So, yo man! what’s your story?

I am growing
Dysfunctional-
Growing, in life, reducing in age,
Unresponsive,
While a million shooting stars shout-
‘So, yo man!, what’s your story?’
With hints of their own answers
‘I was less than a child- or less than a man’
To be, first finishing a journey,
Then departing.
Psychedelic orange parkas in the heat of Delhi,
And electric green sweaters in Mumbai-
Disguises presented to the world,
The [...]

unaccustomed earths

He is not really living his own life. He has just woken up in someone else’s nightmare. And he has been stuck there for the past twenty seven years.
He is not himself these days. He does not jog anymore, and two days of sickness have taken their toll. High fever and hour after hour sleeping [...]

leaving XL

I graduated from XL in the middle of a recession. Didn’t get a job in FMCG, got a job that didn’t pay me a million rupees a year, did not get a cushy trainee stint with end of the year bonuses just for completing the stint to start with, and worst of all, didn’t get [...]

checklist

this is a strange feeling. three beers and a reasonable level of alcohol in my bloodstream and india winning that match, and somehow life seemed to be like a white feather floating on whisper-soft winds with sails of laughter and colours of joy, when suddenly unbidden this thought comes into the mind- there might not [...]

stories-redux

Every minute spent with you is another page in a story which will not be written. Because all the stories worth telling are already done, and there are no new tales.
You want to be simple. Normal. And you are more complex than a system of Chinese boxes. There is always something new. Like your admission [...]

pre travel weekend

1. drink three beers on friday night.
2. read till 2 am in the morning.
3. wake up at 11am on saturday.
4. ask the bai to cook chicken and rice.
5. order two beers.
6. watch a movie on laptop, forget to eat lunch till 5pm.
7. order another two beers. read a book till twelve.
8. remember to eat leftover [...]

invictus (or the box of painkillers)

Let us look at the world, not through it. That’s a pretty big proposition to put at the start of a conversation.
Why are people lonely? Or maybe what is loneliness? Is there an absolute like loneliness? Is it not more of the togetherness of others? Just like there is no dark, there is only the [...]

funny tales

Watching Casablanca again and again is just a way to torture myself.
Does anyone cry when seeing a movie?
Why is ‘as time goes by’ so important? No one ever left me waiting at a railway station?
Why do I always wonder why there is no man in your life?
If she can take it, I can.
What is my [...]

random conversations

Context: I am taking SS out for dinner, and on the street corner, she has made me haggle with the flower-wallah for 15 minutes to get one single flower I don’t even know the name of. Later, we are in an auto-rickshaw.
SS: You know, in many ways you are an asshole, but the girl who [...]

death

Out of the blue calls are like sparks that brighten you day for a second before fading. Depression is permanent; a black, almost heavy mist which snuffs all bright sparks like a sea of tar in which everything sinks.
‘To die, to sleep;’ is so much more than just a phrase at so many times. Death [...]