Hiccough
The silence of the dead, pierced by crows.
A decade of passing,
A decade of water collecting in small pools in the grooves of whitewashed bricks
Since the dull thunk of the spade hitting flattened earth,
Under the looming shadows of trees enriched by lifeblood.

I am here again.
It's like I never left.
It's like I never was here.
It's like every passing moment is a subtraction, instead of an addition.

There is nothing meaningful to say.
How do you say, "How do you do," to a headstone?
What do you address as father?
I bought new clothes, I grew out my hair,
Look, I braided it today.
I have six cats.
And someone I love very much. Would you like to meet him again?
I am 25.
Do you remember him from that visit?
Mom is still valiently trying to sail in two boats.
Man-to-man conversation?
I never threw out your chair.
There are so many things to talk about.
The plants all wilted, but I am planning to grow them again.

Talisman
I could think of the saddest things today
And all the grief and all the pain
For not having been there to see you breathe your last, old friend

I close my eyes and try to sleep
But all the memories come rushing in
It is strange how happiness is so painfully sweet in retrospect

The night goes on, and sleep arrives like a lullaby
It is the summer of my childhood once again
A happy tail greets me at the door
I meet my partner in crime once more

A bark answers me every time we whistle
And off we go, exploring every bush and thistle
Feet patter along with me across yellow fields and cracked earth
Of hideouts and races and chasing odd bits of paper, there is no dearth

And when the day closes and mother turns off the light
My conspirator jumps into bed as soon as she is out of sight
Dreams are pleasant and full of tireless exploring,
My friend doesn't even disturb me with her snoring,

Morning brings with it milk and bread
That we share, rubbing our sleepy heads
Lazy afternoons find us chasing butterflies and sticks in leafy glades
And when we're tired, we fall asleep in the shade

The canal beckons to us on insufferably hot days
And my companion and I try scaring the fishes by swimming in a whole bunch of new ways

We've climbed rocks and cliffs and mountains and swung from Banyan roots as well
But this is the hardest climb we've made uphill

And thinking thus, I look down at my loyal friend
Who looks up, panting and laughing
As if telling me that Death takes away many things,
But love is not one of them

And there are many legacies to be left behind, but none like happy days and the sun in them,

And many elegies can be written, but the best one, is remembrance, my old friend.

Territory
I have bid goodbye to you a hundred times in my dreams,
My mind plays cruel tricks on me and I wake up to see the morning sun hiding in the creases of your face
You open your eyes and the sun comes alive in a sea of deep brown, sometimes light brown
Waves of sunlight ebb and flow with the gradual smile that breaks upon your lips
I am awake
You are in front of me
This is not a dream, but it seems more unreal than dreams.

It all began in a haze of sleep when I set out from a barren, grey land of watery mornings and blistering evenings,
I eased out of the cold grasp of a steel bird, right into your warm welcoming arms,
The hours and days all melted and ran into one
This is the beginning of all beginnings, holding all the promise of a yet uncreated, beautiful world

Holding your hand, I walked out onto the palm of yet another adventure, yet another city that has many names, and then none.

There were the cold sapphires of water, broken by the oar of a red sun,
There was the rustling of the wind, pedalling with four legs,
Orbiting scattered lives in one ellipse,
There were the clumsy bubbles of laughter, buoyed by the ripples of your mischief,
There was home and hearth and a warm meal, in a place fit for gods.

There was mourning and celebrations,
And paeans sung to the Almighty in three different tongues,
There was the cold splash of water on steel, and the frothing of hot tea in a cauldron,
There were a million lights swarming the moon, and among them was the sun of your smile.

There were agonising hours of the sword of departure hanging over our heads,
And then there was the buttery hot joy of a few moments stolen from Time,
There were friends, old and new, nomads and wanderers, guardians and hawkers, all gathered under immense Banyans, in a field of sunkissed green,

There were the chaotic bazaars where you peeped out of every broken window, shuttered door, sizzling stoves, wicker baskets and quaint alleys to old lives and old dreams,

There were the blessed halls of silence where you knelt next to me and love spilled along with salt down my cheeks,
Where prayer needed no invocation, no incantation, no perfumed promises
Where heartbeats spoke as one, and where vows were freely given.

And then began yet another journey that was somewhat familiar, and somewhat strange
Past yellow houses and pink gardens,
Past goats with coats and stations with moats,
Past rickety fences and mud paths for railway crossings,
Past lanes pitted with craters which promised a ride that would cure indigestion,
Past the throaty calls of the conches in cornershop temples,
Past potbellied TV screens where people had once crowded to witness the magic of cricket in black and white
Past simple schools and simple hearts, to a garden that was filled with nothing.

And then, and then there were the fireflies of your love, winking in and out of sight,
Weaving through the pond of your childhood,
Holding your hand on those hallowed steps, I felt like I had seen it all,
That life had been infinitely kind,
That warmth could outlast the end of Time.

And then we met the doomsday prophet, the shepherd, the creator, The man who lost everything and gained the secret to nothing,
In a gallery filled with faces and structures and sigils and symbols that have repeated themselves over history,
In a house that has painstakingly, lovingly, been made into a home for all the nothings that haunt the world.
Through a window where the moon meets the sun,
Where the words frosted on our lips,
Where thought comes to rest, and ideas float effortlessly, simply going on existing,
In that hermitage, with its Spartan fare, life came a full circle
Infinity was defined by 5000 years, and the valueless gave value to the invaluable.
In those circles of soft bread and fried brinjal and banana flowers, flavour took on a whole new guise,
And I learned how to savour the simplest things in life,
In that gauzy world of mosquito nets, hazy dawns and sleepy prayers, I found how days can pass at a place completely indifferent to the turning of the world,
In that secret garden, I found longing, and an eternity.

And then?
Then we soared,
Above the birds, past matchbox wastelands, entirely human concerns of fear and danger and mortality,
Memories held our hands and guided us to new thresholds that awaited our mark,
In tornados of our creation and in unconvincing rides down volcano shafts,
In mirrors that showed us how infinity was trapped,
In reflections that made us outsiders and insiders,
In the land we claimed and the soil that claimed us
In the river that rocked us in its lap, In the valleys that became your cradle,
In the wisdom you found in craggy mountains and blue stars,
In the peace I found by your side
In the losses we've incurred, in the loved ones we've left home, in the wagging tails and friendly smiles we've met,
We've created a bond that encompasses all the bonds in the world,
We've created a home with doors that open to every home in the universe.