without being questioned. And I thought he already had an inkling. It was pretty awful. I thought to myself that after such an interaction he might definitely take me for a compulsive showoff. It couldn’t have gotten more embarrassing than that. “Hey you like collecting cones? There are a few pretty huge ones a little way on the left bifurcation. If you want, I can accompany you there. Just around that place is also the unit cell, where I need to deposit the ball. Will hardly take any time. After that I can walk you back to your room and go for my evening round. What say??” he said.
You see the station is on such elevated and rugged terrains that it leaves no scope for residential. So instead of the usual army flats it had rooms with a fireplace and a bath. & above these a huge mess on climbing 50 odd steps right over these slant roof-ed rooms and the hospital right in front of the entire setup. Such was the cantonment with vast stretches hogged by majorly conifers and sporadically by other paraphernalia. “Yeah alright” I agreed. Rest of the interaction was routine talk with nothing worth reiterating except this miniscule part where Nikhil asked me to join him for a basketball game early next morning. Since the court was right next to the shed where my band practiced after the fauji orchestra practices got over, I agreed. . Besides, I was quite enjoying Nikhil's company. That was the start of what eventually grew as a passion, basketball. We would play almost every morning and most sessions would progress into rugby-in-the-rain kind of a game due to the early morn showers. Then we would go to that shed and I would play guitar while he would give the vocals with me. Yes, he could sing marvelously which just added to his already long list of accomplishments that I’ve mentioned. Two months later on another evening walk to the helipad where we had 1st met, he insisted I carry my guitar. On reaching we sung “losing my religion” by REM, one of my favourites, followed by many more. I would have loved to continue but it was growing colder by the minute and my fingers were numb with effort. As if he had read my mind or probably he had seen a weary glance, he took my hands in his warm ones and said “Let’s go. You look tired”. We proceeded back home. Just as I was about to wear the guitar bag, he took it from my hands and put it behind his back. I gave a sheepish grin and said “I am not as frail as you think, you know”. To this he just petted my head and replied” I know. But can’t I be allowed to do this for the girl I love”. I looked at him for few seconds and then turned quite unsure of how to frame my response. We dint speak much that day on our way back. Next day when we met for the basketball practice , Nikhil faintly asked me “You dint mind what I said yesterday, did you?” I had though over it the entire night gone past. I did not like the boyfriend-girlfriend concept but weren’t we good friends spending loads of time together? And dint I like when he gave me more attention then all other girls around? So if love was only a formal expression of what inexplicably was evidently present between the two of us, what was the harm accepting it? I grinned back and replied “Dude, gear up. If you don’t teach me that fake pass during a lay-up before the heavens pour out their heart, I might just say that I did mind it”. The palpable tension that had been breathing suddenly seemed to melt away. That day we had a wonderful game and guitar session. Less than a year later dad got posted out. We moved to Pune but before moving we decided to stay in touch regularly. Though my basket ball practices increased , my correspondence with Nikhil only saw a decline. Busy in engineering and extracurricular I too did not make enough efforts to revive it much. We hardly spoke once a week online. The 2nd last phone call was almost 4 months back, the last being yesterday, in which he told me he was coming to Pune for a temporary duty. Don’t know how things would turn out. Do I love him anymore? Maybe not …or maybe I do. Or is it just all the nostalgic memories rushing back?? Don’t know, but hell, let god do some work and see what course it will take. As of now, all I want to do is pick up my guitar and play “there ain’t no mountain high enough…there ain’t no valley deep…”

lethargy

Its been quite long
And I havent written
They say the lethargic spring
Can have people quite smitten

All popular songs
are already exhausted
lyrics plagiarized
and incorporated

my creativity has
conveniently taken leave
why do all the rotten things
at the wrong time besiege

but then time aint good
when all thats wrong unlids
so again the last inference
is bigtime invalid

k , I quit
this aint leading nowhere
when the lightning strikes
ill resume , I swear

exchanging roles

they dont make women
the perfect dainty eleven
toboyish nearly all
ambition is their call over a day-out in the mall
But off late we've been filling in for their lost trend

fatal dreams

Match maker match maker …make me a match
Get me some cash
Let me fly the world in a balloon
Love all night under the moon
The she yells “stop dreaming, or we’ll crash”

limerick (dats d title)

This is one of my first limericks ever
And I don’t claim it to be too clever
But while I last
Hopefully some might be cast
In a popular newspaper

statutory warning- this aint to inspire

A 19 year old girl , I had my first smoke.
By 20 I literally drunk and doped.
I oversped like hell
Broke every signal
Yesterday I died young- now that slogans no joke

the date fate (limerick) #

I had asked him out to coffee
and even bought him swiss toffees
but then lavishly did I land
to discover no wallet in my pants
and now these dishes are my trophy

the winter subsides

the winter subsides
a subtle drift
this gentle brush
is of a shallow mist

a feeble tap
and a spring floats in
a spliter remains
but, silent and grim.

the resting curtain
the stabbing veil
the conceiling window
Now hides the wintry trail