littlelovenote from a butterfly to a blanket

the way you spread warmth
has always attracted me to you,
I assure you that I will fill your life 
with bright colours,
even though flying is all that I have ever known,
after days of wandering around,
the day I'd come to you,
I would permanently snuggle inside you,
and stay there cosy and safe.

Dear Husband

We got married. Because our stars favored us. And they favored us too, about whom, we don’t talk anymore. The characters in our story that meant so much back then; we don’t hear of them now

They exist still. They enter only when they’re not needed. You know what I mean, right?

We got married. And it was all that was expected of us. A grand wedding. We spent so much. And we enjoyed so much. Oh so many pictures of us smiling and posing. So many people wanting to capture us and save us soigneusly into their smartphone galleries. We made way to some home screen wallpapers too. Little achievements, you know. The prince and the princess of the night, we knew nothing. Just that we were getting married. And that it was something sacred everyone goes through. Sometimes to attest their love or to attest their identities in a society that recognizes husbands and wives and doesn’t understand other relationships. You were a man of fortune. I, a girl of beauty we got married and life began.

We got married, but honestly, we didn’t have. No, it’s not your fault. But it’s just the education you received. And the education I received. You saw your mother folding your fathers’ clothes, cooking all day long in the kitchen, taking afternoon naps, arranging stuff and doing the same old stuff all-round the year you in the meanwhile, received a doctor’s degree and made your parents proud but the things that you learnt back then could not be overwritten or erased by any degree of intellectual stimulation. You had a wife now, as if, it was natural to have one around and not care about what she does, why she does. You didn’t know what to do with her. I had a husband, and I didn’t know what to do with him either except for the stuff that is necessary to have babies; you know.

I’d browse the nights off on social networks and you, on your laptop watching your favorite series. For us, it was never a collective social network or a collective TV series. Have you ever heard of a play within a play? Our lives were exactly like that. We had a larger story in which we were a couple and we were linked to common people, and there was another story within this story which was our individual night-time story where we were two individuals living two separate lives inside the four walls of our bedroom.

Do you know that rain makes me want to go to and have an ice cream?
Do you know that I want people to gift me a lot of books on my birthday?
Do you know that I use the word ‘ouch’ way too often?
Do you know that I use a raspberry flavored hand cream?

Do you know about a dream I often see?

Do you my last nightmare?

Do you know, given a chance, I would like to pick up a dance?

Do you know how I smell like when I wake up in the morning?

Do you know I sometimes shake a clutch the pillow tight at night?

No, you don’t. I don’t know these details about you either. But details are important you know?
Details when stitched together form a bigger picture. We don’t have those bigger pictures.

Now when everyone is putting pressure on us about having a kid, it’s time that I tell you something. I want my baby to look at her parents and see how much they love. I want her to learn all good things about love and sharing. I want her to grow up thinking that fairy tales and magical love exists. I want her to be simply loved by two people madly in love.

The decision is your’s and mine – either we start afresh or we start afresh, you know what I mean, right?

The Perfect Love

Gaganpreet Singh Photography

I changed. 

I changed not just because I love you.

But also because I wanted you to love me.

And I changed.

I changed the way I slept like a free bird

with my arms spread on both sides like wings

as if I was going to take a flight in my dreams, 

and now I sleep all lady-like with my arms sometimes around you,

or around my own body for the fear of being judged 

for being too confident to be loved.

You wanted to pamper the vulnerable me, 

I became one for I wanted to be loved.

And I changed. 

I changed the way my hair would always be a messy bun, 

Now I arrange my tresses every time I step out to see you

for you wouldn't want to be around the mess that I was.
I make sure the bun was perfect and that I wouldn’t look like I
a teen that just got out of the bed
you wanted me to be a lady, and I became one.   

I changed. 

I changed the way I'd spend lazy weekends on my bed

emptying tea mugs, reading books, and scribbling my heart out on papers
and occasionally on walls or canvases.

I now have a razor in my hand and an epilator in the other

because last time you touched me,

and murmured into my ears that my arm feels like that of a man's arm. I

dug my head into the pillow and sobbed but

then I thought it was normal of you to be asking for a chiseled skin,

the way I ask for a little stubble on your face, sometimes, may be? or may be not.
I changed.

I changed the way I’d talk in public.
My voice became softer and I almost stopped
laughing my heart out because that’s what teens do,
I was becoming a woman and women behave well in public,
they look interested even if they aren't, and 

they indulge in meaningful conversations, 

I changed a bit every day,

the voice, the hair, the sleep, my friends,

the songs I heard, the films I watched 

and all my pass-times,
I altered them.
I changed to fit into your image of perfect love

I’ve become someone I’d never known before.

am I, now, your perfect love?

इंतज़ार

Photo by Gaganpreet Singh © 

उस सहर से इस सहर तक
कुछ बदला ही नहीं,

फ़ोन की बीप अब भी किसी एक मैसेज की उम्मीद जगा देती है,
दरवाज़े पे कोई आहट, चाय की केतली गैस पर रखवा देती है,
क्योंकि ठंडी चाय तो तुम्हें भाती ही नहीं
तुम्हारे लौटने की उम्मीद कम है, कहते हैं वो...
पर इंतज़ार की आदत भी तो तुमने ही डाली थी,

सोचती हूँ,
किसी दिन,
बस यूँही
हमेशा की तरह,
मेरे भीगे बालों पर अपनी उंगलियां फिराने चले आओगे,
अपनी डायरी में सोई शायरी को मुझसे फिर से मिलवाने चले आओगे,
सोचती हूँ,
कोई तो गिला ज़रूर होगा,
के अब तक मुह फुलाए बैठे हो,
शायद बस उसे ही जताने चले आओगे,
फ्रांस और भारत इतनी दूर भी नही.
सोचती हूँ.
अब भी सोचती हूँ


उस शहर से इस शहर तक,
कुछ बदला ही नहीं 

home

याद

देखो यूं भी होता है 
हम भूलते हैं,
और भुला दिए जातें हैं. 
तुम बस एक धुंधली सी याद हो 
जो एक पुरानी नज़्म में कहीं कैद थी 
आज एक नयी नज़्म लिखकर
तुम्हे कुछ वक्त के लिए और कैद कर लिया मैंने

इश्क़

एक ज़माना था,
इश्क़ पर लिखा करते थे
और फिर एक दिन,

इश्क़ हो गया..

अब लिखते नहीं,
बस इश्क़ किया करते हैं

Lost III

Right? Left?

or in the middle?

I stop. Look around.

Grab a hand and walk.

Take me home, will you?

I am lost.

I am lost.

Serve me love.

Sing me songs.

Lend me thy ears

Keep the lights on

Stay by my side, will you?

I can’t sleep.

I am lost

Kiss and hug

Caress and touch

Let me laugh

or Let me cry, will you?

I can’t feel.

I am lost. 

LOST II

LOST I

#Littlelovenotes

We were like two birds that were brought together by rain. Tired of flying, we sat on a branch. We sang love songs. It was a different kind of love. We loved saying lovely things to each other. We also loved doing lovely things to each other. And it was just that. Time passed. Another rain came, and we left the branch for another shelter, elsewhere. Some more time passed. We soon came back to the old branch. We exchanged smiles, and ignored the change in them. Tired of the language, and the cycle of communication and miscommunication, we preferred keeping silent. We fell out of love and it was a different kind of ‘falling out of love’. We decided to stay on the same branch and sing the same old love songs. We were, however, scared of saying lovely things to each other, and we feared more than ever, doing lovely things to each other. 

...

दिन के ढलते ही एक याद भी आ जाती है 
दबे पाँव 
दरीचे होते दिल के तो कुछ देर हम भी बंद लेते

Lost II

Hold hands?
no leave the hand,
because holding hands
suffocates,
I lose track of the road
and I am forced to
walk on the one
you take me to
Don’t ask me for the last ride together
I won’t hold hands

Kiss?
No I won’t kiss
Kissing suffocates
I lose track of
time and space
and enter into a world that
doesn’t exist
don’t make me immortal with a kiss
I won’t kiss

Think?
No I won’t think,
thinking maddens,
it hampers and destroys the beauty
of the unknown
it kills the essence
of the surprise.
I can’t think now
I will think about it tomorrow.

Fly?
Yes I will fly,
fly to a different land
because flying liberates
I will fly from the known to the unknown
I’ll stick around for some time
only to take another flight
I will fly.

Lost

I am lost
Lost the way,
We're lost between
faces known and unknown
I smile, I cry, I shout, 
No one hears
I can't hear myself either.
Eyes up, eyes down, eyes rolling, eyes blurred
I see many
But I don't really see any
I am lost
Lost the way you're lost in a web of thoughts,
thoughts about the past, present and the future,
thoughts about the thoughts that I thought were long forgotten
thoughts about what is thought, who thinks, and why
Long thoughts, and short thoughts
thoughts that matter,
and the ones that don't matter,
shouldn't matter,
I am lost in what you conceive of me, and what I am, and what you've made of me

I am lost.
Lost the way you're lost in middle of a conversation
conversations that are cut short
and the ones that don't end
conversations that are all the same
since ages
conversations that do not have beginnings, middles or ends
conversations that lead nowhere,

I am lost
Lost the way you're lost in a moment,
a moment that is a mis of several other moments
a moment that may or may not lead to another moment
a moment that is just another moment
a moment that promises but doesn't return as much
I am lost.

I am lost but wait for me,
Wait the way you wait for a kid that forgets the way to home.
Wait, the way you wait for a letter,
that has long been sent through the post
Wait, and just wait.
I'll be home soon.

breakfree

I create, re-create, destroy
ideas in my mind.
You existed
and you exist no more

#Littlelovenotes

Sometimes with sleepy eyes, 
other times, in sleeplessness
thinking of you,
I try,
not to think of you.

#ParisPoetry

There are things that will always bring me back to you. 
A wine glass, a river, a night full of stars, 
the moon, and the mountains. 
Know that you're always on my mind. 
I may or may not succeed 
in giving you the place you deserve but you exist.
Somewhere in the dizzy consciousness of my unconscious mind,
you take shape, everyday. 
Sometimes, its just a matter of some time.

15 October 2015
RER station, Paris