रिश्ते

एक नाज़ुक सा रिश्ता है
दोस्ती भी नहीं कह सकती
आशिक़ी भी नहीं
बरसों हुए मिले
अरसे हुए बात किये
फिर भी दिल का एक कोना
उसके नाम से महक जाता है
किसी रोज़ कहीं टकरा गए
यूं ही गाहे बगाहे
क्या नज़र मिलेगी
या पुराने शिकवे,
अब तक सुलगते ज़ख्म,
आज़माएंगे ज़ब्त, कहेंगे
चलो, घर चलो
किसी को तुम्हारा इंतज़ार है.
या फिर
उन्हें अनसुना कर
आँखों में नमी लिए
पूछूंगी उस से
क्या पाया तुमने
मुझे खो कर
(pvks )

dreams

have you lived a dream
so stark
you could reach out to touch
the smells were strong
the words resounded
in your ears
and yet
and yet
you knew all along
it was but a dream
your regrets come
back to haunt you
to give you a chance
to say I am sorry
the opportunities
you let go of
come back to say
here, I am back
the decisions you
did not make
or you did make
offering themselves up
for undoing
have you lived
such a dream
then you will know
why you woke up
with your heart thundering
your eyes moist
why you were silent
for so long
you thought perhaps
you had lost your voice.
you will understand
why you stepped
down from the bed
reluctantly
you did not wish to
let go of the dream
if you could have
you would have stepped back.
ah, dreams, the stuff
that life is made of
waking or asleep
i never quite know
whether i dream
a dream
or live in a dream
will i wake up
or will i simply stop
dreaming one day
and another life
would have dreamt
all the dreams
it was meant
to. 

lessons

each day one
lives one learns
one tastes the darkness
of envy
one glows in the luminescence
of pride
one tastes the ephemerality
of pleasure
one walks on the embers
of regret
the fragrance of possession is
evanescent
loss is a but a fleeting touch.

each day one
lives one learns
one breathes in air
redolent of miracles
one soaks in the
joy of harmony
one learns to
listen to silence
one touches the
shores of equanimity

if at 80 I am
the person I was at 18
life will demand
that I return
to learn.

sadness

sadness takes many forms
sometimes one peers into
an inky darkness
and sees no
ray of sunshine
sometimes sadness haunts with 
a long forgotten melody
sometimes it is a forgotten face
that imprints itself on
every thing you see
your life seems a meaningless 
series of random
happenings sometimes
and sometimes
you hate the image you see
in the mirror
and wish you were
anything but
then there is the deeper sadness
which hurls you about
wrings you out
demands the truth
and you have no answers
deeper yet is the sadness which asks
of the countless specks 
in the universe 
who am i 
but a moment of insignificance
tears help sometimes
at other times, the
sadness is too deep to 
be relieved
by tears
do you know what 
I mean?

forgiveness

not topaz
not daffodils
will right the wrong

tears of blood alone
that pour forth
and stop not
till they mingle
with the brine
of forgiveness
will atone

women

when the piano's rippling strains fill my home
or we discuss randomness over coffee

when he strides out of his room a la Beau Brummell
or from his tales I get glimpses of chivalry

when they joust as they cook and laugh at each other
and grab my card on their way to a movie

I smile, I sigh, I think it was all worth the while
the struggle, the loneliness, the tears, the agony

of lost hopes, forgotten dreams, compromises
and all the paraphernalia that you aren't
told comes with wedding finery.

then i remember my mother
and her mother and hers
and it no longer seems so right to me.

two women

I must lose two inches , my dear
or I won't fit into the Tarun Tahiliani
and what a disaster that'd be
so oil free food for me, please,
for two weeks at least -----
I heard her say as I laid out
her pearly chiffons
and the accessories
whose names I couldn't pronounce
my thoughts kept turning to
my infant daughter's cries
her sister watching over her
stony eyed, swishing away the flies
their father lay in a stupor
what remained of my savings
clutched tightly in his fist
the knuckles bruised, the blood caked dry