Disrepair

Hush, this toilet seat is falling off;

I hide but the yellowed curtain is reproachful.

Look at the sink, you cunt,

There are holes you can't repair,

Because teeth that shine can't see ever,

Including your tobacco blighted ones.

That raspy curtain voice came to me again

When in a single windowed study-bedroom,

I wished upon a music-less kite.

It haunted me in ragged dreams,

In snide voices by the cafe,

While I lfited my feet to a winded window,

In the footfalls of my flatmates,

In aunty's toothless grin,

By shrubs of wooded side walks,

In the friendliness of the society dogs.

Apparently, there is something to be said

On the state of disrepair.

On this note I leave

We are playing dear -

It's the game of love,

You said. Silly me

To think you wouldn't

Cheat, change the rules

And jeer on my losing.

On a sleepy weekday afternoon of my Psychology class in the summer of 1998 (or was it 1999?), I decided to write an ode my friend who was leaving Bangalore to work in Dubai. It was heartbreaking & nothing less than a poem could fully express what our friendship meant to me. It was he who taught me the importance of "thinking through", and it was his single minded devotion to understanding the truth of our world that motivated me to do the same. But it was his always restrained, gentle and quietly mischievous manner that influenced me the most.

After many years, I am re-visiting the poem and it's reassuring to know that despite all the blows and cynicism of adult life, I have managed to keep my passion and humour alive.

Inebriated on life

Should we, lil bird,
Under the bright blue sky
Roam into the corners of eternity
Sigh at the intensity of the splendous lines
Twirl within the spaces of our minds
Waltz on the undulating waves of time
Stare at the autumn vibrant butterfly
Toe onto the vertigo of infinity
Seek if for a moment to be blown
To die, to annihilate ourselves
Phoenix-like rise, smile,
Hold hands and walk on dusk-dappled beaches,
Weeping within ourselves
Singing aloud the life-song.

Balderdash

Time's punching me senseless

'Coz I, spud, plonked

My big arse on indecision,

Under-evaluation,

And other such self-flagellation.

Really, self-indulgence is such -

Pleasant occupation for suckers.

Kargi & his gloating

Had fun interpreting this image of my cousin Hysen outside the Colloseum.

Image courtesy Hysen & Oneida

Once upon a time, me Khargi, a wanderer of many names, took to walking past every broken monument in the dark in celebration of inconsistency. You see, incoherent habits such as these are really a way of cocking a snook at the world and its greats who are no different from the dead-and-gone aggrandized, narcissist builders of these egoistic monuments. I come here to laugh at the slowly corroding facade, and at the damp corners where dogs surreptitiously pee and lizards mate. You see, I might be a nobody and will leave behind no legacy, but at least I don't have to continue pretending centuries after I am dead. Or roll over in my grave because a dumb-fuck of an historian wrote that the old apple orchard was abundant because I was impotent.

Frothing Self-Love

Why I say -

Does it bother you so,

To leave the long courtship

Of a generous mercurial lover,

While standing on one foot

Is the piqued dream

Of your amorous hunger.

Was it your restlessness,

Was it your baseness,

Or was it you -

An unreliable self-righteous closet-chaser?

Whatever.

Just good to know,

At the core,

You are a narcissist,

Packaged like an aged-toothpaste,

Frothing the new-age mantra -

"Love thy self".

and death came calling

to the gods of inspiration,

you are a bleating,

noise, bleeding,

to the repressed soul.