When Man becomes Stone...

When Planets are retrograde, Life moves backwards,

People become Places, and Places become Memories,

Sinners become Saints, and Saints become Ordinary.

When Grave becomes Cradle and,

Babies go back to Unborn,

Lovers-holding-hands become Strangers and,

Stranger becomes Unnamed

Life goes backwards...

When Conversations become Text and,

Text become no-beep

Phones do not ring a bell any more,

 ,Paragraph becomes Punctuation and,

Punctuation become the unspoken,

The Unspoken becomes Silence and

Silence, the Abandoned Words,

 When too much of Light becomes Darkness,
Darkness becomes blind,

And, Love becomes the Lovelessnes,

of one lifetime

WE become the STATUE,

Yes, the weather- stricken Statue,

With Softness over stone,

And Lovelessness of Love

Unable to move...

Repulsion

He religiously counted all the money and saved it in different lockers. She surprisingly found a five hundred rupee note from her old purse and felt happy. He ate his supper from the hotel and delivered exact change to the old waiter, who lost his son. She walked into to her favorite Dhaba restaurant and mercifully forgotten the balance money to be collected from the waiter. He noted down in his monthly planner, the exact day and time of his outings and returned home early before the darkness of 8.p.m. She aimlessly walked on to malls, mountains and streets, most often planning her trips after hitting the road. He ate timely food and avoided conversations. She drank untimely coffees and enjoyed the weather.He protected his vehicle inside the garage aware of the hike in fuel rates.She drove to the countryside to cherish the mangoes fallen on desolated roads. He believed none and distanced himself from all. She got acquainted to all and got the best friendship of one lifetime.

 .

       He referred to various editions of 'The Economist' and framed his life style. She read her favourite author up till 2.a.m.’s and wept out like a baby for the loss of characters. He visited Church every Sundays to attend the Mass. She walked into the church whenever she felt to talk to her God. He routinely recorded his accounts and expenses on his diary every night before sleep. She smiled back to her own image on the mirror and wrote out her heart on the favourite diary made of handmade texture. He set reminders to give missed call to his mother at 9 a.m.’s of every Saturdays. She rang up her mother every now and then, sharing her excitements over change of weather. He religiously searched for Divinity in his structure and schedules. She was wild and found the Divinity in her creative wilderness. He was Religion. She was spirituality. Both knew the other existed in some other part of the earth under the same wide open sky. And they never longed to meet... 

Daughter

   These are the days she is at home but she spends most of her time in her room. I have never seen her downstairs. If I ask, she reasons that she is held up with work. God knows what she does in there. Is life all about writing those things nobody is going to read? Life is about being like a normal girl. Why can’t she come down and learn some works in the kitchen? Why can’t she go to garden and do some watering? Not even combing her hair some days. And those unfolded clothes with safety pins not removed.  Unwashed coffee mugs and left over of eatables. Not working hard or clearing some competitive exams. She is not coming out of the hole that she lives in. I think she is under some meditation to madness. She doesn’t know to cook or wash or any house hold. I fear what her future would head to.

   She doesn’t even return to the calls of her relatives or grandparents. And if asked she says that time just slips out of her hand and it is not her fault. The music is played so soft that sometimes I have to trek up to the stairs to her room to see if she is alive or in comma. The talkative girl who was always hovering around me at once turned out be the most clueless stranger in home. To my hundreds of “Come down and have lunch baby”, there would not be any response. Sometimes there would be a whisper, “Send it up ma...Please”

   And if ever I push her door open, I see her staring out of the balcony. God knows what she finds there. There is nothing worth seeing to that side of the house except a railway track. I doubt if she is counting the number of bogies of train.

 In monsoon the creepers and branches of tree climb up to her room and no matter what, she would not let me do anything to them. Even if I threaten her that the snakes would find its way up, she never bothers. She can only see and hear the things, she wants to. She has always done that. And only when I shout, “Come down..Daddy has come. Let us have dinner”, she would honor the ground floor for a visit. 

   Sometimes she would be pushing her bed to the window side and scribbling things into her diary, staring into the dark sky. I never asked what she sees there. 

   I don’t know where she will end up. I fear the consequences of her life. May be in the way she lives, she finds those answers to those questions. The answers that I could never find in my life.