deodorant in nervous armpits
clutch in hopeful handshakes
smiles in an extra bend
and just wishful beliefs

kisses in empty air
jingle in lifeless dresses
eyes in furtive vigilance
and just ugly laughs

soap in deceptive hands
tears in lying bottles
truth in blindfolded hiding
and just lucky money

life in uncertain roles
slippers in cozy shelves
death in lonely apartments
and disappointed fame


showbiz.

twinkle little stars

 "Do you love stars?", she asked her father. She would talk to him about the stars, and change the topic when he said he loved them too. She didn't think that an adequate answer, because she never said she loved them. She rather loved the distances between them. To her, it was the distances between them that made them so filling. Mesmerising, you could say. And the much reputed twinkle that they held? No she never thought that was any exciting.

"Do you love stars?", he would ask his daughter. Because he knew she did, and was only trying to make good father-daughter conversation. He thought her eyes twinkled when she asks him the same question. He tried to see the stars in them, imagined her to be mesmerised by them. And said, "Yeah, I love them too". Because he wanted her to keep her love for them, and the twinkle, even though he never could see what the said beauty was about. He must be old and wrinkled, he thought. And her daughter gifted and special, to see what he couldn't, and so he would add sometimes, "Aren't they beautiful honey? Look at them twinkle!"

tears in deep cracks
cracks in brittle skin
skin on a crumpled hand
hands in immobility

blood in generous potholes
potholes on ugly streets
streets in a shrieking cry
cries in the distance

electricity in broken wires
wires in the greedy ground
ground in a pimpled swell
swells in bubbling bursts

poison in viscous oceans
oceans on inadequate continents
continents in a finishing race
races in a hurry

kutte ne paali bhains, diya doodh bhains ne roz
kutte ne paali bhains, diya doodh bhains ne roz
kamal ki baat hai