Screenshot

Countless try

but have failed miserably -

they sit with their

fingers pressed hard at temples

in a peculiar position,

for what seems to them an eternity.

Some even play 

dead to get it right.

There's no concrete evidence.

The screenshot of one's Being

hasn't been captured so far.

Profound is the quantum of one's grief,

perhaps.

Nevertheless,

the fingers ache.

The body snaps and

disfigures.

A Dialogue

If only I were a house bulb,

I would shine brighter.

If only I were a street lamp,

I would shine righter.

If only I were a house bulb,

It wouldn't be an all-nighter.

If only I were a street lamp,

I would cease to be a switch-fighter.

Meanwhile,

streets widen

houses fall.

What remains is but an ignorant commuter.

Pyre

Your bones refused to burn
when we set fire to the flesh
- Agha Shahid Ali, 'Cremation'


...Being the burning type,
he burned properly
at the cremation
- A K Ramanujan, 'Obituary'

. . .

One refuses to burn.
The other,
burns properly, and
in between the two
the world
crackles...

Life is a flight
from cremation 
to obituary,
from obituary to cremation.

At times, you refuse
to be decimated by Words.
On other occasions,
people profusely 
singe you
on the pyre of life.

too stubborn in life
we persist.

A Perceptive Heart

The heart comes with a condition that it must be given away but never sold in its entirety to the near ones.

On the contrary, it must be sold but never given away to any stranger, the condition says.

Moreover, in Love, the heart, the condition emphasizes, must be both given away and sold simultaneously, gradually at regular intervals.

It is however the last condition that complicates the thing further, it says that when one is done performing all this - giving away and selling, it must be returned, obviously not in its original condition, but still intact to the soul and sold finally to one's own body so that one may, at least, die peacefully.

No condition is applicable if one is devoid of heart, however.