So open, yet Secretive

Theatre tickets and 

my grandparents went a long way. 

My grandparents met 

in a Maynaguri theatre hall 

with soft yellow lights, 

a wide screen and 

the magic of R.D. Burman. 

The curfews were early and

 the pocket money came late. 

However, amidst staring at the screen, there were glimpses, 

grinning, 

stolen kisses and

jhal sooji in a steel tiffin box. 

After fifty years now, 

ten years since Dadu's death,

all those movie tickets , 

jatrapala tickets, 

some torn and 

some faded,

sleep safely inside Didu's almirah.

She opens her almirah once in a while, runs her wrinkled palms 

over the frail paper, 

breaking into a strange smile.

Didu told me once that she does this to remember the touch of those old tickets

and Dadu.

.

.

.

Because the ink fades, but yet the paper stays.

.

.

.

The sky opens its mouth 

to yawn

and the birds trapped in, 

rush home.

We see as we walk, 

we walk as we see,

buildings being built, 

roads running still

the clock tower 

narrating tales

to pigeons

and people shuttering their sad faces

behind sugarcane sherbet glasses.

Every morning my eyes leap

from one window to other,

to search your face in every house across the street

and when they don't find you

my eyes look as if they are carrying tired moons within them

I have been covering my hands with henna

to hide my pinning, 

my desperation and 

my yearning.

I have been flowers in my hair

wishing you would be here dancing with me under the sun.

I end up going to the same alley

where we first met

desperately hoping to relive those moments again.

Loving you was relearning the idea of romance itself

I had never thought a 6 foot tall dark handsome man who spends his afternoons reading leftist theory

A fool who keeps laughing every five minutes

A man who has to always rely on Ghalib's writings to impress me

would ever be able to bewitch me

but it turns out you are much wiser in matters of heart

I now understand your obsession with revolution

Because right now there's a war within me too and 

its the most brutal catastrophe,

I have ever witnessed 

a quarter of me is seething with rage because you left me ,

a quarter of me is still nurturing hope of your return, 

a quarter of me is fearing that you won't ever return.

.

.

.

You brought me fresh roses, 

that smelt of our pinky promises.

You tucked them behind my ears ,

but they withered till the evening.

 Ours love was too delicate; it survived for few hours and some minutes.

.

.

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