Sunday 13 November 2016

Inner Sanctums

K-25, Hauz Khas

I sit in front of a modern building,
With modern balconies and modern bricks,
Far removed from the alphasexual hub that Hauz Khas is.
A building with no particular significance,
So much so that as I perch myself on the footpath in front of K-25,
All watchmen from the building there look at me in wonder,
With heavy bouts of judgement.

"They don't know" I say to myself.
I wish I could go ask them if they know,
But instead I set the cancer stick between my fingers on fire,
And resort to the only form of escapism I know - poetry.

"Ek budhiya chaand pe baithi",
Gulzar starts speaking,
And soon enough he's convinced me to dissolve all sounds around me and listen to the rhythm of her charkha.

Now here's the thing about poetry,
It's just a step away from schizophrenia,
For your mind will make you believe in things, that even your mind knows don't really exist.

Now here's the thing about love,
It's just a step away from schizophrenia,
For your mind will make you believe in things, that even your mind knows don't really exist.

But as I sit in front of the modern building,
With modern balconies and modern bricks,
I'd rather embrace the mental disorder that is both love and verse,
For where it stands, once stood
The moon the budhiya sat on.

K-25, Hauz Khas
Is where Amrita Pritam lived.

I see an Imroz stand there,
Present for the demolition of the old house,
And the demolition of a billion mixed feelings, of extreme pain and extreme peace,
Feelings that I project on him, really.

I see an Imroz stand there and try to see what he could have,
An Amrita ascending the modest throne of the backseat of his scooter,
Him almost anticipating the touch of her fingers on her spine, carving out his own 'manchaahi' death;
An Amrita getting in and out of a car for her visits to the doctors,
An Amrita in a window to a house always open to all Punjabi poems,
An Amrita that left the house her last time, to never return
And yet somehow do,
In her logically impossible and yet completely truthful promise
Of 'Main tainu phir milangi'

"Ye kiss sadi ke log hai, shabbo"
I ask the friend who sits next to me,
And we proceed to use her 2G and look at a YouTube video of Rani Mukherjee,
Mouthing her questions about Veer and Zaara,
That very well could be about the spirits in this place.
The spirits that were once flesh and blood,
The embodiment of breaking every belief we have about love,
That relationships need to be named,
That love needs to be reciprocated for fulfilment,
That a man and woman can't have a relationship if it isn't named,
That marriages are the only happy endings,
That Imtiaz Ali potrays 'crazy' more often than 'in love',
That love can only happen once,
That you're a particular age and then you're another age and you can only be of one age once,
That men and women feel differently,
That men and women behave separately,
That men and women love in varied ways.

A phone rings, we have to go.
"You can leave your cigarette halfway", my friend tells me. "It would be the perfect tribute."
The sticks nearing it's end,
But the sacrifice is too easy,
The perfect tribute would be a poem,
But ink no longer falls from a pen the speed of ash from a cigarette,
But I stub it none the less.

We get up, then I sit on my knees,
And touch the ground that has nothing in common with the house that lived here, but still manages to exist in the same spectrum called space,
And promise to better the poet I am, who have nothing in common with the fairy who lived here, but still manages to exist in the same spectrum called words, and on an after thought, a birthdate.

The watchmen continue to look at me like crazy,
But the extremes of warmth and cold I feel, the goosebumps on my upper arm,
And the half-burnt cigarette on the footpath there,
Promise not to judge.

The House in Gali Qasim Jan, Old Delhi
AKA Involuntary

My existence is involuntary,
Much like yours,
O friend, father and spirit.
But while mine amounts to knot,
Your lack of choice,
Ornamented by your merit.

I'm a misfit in your lane,
I carry neither stature, nor culture
In a Galli that boasts of rich Islamic heritage,
My T-shirt and shorts are a clownish couture.

I pass by your house,
So hard to find, so easy to miss,
Almost like Delhi's pollution levels
Have dissolved the soul you breathed out,
As your lips touched the Dementor's kiss.

The house is mildly lit,
My excitement is little and lacks any expectations,
I first tread carelessly into a hallway,
I know you aren't home,
I feel some form of guilt,
As I step into your space,
Without your permission.

I've picked quite some from what you left,
O friend, father and spirit
But as I read your words, now on your walls,
I wonder what I inherit

I'm half bent to read the translation,
And there's a little water on my cheeks
Into the house's vacuum, I start muttering the Urdu under my breath
And try to reverberate what the noiseless ambience does speak.

It's then that my head spins right,
Involuntary but almost by fate,
I see your face, you smile at me,
I need to freeze, I need to run,
But the absence of instinct beats faster than my heart rate.

It's not you, just a statue of sorts
Put behind a wall of glass,
Stiff under a poem,
I forgot you never left, Ghalib
I forgot, you were always home.

The tears keep coming down,
I neither sob nor weep,
The silence like it's meant to be,
The silence your heart synced with here, Ghalib
For now is mine to keep.

Scenes from Om Bhutkar's play start whirring,
Lines from Gulzar's book,
There's so much I knew about you already,
And yet for me to finally see you, Ghalib
A beat was all it took.

I keep whispering your lines,
I know neither I nor the translations do you any justice,
Almost like Delhi's pollution levels
Have dissolved the soul you breathed out, Ghalib
As your lips touched the Dementor's kiss.

I now take off my footwear,
And tread on every inch,
Shaken by the realisation of where I am,
My half grown beard is full of salt water now,
I'm neither thrilled, nor calm.

I see bust of you gifted by Gulzar,
And can't help but notice a striking resemblance,
Between your nose and that of my own fathers,
A nose I've always worried I'll receive in inheritance.

Books you sometimes touched,
Clothes that touched you once,
Walls you rested your head against,
Pillars that attempt to take weight of your chest.

My existence is involuntary,
And so is much of your verse
I never knew you and you never knew me and I never heard you talk,
And maybe if I did, I would be too shy and stupid too, and judge me you would;
Either is a curse.

My existence is entitled, Ghalib
Much like your royal birth,
I neither love or drink as fiercely,
Neither have I lost as much.
Then why, Ghalib does your poetry speak to me so,
When this privileged is my sorrow?
Why does your pain feel mine?
Why do I consume your whine?
Why does the dismay feel so real,
And the lack of comfort, a similar ordeal?
Why does my peace feel manipulated,
By a force that you would know,
Then why, Ghalib does your your poetry speak to me so,
When this privileged is my sorrow?

A group of three enters the room,
The sanctity is gone,
I must now leave,
Be the misfit again,
For while now you and I were one,
And while we'll never know each other,
O friend, father and spirit,
Thank you for letting me exist here,
Thank you for letting in your home.

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