Terra Infirma, I Turn 35

Terra Infirma.

Such things as a day caught between two seasons. I love you darling but. I think you got me wrong. Leme get back to you. No, nothing. And the eyes shifting for a nano second to an unnamed corner of the room.

Terra Infirma.

A face caught between two thoughts. A thought between two faces. How much? Lots. O please! Drown the sop and talk shop. Draw up a budget. Plan. Keep it simple. We can even talk about quick ways to cure your freak pimple.

Terra Infirma.

Such things as bushfire in a forest of memories, smells on a winter night, and wondering which house will it be this night? And will it be at all?

Terra vera vera Infirma. Hic!

Such things like a body that is changing and a body that is not. And names and language that are stuck between what they meant and what they don't anymore. Such things, as you. Especially you, and the odd, unconvincing, talk-interspersed - I love you.

Terra Infirma. I turn 35!

Rip Van Winkle

What does one write at 2.54 in the morning? And what does one remember?

MK used to say, a mask worn long enough becomes the face. Fine, but what becomes of the face?

Phoebe is getting married on the 23rd. Hasn't sunk in. Nothing seems to sink in. As if there is no 'in' for anything to sink in.

Everything has changed as if I was away for a century. Everyone has changed, as of they are all reborn as somebody else.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. God! I had just dozed off in the hills. When did all this happen - back in the village?

A love letter

My dearest song,

Go away. GO AWAY. GO AWAY.

For you are of no assistance in this wee hour of the day, and you are of no assistance at night. You are such a disappointment, eh song, you spread-legged bitch of a poet's wrong. And your words are but a pissour of marble, stained in yellow and with the stench of strange skins that I cannot recognise.

Sonnet, ode, couplet, ballad - Ah I have seen all of your curves and so have everyone else - isn't it? Yeah? Between the lines I scrawled in long hand on your thigh and your back, you got graffitis by other hands. And you - free verse - you are the worst. You neighing mare in heat! You catnip sniffing feline poetic fart - ha well and so there is no wrong! and there is no right after all! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

Yeah song, get lost and do not let me remember. Anything.

Street Truth

On my way home, turning the wheel this way, I suddenly spied Aamil Dehli. I could see him grinning in my rear view mirror, sitting behind in my old beat up 8503.

I shook my head and wondered why he was sitting in my car. So we talked a bit. I asked him about his life and he asked me about mine.

When I heard his story, I yawned. There was nothing much in it.

But when he heard mine, he roared with laughter, shaking like a needled balloon, this way and that. And when he was over the fit, wiping the tears from his eyes, he bent forward and said,

Maar diya papar waley ney! hain?
Muft huey badnaam...Maya mili na Ram!

And I joined him in his laughter.

I am going to tell stories

Though I know in the corner of mind I will hurt for you Gatsby, ol sport, and the grass that grew wild in your well kept lawns and the graffiti that the kids scrwaled on your white marble steps after all the parties were over and the women were gone,

I will tell nobody about you.

I will tell nobody about how tender was the night. I will tell nobody about the beautiful and the damned.

I am born with a mind filled with little coloured bangle shards like they used to stick into cycliderical cardboard kaliedoscopes that sold for a few rupees on the railway station in the early 80s.

I got it all in here between my ears. The big cars and the dirty gutter, the desperate love and the meaningless fuck, the daze of disc lights on the floor and the walls and the slowly sinking sun behind the Aravalis.

I will tell nobody about you, Gatsby, ol sport because I am going to stick my tongue in the mouth of the world and I am

going to tell stories like never told before.

Watch me.

Smells at Night

Mahatma Gandhi's birthday was spent pretty much at home. There was little reason for violence or non-violence.

Though I was a little violent to the dog who was violent at me. And the feeling was pretty much reciprocal.

Brunch constituted of mutton cooked day before yesterday and rice prepared fresh.

Dinner had to be made thrice - eggs and sandwiches because each time I'd make it and dash off to wash my hands in the loo, the rats would come and break the sunny side of the egg and move the bread around a bit. I was third time lucky.

There were many phone calls. I think I will keep the phone off now on when I work.

And of course didn't write.

First you prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to prepare to do it. Let's try again tomorrow. There's got to be some way of breaking the vicious cycle!

And then tomorrow is a workday. Which means the corporation. My Mama. Muah. I love you, my employee. My management. You are so good. You fuck me more regularly and with greater monotony than any woman would could will.

I dont think I will sleep tonight.

A thought suddenly came stuck. It was about the smell of the raat ki raani flowers in this season in Delhi. I smelt it the other day, returning from work. How does one describe it? How does one draw it?

And most importantly how does one hide it? It is like the sadness that darkens the valleys around your eyes. People see it and shake their heads. And then they say - Nothing is worth it. Nobody is worth it.

LOL. What do they know?

Kind mama

There is a species of madness that goes undetected. Unfortunately it has no name.

It does not live in you, it lives outside.

It moves skulking in the streets of Delhi. I saw it once at Nizamuddin. It was standing by the road and staring at me.

It is not evil and it is not good either. But it makes nothing. It comes from the land of breakings.

One day, I remember in 94, I was standing on the edge of the wall of near Khair ul manazil and it nearly tipped me over. I am alive and kicking, but maybe it did tip me over and I do not know about it.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I will sit and write. And if I do, I will find out what Vivek said to Sharad on a summer evening in CP.

The corporation is a kind mama. It hold me to its bosom and will not let me go away ever. When I grow up, I will not live with mama.