दुःख  की तासीर गर्म है क्या ?
दूर , उस सर्द देश में ,
उन्हें ठण्ड क्यों नहीं लगती ?

Marked

Let’s let the walls remain bare.

Let’s not play any music in the background.

Let’s not come wearing fragrances,

And labels.

Let’s just meet here,

And nowhere else.

So that when you go away,

I wouldn’t be stunned by places,

Smells, ideas and melodies,

Into the torture of your absence.

The crushing truth of it,

The convulsive,

Slow,

Death of hope.

So that,

Each morning,

I would just have me

To remember you by.

            ***

©Rasagya Kabra, March 13, 2012

"A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect" ~ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

The Balancing Act

Hold on to the thread of reason,

A little longer,

Just a little longer.

Imagine dawn.

How do you like your sky –

Blue, orange or golden?

Isn’t it a beauty?

But breathe this night,

The desolate moon, the sleepy stars.

Mourn its impending death.

Know in your heart,

That when the day grows too bright,

You will miss this quiet night.

                    ***

© Rasagya Kabra, March 4, 2012

Eerie Glory

It is a face,

Reluctantly holding out

In the wake of the doom within.

Asking,

That the secret insight it guards

Be hunted

With fingers and lips and tongue.

Warning,

Of the doom

That comes with it.

Resisting this face

Is a hard feat.

Getting doomed

In its eerie glory,

Is easier.

    ***

© Rasagya Kabra, February 18, 2012

Hourglass

I want to apologize

To that girl,

For turning her inside

Into a deep dark jungle.

I can see her shoulders shrug,

Hear her laughter echo,

Her walk beat against my memory.

I know you deserved better,

I want to tell her.

I want to touch

The sparkle in her eyes,

Feel it in my veins,

In my blood,

And hold onto it.

I’m  so sorry, I want to say,

And cup her face in my hands.

If she doesn’t run away from me,

That girl in the picture,

I want to smile at her

And tell her

That all isn’t lost,

That all can never be lost

So long as one is alive.

            ***

© Rasagya Kabra, February 8, 2012

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" ~ Ernest Hemingway

What have you told them?

I can feel their eyes on me.

Eyes, that know.

Who are these people?

What have you told them?

How do they know?

Each day,

In familiar alleys,

These alien eyes judge me.

I know the texture of that glance.

The glance that sizes me up,

Compares me to a newfound standard,

And then, sometimes,

Tries to nudge me.

Once, a woman,

You know which one,

Walked across a whole goddamned lawn

To see who I was.

What am I?

An endangered animal?

A dangerous animal?

A dangerous endangered animal?

And what have I done to be exhibited so?

You know,

I’ve never hated you,

Not even remotely,

Just don’t make me feel

That we could never have been on the same side,

Because that,

Is not true.

     

     ***

© Rasagya Kabra, February 2, 2012

Happy Birthday, Blog

Hello there. The blog turns a year old today, and I thought I’d just write to you, and thank you for coming here every once in a while. You keep this blog alive. You complete the loop of which I’m only a part.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog. You know you can tell me what you like and what you don’t, by way of a comment/ email/ facebook message. Please feel free. I’m very interested in knowing what you think.

Here’s something I have for you. So, several months ago, I read this lovely, lovely story by Molly Giles. It’s called Pie Dance. If I know you really well, I must have already made you read it. If not, then here’s a podcast   http://castroller.com/Podcasts/PriSelectedShorts/2270403  . There are three stories being read one after the other, and the one I’m talking about comes at 38:22. I couldn’t find a written version, so you’d have to do with this. Or do you like podcasts better? Then we’re good. Me? I don’t know, I’m just a little old fashioned I think.

So that’s all I have to say for now. Do come back later this week to check out the new poem/story.

Band Aid for the Soul

No,

I can deal with my bag,

Thank you.

The man at the gate looks at me.

I’m wearing earrings that

Two of my exes,

Were somewhat fond of.

My sweater,

Is a little too big.

It insists on resting off

My left shoulder.

I don’t mind.

I’ve never had an issue with my shoulders.

Let’s see what we have here,

Pink walls,

Overflowing ashtrays,

A cloying room freshener.

The woman at the reception is distracted.

She doesn’t pay attention

When I tell her

That I have a room booked in my name.

She keeps looking at the door

Which keeps swinging from my entry.

Guessing her perplexity,

 I say, I’m by myself.

Oh, she says.

She looks at me,

At my earrings,

Searchingly,

And finds her answer in the band aid that

My sweater has decided to reveal.

She furrows her brow a little.

I practice my smile on her.

               

             ***

© Rasagya Kabra, January 25, 2012

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एक अजनबी झोंके ने जब

पूछा मेरे ग़म का सबब,

सेहरा की भीगी

रेत पर,

मैंने लिखा

आवारगी।

~ Ghulam Ali 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt9SmLmcx3Q

Journey

Street lights,

Sleepy from fighting the fog.

A road

That winds and winds,

Like a serpent,

Each stretch merging into the previous,

Becoming indistinct.

A strange writing on milestones,

That vanishes

Upon nearing.

Amongst these,

Thankfully,

A gust of cold wind

That meets hot, coffee laden breath

And sends down a shiver.

               ***

©Rasagya Kabra, January 7, 2012

Skipping Stones

May 12, 2005

“You hold it like this, supported by the middle finger, between the thumb and the index finger,” he said.

I copied the curl of his fingers around the flat, circular, smooth stone, trapping it in my grip.

“Now, spin the stone while releasing it, like this,” he said, and released the stone.

His stone went click, click, click, jumping on the water. It skipped seven times before drowning finally.

But when I released my stone, spinning it as much as I could, it went WHOOSH into the water.  Dead.

“Now that’s called a submarine,” he said. “You don’t throw it like that. You ought to keep it low, like this,” he said, and threw another one. Six skips.

I tried again. Two skips.

“Well, it should make an angle of about twenty degrees when it hits the water,” he said, and let out a breath.

Now that was some sensible way of teaching. My stone skipped five times.

“You scientific brain, you need to breed some intuition, some way of relating to things and actions based on how you feel you should relate to them,  without setting down the rules and laws of the interaction beforehand.  You’ll realize how much more you would learn,” he said.

*

Sometimes, I see your smile on strange faces. I recognize the way the lips, full and able, reach out to the cheeks, and stay there for a second, in a deep, knowing bond. I get so caught up in the smile that I register the face only a little later and by that time, whoever’s face it is, stops smiling and starts looking at me with a mixture of confusion and concern. The confusion needs no explanation. The concern probably springs out of how I look when I register the face.

Then I try to smile apologetically, as a person who mistakes somebody for somebody else would, but I realize that the concern on the stranger’s face just grows larger, probably because my face doesn’t do a good job of putting up a show. I feel my neck getting warm and the lump rising in my throat. I turn around and rush away.

*

You don’t know this, of course, but I was around when they declared you dead.

You’d never let me near you in any of the ITP spells. So when your parents came out to make arrangements, and I entered the room, I didn’t know what to expect.

Slowly, I lifted my hand to remove the cloth from your face, fearing that there would be red spots all over you, spots that you’d never let me see in the three years we’d known each other.

I shut my eyes, removed the cloth in one stroke, and opened them back again. And honey, there wasn’t a spec on your face. It’s so indescribably strange, but the fact that I didn’t have to see you like you’d never wanted to be seen, came like a sharp streak of light in the dark realm of my pain. I remember the relief at seeing how good you looked, and the uncontrollable sobs that followed, when I realized that it seemed as if you’d shaved just the previous evening.

I bent down and kissed you, and felt your lips one last time. The next I remember thinking anything was when I heard footsteps approaching. That was when I wiped my warm tears from your cold face.

*

Sometimes I think that my life would have been so much easier with you around. Now I have to figure everything out for myself.  But you know, I’ve not been a submarine. Had you been here, you would have taken some pride in that.

I think, the day you died and I came to your room, I established a resigned understanding with death. Since then, while I know that the faceoff waits somewhere out there, I skip as a stone in an ocean, and defy the laws in that the successive skips aren’t smaller. Here’s to you, and to all the time we spent together.

***

©Rasagya Kabra, December 24, 2011