Starlight

Hungry

For a flash of starlight

A bit of a grass and flowers

Forest and trees

Swimming in a 

River of moonlight

Grey and glowing

Silver and shining

With the wind blowing

And the cold biting

Hungry 

For a bit of myself

One with the universe

And none else

Hungry

For some solitude

So rare

Amidst 

The honk of horns

The dust of tyres

And the glare of garishes

Hungry

For firelight and music

Chatter and glitter

Festivals and feasts

Rituals and rites

That only happen 

In the night

By the moon or stars

And bind the soul

Like no sun can

Hungry

For the

Singing and swaying

Musing and reflecting

Basking and soaking

Drowning and flowing

That can only happen

When you lay

Your buzzing thoughts

Your chores and your worries

Your tasks and your ties

To rest with the sun

And come

Free and unencumbered

Ready to immerse

In the night

So simple

And so unattainable 

In the next birth,

Perhaps

I might enjoy some

Or perhaps it is

Lost 

To previous births

Of suns and sunflowers

I never doubted

That I would be

The sun to

Your sunflower

Alas

That I am 

Only meant to be

Your sunflower

While you gaze

At another sun 

Whose leisure?

Amazing that

Men 

Who have 

Nothing to talk about

Other than politics

And how drunk they were

In different phases of life

Have all the time

And all the money

To sit around and 

Pontificate

To coffee and cake 

In the morning

And raksi and sitan

In the evening

While the women

Who have 

The entire life

To talk about

Have neither the time

To talk

Nor people to talk with

Let alone the money

To buy coffee and raksi 

Forgiveness

I need to learn from myself 

To forgive people

And talk and laugh with them

In minutes

The way I forgive my daughter

And laugh with her

Immediately after she says

Sorry. Hundaina

And blows me a kiss

Of patience in the face of pain

In vain do the men praise Karna

Who gritted hus teeth and bore 

The pain of an insect bite

As his preceptor slept on his bite

In vain do they praise him

For something

A mother does

Several times a day

And ask her how a night passes

With the baby's teeth and mouth

Glued to the softest, most delicate

Part of her body

Its nails curled around it protectively

Each ready to bite and cut and lash

As the mother

Supine

Tries this position and that

A back curved

An arm pressed

Hair pulled

Legs bent and squashed

All so that 

The baby doesn't wake

And if she is lucky

This happens

Only once a night

For two years

Until another baby

A wet walk

It is very recently

That I was introduced

To the pleasures of

Walking in the rain

If it can be called pleasure

Not the warm, sprinkly,

Romantic, Bollywood kind

But the grim, wet, cold kind

That leads you

Into yourself

I imagine going off

Under an umbrella

Getting slightly wet

Ruminating, imploding

Thoughts becoming

More and more dense

In the limitation, suffocation

Imposed by isolation

Wisps forming into threads

And threads weaving into braids

Or forming tapesteries

Showing me 

Strange new patterns

Unprecedented and unseen

Beautiful and unexpected 

Sights that would 

Never have appeared

Without that specific moment

And which will always

Stay with you 

The rarity of their discovery

Startling you evermore

And I think of

How late I discovered

All this

And how little time 

I have left now

To explore it

Just thirty years, maybe

So little, so little

It makes me brace up

And learn to treat

Every occasion

With the intensity

Deserving

Of its rarity 

Moulting

Sometimes,

I think of the things

I worried so much about

Clenching my teeth

Not sleeping

Getting myself in a royal funk

And wonder

Why I bothered

It's so light

Without the burdens

The eye

When the hurricane

That is regular life

Threatens to pull me

In a thousand different directions

I am trying to remind myself

That

The center of the hurricane

The eye around which

The storm revolves

At break-neck speed

Is perfectly still

It is difficult to remember

Every time

But

You must keep it together,

Woman

What is healing

But the acceptance

That you will always hurt

Everything

Is happening in your mind 

To see the world

Complacent in the inertia

Of your life

You take a step outside

Spend a day

In a completely alien environment

See life at a right angle to yours

Contemplate

Ruminate

Have epiphanies

The ripples of which

Last your lifetime

And even years later

When you look back

The day shines like a gem

In a string of mundane

Nondescript days

Still sloughing off

Meaning after meaning

And you realize

What it means

To step outside

Of your comfort zone

And start doing it more

Until

You spend

So many years

On the road

That that becomes your life

And you have nothing

To go back

No complacence

No such thing

As the regular

The average or the base

What is the balance?

Downhill

Everything looked well

And she had

All the comforts

She could have asked her

Only that her dreams

Were only of

Walking

Spiralling

Sliding

Falling

Luxury

The greatest luxury

Is a person

Who listens to you

Keeps tabs

And doesn't judge you

Day after day

Helps you join, 

Connect, pleat, weave,

Decipher, understand,

Denouement (as a verb)

The disparate threads

That make up your life

My freedom

Sometimes

Freedom might look like

Wearing shorts

- Not allowed in decent company -

In the bedroom

A drizzle

Today,

I let my daughter

Get wet in the drizzle

There was so much against it

That she might catch a cold

A viral fever

A pneumonia

Oh, in fact

That's all

When I was thinking of it

As a hundred-mouthed hydra

But yeah,

There is that much against it

And the dozen people

Who will simulate

A hundred-mouthed hydra

And what do we have FOR it

Except

A child confined indoor

For several days

A warm summer day despite the

Threat of a downpour 

A laugh, a skip

A sense of wonder

As the first, tiny,

Almost warm

Droplet

Hits her delicate skin

A discovery

That those roiling masses

Of dark nothings overhead

Can send moisture

Blessed little droplets of ambrosia

Hurtling down through the atmosphere

All the way up to your skin

So I let her

Dance a bit

Before she scurries

Back inside

Into the shade

Of the shop

A surprise, an awe

An intent concentration

As the sprinkle

Turns to a drizzle

I open the umbrella

And I haul her up on my hip

As we walk back homr

And she hears, 

Perhaps so close for the first time 

The pitter-patter of rain

As it hammers down 

On the umbrella

And sprays out in all directions

A sense of adventure

All the first experiences

Are adventures

No matter how mundane

They are to adults

So yes, a sense of adventure

As she reaches out

From under the umbrella

Catches a few droplets

On her outstretched palms

And exclaims

The rain! The water!

It reached me!

Yes, she got

The cuffs of her

(Monsoon-protection)

Light-but-full-sleeved top

Wet 

But then,

I listen to the words

Tumbling out in haste

Almost as if

They wouldn't make sense

If you don't know what to listen for

The rain! The water!

It reached me!

And I think,

That's a good deal

And

Just as well,

The Hundred-mouthed hydra

Does not read my blog!

The fear

Is not that

The marriage will be

Coerced

The fear is that

She will end up like her mother

Overloaded

Working double shift

Taken for granted

Unappreciated

Unloved

And yet

Forced to smile

Through it all

Love?

To want

Everything the best

For you

To do

Everything I can

To help you have it

And yet

To not

Want to be with you

Is that still love?

(Maybe Love is a superstition.

A prayer we say to keep 

The thought of loneliness at bay.

- shadow and bone)

Tree bark

The night

Just a reminder that

As long as I can hallucinate

While my eyes 

Scan from right to left

Moving from the top 

To the bottom

Of marked out tree bark

(Or the modern version of it)

I can stave off

The loneliness 

And what are you

Without your secret shame?

Where are the girls

There is a new pond 

In my.neighbourhood

Several, actually 

Something of a revival

A restoration

Of old springs that used to be

Dug up before they are

Buried by houses

That would have inevitably sprouted

If the place was left alone

As a bushy swamp

And now the ponds look beautiful

Surrounded by walls of

Traditional-looking

Orange bricks

Some carved stone spouts

And some beautiful structures

I take in all the beauty

All the serenity that comes with water

As I walk around the perimeter

Wishing there I was pond-view cafe

Where I could sit and work

And then I hear the splash

And see what's causing it

Boys

Six seven eight nine ten years old

Taking a dip

Into the green, algae filled water

Getting some coolness

On this parching hot day

Some take laps around the pool

Spme just fooling around

Some naked some partially

I enjoy their joy

Their happiness

Their facility of enjoying

Public structures

And I enjoy theur ability

To take off their clothes

And out it back on

In public, at leisure

I contemplate

On this happy moment

As I think

Is it allowed?

But of course, 

It belongs to them,

I think again

And then

The thought

Buzzing

At the back of my mind

Grows louder and louder

Until I can no longer ignore it

WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?

Pretend

Not to care

But at the back of your mind

Whirring

Buzzing 

Are dialogues

Responses

Come backs

To

Whatever you said

Doesn't matter 

Lightness

Also comes with

Throwing the baby

Out with the bathwater

Great not to care

About things

That drag you down

And drown you

But how do you retain

The care of

Things you do need to

Care about

Things that make you happy

And heal you

Shedding

How light it feels

To shed 

All the burdens

Of care

To simply not care

Lotus

Like a lotus flower

Is the Kathmandu valley

With a fertile, plain

Circle at its base

And hills surrounding it

Unfolding in layer after layer

Around it

Climb up one hill

Touch the sky

And come back down to 

The earth

Because no matter 

How high you climb

One day 

You have to get down

**

And so is life

No matter how far you go

How high you reach

Down you come tumbling

**

No wonder

Lotus

Is the flower of

Enlightenment 

Love

They did say that love

Was not about posession

That it was about sacrifice

About seeing the one you love

Happy

And yet,

Somehow,

That's not enough, is it?

I have become

Like every other person who loves

Selfish

It is not enough for me

That you are happy

But if I hear 

That you ran to the window

To see where I went

Or took my name

And missed me

When I was away

Now, that makes me happy

Et too cliche

स्वरूप

 कहिलेकाहिँ त लाग्छ

निरञ्जन निराकार भगवानलाई

के आवश्यकता छ,

रुपको, रंगको

वस्रको, श्रृंगारको

The futility

Of trying to find someone

Who listens

To the entirety of your story

God and music

Like the proverbial

Seventeenth horse

That has to be added

So that the inheritance

Can be divided into

Halves, thirds and sixths

And after which 

There still remains

The seventeenth horse

Which belongs to no one

So is god

When it comes to music

It has to be there

For all music to form

When there is no god

The music

In praise of love or

Nature or

Whatever else

Seems so very bland

Add god

And you have music

That speaks of

The deepest human feelings

Whether it is

Submission

Devotion

Awe

Love

Terror

Wonder

Creation

Destruction

Everything

The whole universe

And now remove

God from it all

And you still have

All the music

About the deepest of

Human feelings 

Wither

 I shore up no stories

To share when I see you

Why, why bother

You have burdens of your own

And no time

Or the inclinations

To listen to mine

I am determined to be content 

With the merely banal

Did you sleep well?

Is the weather too cold for you?

I say nothing

When you disappear

Into worlds of your own

Just at the moment

When I wish

For a kind word

Or a warm touch

Why bother

When you obviously

Do not want

What I want

Do not need

What I need

And my desires

Are simply a burden for you

And the burden

Is only going to make our evening

More and more cumbersome

I am merely silent

Because to say anything

Would be an explosion

 

I make no protest

As you ride roughshod

Over my carefully laid plans

Doing exactly what

I don't want to do

What is the point of protest

When I am going to lose, anyways?

I will do nothing

But display my own 

Status as a loser

But making the protest

So I let you 

Pretend to ask my opinion

And then go ahead 

And do 

Exactly what you want

But I still give you

All the courtesies

That are your due

And this is how

The soul withers

Like Bartika says,

Rukho banayekai chhu

Dherai dherai saal lagai

 

And now, there are two questions

If I am to share my soul

With nobody

Where will I express

Where will I be myself

Where will I let down my roots

Rest and replenish

Receive and be nourished?

Nowhere, I guess

 

If there is no space

For my wishes to be fulfilled

Where, then, will I be happy?

Nowhere, I guess

 

And what will I do with

All my stories?

All my wishes?

All my desires? 

I can store them up

Waiting for the right moment

Or, knowing that the right moment

Doesn't exist

I can pretend 

They don't exist

 

And yes, this is how

The soul withers

Becomes so thirsty

That even one drop

Of pure soul

Will be enough

To inebriate

Roots

 I want to set down my roots

Somewhere

In some place

In some person

I want

To dig deep

Take in the rich, 

loamy

nutrients

Feed and be fed

Nourish and be nourished

I want a space

To go deep within

Where I can escape

The cacophony of the world

To sleep, to lie

To hibernate, 

To gather strength

To contemplate

To muse

To be silent, and yet be at peace

 

Yes, I want to set down my roots

And you offer me

A flowerpot

A moment of stillness

I need not rush to finish the game

Because i accomplish nothing

By finishing

So all the strategies

That help me do everything fast

Are useless

If I go faster

I only end the game faster

Which I don't want to

So now I must learn

To relax

Just to be

To let the moment

Go on and on

To let the game linger

Lengthen

To take a deep breath

And stop thinking about

When it will end

Language

Maybe

It's too difficult

To write in your own language

Because then the feelings

Would be too stark

To confront

In other languages

You can hide

Behind wordplay