In life,
sometimes, like a
bored, worn out student,
you raise your hand
for attendance purposes only.
Otherwise,
familiar with the fact
that the school is long over
and done with.
Your wife and children
gaze at you, first in amazement,
then take up their mental registers
and mark you present for the day.
Your wife smiles, the kids giggle.
You play along, take notes
and grin in return while
tinkering with the broken toy.
The school maybe up,
the class isn't -
It never is.
A mangy dog,
shivering and frail,
sitting in the pallid rays
of winter sun
is actually all of us -
thinking and wishing,
one home chore, another music track,
shopping, a cricket match,
one more reel, a movie,
going to the supermarket,
applying nail polish,
buying updated gadgets
can cure us of our diseases:
hopeful the impending spring
there would remain no wounds to lick.
A random pebble
considers itself
a bit of every sole,
that grazes or tramples it,
even when the wearer disregards
the shoe to be part of the earth.
Intimacy is convoluted.
The poet writes,
while resting his cheek in his palm:
Knowledge grows slowly like a wisdom tooth.
and I can't help but
smile and smirk,
how slyly and obliquely
he conceals certain things
that accompany its nurture.
Knowledge grows slowly,
behind all the spectacle
of the incisors,
in agonizing pain,
like a wisdom tooth.
Monsters, when granted voice
within literature, speak just.
They turn out more humane
than everyone else.
Monsters, when provided space
within life, spout venom.
They turn out more spiteful
than already thought.
Herein, therefore, lies the difference.
Books showcase spine
far stronger than humans,
put together.
Birds perform anting
without any shame,
in the open.
In different forms,
the same
relates to humans.
Literature is anting.
Love is anting.
Talking and listening, anting.
Reading, anting.
Like birds,
we wallow in there
to soar high, again.
The thing to remember, however,
is this: every body reeks of ache.
A disenchanted Maratab Ali
mourns lyrically for his beloved.
A teenage conductor swanks
his counterfeit jacket.
His yells pose a competition
to the singer while
guiding passengers to the bustling,
nevertheless seatie-khalie bus.
Meanwhile, woustie keeps
a close eye in the side-mirror
on sadah trunamath inching closer.
The handwritten board at the front
reeks of human agency.
Random couplets in graceful Urdu
adorn the side panels.
Just below, hastily, is written
laddias seat with an arrow
that hints at nowhere in particular.
Woustie's gunj baanie rests in between
some grease-ridden cloth and castrol bottles.
My dull memory,
of the Tata bus,
of the Mazda bus,
grazes past
the historicity
of your Smart Bus.
