Things I Iearnt in Vacation

That 10 O'Clock can incontestably 

be rounded off to 10:30.

That conversations feel different 

when not performed in chairs.

That if one looks long enough 

faces do reveal truth and not more faces.

That 11:00 am clocks off 

at home as well, and exquisitely so.

That sharing ideas and thoughts

can be remembered without writing minutes.

That inviting guests doesn't necessarily 

culminate in photo sessions.

That respecting elders feels better

than treating them as seniors.

Principally, however,

I learnt 

that official orders,

and not poems,

usually begin with that.

Wisdom

My barber casually remarks,

"Only that person, for me,

is a customer who 

is sitting in the chair,

the one I'm working on.

Rest of them -

waiting, chatting, smoking,

cannot be called anything.

They can sit or 

may leave any time

depending on their whims."

I lament,

how truthfully,

how closely 

he recognises Life.

Life as a spacious Washroom

Depending on one's idea of struggle,

Life, it seems, is a journey to acquire 

cleaner, spacious washrooms -

wherein there are no multiple cheap soap bars

clinging to each other

but soap dispensers.

Wherein the big window that had

half a glass missing 

covered with polythene,

displays blinds now.

Wherein the water

brimming inside the bucket

one played with the distorted image of one's arm,

comes out these days in the shape of artificial rain.

Cleaner, 

spacious washrooms, however,

have one defect.

No matter how long you bathe in them

they don't cleanse the sores of conscience.

Power

Ideas and thoughts dawn on us now,

not how the great poet once envisioned,

from the mysterious other world.

They, instead, startle us like night raids,

like drones in the sky,

like riots encouraged as negotiations,

like suicide videos in high resolutions,

like diapered adults in sweatshops,

like biometrics in the grave,

like knowledge disseminated as shame,

like television sets in refugee camps,

like stale food disguised as mann-o-salwa

...

all the angels,

the poet should know,

were incinerated by targeted missiles.

Cartography

In an age of online maps,

I am enthused

when people ask me

for directions.

Otherwise introvert, 

while giving directions,

I, however,

make it a point that they

fully grasp the dynamics 

of walking to the place,

the mobility of reaching

from multiple perspectives.

First, I make the lanes, bylanes;

corners and turns emerge

through the gestures of my hands,

then, I immerse them

into this invisible space 

so that they comprehend

the way, not as streets, or alleys

but as duration.

Given pen and paper,

I would even draw it for them.

Being lost is an underrated talent 

no more than giving directions is.

Devotion

Inside the house,

a cat pretending to scratch all day.

Outside,

a pack of dogs fake-barking 

till we move out of sight.

Behind the house,

a congregation of birds

chirping violently.

How sublime and miraculous 

is it to realise:

these strays sneaking a look -

assuring themselves,

perhaps to God as well,

that the humans are well-fed.

History Repeats

When a child I was,

I used to be 

terribly afraid of my mother -

healthy and boisterous those days,

so much so that 

half of my childhood was spent

concealing matters she would dislike.

Now that she is old -

frail and ailing these days,

she is scared of me,

so much so that 

a major part of her agedness is spent 

revealing only matters I like.

History definitely does repeat itself -

the only part we can't sift however is,

which part to call the farce and which one tragedy.