#101

Each soul has

A mystery to veil

And every heart

A secret to hide

Is it any wonder

That we feel

This void inside

Far too dense

Are mortal eyes

To penetrate through

Our thick disguise

Each sweet smile

Shields a lie

And every breath

Masks a sigh

We feel empty

that is why

#234

I need to unlearn

The breathing out and in

And in between intercept

My heartbeat to begin

I need to freeze the flow of blood

To enfranchise my brain

Melt my mass to liquid

And flush it down the drain

#222

With my outstretched hands

I roam through the lands

I have thorns in my feet

Ain’t got much to eat

I have dirt on my face

No home or home-like place

I got no friends, no kin

Yet I feel glad within

For I am free, free and alive

Eventhough I got nothing

I still have this life

And look! It’s so full of beauty

And so full of colour

It’s all I think I’ll need

To get through forever

#220

Here and now

We meet again

We’ll meet yet again

Just like we do now

Maybe it’s fate

Or a cruel practical joke

But surely we will

And just like now

Unlike before

I won’t feel a thing

For you no longer are you

And I am no longer me.

#219

I don’t know what’s on your mind

What that smile hides behind

If I could read into your silence

I am not sure what I would find

I can never tell when you sigh

Can’t ever guess the reason why

When you say these things to me

I wonder if you lie

But looking into your eyes when we kiss

I see mine reflected in them, in them I find bliss

What we have probably ain’t love

But love must be something akin to this

#216

The sun is up

It’s the same old day

Two same feet

The same old way

A mellow tune

A worn out song

With all my demons

I walk along

Seems I’ve waited all I could

Keep on walking it seems I should

#174

You kept on knocking, knocking

Knocking at my door

I kept on granting, granting

Until I could no more

Like many others before you

You filled your cup and left

Never once it crossed your mind

You were leaving me bereft

I kept on knocking, knocking

Hands outstretched at your door

Knocking until I was reduced

To a bloodstain on the floor

When everything is over

When we no longer come to be

You’ll explain to heaven

While heaven will to me.

#173

There exists within me

An ancient grave somewhere

Although I cannot see it

I know it’s lying there

I can’t break free, it holds me in

Like some twisted devil’s snare

It seems I know only too well

The name it seems to bear

#172

You think you know me well

Well you only do almost

No, it’s not your fault at all

I kept my windows closed

You know my words not my silence

You know my heart not my mind

It’s all of my partaking

I couldn’t make myself unwind

You think you have seen me well

Well a lot you haven’t seen

You’re a friend to someone you know

I am sorry but he’s not me

#169 RELIGION

We’re scared dwarfed and awed by it

We look for reasons, meanings and hope in it

We fight, we kill, we die for it

What is it, that we find???

A blind all-consuming faith

A confirmation of our condemnation

A recognition of our incompleteness

What do we see????

A looming loss

A doom deferred

A never-ending road without signs without purpose

What do we get?????

A choice

Nothing more and nothing less

Nothing but a choice

A choice between rotting in the sod

And burning to ashes.

#164

Staring out the window

I feel one open in

I sense the melancholy

Hear silence creep within

I feel a certain craving

I know I have had before

And everytime I face it

It leaves me weak and sore

I feel a constant yearning

I bear a seasoned ache

I keep on longing, longing

It seems for pity’s sake

You too have some wistfulness

You know you have felt it but

You hide it, try to fight it

And keep the windows shut

#97

My brain’s many folds

Hide the things it holds

The testing truths, the lovely lies

The ifs and buts, the hows and whys

Tears and fears and broken dreams

And emptiness bursting from the seams

Here and there a happy patch

Where the thoughts of freedom hatch

Now and then your memories pass

I fail to make them stop.Alas!

It seems my brain is leaking blood

And I am drowning in the flood

#132

In this moment,

This tiny fragment of time

The universe has moved

And with it has your life

For you have lived it

And lost it forever

In this moment

This thin slice of time

Your destiny has been written

For in it you have

Buried your past

And fathered your future

This moment

This pathetic little piece of time

Is as eternal as fragile it is

It is where you exist

And everything else there is

This moment-it is holy, it is divine.

#41

This ain’t the day

When I cease to be

Seems far too ordinary

My last day on earth to be

So much beauty

I still have to see

So much of mmyself

I still have to be

Million thoughts unknown

Yet to cross my mind

There’s far too much here

To leave it all behind

I have no dreams no plans

I just let myself be

And you’ll be informed

When I cease to be

#39

Last night she died-alone

With just memories for company

Her final fareell

Her parting wish

Were lost forever

Her last confession

Be heard again never

No one did witness

The end of her time

To see her absolve

Into the divine

Her last moments on earth

Came and went by

She left for her journey

Without a goodbye

#113 TIME

In silence it lies dissolved

Waiting just to be absolved

Sometimes it seems to freeze

Like a viscous winter breeze

So used to its motion

We forget the notion

It still stops like before

We just don’t notice anymore

I heart YOGA (purely for its entertainment value) PART 2

As I was putting off my shoes outside the hall, I noticed a group of girls go in, one of whom could be described in the AIIMS-lingo as ‘garam’. I suddenly thought to myself, maybe coming to this place wasn’t such a bad idea afterall. Maybe after so many years of anal-probing destiny was finally making upto me. But you all have to know one thing about destiny-it’s a bitch! yep it’s a nefarious she-canine which loves nothing more than to bend you over the fence and screw you over again and again . As you must have guessed it already, the hall was divided into two halves by a screen through which even the most lecherous eyes couldn’t peer. And all I could see this side of the screen in my vicinage were septuagenarians, morbidly obese dudes, balding veterans with gyanecomastia, and what could only be described as humanoid grizzlies (who had sauntered into the hall after having a roll in the night soil).I mentally rebuked myself for acting like a prude, but no sooner had the yoga begun that I wished I hadn’t.

First of all the instructor--(who must be 50+ but looked half that age and boasted about the tone of his external anal sphincter as a matter of factly, like he was telling you about Sachin Tendulkar’s batting skills, I kid you not, this guy seriously started yelling about his bowels and nether regions to a class of more than 70 which included women)--asked us to sit on our mats and start the pranayama. What followed was a practical demonstration of how upper respiratory tract infections get transmitted. People were coughing up purulent sputum in copious amounts ,but all hell broke loose when the instructor asked everyone to increase the frequency, people started dripping snot from their nostrils like they were trying to water their gardens with a hose. Meanwhile I, who had overdosed on the infectious diseases chapter from my Robbins and Cotran’s pathology textbook was testing my breath holding capacity so as to avoid providing my respiratory tract as a petri-dish to the microbial carnival going on in the surrounding air. Within no time the increase in the ambient moisture content was palpable. One guy actually created the world record for the farthest flight of phlegm from a human throat and another almost usurped the snail’s position in the kingdom animalia in terms of mucilage production.

After a lot many more variations in the acts of inspiration & expiration, the instructor asked us to lie down on our backs and repeat the entire routine which was repeated time and again in different positions(now if only you expand the instructions and replace breathing in and out with pelvic gyrations and try it with a female partner,u really don’t need vatsasayana’s magnum opus). Half an hour (and multiple ghon’s foci--for all the non-medical personnel its a kind of lung lesions seen in T.B) later, we were done with the breathing exercises. Next he made us lie flat on our backs and fold our knees and press them into our bellies. Major mistake because his next words were drowned out by the explosive sounds that filled the room as the wind trapped inside people’s bowels for weeks suddenly found itself forced out through their aboral apertures and exclaimed loudly with mirth at its newfound freedom. Next we were told to raise our legs straight high up in the air and try keep as much of our midriff airborne simultaneously, now it sounds easy but just like everything else it is much harder once you get down to doing it in real life. But sadly the few who managed to accomplish the feat were in for a disappointment because the many, whom gravity wasnt too kind on, crashed their legs into the others’ in their ill-fated attempts to master the asana(whose name is escaping me at the moment which is pretty understandable given the fact that most asanas have larger than octasyllablic names).even as everyone was nursing their newly-acquired wounds the instructor who seemed oblivious to the surrounding pandemonium moved on to the next asana. He asked everyone to lie flat on their bellies and raise their torsos and legs off the ground at the same time(an act i believe is possible only if you wave a magic wand and say Wingardium Leviosa---harry potter fan anyone????).Now by this time I had resigned myself to blindly following whatever I was told to do.Again major mistake, because no sooner had I lifted my torso off the ground, I found my visual field completely obliterated by the 40 feet wide perineum of this fat dude in front of me. Acting on a reflex I immediately bowed my head down and the veteran to my right immediately blurted out “Beta you are not doing it right,you have to look up”, thankfully I chose insubordination over suicide. Over the course of next 45 minutes which seemed longer than a weeklong stay at Auschwitz.We were made to test the resilience of our joints in ways which no human being ought to. Thankfully the number of people present started dwindling on account of things like muscle cramps, sharting(u know when shit comes out along with a fart),seizures and angina.

Mercifully the class came to an end eventually.I am in no way undermining the benefits of yoga but after my ordeal I have reached the conclusion that it just ain’t my cup of tea. In order to keep healthy I prefer the good old AIIMS way –Always keep a bottle of Listerine, an Industrial strength disinfectant and enough Augmentin ready.

Well now that you guys know the truth,you can make an informed decision whether or not you wanna join the yoga bandwagon.As for me I am just keeping my fingers crossed in case my dad gets another one of his ‘wonderful ideas’.

I heart YOGA (more for its entertainment value than anything else)---part 1

Disclaimer : No, I am not being paid by Baba Ramdev for writin' this.I wish I were though :)

These winter holidays I decided to do something different and came home for the year end break.No sooner had I entered my apartment complex that i got this sinking feeling like I was gonna regret this decision big time.Dont get me wrong I love my folks to death but there ain't no point visitin' 'em coz they ain't around for the better part of the day.Mum & Dad are out for work early mornin' before the the rooster can finish its poultry-orgy dream or can do something about its morning wood.And for reasons best known to themselves my sibling's school administration arranges their exams while the rest of the world is on a sabbatical.Since I haven't been home for much of the past 3 years during which my parents had moved to a new apartment complex which curiously gave me deja vu because it looks exactly like the last one,--(really when Indian Govt hires civil engineers competence and innovativeness are never the things they look for,instead they focus more on who the candidate's uncle is or how fat his/her wallet is)--except its in a differnt part of the city and i dont know anybody around here.So the onus of keeping me occupied again fell back onto the 3 things i consider above food,clothing and shelter which are books,tv and internet/phone.Now keeping in tandem with my absolutely fabulous luck,it turned out that my Dad had decided not to renew the cable subscription because of my sister's board exams(which a certain Mr.Sibal was working overtime to obviate,thats a whole different article altogether so we'll put that on the backburner for now), plus I had read and reread the 100 odd novels that i owned.To top it all, in his quest of becoming the next biggest online gamer,my 11 year old brother had ensured that our phonebill skyrocketed through the roof and nearly gave my dad torsades-de-pointes which made him find an alternative use for the data cable.(hint: my mum got herself a new clothing line).This is the kind of pickle i found myself in at the start of the holidays.

One evening my dad came back from the office looking chirpier than usual and announced in the living room to noone in particular,"I have got a wonderful idea"Now for any normal family that last comment would seem perfectly harmless but then again we are no normal family,we are after all 'The Sharmas at no 21'.No sooner had he said it that my mum rolled her eyes so far back that her eyeballs knocked against her cerebellar lobes and i caught my sister and younger brother exchange a look which said "here we go again!!!"As i mentioned before i hadnt been home for a long time so i was a little slow in coming out with my excuse with the result that by the time i opened my mouth to speak,my mum,sis and brother were alredy done with their excuses and i found myself staring back at my dads glare,which ominously conveyed"how are you gonna get out of this one now????".During the course of next 10 minutes i was told to wake up at an unmentionably early hour the next morning for going to a yoga class and how my generation was the laziest bunch of slumbering sloths which needed to discover the healing powers of yoga(seriously i was almost convinced he was working for Baba Ramdev).

Next morning(how can you call it morning when you cant even see the bloody sun???!!!!) kicking and screaming i got out of bed and before i could say the word pneumonia i found myself panting like a rabid wolf tryin to keep up wid my dad who was sprinting in the name of jogging despite it being cold enough to declear an ice-age alert.After 20 min and many god-forsaken miles later (as i began sending an s.o.s to Dr Anurag Shrivastava of AIIMS for amputation of my now gangrenous feet)we entered this naturopathy centre and assembeled inside this gigantic hall.

#27

All in the names of a god unfound,

mosques are plenty and temples abound.

While food is scanty and smiles are few,

he enjoys in heaven with indifference anew

Bound in lovely metaphors,

religions are false hopes.

A bit more patience, a tad more faith

chant the saint and popes.

A race condemned to bear,

the passing of each day.

Made to feel so guilty ,

even when it did not betray,

Waiting for his countless promises to fulfill,

tears we shed and blood we spill.

He hasen't moved,he never will

because our almighty is sleeping still.

#26

I saw a faded painting ,

on a crumbling old wall.

It spoke of times passes by,

of times never to befall.

It took me to a place,

a wonderland far away.

Dusty be it may,

I liked it anyway.

Now when i feel alone or simply sad,

the one thing i recall,

is the painting i once saw

on a crumbling old wall.

#49

I stand a tree in autumn,

and leaves begin to fall.

They keep on falling , falling

it seems i'll lose 'em all.

The skies and winds are poor,

and begging is the land.

The only things to move,

are the silence and the sand.

Without my viridian cover,

I feel so barren so bare.

People come and people go,

I just helplessly stare.

Autumn has now been gone.

Look! how lovely is the rain!

I stand alone and sad.

My autumn still does remain.

#44

I am a lovely line

forced to bend.

I am a story sublime

without an end.

I am a crooked crow

with a broken wing.

I am a sad song

no one cared to sing.

I'm just a bunch of nothings

looking for something

in a world that seems

so full of everything.

#08

Each and every single day

Something within me cries

Something breaks,Something bleeds

Something seemingly dies

I'm trapped within these seven walls

The shadows grow and gloom befalls

Each and every single day

We drift apart

I can't see the end

Can't go back to the start

The bats are out and the dove is dead

Time to say goodbye,now I'm off to bed

Each and every single day

I wanted you to see

It wasnt the noisy chaos

But the static killing me

(PS: most of my poems are untitled for lack of apt titles owing to my inarticulation

the number at the top is the serial no of each one denoting the order in which they were written.over the years i threw a lot of them away so the numbers might not be in sequence)

#73

I saw the car

speed guiltily away.

I rushed ahead,

a young girl lay.

Her once pink frock

was drenched in red.

So was her chest.

So was her head.

Her eyes were open ,

still wide open with shock.

Her pale blue ribbon

didn't match with her frock.

The smile had not yet gone

from that lovely little face.

Though her gut lay split open,

she still retained her grace.

I pitied her friends and family,

who had no idea at all

that one man's mistake

was goin to kill them all.

I asked the Holy Bastard

and his Holy Father and all,

How,What and Why the hell

did they not return

that poor wretch's call ?

I tried and tried

but could not pray

'coz somewhere silently along with her,

my faith had died away.

The first one

Greetings fellow comrades,

hope you are well and getting closer to the actualisation of your dreams.

i am not creating this blog to fish for sympathy or out of frustration or due to any neverbefore heard resons.

my reasons for finally joining the blogging bandwagon are two:

1-because i am sick of waiting around for a friend whom i could talk to freely without fear of being judged or mocked,who gets me and doesnt require constant sucking up to.i do not require your approval or pity,just a little understanding and participation in my growth as a being which u need not consider as doing me a favour for i hope to reciprocate to the best of my ability.

2-because lately i have been plagued by an apprehension that i have begun to chip around the edges,like i am starting to forget myself in ways i promised i wouldnt,like i am beginning to fade away.

with that said

lets embark on this journey.

bon chance

ps:u can find me at piyush020691@gmail.com