Faridabad, Haryana, India

The New Normal

The textbooks have all been stacked up.

Towering tomes from thin to thick,

Encapsulating the relics

of years gone by in the slanting words

that runs across the fringes. Free and wild.

The love notes of acceptance.

The din of school room

no longer fills the dog-eared pages

of a book that carries vestiges of a once upon a time-

Now unreachable.Unfathomable.

The binding has been falling apart.

Held by tapes, glued in places.

A patchwork of years of toil.

The tears are real,visible.

Supported by trinkets of memories galore,

the sullen gadget silently leans on.

The disconsolate device has never witnessed

The twinkle of the eager eyes

Or heeded the impassioned pleas

echo through the sagacious walls

Or unwind in the freewheeling conversation.

The smartphone now encases muted icons.

The forlorn denizens of a fractured world.

Lost is the voice in the bandwidth of choice.

Garbled speech enmeshed in static.

The storm shall pass, the time’s not up,

The curve must be flattened in unison.

Two minutes to go.

Angles adjusted.

Background checked.

The mind ready for a riveting discussion.

‘Ding!’ goes the icon.

“Good morning,children…”

Smiles exchanged.

Connection forged.

The learning has begun. 

The Unravelling

It has been a long and tiring day.

The usual chores underlined by cranky spells.

The dusty floor embossed with pride

with tokens of takeaway plastic. 

Stray words struck off now lie ensconced

in the wrinkled scrap, a foot off the bin.

The dethroned strands of black and grey

wander off in silent desperation.

Clogged by the serum, the wizened pores

pour out its malady in silken whispers.

Tosses and turns the infallible city

to the shady whispers of the sinners.

The whirring blades, the muffled laughter,

The groans of the desk jettisoned by dreams.

The menacing sirens, the stammering player

lisping the legacy of the iridescent city.

Now playing

The orchestral buzz of turgid theatre.

The hullaballoo of the mangy mongrels 

washed by the waves of endless cries-

the dirge of dreams, defiled by lies.

At five past three, the stallion dreams

pace up and down the headless guilts.

The threadbare quilts cushion the blow

of the silence,

this sinister silence,

this deafening, all-encompassing silence.

It continues to grow.

Silence is silent no more.

The Cleanse

Words hurtle forth

in pulps of half-ingested wit

gushing out in a maddening rush

floating on the puddle

of a sickening stink of everything wrong.

Till

it quickly goes down the sink

collecting more grime on its way,

swirling and losing its body

before being washed away

to some dark infested corner

where it waits in silence...

Sharing its space with those forgotten,

Stealthily awaiting a foot to step in

to latch onto with remarkable vigour.

Words hurtle forth...

In bits and parts.

In fits and starts.

A ventriloquist's paradise.