फ़रमान

चैन तो धरती छोड़कर भी नहीं मिलता ना...
अब किसने ये सोचा था कि परलोक में भी कस्टम अफ़सर मिल जायेंगे?
सूटकेस तो छोड़ के आना था प्लेटफार्म पर, लेकिन आख़िरकार उसे पीछे नहीं छोड़ पाया मैं...
क्या करता, कुछ क़ीमती चीज़ें अब भी बाकी थीं उसमें...
पर इन कमबख्तों ने उन्ही पर आब्जेक्शन लगा दिया!

एक टी-शर्ट मिली, कुछ पसीने से महकी हुई
एक लाल रंग का तौलिया, जिसमें से नमी गायब नहीं हुई थी अब तक
सिगरेट का एक आधा-अधूरा सा पैकेट
बस के दो टिकट
सब माया की निशानियाँ थीं, जो उसे वापस करनी थीं...

एक कलश मिला, मामा की अस्थियों का
माँ के आँसुओं से भीगा एक कुरता मिला
डब्बा भरकर गंगाजल भी था, अपने तर्पण से चुराया हुआ...

ये सब चल जाता...
लेकिन उस सूटकेस में कुछ किरचें भी बरामद हुईं
तेज़, नुकीली किरचें
जो कभी ज़बान पर आकर अटक जाया करती थीं
कभी गले में खरोंचें मारती चलती थीं...
किरचें कुछ अधूरी नज़्मों, कुछ टूटे ख़्वाबों की

इसीलिए शायद मुझे इस 'परगेटरी' में रखा गया है...
खुदा के फैसले के इन्तेज़ार में...
हवलदार मुझे लेकर जा रहा है कोर्टरूम...
और सामने भूरे रंग का शौल लपेटे उस न्यायमूर्ति ने ठोक-बजाकर
फ़ैसला कर ही लिया...

एक महीना हुआ नहीं जन्नत की दहलीज़ पार किए,
और फ़रमान सुना दिया उसने दोज़ख में पहुंचाने का...
क्या उसे भी जीना माया ने ही सिखलाया था?

जानता है वो की माया ने मुझे देख लिया तो उसका पत्ता कट जाएगा
जलता है वो मुझसे...

इजाज़त

(An ode to my Guru, Gulzar-sahab's eponymous film... written on August 2)

इस इजाज़त पर आकर कहानी ख़त्म नहीं हुई
अभी तो सिर्फ़ सुर्ख़ सूरज दिखाई दिया है पहाड़ पर
सात बजे की गाड़ी फिर कमबख्त लेट है...

सुधा दूर प्लेटफ़ार्म की घड़ी के नीचे सो रही है
अपने पति के काँधे को बालों से ढककर
जहाँ एक तिल होना तो था, मगर हो न सका...
सुधा, जिसने क़ुरबानी दी थी मेरे लिए
आज ख़ुश है, मगर रोई बहुत कल रात
शायद मेरा आना ही उसके लिए ग्रहण बन जाता है

जब दादू ने पहली बार फ़रमान सुनाया था शादी का
फूट-फूट कर रोई थी सुधा, न जाने क्यूँ
क्या उसे मालूम था की उसी दिन छिन रहा था उसका सुकूँ?
जब में शहर गया, तो मन में सुधा थी, हाथ में अंगूठी
जब वापस आया, तो शायद भूख खा गयी थी दोनों
क़ीमती चीज़ें अक़्सर भूख मिटाने में मिट जाया करती हैं...
सुधा भी मिट चुकी थी...

माया से मुलाक़ात हुई, तो लगा ज़िंदगी ने गले लगा लिया...
रात की कालिख़ से लुका-छुपी खेलने का शौक़ तो चाँद को भी होता है
पर माया... माया इशारों पे नचाना जानती थी उन्हें
लफ़्ज़ के मानी पूछती थी, फिर उन्हीं की झड़ी तय्यार हो जाया करती थी...

मैंने जब पहली बार पूछा शादी के लिए, तो सुधा का ख़याल नहीं आया...
आया तो माया का जवाब - की बदसूरत बच्चे मुझे पसंद नहीं
और एक ख़त भेज दिया मेरे नाम...
'हंसाओ मुझे' लिखकर...
खेल खेलने का शौक़ था न तुम्हें माया?
लो, हार मान गया मैं, अब तो आ जाओ!
कहाँ छुपी हो? हाँ, बादलों के बिस्तर पर सो रही हो...
अपनी बचपन की दोस्त, मौत के साथ...
तुम दोनों का प्यार आखिर जन्नत तक पहुँच ही गया

फिर कल रात, वादी जब भीग रही थी बारिश में
सुधा से टकरा गया, उसकी ज़िंदगी में एक और रात बनकर
शायद वो पावर-कट भी यही याद दिलाने को था
ख़ैर अब हाथ में सिगरेट लिए मैं जनरल का
और तुम फ़र्स्ट-क्लास का इन्तेज़ार कर रही हो

तुम्हें इजाज़त देने वाला मैं कौन हूँ सुधा?
इजाज़त तो मुझे तुमसे लेनी चाहिए थी
तुम्हें घोल के पी जाने से पहले...

राहगीर हूँ, मुसाफ़िर हूँ, आज यहाँ तो कल कहाँ
इजाज़त मुझे माया से ले लेनी चाहिए थी
ताकि बिना बताये मिलने जाने का बुरा न लगता उसे
ख़ैर, अब तो मिलने जा ही रहा हूँ

लो! ट्रेन भी आ रही है...
सुधा, इजाज़त?

मैं, महेंद्र, जा रहा हूँ
एक छोटी-सी कहानी, कुछ सामान
कुछ क़तरे आवाज़ के छोड़कर
इस सूटकेस में...
खाली हाथ, माया के पास...

Redemption Requiem

And so the circle is complete...

There stands Prufrock again
At the bottom of the stairs
Bald, rail-thin
Still fumbling with his peaches and tie-pin

But on his way out the door
The party's over
Michelangelo lives
To be discussed tomorrow...

The suitcase still lies on the platform
Nowhere is he to be found...
The clock strikes 2 A.M.
It's been years since he's gone...

Taking refuge in some corner of a dark alley maybe
Darkness, the old friend, has embraced him again
The lure of the world gave up trying to seduce him
Other willing partners for this mime have been found...

The curtain drops on the show
The public leaves, murmuring about the performance
In a crescendo of engine sounds
Screeching tyres and clouds of dust...

Dust, dust again...
He likes to breathe it, when he can...
Ash, ground in dust
Ms Fire, thou hast done well
The half-lived life
A life well-lived...

Tired of lying in the darkness
He emerges, billowing smoke
Crumples it underfoot
No stub.

Dr. Lecter's Tale...

Streets lined with puddles of standing rain
Speeding along through the night
Headlights illuminating the gathering vultures
In the middle of monsoon
There sits the Doctor
His feast ready to be devoured
And yet, before the cannibalism
Comes the necrophilia
He kisses the corpse
Becomes a statistic in her book
Number 22, and possibly the last...
He can feel the anguish on her contorted face
He can yet smell the molten gold on her breath
She won't breathe no more...
Dead, Dead, Dead...
The hungry Doctor
Bites into the soft flesh
Devours her at speed...

And then the poison in her veins begins to creep over him...
He clutches at his throat,
Falls back
Dead, Dead, Dead...
The vultures swoop down
The moon is eclipsed...
R.I.P Dr. Hannibal Lecter...

I drive on into the night,
Home, home again...

The Exhaust Tale

Strange nights, these
Spent in wait
Jitters that travel up and down the spine
The phobia of a dark room
Staring up at the ceiling
A vast expanse of movie screen
The smoke from the projector
Flashing images in grayscale
The cool breeze touching the surface
Fever
The enterprises of great pith and moment
Where the silhouette raises the blade
And spurts Rosso Corsa
Onto the sheets
The eternal wait for the war to end
When slings and arrows
Would cease to matter
The silhouette dares to dream
And yet the flowing red snaps him back to reality
Some say he has no mind, no soul
And that the last time he breathed
Was in King Arthur’s time
Waiting to exhale
Waiting for goodness to embrace him
The goodness of carbon monoxide
To engulf him, envelop him
Global warming.

The Obituary...

It was fun when it all began
Fresh-faced teens on a red-brick background
He spotted her wearing a green pince-nez
And thought to himself 'what a snob!'

A month was all it took for pride and prejudice to deconstruct
As he decided to play Antony; she Cleopatra
Through the initial rough and tumble he survived
But the seeds of his hamartia had already been sown...

She came to him soon enough
And there were two hearts beating as one
She was his first love
And the world was full of Dutch tulips...

Iagos abound in this world, so he found out soon
But who was to blame but himself?
Like the old ram, he had dug his own grave
And, Peripeteia occured...

She left him for another, he wrote
And engulfed himself in love of the Red
She had indeed moved on, hated him
And there was no contact...

It was histriomania that landed them back in a room
He apologised, she forgave him
But reserved judgment on his past
The quest for redemption had begun...

He tried to bide his time
He tried to be her friend
He tried to pry her loose
But knew, it was a losing battle...

A sudden swing in fortunes
And he was back in the running
Maybe the Old Man had something to do with it
But he would never know...

They drifted apart and floated together
Grew up into the twenties
His heart still had a reservation for one
She was destined for bigger things...

One day, the break came
The least he could do was say goodbye
'Be cheerful sir, our revels now are ended'
And that was the end...

Or maybe not, for she still cared for him
Called him up one fine morning
Reestablished the connection that should've been left broken
And up went his hopes again...

But she had moved on again
And that left his journey for redemption unfinished
Till the next break happened
Which took another bit of him away...

He was finally the man she would've wanted him to be
But alas! She wasn't there to see
The knight was riding in shining armour
To hide, perchance, or put up a front...

And yet again, that primitive form of communication popped up
Telepathy, destiny, fate - it has many names
But this time he was firm in resolve
And managed to put it across to her...

" I want you to know it's a little fucked up,
That I'm stuck here waitin', no longer debatin',
Tired of sittin' and hatin' and makin' these excuses,
For why you're not around, and feeling so useless,

It seems one thing has been true all along,
You don't really know what you've got 'til it's gone,
I guess I've had it with you and your career,
When you come back I won't be here and you can sing...

Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone. "

That was when he breathed his last, that man
It was as if a debt had been paid
He could finally breathe easy
Easy come, easy go...

He had forgotten that he was Faustus
The man who had sold his soul to Lucifer
Mephisto came to him and said
'Its time, my friend...'

Wander the depths, Faustus
Find solace, if not redemption...
For thou hast left and gone to hell
And I wish thee a warmer Farewell...

They say Beelzebub is a benefactor
Not the Fair Lord up above
May the fire not singe thy coat of fur
But even if it does,
'habit is a great deadener...'

A Vision, A Beautiful Dream...

Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Brown dust covering the horizon
Yellow leaves embedded deep in their dry graves
The rocks and the solitary cactus
The beautiful landscape of this painting
Everyday is a little death
'Fear no more the heat of the sun' wrote the Stratfordian
There is no fear, no pain

The red torrents of howling storms
A vision, a beautiful dream
The blue corpses strewn about over the plains
Fate, thy bounties abound
While thou smil'st upon us

When I look into your eyes, Princess
I see my life, played
A million times in an infinite loop
A circus act, jumping through the ring of fire
Earning applause for burning the flesh
For acting the part you have assigned to me

Barren, fallow, waste
Lies the earth under my feet
And rocky contours inside the skull
They talk of Spirituality
And the Art of Living
Its very complicated you see
Breathing in the brown dust with one nostril
And exhaling the plumes of gray with the other
Global (heart)warming

Was this what Cassandra envisaged?
A Nietzscheian God
An Eliotesque land
A weeping Satan
An incarnate of Lucifer
A minstrel Mephistopheles
A sadist
A masochist
A pessimist
And Humble Polonius

Congratulations, fellow lunatics
The beautiful mind
Is now sterile
At last, a worthy existence...

Being Shreyas Sharma...

'Without contraries is no progress'

- William Blake, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'

The man without a face
Wearing layers upon layers of masks, to hide,
To insulate the vacuum inside...

The tub of lard
Moving day in and day out with his girth
To prove to himself his own worth...

The guy with the 'golden voice'
No one but him his fan
His ego a splotch on one that remotely resembles a man...

The overrated underachiever
Undertaking the eternal quest to become a man self-made
Trying desperately to burn-out, not to fade...

The silhouette whose shadow has left his side
Getting drenched in the warm showers of winter rain
Putting on another facade, getting etherized again...

The lunatic inside his head
Still making others around him smile
While the one inside the heart pukes out bile...

"The joker in the pack
Useless for this perfect hand
That you call life, yes you with your merry band...

Its rather convenient for you
'A friend' when you want help. 'a bastard' later
My purpose wasn't your needs to fulfill, your wants to cater...

Ego Ego Ego! That is the label you gave me
So what if I believed I was the best?
There are people who market themselves more, them you never detest...

My life was my own, and so was my gasping breath
And I wanted to live it on my own terms
And now, you leave me to the mercy of the worms...

Fine, all of you can come and visit me in hell
Fuck this life, fuck the world say I
Sometimes I wish I was stillborn, sometimes I wish I could just die..."

Thus on and on continues the fat man
A study in binary oppositions, his story
At times an outlet to his ego; at others, self-deprecatory

Maybe one day you, dear reader, will realize
What he had been screaming all his life had been right
Alone he came, alone he lived, and no fair company he got in his flight...

(20/08/2007)

Redemption Revived...

And so it is...
A journey here ends
Another for to begin
The fat man then prepares to die regretfully
The dirges resound in his wake
Of farewell
Of good riddance
The presence shall no longer be present
'I shall not hear the nightingale...'

Remember him, if you will
Not for what he was
Not for what he said
Nothing
Late of the Faculty
Here lies a man who spent his time
Creating diversions of sound

'Be cheerful sir,
Our revels now are ended...
Our lives are but a dream and a forgetting...'
He doesn't know if and when he'll be back
Waves to you, invisible
A late goodbye
'Fare thee well, my friends'
Redemption at last?
Half stub.

(27/07/2007, the last day at the Arts Faculty)

Gold Rush...

The glass is on the table
Frosted from the outside
Ice cubes swirling inside
Floating on molten gold...

The parched throat burns
With desire, with the passage
The mind begins to whirl;
A consequence of molten gold...

History narrates the stories
Of towns littered across the globe
Founded to rape the land, and by evening
Enjoy the molten gold...

What provides the touch
Of desired numbness
Of enforced amnesia
What, but the molten gold...

Iron Maiden playing on Winamp
Screaming out with but a hint of melody
Hits my ears like a freight train
Hallowed be thy name, molten gold...

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
Neat bottoms up or on the rocks
Give us today our daily blur
Forgive us our sins, molten gold...

The lunatic in the cold cell pleads
His last wish, the saviour's blood
Or, as five o' clock approaches
Mankind's most desired drink - molten gold...


P.S. - Forgive me, reader, for I am drunk
Poetry is not the enemy of molten gold...

(17/06/2007)

Journey On...

Baawra mann dekhne chala
Ek sapna...

Stretching beyond the horizon
The long, lonesome highway
Two feet in battered brown shoes
Fall arrhythmically...

A mind recalls the image of you
Jumping with joy - the best day of your life
The day it was decided, perhaps
That our paths forked thenceforth...

The luncheon where mouths chomped away happily
On bread and cheese and words and smiles
The unspoken barricaded within
The invisible drops swallowed

Shoulders that bend forward with the load of the heavy backpack
Containing pages torn from a diary
A small red velvet jewellery box
A few old ticket stubs

Pitter-pattering feet on the gravel
Recall the long walks and drives among grasses green and setting sun
Eyeing the darkening skies
Evening, or another storm?

Journey On...

(27/2/2007)

The Eyes Have It...

Gathering clouds
Infest the blue canvas
The argentous border
Invisible to the eye
For here, the eyes disappear
Leaving hollow sockets behind
Dust settling into them

Yet the gaze is still directed upward
As if staring at the dark gray painting
And then it begins to drip
Droplets pregnant with colour
Dripping into the hollows
Delivering mud
The eyes reappear
Sightless.

(28/9/2006)

The Separation...

The light has gone out of our lives...

- Jawaharlal Nehru, on Mahatma Gandhi's death (1948)

And so it is...
My muse you have been
Turned me into a poet
Made me popular among my peers
Your presence, synonymous with mine
I have often take refuge in your comforting embrace
Ran from the world, adversity
You have been the eternal companion
But like all good things, this, I feel, must come to an end...
We have been together too long
I do not get the enchanting sensations anymore...
And so, I bid you goodbye
You will find another
More deserving of your company than I
I shall be better off without you...
'Put out the light, and then put out the light'
Fare thee well, my perforated friend...

(31/12/2006)

{P.S. - for those who think my wits have failed me and i have written an ode and a farewell poem to a cigarette, think again...}

Ode to my Muse (The Advertisement)...

She laughs
She laughs at my folly
She mocks my innumerable defeats
She stops
Sees my crestfallen face
She kisses me
Envelopes me in her embrace
Her aroma drowns out my sorrows
I am engulfed by her flames,
My perforated friend...

(23/7/2005)

On with the show...

The spotlight gazes its gazely stare
He stands at its focal point
The deer caught in the headlights
Nowhere to run or hide
As the curtain rises
To a warm applause from the audience
The semicircle of humanity
Staring fixedly at the object of focus
Here he goes, playing star again...
Chief antagonist of this well scripted tragedy,
Titled 'LIFE'...
No Shakespeare could pen a play as perfect
No Aristotle dare comment
'I am not what I am'...
Motiveless malign? or
Hapless victim of circumstance?
Quit complaining and act!
The show must go on...

(21/12/2006)

the early poems - pre-sutta phase...

THE SILHOUETTE

The dark path under a moonless sky
A silhouette walks along, shadowless
The rain hasn't lost its bite with the journey
It stings the flesh but the silhouette is unperturbed

It has lost its mind
Lost its heart
Lost its face
It moves without a sound
It is but a silhouette

Onlookers stay faraway
For though it maybe a friend
It might even be a foe
Or a robber who'll strip them off their possessions

It walks on, head hung down
Lost in thought, or can it even think?
No one knows, and no one dare find
For the silhouette carries a cloud of misery

All of a sudden it disappears
A sigh of relief is emitted
But curious voices ask... where has it gone?
A splash in the lake gives them the answer...

(12/02/2004)

ANOTHER PHOENIX

All around me

The world is a burnt-out ruin

A memoir of man’s seduction

By the seven deadly sins

I come across death, destruction

This land, irrigated with blood

Now gives a rich harvest

Guns, bombs, arsonists alike

I now lie mortally wounded

A new addition to the growing list

I have been left alone in death

This is the only place I find peace

The eerie silence is music to my ears

I have been know to destroy

And to self destruct

Yet I always return

Never my lesson do I learn

Burn myself in one hell or another

No one seems to mind

For that is my designated job

Only this time

I shall not rise

For there are no ashes

Only a little bullet in my head

But the supreme confidence I have in my kind

Someone shall take my place

Someone from the burnt-out ruin

Shall rise from the ashes, again

Another Phoenix…

(21/04/2004)

redemption reprise

Half stub
The reprise
Torn in the confusion
Pacing the distance between the horns of dilemma
Burning in the cathartic fire
Waiting for redemption
Prufrock's procrastination
Is a natural way for me
Not by choice, but chance
Approaching a fork in the road
No clue where to go
The foreknowledge haunts
For this is purgatory
All roads lead the same way
Humble Polonius
Pictured at the fork
Waiting...
Reignition...
Half stub

(21/09/2006)

something i wrote last year

two poems written three days apart -


(I)

The half stub sticks out of the box

Sticks out even though it is the smallest

Humbled I stand today

The flight is over

Was good while it lasted

Recognition

Over-recognition

Familiarity

Contempt

Who wants to sit next to me?

Reflection

The past blurs by

The future flies past

Violent enmity

Scoots beneath the surface

Absurd

Totally absurd

What are we doing?

Waiting

One of the thieves was saved

Fifty percent redemption

Half stub.

(II)

Caught in the inferno

The hypochondriac stands

Oblivious to the fire

That envelops his existence

The charred remains; and

The charring, remains

Yet the realization

Fails to appear

Trapped he stands

Procrastinating the inevitable

Till the flame

Burns his inflammable self

The half lived life

Half stub.