Remember me in parts

I have a constant picture stuck in my head. It's of you, but just your face and a blue dupatta matching your white kurta. I might have picked that up from one of your pictures. And I find ancient architecture in the background. The pale yellow walls of a fort, with dilapidated paint and scrapings peeling out of them. I see the Sun in the background, its rays shining against one-half of your face, thereby darkening the other half.

You look towards the sky and smile. You don't look at me. I'm not sure whether you know that I'm there. You smile, I look at you, and I smile back. Of all the places and forts that you have been to, I remember this picture vividly. Maybe because you took me along with you. It's not just me who takes you to places, you do that too.

So you can wander all you want, to all the places you wish to, I'll always be there smiling at you. I get this dream repeatedly, even when I'm wide awake. Someday it will turn into reality. It might not be in the way I've always expected it to be, but someday I'll live to live this dream.

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You wake me up from the slumber. I look at you and recall that you'd slept with your bra unhooked. Your breasts would have felt free. I was looking for the signs of guilt on your face in the morning. But there were none.

I'd asked you the previous night whether you'd go home or not. To which, you'd replied that you have no home. I wanted to kiss you right there when you said that, but more than that, I wanted to take you home. You got up in the morning, left the bed, stood up facing me, and hooked it back under your kurta. A small piece of your belly, perhaps that spot where my lips had made you moan the loudest, was visible for a few seconds. It reminded me of the few seconds that I had with you. Few seconds, out of the whole dark night.

You washed up and sat against the mirror, I appeared with a bottle of water and placed my lips on your left cheek, despite having the fear that you'd push me away. For the night was over. For it was way beyond 9 AM. But you didn't. It was then, that I felt I had loaned you a home, albeit only for a night.

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You ask me to remember you in parts. A whole is the sum of its parts. You are my whole and my parts. Yes, I can only remember you in parts.

The part where the lip gloss barely hid the chapping lips. The part where the scars on your face overshadowed the moles I'd drooled over. The part where your rebirth looked more beautiful than your scarred body. Also, the part where I fell in love with all these parts more than I'd ever loved the whole of you.

But, it wasn't enough to make you feel what he had made you feel on that night. I realized that there was still a part missing. A part I can neither seek nor produce. That can only be given to me by you. A part of you.

Picture courtesy: Berlin ArtParasites

I lost my heart in Connaught Place

I lost my heart in Connaught Place
It lost itself in the din
It swirled around through my broody face
And got hungover at N-81.

At every nook, at every alley,
It saw a silhouette recede,
It fluttered over helter-skelter,
Only to confirm its imagery.

The pillars- all white
The roads- all dark
The skies spilled Goldust
And the silhouette was lost.

It looked beyond the faces,
It looked beyond the walls
It looked inside the coffee shop
But the silhouette was lost.

It searched the subway
Hoards of souls
Looked for the taller ones
But found it no more.

The onlookers gazed
With contempt and dismay
My poor heart though resembled the dog
Who just refused to sway.

Long strands of hair were everywhere
But the smell was not to be found
The nectar it had drunk first
In the summer of 2009.

Strands gave way to scarfs
Purple ones with white stars
Necks were scanned, so were backs
But none as colossal were found.

Moles on the faces were plenty
Twins though were scanty
Hardly did it ever miss
Didn't find the ones it'd longed to kiss.

My heart was frantic
Tired and erratic
For it had swept the circus
Through summers and winters.

Through autumns and springs
Through souls- living and dead
Through concrete- erect and broken
Through local markets
Through confectionery stalls

Through the earth and the heavens
It searched and searched
To have glimpse of the hurricane
It had seen before it breathed last.

On a fidgety winter morning
My heart was like a phoenix
It burnt itself through the day
But didn't rise ever since.

Its ghost runs through the realms
Hidden behind my broody face
It was a cold November evening
When I lost my heart in Connaught Place.

Photo courtesy- shades-n-hues

The Quiet Man

I want to be the quiet man
The quiet man,
Behind the extraordinary lady that you are
I want to be that quiet man.

I want to lay back and watch
As you wreck havoc
By the mere stroke of your pen
Or a blazing thought.
Through which you wreck havoc,
The much needed one,
To break the monotiny
To give us something to feed on.

And as you get tired,
And need someone to fall back on,
I want to be there to hold on,
Silently watching,
Like the quietness of the dawn.
I want to be that quiet man.

You and I,
We're so different,
You're a raging hurricane,
Ready to take the world on,
And I'm a pensive observer,
Trying to decipher the world,
Sitting in a lawn.

But there is a lull before every storm,
During which it gathers strength,
I want to be that lull,
I want to be that quiet man.

You'd go to places,
For travelling fills your soul,
Enriches your eyes,
Mystifies your soul.
I want to follow you- quietly,
Without a word,
And watch you utter magic,
Through your eyes
And when they look for another pair- to share
I want to be there.
I want to be that quiet man.

You have seen paradise
And you have seen ghosts
Of your past and present
That you silently bore
But every once in a while
When tides recede from the shore
And they tend to take you away
I want to firmly hold your hand
I want to be that quiet man.

You'd climb ladders
You'd move mountains
You'd steal the limelight
All by yourself.
But every once in a while
When you wish to disappear,
And hibernate
I want to be the blanket you wear
I want to be that quiet man.

When you finally reach the pinnacle
The summit, the vantage point
When the voyage you're borne for concludes,
I want to stand amongst the onlookers
And quietly revel the moment,
I want to be the common man
I want to be that quiet man.

I want to tell your tale to the world
Of your unfathomable beauty
Of your unquenchable desire
Of your unending pain
I want to pen them down, and show to the world,
That you're indeed a hurricane.
That colossal back, that strand of hair,
The mole on your cheek and the one beneath your chin,
I want to kiss you there
And everywhere else akin;
And take you home for this life.

They would know you, but not me
For they know the person and not the shadow,
I want to live within your shadows
I just want to be the quiet man.