Fallacy

And while it so happened

That when the sea engulfed the land

And corpses were everywhere

And people ran with panic

Screaming that the end had arrived

I breathed in, closed my eyes

And wished but one wish

That this destruction be final, permanent.

For the Earth couldn't take

Rebuilding by man again.

Loss

Toor ma'am never brings her phone to class. But even when the viva was on, she jumped on the phone as soon as it vibrated. She rushed out of her room, the phone still clinging to her ear. She entered a few minutes later, with a poker face, and said, continue. Shubham kept speaking. I love it when Shubham and I chance to give vivas (is there such a word? No red curly line. Bingo!) together. The thing is, Shubham is this kid who keeps blabbering about everything except the answer to the question that is asked. We all know a person like that, right? So even if I remain silent the entire time, I still get a relatively good score.

I was roll number 64. Toor ma'am finished our entire class' viva (till roll number 81) by the next hour and then went with us to the workshop on 'Industrial and Academia Interaction' downstairs. The speakers were really fabulous, one of them was Bengali. It's so hard to find a Bengali in Chandigarh that my heart skips a beat when I see a Mukherjee or Chakraborty somewhere. Even Mohapatra (they're Oriya) now. But somehow, and I have no freakin' idea how, a lot of 'important' Chemical Engineers, were Bengali. I cannot remember a semester where we did not study a subject with a Bengali guy's book in the Reference Section. In fact, it's funny how Toor ma'am was the first to notice I was Dutta and not Dutt, and thus a Bengali (the only Bengali student in the entire college, Dhrubajyoti Dutta is Assamese, he had told me when I had asked, I admit I had ran to meet him when I saw his name up on the Freshers' List). The others plainly saw my big first name and my face and immediately classified me in the South Indian-Punjabi category.

Toor ma'am proposed the Vote of Thanks. She was in such a hurry to come downstairs just after her viva with us that she forgot her spectacles in her room. She tried reading from the page she had written so meticulously a few days back, but to no avail. And then she admitted, in her slow affected voice, that she had forgotten her spectacles and she'll just do it impromptu, because 'Engineers are known for innovation'. Four years of 'innovation' are enough for you to know, that this is where you must laugh, so we all laughed. Toor ma'am, surprisingly though, didn't. She looked like a smile was slowly making its way through her heart but somewhere on the way, it died. Of course, we were too busy fake-laughing to notice it then.

When the program ended, I was called as usual to Toor ma'am's office to give her the Press Release I had written for this occasion. She picked up her spectacles, slowly mumbled how she's so forgetful, and again turned to give me a weak smile. This time I noticed something was amiss. But I was getting late, and it wasn't anyway my premise. Toor ma'am quickly read through what I had written, said her characteristic "Okay, beta" with an elongated 'e' at the end and I took my leave. It was 5. By then, Toor ma'am already had her back to me and she had whipped out her phone.

20/12/2013 10:36 am. Jaspal Singh Toor, 24, was declared brought dead by PGIMER, Chandigarh. Apparently, the jeep that ran him over was being driven by a rookie, who in order to get the car off him, reversed it and thus ran him over twice.

PGIMER is a 15 minute walk from my college. Not even a 5 minute drive.

Scars of Hope

At the wake of dawn, sometimes,

Sometimes even during night,

He submerges himself in a stench

Not quite unlike his own.

He carefully sorts and picks

Shards of broken dreams, sometimes

Uncrushed bottles in their entirety

And puts them slowly in a plastic sack

Lined with his own naivety and innocence.

And each time a sharp shard digs into him

He cringes, looks at the wound for some time

And then waits for it to heal, to become a part

Of himself, glaring chinks of wisdom in his

Thin, frail form that the passers-by named Raju.

He learns to identify cars with tinted windows from afar

And runs, to show them his frail form, his calloused hands

Never knowing what happens inside the car.

Sometimes he gets a rupee, sometimes even two

That Raju keeps tied in his cloth bundle of hope.

Until one day, on the street, Raju lies, in a pool

Of blood, a black tinted-window car is seen in the distance.

And his little sack of hope, jingling with happiness

Is there no more. All that is, is the unmasked stench

Of a corpse, of Raju, who knows, and the morning after 

Red scars of hope in the street, between jagged corners

Of stones set in to create a gray, smooth road.

Smoke

She spends her days,

Crying through the smoke

That bites her eyes, covers them

In a hazy blur, like her nights

That she spends, staring

At the chip on the ceiling

And little cracks on the wall alongside

Till her groin is on fire, and she 

Moans, he has fallen

Quietly, gradually, he pants

Himself to sleep, while

She lets her tears fall

Until the salt of the sweat and

The tears are indistinguishable,

Just like her days.

One day, Rabindra Jayanti he said,

She sat, with him, her saree covering

Her tired face, and bloodshot eyes

On a railway station, under a tree

And she watched him willingly consuming

The smoke that she was forced to 

Embrace each day. And when the

Long train, with its own smoke

Filling the little embankment with people

She felt her hand being grabbed, and she ran.

They lit her face up with smoke, garlanded it

And her red eyes finally shut, the neighbours

Flies, around no present corpse,

Told each other of the little accident when

She fell out of the train they were taking.

And slowly, everyone, the people, the feelings

Faded like smoke, from her kitchen,

Like the dreams, from her eyes

Leaving only red footprints and blotches behind.

You look into her eyes, one quick glance.. And you know.
You know, that she knows too much.
That she spends her days sagaciously
Thinking how each day is as bad as the last one.

I Wrote This For You

Guess you found yourself there, again.

But, you're a lovely paperdoll
Many girls, all joint as one
And all of them, joint by the head.
Paperdoll, I'm sorry, I really am
I should have known not to
Blow on you, and tear you apart
When all I was trying to do
Was to make you fly, soar like a kite
Paperdoll, I'm sorry, I really am
For the huge gashes that I made
When I was trying to make you into that kite.
Paperdoll, I'm sorry, I really am
I should have known that paper rings
And unsaid little verses are what kept you
Looking at me, while I could give you none.

But don't you worry, paperdoll,
I assure you this ain't the end.
I never tainted you with my paint hose
Or drew faces with my marker.
Paperdoll, I never cut you according to my wish,
Paperdoll, you're still etched upon that paper.
Just a beautiful little girl, with the flaring skirt.

And paperdoll, believe you me, no more gray skies
Because I won't be there again to pull you to my side.
Paperdoll, you can be fragile again, you can like the rains again.
You can like the little movies, the gestures and tell 'em
"You are romantic, thank you", again.

Paperdoll, he'll come around, he'll see your heads attached.
And paperdoll, he'll wind you in a beautiful string
And paperdoll, he'll put a cardboard so the wind doesn't
Tear you up again.
And paperdoll, you'll fly that day in the blue-white skies
And paperdoll, if possible, know I'll be sitting here
Crying out blood through my eyes.
But paperdoll, don't you worry, because
The blood won't fall on you.
Because Paperdoll, "Over. And out."
That's who I am to you.

So lovely paperdoll, for you this ocassion is to rejoice.
And paperdoll, if possible, remember me as someone nice.
Because paperdoll, whatever you think, with your joint heads,
Paperdoll, I loved you so, you lie on my table, pure, book-pressed.

Write

I wish I could write something today.

With a leaden heart, black as the pencil

That would trace, and then cross out

All the marks I'd put on paper.

I wish I could write on your heart,

But knowing that the same lead

Would take but one careless abrade

To stop existing, endlessly.