The Child Bride

The vermilion on her forehead

is the colour of

crayon that coloured rising ridges

of the canvas in the art class,

her puny fingers are

blotted blood red

in alta, soiled in the dirt of

henna, both inane in ignorance.

8th January

I did not hit the sack the night before that auspicious January afternoon when I was about to meet him. I counted a thousand sheep separating the black ones from the white and making them stand in separate lines, like it goes in school assembly, with a feeble hope of retiring to bed. I was worried about what I should wear and if it would be cheerlessly cold in Delhi when we meet. Those thoughts had hijacked my mind to rob me of sleep. The only hope was to spend the night staring at the yellow street lamp that always had an eye for my bedroom.

8th January was the date marked in my calendar for our rendezvous. A fortnight before, he informed without the subtle signs of euphoria that he would spend only half an hour with me, and then head to Gurgaon for his official meeting. I had to pick the broken pieces of my heart and nod in approval. I wanted him to stay longer   for us to converse. A four year old conversation was waiting to break free. Reconciling to his dictatorial declarations, I waited for the dawn to break.

While fiddling with the phone in the morning, I saw a message waiting for me in the message box of facebook!
It said that if I would reach by 2.30 pm I would get to sit with him for thirty minutes. I wonder if those words deserved to be replayed like an old noisy record. Arrrgh! I didn't know if this platonic complication should ever be called love in a future I had not seen.

I reached the International airport by 2.00 pm. The cab driver had a million questions for me, and his queries were fed with lies. I couldn't have narrated to him, my non-existent love story. After paying his fare, I hurriedly boarded the escalator. Since I couldn't show the security authorities my photo identity card, my entry into the visitor's lounge got barred. Until I rigged into my bag and saw my folder of certificates, which saved my face in that moment of disaster.  I went to the washroom to check myself out in the mirror for the faintest of fine lines and waves in my tresses had to be fixed. Later, I walked up to lounge and seated myself on one of the white seats fixed to the floor. Those butterflies in my stomach were multiplying from tens to thousands, while I kept dillydallying around the lounge. I still kept checking myself out on the masonry laid under my feet, and alternatively went to read the destination board. Then I paced to the large door out of which passengers could be seen going in and out, trying to make sure that he had not arrived yet. Meanwhile to do away with my fragile fears, I was reading prayers from my phone's folder.

While awaiting his arrival, I saw a lot of tormented souls harrying to see a glimpse of the people they had come to receive, some even exposing placards with names written on them. Meanwhile, a man came out dressed in a brown sweater and cap and shoes that were as old as him. Oh no! It couldn't have been him! Such a dumb looking fellow, even though he looked a lot like him, and if not for the guy going away in the other direction which proved to be a blessing, I would have surely gone up to him to greet him with a colgate smile. The other night I had used an abundant amount of toothpaste and mouthwash to get sparkling white teeth. A smile was the only jewel I was wearing for this date. Yellow gold will be hated to its last bit of existence and junk jewellery wouldn't have complimented the black cardigan I was donning.

He arrived a little later, looking sagged and sleepy and complaining about a fellow passenger who didn't let him slip into his afternoon siesta. He was as tall as me and my heart bled, for I liked tall guys and  I had expected him to stand taller than me. I shied like a newly wedded bride and he wasn't looking at me either, nullified by nervousness. How would two skeptical souls stammering in speech ever write a love story? I wondered!

2.25 AM, Monday, 10th February 2013

The engine of a car

nauseates to

swallow the hoot of a horning truck

a gatekeeper drugged by sleep

watches over a dozen cars

parked in porches

numbered from 517 to 625

whistling to thump

the bamboo cane

as tall as him,

snores ascend and descend

like the notes of music

designed to disturb

the hushed whispers

of a twenty something

lost in a midnight chit-chat

oblivious of the ears

the room has grown

since it mistress learned to

memorize tales about women

who burn bras and break homes.

Of Virtual And Real Identities

Facebook has lately become like a lice,  that crawls over the head. It itches, scratches the skin on the surface of a world we carry inside us. Status updates are confessions we make to a hundred or more mediators. The more, the merrier. Depression is a catapult that is set free as the burden we carry through such a communion of secrets escaped into the blue. The syllables are a war of words when it gets typed into the box that asks me with a pause “What’s happening Rinzu?”

It is a bourgeois concept to fill that empty space every day when I log into my facebook account but often I’ve felt that rants and especially those against the destructive demurrals of the society make a way into that white space often. And many times it talks of the boredom I encounter, but not for long. Once the wall appears in front of me I am treated to a Pandora’s box that I feel opened the world’s woes in front of me.

Petrichor

The leaves rustle

clapping in joy

like the school children

in blue, hopping back home.

The air is cool,carelessly pinching

my skin not covered by

a claustrophobic cardigan

life moves on

as I see buses and cars

disappearing with the wink of an eye.

Newspaper

Tissue thin tilling of tidings

bought for a few rupees
stories travel against the speed of light
reaching to us

with the morning tea

burning our tongues,

anger stirred with a steel spoon

dissects the people who have been named
after tales, most sewn with a tailor's precision.

We become messengers
when we point our fingers

for the culprits sparing

the victim's vowels
most being women
who have burnt like candles
to keep the flame alive.

After a few days

it palls the carcass

of a baby diaper or sanitary pad

disposing it into the corner dustbin

one that reposes

in the backyard of the house
or is carried away
as a dead body
awaiting cremation.

First published in the Copperfield Review here.

It Could Have Been Me Or You

Yes it could have been me when I think of that fateful day on a dithery December morning in my second year of graduation.

Back then the blue line buses plied on Delhi's roads and they were known to be notoriously accidental. Even then many of us had no viable options at our disposal and we took such buses to go to college. In the cold winter days, dad was my messiah for the lifts he gave me to the bus stop saved my day and energy.