life's a kick

She had been married for 2 days. He hadn’t touched her yet. The marriage, like all arranged Indian marriages, was an exercise in organized confusion. Collective hysteria. Mass pranaams . Deafening music and inscrutable Sanskrit. She remembers catching glimpses of his face while the marriage ceremony was being performed. The time he tied the mangalsutra around her neck, and when he smeared the vermilion-dipped ring on the parting of her hair. On other occasions, she was too lost being herded by her mother and aunts from one ritual to another. Too exhausted to express irritation. Anger doused by an overwhelming sense of change. But when she did steal those looks at him, a mixed emotion of love and shyness flushed her. Forcing her to bite her lips and suppress her smile. She could not believe her luck. A boy she had loved since her girlhood days was now being given to her in marriage! He would be her man…a distinction too great to be digested in a day. In her honest opinion, four, e...

Mornings. That’s when you kill me most. On many nights, I dream of you. On many other, I can’t recall my dreams. Irrespective of the night, I wake up CRAVING for you. It’s almost as if the need to see you is compulsive. Biological. Physical. I keep thinking about you, often wet and wild thoughts, till I can think no more. Till my head is all choc-a-bloc with mosaic of your photos. Your lips, eyes, face, neck, chest….. Looking at the world through the darting eyes of a hunted animal. Desperately searching for the only sign of hope. You. Sweetheart, it’s not fair to unleash all the assault, with such ruthlessness, right at the beginning of each day. I know, wherever you are, it must be giving you some pleasure to watch me squirm for your touch. I know you know, how badly I need you to squeeze me in your hug. How elaborately I want you to love me. Kiss me to the point of suffocation. How you occupy every available space of my consciousness. Pray, why don’t you help me then? For ...

There is a part of me that is made of wax. It lies between my ribs. Somewhere between the throat and the stomach. Right at the centre. A fist-sized portion maybe, its size varying with time. In tender moments of love, fear or anxiety, the wax melts. Giving way to a space that is void. An aching vacuum of nothing. Life keeps happenings on the sidelines, the mind witnessing it with the detached patience of a disinterested audience. Tears don’t sting the eyes. They flow without pause or permission, quenching the pillow that has smelt only oil and shampoo. The voice remains placid, speech tempered. The quiet of a death fills that empty space between my bosom. There are times when the void cracks, the crevices going up and down, tearing skull and toes. It pains. A wincing sort of physical pain that forces me to seize it with the flat of my palm and press it hard. Breathing returns to normal, but that deafening silence remains. That high-pitched siren in the ears never quite en...

I see a hapless little squirrel chasing its tail with hysterical speed bang in the middle of a driveway. I go close, hoping to scurry it off to a safe corner. It doesn't budge. I bend down, run my fingers over its delicate, smooth back. It becomes still. I take silence as assent. I try to lift it, to move it to the grass, a safe haven. In a split second of ferocious intensity, it bites my finger and blood spurts out. I lose the grip. I have to borrow tissues to staunch the oozing blood. When I turn back to look at my attacker, it's doing the same ridiculous stunt...before gradually coming to a final halt. A few seconds, and it's dead. In coup de grace, an Innova runs over it. The legacy comprises a nasty finger, one tetanus injection and 6-dose anti-rabies vaccine. Friends express concern - for the poor little thing that died after biting me.

I’m no addict. The only knowledge I have of dope is through Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and its sequel novel River of Smoke. In the former book, where a great deal is written about opium, I particularly remember one sequence. It depicts a scene where an addict is forced to undergo de-addiction. No, don’t ask me who that character is. But what I can tell you, in good detail, is how he craves for his drug. There is a reason why I can recall the scene so vividly. So this addict begs for his cake till he faces a near black-out. He wakes up with immense pain in his limbs. It’s a peculiar pain. He feels that his innards are being twisted with iron hands till he can’t breathe. And multiple claws are gouging out his eyes, gagging his mouth…and suffocating the life out of him. He thrashes, he kicks, he shouts, he salivates, he implores. He’s garrulous with deprivation. All he needs is one sniff of his wonder drug for everything in the distorted world to return back to a silken state o...

sadden not those sweetheart eyes nor burden that lovely heart in each second, i am with you for there's nothing to do us apart your lashes are laced with my scent in your breast-pocket lies my strand pressed against the cushion of your palm is my committed steady hand pages of your book hold my voice my fingertips are alive in your hair find me present, oh! beloved! in your every song 'n prayer my taste still lingers on your neck your eyes can paint my face a part of me will throb in your arms whoever with love you embrace know i watch you in all your moods as i stand against your fear you are of me, and i of you the ring in your laughter, the salt in your tear