My Home

My home misses a fireplace that
kept everyone together and warm
and made the dust of tiffs slither
out from the chimney corner.

The roof was successful in keeping
the rains out but failed to stop the
water coming out from the eyes.
So, now the roof drips of murkier dampness.

The walls stood high and tall just
like everyone else in the house
who stood so stubborn that they
forgot bending for each other.
Walls of our attic are better at consoling now.

The ground sunk below holding
the weight of the hearts that just
kept getting heavier the nights
they didn’t talk.
Pit tension in the stomach holds more
importance than the lent shoulders.

The doors stayed shut for longer
hours because everyone in the home
wanted solitude but cursed life for
their loneliness .
A swinging, wooden obstruction
denied even a hundred-knocks bribe.

My home misses a pantry where we hoarded pounds of shoplifted love we shared the last time we went for grocery shopping together.

My home misses everything that a normal home has. A family that is supposed to be together happily and not as a burden.

My home, a synonym of homesickness.

Eyes

Her eyes looked like unheard stories,
stories that were banished and the
palace gates that forbade her from entering.
She was a crown-less queen
but a royal full of poise.
Her wagon loaded with magic hours,
and words heavy with dragon fire.
Sky bent when she walked,
rivers roared with her touch.
The nomadic souls felt at ease
and the coldest hearts melted
in her unspoken syllables and dab speeches.
They feared her powers,
so, a dynasty was made to dissipate.
She didn’t vanish instead scattered her
warm ashes for her stars to live longer.

Believe me on that

There would be people telling you, advising you on how to get over the darkness.

And then there will be me, not knowing how to console using stack of words knitted together but would readily be holding your hand to walk that path down with you until you feel yourself again.

The secret

I will let the night wind sing
the praises of the accident
by which we met.

I will let the sea breeze whisper
the mosaic pick-up lines
for you to piece it all together.

I had buried a forbidden shadow
of my past on the beaches
of May summer and moonlit sand long ago
that still crashes with speaking pebbles and
resurrects it at twilight to haunt me.

Today, I will let the creaking lighthouse
break the midnight-dawn to you,
to cut loose my closet secrets
before it trembles me down
like the whimsy leaves in autumn.

Today, I won’t roam
but will standstill
not in denial or
wearing crutches of tricks
but will open my heart wide
like the sea opens up
amidst the baking Sun.

Today, I will share a secret
enough to obliterate us
but I believe you’d come
back like assorted snowflakes
the moment I’ll get cold
and we will grow through all the cracks.

I am mere nothing

I’m a mere human
there is no way
I could compare
the emptiness of the sky
with mine.

I’m a mere sinner
there is no way
I could compare
the virtue of saints in Himalayas
with my devotion.

I’m a mere pawn
there is no way
I could justify
the promises of forever(s) in nature
with my untimely death.

I’m a mere girl
there is no way
I could compare
the rage of eve-teasing and disrespect
with Maa Durga’s ire.

There is no way anyone can compare as trivial as me to the vastness of Nature but it’s nature that comes down to my level to weep with me, to create a heaven underneath my feet, to fill me with enough courage to change like seasons and await what’s to come after it.

2 PM

That grey t-shirt you’re wearing is a pale cover of the bending sky that I could finally touch. The way it cuts in like a pie of bodice revealing youthful sternum and toned shoulders, I savor the look. The look that tells me perfection is an arrogant muse that comes out when you surrender to the art of love.

There were unfathomable standards and glaring checklists I had been weaving in the past but didn’t realize it took only a spoonful of immeasurable love and a safe home filled with buttercup kisses to make me walk on the vanilla heavens conjuring every shade of purple Sundays.

You stand there doing absolutely nothing, or probably combing your caramel hair but I am too lost to realize the actions your skillful hands are indulged in like those were, the last (a)musing night. I throw a fit in my mind against the mirror that feels a little more proud reflecting you back because sometimes, it swallows your beauty and let out a sigh of the sight that only I have a right to admire.

You turn around and catch me off-guard. I feign innocence but my acts are almost like those useless hacks we see on the internet, ninety-nine percent of the times they fail. But your demanding eyes breaks down the fort of my seclusion, laughs at my ambitious lower lip that had been cutting itself under the frontal, lazy teeth, the ones that know no other place to bury themselves while gazing at you.

What to do with this manner-less time that doesn’t know how to stop? If I could, I would wager my rest of life for this moment to run in loops. Never knew 2 PMs also could hold a charm one enjoys in an attractive evening, dressed in bold gowns of red ready to take you to the places of creamy dreams.

Radio

Switched onto the Radio
what seemed like eons ago.
All genres of music came
gushing out from that
blurred-memories beatbox.
The sound waves thumped
and clanked wearing romanticism
ironing out my silences.
Some sound pollution
curing cancers.

After the quaking of
my peppy senses
it went into an hollow
tunnel blowing echoes of
rustling-music and
I, chiming in its melody,
ignorantly compare it with the
plastic lyrics we are
fed these days
in the platter of
scarcely-claded bodies
and phony hearts.
What a brazen
attempt it was,
of writing
heart-slaughtering
brain-stopping
golden lyrics in the era before.

It played
“Bade ache lagte hain”
The curse of my good
memory suddenly appears
as a blessing with the
old songs committed
to my lips long back.
My waist sways,
lips croons,
pupils dilate
and voice purrs
along the
musical sonnets.
A safe haven
for the cry.
It brings back the
old musical wizard to
his high-pitched imagination
and I tune into
‘My Universe’
one more time.

Grow-up!!

Growth is subjective, isn’t it? Probably, like everything else in the world if we go by all the opinions. There is a tremendous pressure on growing up all the time and is usually measured on how much of a successful adult you become and yes success, most of the time, in this world refers to the size of your house (not the heart), a better car (not peace of mind), a stable job (because less money- a big no), married and kids (else you are just wasting life and are a bullheaded to have been focused on career).

This gave me all the more reason to dive into growth subsets. Growing up clearly means –


mature decisions (becoming magically decisive after crossing a certain age),
magnificent social skills (when all you did in yesteryears was to curl up in your bed with a book or favorite TV series),
an impeccable resilience (gone are the days when you used to hide your face in your mom’s bosom and miraculously problems disappeared),
extreme resourcefulness (how come you are not adding any advantage to your country or family, or relatives, job, neighbors, planet, aliens, multi-verses AT THIS AGE? How is it possible that you are not being resourceful – C’mon You are a grown-up),
an undying creativity (well, how else would you show to others you can earn and also keep a great passionate hobby in your side-pockets? How else would your younger siblings/cousins consider you a role model? That’s important too you now, to build a reputation, to see yourself from other’s eyes. Who cares what you thing about yourself?),
steely confidence (this must be a given one. You have got education; you have given presentations. The basic thing you would have learned is being confident. You can’t waver, you should be clear about your path, and you have to be ready to face your challenges on your own).

Growing up means an imbalance division of expectations. You have to have lesser than the bare minimum while the other side keeps getting heavier with every turn in life and talking about that heaviness is what is mocked off here and hence no one openly talks about.

Like, you wanted to remind your friend of the movie night you planned long ago when he/she changed the plans at the last moment adding a bitter suffix of ‘Grow-up’, making you feel smaller than ever.

It’s natural to have change in plans. The least you can do as a friend is try an understand me and if you cannot then Grow-up!”

And what would you ever say to refute this statement? That I do not have many friends and sort of depend on you to have peaceful fun night without much drama. That it takes every ounce of my energy to prepare myself hanging out with someone who doesn’t consider me a burden. That I wish I could talk to at least one person of how weight is pulling me down and all I needed was a one good listener. Probably afterwards, I would been okay. But what you manage to say,

I am sorry. Carry on. We will plan some other time.”

I don’t know. Is saying ‘sorry’ at the right time called growing up? And who knows what ‘the right time’ is, when it’s again subjective.

Grandma’s Kitchen

With the scent of Ghee draped all over her clothes
she prepares my favourite and the lengthiest snack.
Her legs wobbling like the thinnest shoot of a newbie plant, you bet be gone in the next windstorm but it withstands the gambling words.

I want to have a pre-nurtured taste of her hand’s magic when I reach for ‘Mitthi Roti’ while she is busy with the next dough rolling into a perfect sphere in her deep palms.
But she slaps hard on my extending greed, the way you shoo away the paws of your spoiled pet that tries to grab the fattest pieces of anything before it’s prepared.
How did I forget she still excels in multitasking?

When I ask why this sugar cubes are bigger or has yarn threads coming out of it, she proudly explains it’s ‘misri’; much better than my cavity-inducing chocolates I keep popping up through my incessant anxious sessions.
And the other brown rock is ‘gurr’ that would cleanse my body and probably the skin when I don’t have to waste much on the fancy bottles of creamy substances that I keep putting on my face.

I pout and argue with my silliest face and arms tugging around her back to not to pick up on the things that I buy. She being 2x me, pouts harder and says “you would never know the value of natural substances.”

She abhors sugar crystals or anything that is saturated upto the level it loses its originality.
She detests any plastic covers of the stuff I order that claims ‘natural’ as she proclaims, anything that is genuine or real does not require a stamp on its forehead for others to believe.

While I munch on the first batch of Mitthi Roti; soft, sticky and a little cakey but with plump-y edges, I say it tastes somewhat like waffles and she narrows her brow saying one mustn’t try to translate everything into a language (or taste) understood by many.

“Preserve the old traditions and the food (esp the name) that comes from it for you won’t be getting much when you are older.

Put your love into the food you prepare and you will have your forever.”


©kanikachugh