Let's Feed Them Oily Samosas

This moment, it's all my own
These tears, mine alone
I knew her, we laughed together;
She made room for me in her home in the cold winter sunshine,
Called me beautiful, loved my eyes
And now she's dead.

She first cried and then she laughed

I saw her pain...
"It could have been much worse."
"Yes, I know."
...and then her joy.

And her bare hands holding the threads of her life together.
So strong, so happy, so gentle, so brave
And now she's dead.

It's always winter around my heart.
Death hurts like this every time.

Illusions of Almostness

...and I struggled to remember your name.

How many times have I been here before?

Too many.

That kaleidoscopic prism of conjured rectilinear propagation

Flatlining so predictably

Such comfort in familiarity!

Now I fabricate to fit in

Now I twist my mind to match your thought-process

But I already dreamed these dreams

Before you even conceived them.

Now I contort my face in a masked grimace

So you'll approve of my expressions

Now I show you what I want you to see.

Now I laugh and marvel at what you say,

Though I've had this conversation so many times before.

Now I change my music and movies and books

So you think we're so similar

Now I pretend to be stupid

So you think you're smarter than me

Now I cry so you imagine you've wrapped your head around how I've been to hell and back

When I've been laughing in Fate's face all along.

Now I love you just to dispel the insecurity you're so proud of

But picking up your baggage was never my job!

Now I speak your language so well

I do not understand myself

And I speak it better than you

So you don't understand me either

Now I break

So the pieces of my life fit accurately in your palm.

Now I'm too much of you

And too less of me

There is no me.

Resurrect me.

Now.

Autumn Leaves

This is me

Before I met you

And after you left me.

This is me

Unwatered by your love

Abandoned to the wolves

And centipedes.

This is me

Flayed and flawed, incomplete,

A shell and shadow of who I used to be.

This is me craving for you again,

Knowing it was always meant to be,

Even if you can't see it.

This is me aching to go to you,

And I would, too, if I wasn't already

Such a thorn in your flesh.

This is me

Watching you live the life destined for you,

Wishing I could be a part of it,

Watching you leave me this bitter autumn,

Wanting the happiness that we briefly had

Forever.

This is me

Torn and tortured,

Cracked and creased,

Ravaged and wretched,

Frail and fragile,

Empty and endlessly blowing in the wind,

For people's favorite leaves are green ones,

Not gnarled, twisted, threadbare ones.

This is me

Floating soundlessly through aeons,

Down generations, across ages, towards you.

Look up and see me,

Find me before it's too late,

Before I crumble into nothingness.

But I wouldn't be surprised

If you simply crunched me beneath your heel

And walked away.

Numb

To dead bodies and wasted lives

To newspaper and TV
To all the eyes that watch me with all their wisdom
To the joylessness of being born 100 years too early
To the incompleteness of everything I ever started
To this neurotic half-life and this fakeness
To the rigid familiarity of being who they want me to be
To the relief and frustration of being myself underneath it all.
To the expectation of perfection I know I've transcended
But that I'll never achieve, O wise-eyes.
To everything I know and everything I don't
To the illegibility of my handwriting on this page
Disguised only 'cause we've run it through a machine.
To the incessant din I wish would cease
But which I know I'll miss when it's gone
To the threads I unraveled and then tried to knot
And tried to fix by wrapping them around scissors
To the requirement for a reason, a meaning,
As if the presence of one would justify things
To the inappropriateness of every situation
I manage to put myself in.
To stuff that's supposed to matter
To open chat windows, food, money, water, smiling
To nit-picking, insensitive, closed people who can't see the bigger picture
Who make it so hard to live, to love, to laugh
Yet I pull it off every time
To the fading memory of where the knives are
To the ache of time that is slow when it wants to be
And fast when it so chooses.
To the shackles around my ankles
That everyone thinks are pretty anklets
We're always tied down by something -
Even if we aren't, we become a slave to freedom.
To the clutter we collect, in our minds and in our rooms
To the gratitude I'm probably supposed to feel at being "alive"
To life, if there is such a thing, because it kills us all

I Forget

It's the only way I've found I can move on. Forgetting what happened yesterday makes space for today. It's the only thing that gives me room to just be. I've had to let go of every single memory so there's place for some sanity of sorts. I don't recall what movies I've seen, who my favorite musicians are, what books I've read, quotes by famous people, lines from movies, or lyrics of songs.

My mind is blank and it's white noise. I don't remember what I was doing at this time last week. I don't remember being so empty. It's good because I don't hold on to any negativity. But there's nothing else there either. The bad memories are gone, but so have the good ones. The days are a blur, and there's not much meaning, but the strangest part is I'm not even looking for meaning.

I pretend to remember and do a decent job of it when I have to. I don't take pictures, I don't keep old memories, I throw out everything that I once held close to my heart. I'm not attached to any person or thing and don't know if I could ever be. I don't know if I want to remember how my life was when I'm older. Even though there's nothing wrong with it now.. I don't want even the non-memories.

I forget how people hurt me, how life's sucked, I've forgotten how I've wished and wished it was all so different, and I've swept under the rug of oblivion, the times I wished for it all to just be over. Life's seared a huge gaping hole in me that I'd rather keep empty. I forget to be upset or angry or delirious when I should. I just replace it with a smile and live each day as it comes. By now, I have my own brand of custom-made craziness that everyone identifies me with. I've forgotten how to think, or be creative, or be anything at all. I'm okay with being nothing, and I don't know if that's okay or not. To the world, I appear "normal."

The days are blending into each other and I wouldn't even be surprised if it all ended. It's a step beyond expecting nothing from life - I expect nothingness. I wonder what they call this. It doesn't bother me in the least. I also know I'll forget being aware of this state of mind I'm in, the moment I log off. Thank God (?) for fleeting moments of lucidity.

Flame Of The Forest

We grew up with our imaginary friends
And played Superman and Batman and Catwoman
He was Michelangelo and I was Leonardo
And we made our neighbor Donatello
We hit each other and screamed and laughed
We made drawings for Mom
Wrote letters to Dad
I coloured inside the lines
And he coloured outside them
We made fun of the boy down the street
Called him "mutt"
Invented a code language all our own
So no one would know what we spoke about
I still talk to him sometimes
When there's no one else to talk to

We climbed the gnarled yellow-flower tree
Whose scientific name I still don't know
Where each of us had our designated branch
The tree still grows
We lay on a red carpet of flame-of-the-forest
And imagined people in the clouds
For hours
And sailed paper boats in the gutter
Outside our house when it rained
We made friends with the street dog
And called him Tommy
A light-brown caffè latte dog, he was
It was a four when it hit the neighbor's wall
And a sixer when it hit his window
We flew the orange kite for weeks
Until the manja cut our fingers
Until the pesky boy on Second Cross
Cut it and claimed it as a prize

We made a tent with the striped rug and some yellow rope
And wombat stew with leaves and flowers
And red fish curry with powdered bricks
I never understood why he liked only sambar
And he never understood why I liked only chutney
We made Maggi on a candle flame in my room at midnight
And microwave popcorn that we thought
No one else would smell
I cut him with scissors and pushed him off the roof
He took all my money and sold my gold bracelet
For dirty magazines
But I still forgave him

He loved his girl and they went on the terrace
They thought no one else knew
He wrote poems for her
But she was someone else's
Never his
I wonder if she knows how he loved her
He wrote her name everywhere
It's still there
Carved in the cement
Written there on the day it was poured
Written there until they break this house down
And he knew that we knew about her
But he didn't care

I still have his drawings
And his autograph book
With Lucky Ali's signature
That he got in 1995
And how cool we thought that was
All his photographs stare back at me
What do we do with them?
They're always smiling and that smile's frozen in time
Frozen as if he's still around somewhere
He didn't pay his rent so he could buy Eminem's biography
And he forced me to love reggaeton
Just because he did
He liked RHCP
I can't listen to a single song of theirs
Without thinking of him
So if they come here
I'll go to their concert

We drank blue Pepsi and watched the World Cup
Even when India played like jackasses
We watched all 78 laps of the Monaco Grand Prix
Just to see Schumi lift that trophy
And especially to watch him
Spray champagne on the crowd
That was the best part
And we cried when Senna died
We went swimming
And he used to sink 'cause he was skinny
And I used to float 'cause I was fat
I want to get a tattoo to remember him by
But it's ironic that I'll never be able to show it to him
I'll get a tattoo to match his
Someday
When I have the guts
A black and red one just like his

He was going to get a black Lamborghini
And I was gonna get a dark green Porsche
With all the money that we'd make
When we grew up
Oh, we'd be rolling in it
It was our destiny
Or so we thought
We video-gamed for 12 hours a day
Nintendo and Sega
That were God's gift to mankind back then
I played WWE SmackDown on PS2 the other day
And I wished I could've played with him
He'd have loved it
And we'd have kicked each other's asses
All the way to the railway track
Where they're building the stupid flyover
Another architectural marvel
He'll never see

He called me "fish-face" and "wolves"
Which later got shortened to "Ulves"
And I called him "dashiki"
We just liked the sound of these words
I sang Garfield's theme song
Over and over and over
"I hope you bring lots of spaghetti"
Just to irritate him
And sent him corny text messages
And did non-stop radio commentary
Just to bug him
We didn't actually need words to talk to each other
We just spoke to pass the time

We made plans to go to Goa
To dance to trance at Anjuna
And then after that at Paradiso
To eat the tuna pizza with olive oil
At the Italian wood-fire oven place
At the flea market full of Israeli hookers
To do the cool walk down Baga's main road
As if Tito's and Mambo's belonged to our dad
To wear beads like hippies and wear straw slippers
And flowers in my hair and rings in his ears
But it never happened 'cause he never got well

It was all undone even before it was done
Our dreams were not ours
Our lives are not ours
Nothing is forever
He was so broken and I wanted to fix him
But I couldn't
I couldn't
I begged them to take his pain away
They took his pain away all right
But with it, they took him too
I never bargained for that
"No! Wait! Stop! I want him back!"
I wanted to scream and yell at fate
But I haven't
I still haven't
It's inside me and I don't know it it'll stay there forever
Fade away
Or explode in a burst of white light one day
And whether I'll even feel it
I don't know where he is
And I wonder if he knows where I am
I'm slowly forgetting him but I don't want to

He was my brother and then he died
He's not my brother anymore
He's not my brother anymore
He's not my brother anymore

Being 25

I love the way my life is right now! If you're good-looking, rich, brainy and happy, there's little else you could ask for. Plus, I know how to cook, so that department's taken care of, too. I shall not want for food. Haha. I love being 25 because I've finally learned at this age how life is meant to be lived. Or I've found "my" way to live it. I'm so happy it should be illegal!

It wasn't always like this. I've had a mostly shock-and-awe life until now. Every few years there was a calamity that hit me square between the eyebrows when I was least expecting it. Life was difficult. Then suddenly it struck me that the messy last decade and a half was actually invisibly making me rock-solid and strong. So strong that nothing could ever put a chink in my armor again.. or a dent in my demeanor.. you get my drift. At 25, I've understood that all the crap in my life happened for a reason, and it has made me who I am today. I'm unfazed by anything now, and can deal with anything life throws at me."It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything." Fight Club, baby. My new Bible. I love being so peaceful within that I can afford to laugh in the face of tension and say, "This too shall pass," and, "I am above this."

Work. What would I do without it? Um.. I'd have more time to Facebook, I suppose. But seriously, I love my job and I enjoy going to work every day. It's good fun, it occupies my time, it's entertaining and I'm not in the rat race. My ambition is to be a kooky old woman with 16 cats living in a beach house in Goa. My dream is to be able to pay for that house. Ergo, I wait for the cab at 3:30 pm every day. At other times, I'm surrounded by my books, movies and music. People come and go. Time passes nicely.

I find it so easy to laugh at life's follies. Traffic jam? It gives me more thinking time and I get to listen to a few more songs on the Pod. Rain? It gives me an excuse to make myself a cup of cherry tea. No electricity to iron clothes before going to Sherlock Holmes? I wear my psychedelic shirt which is pre-crushed and is supposed to be worn wrinkled. Everyone loves that shirt, by the way. After being chewed up and spit out by life, I know that every negative situation always has a positive side. Life is too short to complain and crib about anything. Rule number one is that you can always "choose" to be happy.

I see people around me getting so affected by trivial stuff. Not many are blessed enough to realize the pointlessness of getting upset. Life is so transient and I wish I could shake some sense into them. But each person has to reach this level of contentment on their own. I used to try to be everyone's "saviour" before. To try and show them how to let go of everything to be truly free. They got mad at me. Some thought I was trying to be all, "I know better than you." I even lost some friends. But now, I don't really care about the rest of the world. I like living in my bubble. It's bouncy, transparent and has rainbows on the outside. It's a magical bubble. It lets anyone come in if they want to, but it doesn't let me go out. So I'm safe.

Happiness is a glass of Suleimani chai

Or a black-and-orange butterfly.

Pardon my crack poetry. Its interpretation would be that the greatest happiness comes from the simplest things. And if anything doesn't make you happy, it shouldn't even figure in your life. It could be a pair of jeans, a bottle of creamy peanut butter in your fridge when you like crunchy, or a friend who keeps letting you down. Choose happiness!