At the centre of this town
Is a building of windows
Everyone is a thief in
Their own house
They spread embroidered carpets of
Oil outside every escape
They step out to fall on head
And make each trip new

At the centre of my eye
Is your faraway face
You are a thief in
Your own house
Wherever I go I drink black gold
It spreads outside my eyes
You slip out in toe dance
To fall in the pit of my neck

अंधेरे में

सरला का समय जो चूला जलाने और चूला जलाने के लिए माचिस उठाने के बीच में धकेला हुआ था अप्रिय उल्टी व्याख्यान करते हुए स्व-मनोविश्लेषण का, जो खुद ही में था इतना गहरा और भारी कि उसने दूसरे कमरे की घड़ी को एक लंबा भाषण दे दिया, सरला के चूला जलाने के लिए माचिस उठाने से भी पहले।

भाषण का विषय था - क्या दुनिया दिमाग में हमेशा से भिनभिनाता हुआ मच्छर है या फिर वो साँप जो चुपचाप कोने से गुज़रकर कान में हल्की, खुजली वाली हिस्स छोड़ जाता है? घड़ी का मानना था कि दुनिया साँप है 'क्योंकि दुनिया चलती है, साँप चलता है, मैं भी चलती हूँ'। पर फिर घड़ी गलत साबित हुई क्योंकि कभी-कभी दुनिया को सारा समय बटोरकर आँखों के बीच नाक की हड्डी पर लेट जाना पसंद है। फिर वह एक ही बार में अपना भयंकर रूप दिखाकर आगे बढ़ने से मना कर देती। इसलिए, सरला के मनोविश्लेषण ने और कहा, कमरे में बंद रहने से ही चीज़ों की समझ नहीं आ जाती।

सरला इस बातचीत की ओर ध्यान ज़रा कम दे पायी। वो तो छत पर लेटकर अपनी छाती पे गिरती हुई सारी लाशों का वज़न तोलने में लगी थी। जिन्हें लंबी खुरदरी मालाएँ पहनाकर ज़मीन के थोड़ा ऊपर आसमान से लटकने को छोड़ दिया जाता है, वे सब हर रात सरला की ही छाती पर गिरकर पहाड़ बनाते हैं। फिर जब आज का पहाड़ पूरी तरह से जम गया और इसका तकरीबन वज़न भी लिख लिया गया, तब सिर्फ शरीर के बालों से गुज़रती हवा के आराम से ही सरला सो गई, अपने चूला जलाने के लिए माचिस उठाने के लिए उठने से भी पहले।

Passing through a Narrow Night

On a smooth metal rod

Two monks stitch

Each other's sleeves together

And sway their robes

Hanging tall along with curtains

So they can watch how

Every needle pulls all jasmine

Nectar out from gardens of flesh

Resting on each bed

Megaphone: Night is narrow, ladies

Please squeeze yourself out

Square 1

A six-month-old cries

Herself to sleep

A needle sucks jasmines from

This tiny garden

For combat her mother passes

A very silent weapon of smiles

Into her dreams

Square 2

A needle gets ready to

Start tonight's sucking

Lady: Ah Ammi, it pains!

She rolls her eyeballs

Man (whispering): Your Ammi cannot hear you

Lady: I will beat you

With my chappal. I will kill you,

You dog

They both chuckle

Square 3

A lady feeds her newborn

From her breast,

From her arm

She feeds a needle

Square 4

Yesterday she saluted the air

For being there always

And killed herself

Tonight she pulls air,

Lets a needle pull out her sap

Square 5

The needle here is now stout

And rigorous. A squirrel hops

Over this yellow garden

Settles on her stomach

Shakes her arms

Wakes her up and asks:

Are you sleeping?

Letter to a Dead Poet

Dear Pessoa,

I think you are fine with my settlement on this name. After receiving the right mosquito bite on my left leg I decided to write you this letter. I felt it as a sign to let you know that your poetry has never come across new to me, not even the very first poem I read. It was there always, as far as I can think of the days I started knitting an endless muffler of some twisted memory of myself. It was there when a raindrop on forehead felt like a giant watermelon; when occurrences passing by became so still that I could feel the earth revolving. It is still there when little kids start knowing that all events are just lonely leaves getting blown from one place to another in any pattern.

Anyway, nothing is new. So may be it is alright to live countless myths. It is alright to let a hundred streetlamps pour red wine at night on women and men who suck tender mahua from each others breasts. To crush almonds of eyes into an early morning paste as offering to gods who hang from beards of the priests. Gods who just want to wipe off their sweat.

If days and nights don't work then one can let talkative inner sparrows deliver lectures on silence to clocks. Or one can lean on a wall and create music in smoke. Once in the neighbourhood there was a gang of cows who sat in a corner of land only to watch the shape their pond took when tiny clones of the sun fell on it. Then we ate them or peeled off our eyelids or they went to a new pond. I don't remember exactly what happened but we did eat up each other.

May be it is fine to make and bury corpses breathing in a subtle rhythm. May be not. Either way I wanted to ask you if you could deposit some money in my account. My pockets have eloped from my pant again.

Take care.

Love.

बस एक और सवाल

क्या तुम्हारे पास
कोइ कागज़ है
जिसपर मैं ऐसा चाँद बना सकूं
जो डूबते हुए सूरज से चिपककर
ज़मीन को
उल्टा करके देखने पर
उगते हुए सूरज की भान्ति लगे
और जिसे मैं मोड़कर
तुम्हारी ही जेब में रख दू
और फिर रात को तुम
उसकी सिलवटों पर इस्तरी कर के
उसे अपने बरामदे में रख सको
ताकि तुम्हारे कपड़े सूख जाए?

Counting Time through Speedposts Never Sent but Whispered to the Tubelight

Do I contain 
in a litre of your thought
when you take the stairs
and jolt down
to reach the lane?

Glass burning in the furnace
holes in bras and underwears 
which fly or dry in the wind
could they tune me?

Could the child sleep-talking downstairs
push me to vacuum under the bed
to cooked kitchens
and secret burrows?

And could owls and bats arguing
about who is more sleepless,
alive bodies already living
posthumously
deflect me
and fill me into you
just like the way you sense your dry skin
or the folds of your sleeves?