Living Things

I often have conversations

With objects around me -

From

Mindless banter snowballing into

Heart-to-heart conversations,

To

Waking up in the middle of the night,

Fumbling for the right switch in the darkness

To put the lights on so I can see

For a split second,

Things obligingly lying still in their place,

As they stagger through burdened time

To lull myself into sleep

With an assurance of familiarity.

On days I enter my room 

With bottled thoughts, when these things, 

With all their weathered, withered strength

Spur me on to etch out utterances at length

Knowing as they do, 

You don't always seek 

A response, reaction, remark, judgment, 

To something you nevertheless feel the need to speak, 

Which at times starts to turn incomprehensible

To yourself and to the other, 

As your tongue rolls them out

In the gibberish of vowels and consonants.

So I start off on a mindless rhyme

At times confessing my mind's crimes,

Scraping out fears rusty with neglect

Pulling out halted thoughts from a staggering stack,

Laughing as I admit to myself that joke was funny.

Crying with relish for I won't be accused of being weak.

Stretching out a tune I'd only ventured to hum [in public], 

Into a song, hearing my voice sing & strum,

In a long time.    

                           [Hitting the table with a pen 

                           To make up for the beats.]

Dancing with awkward steps on my two left feet,

But dancing nevertheless.

[Thank goodness I have feet to dance.)

P.S At times, when the familiarity 
      Of my own presence poses a threat,
      I need their company, these non-living things, 
      The only solace sensitive to my minds' mutterings.

“I do not believe,” [Edison] said, “that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousand of ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements, forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence? . . . Gathered together in certain forms, the atoms constitute animals of the lower orders. Finally they combine in man, who represents the total intelligence of all the atoms.”

“But where does this intelligence come from originally?” I asked.


“From some power greater than ourselves.”

The Shadows in the Mirror

अब आईने ने खुद पर धूल की परत चढ़ाली है

छुपा लिया है उसने खुद को

मेरे चहरे पर सोए अर्सों के साए से । 

मेरे दिल में अश्क़ों की धुंध  

भी अब जम गई है, 

सिकुड़ते- सिकुड़ते, रोशनी के खौफ़ में । 

उन पाज़ेब और झुमके की ओर नहीं ताकती अब मैं, 

मैं ने अब खुद से ही मुँह फेर लिया है । 

खुद से नफ़रत करने का शौक़ चढ़ा है, 

खुद को खो देने का एक खौफ़ ही अब  
मेरे ज़िंदा होने का ग़वाह रह गया है । 

उस लाल शॉल को अब ओढ़ना नहीं चाहती शायद 
२२ साल पुरानी वह क़िताब में लिखी गयी 
मीठी शैतानियों और प्यार की अनगिनत कहानियाँ 
मेरे लिए एक ख़िताब हैं, 
जिन से मेरा आज भी लगाव तो है 
पर उस क़िताब के पन्नों पर सूखी स्याही को  
मेरे आँसुओं के कलम ने भिगोकर 
उन घावों को हरा कर दिया है
अब उस क़िताब को खोलूंगी नहीं फिर शायद
अरे अब तो मैंने खुद से मुँह फेर लिया है ।

उस दिन घर से यूँ ही चल पड़ी थी,
बेवजह हँसी के ठहाके ले रही थी
उस दिन आईना नहीं देखा था ना |
अब उस शीशे के टुकड़े पर तरस आता है 
क्योंकि उस आईने में 
जिसकी  खुद की पहचान नहीं 
उसमें मेरे खौफ की परछाइयों को 
अपनी पहचान समझना छोड़ चुकी थी ॥ 

P.S. This poem is an attempt to peek into the mind of a woman who is hitting menopause- probably in her late forties, and has just about started to come to terms with the fact that she is no longer the pretty damsel she used to be in her heydays. However, she mistakenly assumes her physical lineaments to be what primarily is her identity- she dearly holds on to her past, her fears are magnified to the extent that she thinks that her very surroundings are disappearing into darkness, as if alive and consciously moving away from her. But she lives in this world only for a while. She soon does realise that a mirror- a concrete, finite object, cannot capture even a fraction of her identity, which is infinitely evolving. The larger inference being that, never must we assume that we know ourselves, there are different levels of truth, yet at each higher level we become complacent with the thought that we know ourselves the best. 

Overall, the poem touches upon the issues of identity, notions and truths, relativity of truth, the constant urge to define ourselves under categories of the symbolic order we've been living in for ages. Interpretations are welcome.