if you’re not famous by then

aren’t you too old at 33

to still be writing poetry?

strangers’ smiles

you smiled back for a sec at me

just the moment our eyes met

and now on you go on your way and

will in another moment forget

for what’s there to remember and fret

about in a strange stranger’s smile?

and leaning my rucksack against the wall awhile

i’ll stand here when you have left

drawing what small consolation there may be

from my burning cigarette

how fallibly human

how fallibly human

i lived and laughed

and travelled and sketched

and loved and lost

and then from time to time

i renounced it all

and came a-wandering after you

and then all i lacked

were the saffron wraps

and i could’ve passed

as a mendicant

but time and again

away i was sent

you turned me away

and so off i went

and i lived and laughed

and travelled and sketched

and loved and lost

until the longing

brought me back

and then all i lacked

were the saffron wraps

and i could’ve passed

as a mendicant

oh how i’m smitten

how insanely in love am i

i cannot live and i cannot die

oh how i’m smitten

how i’m insanely in love

i cannot win and i cannot give up

so i just live and laugh

and travel and sketch

and love and lose

like a happy wretch

for what else is there

in this life to do

until i die

longing for you

monsoon night, pabhoi

i walk quietly through

blocks of moonlight

sliced by the shadows

of the coconut fronds

all is still except

the crickets that chirp

and the fireflies that blink

over the fish ponds

a cycle goes by

still one handed

having replaced

the umbrella for a torch

highway lodge, shillong

through the open window i saw a butterfly flutter by

high above the noise of the traffic in the street

and i blew blue smoke into my rectangle of orange light

in which i was warming my cold smelly feet

driving through guwahati

and as we left the city again

the fog seemed to lift away

to a hazy peach morning

but i really couldn’t say

if it was because of

the coming of day

or if we had in fact

left behind the smog

i see you and i want to stay

but i’m not sure if it’s you

or if i’m just tired today

of my wanderings

lonely and long

a wanderer coming to terms

yes, i did once seek paradise

now, i’m not so sure

it’s become an addiction now, a disease, this longing

this restlessness that has no cure

yes, i set forth to seek love once

now, i trudge along without a hope or a care

just to understand, as i wander from place to place

why it can’t possibly be here, or there, or there

overheard at the restaurant

i can’t die

not yet

there are too many women who must be told

that i love them

walking down a dusty road

if there was just one person

just one person alive

one, who thought me beautiful

thought me beautiful all the time

beautiful as i sit washing clothes

in this pathetic shit hole

that passes for a bathroom or

beautiful as i walk down this dusty road

would it make life worth living?

give me something to live for?

i think you’re beautiful

i think you’re beautiful all the time

it’s what gives me a reason to live

and i think i’m alive

true that

- of countries and ideas and us

that surge of excitement at

the slow realization that

the idea - sans imagination - that

the present boundaries

that have stood  - if they do now stand -

for no more than a hundred years are really

more acceptable than the boundaries that existed

for six hundred years before that

is stupid, is just as silly

being civilized

i’ll say it like you want to hear it

and i’ll risk it sounding too corny

“oh! i want you so badly my dear…”

but the truth is i’m just really horny

new beginnings

(overheard in the shuttle the other day)

sure, we don’t look the roles

i know we don’t fit the moulds

u don’t look like a dad and i don’t look like a mum

u still wear slippers and shorts to the department

and i’m often mistaken for a college student

but so what?

we know what’s what and

we’re capable of love

parallel universes

edging my way along the pavement

crowded with strange people tackily dressed

i dodge smoke blown in my face

and paan spat at my feet with a certain grace

and yet my elbow still hurts

from where i bruised it against the rocks

while swimming in the clear pools

in my forested escape

what if?

what if i was to fall in love with you?

what if as i write this, i am in love with you? and

what if i was to never confess it to you?

what if you went on living and found love

found love and lived a lifetime, content

and some distant faraway day, somehow

discovered quite by accident

that this was written for you, now

would it alter anything at all?

what if i then told you

- in my wretchedness, having become cruel -

that i was just waiting for you?

that all that while i’d just been waiting for you

for you to take one step

to say but one word?

just a gesture

however small?

would it alter

anything at all?

cheap thrills

and when i’ve held the torch in my mouth and read

long enough, coz i lost the headlamp lately

my lips hurt, but it’s a pleasant tingling hurt that lingers

like i’ve been kissing long and passionately