I dove deep down yesterday, under a pile of books

Looking for a poet who had been lost since days

I found her hidden in a corner, behind a page

Chewing on a word- ‘lonely’

She had tears in her eyes

She too had been searching for me.

I sat with her for a while, on the edges of her book

Our backs resting on the walls of a poem she had written

I was with her, listening to her tales of sadness

Of words that had left her

Of feelings that no longer inspired poetry

Of the ache she didn’t want to write about

After a while, she sang to me old poems

Those that were written

during a happier time.

When I was leaving, I picked my poet up

Thought I’d keep her in the front pocket of my shirt

Right in front of where my heart was

But her home was in those pages, her soul in

those words

So I settled her on a nice cozy bed

of a brand new page

Promising her happy dreams

And a dose of hope, to help her write again.

I know ‘right before the exams’ is a crazy time for me

Sometimes beautiful and sometimes incredibly difficult

Sometimes all about poetry that flows through my blood in those days

Sometimes the hollowness of my room, sometimes of my thoughts

Sometimes the emptiness in my heart, and sometimes how full I feel

because I took more time than usual in finishing a meal

that would otherwise be over in less than 10 minutes; the slowness comes

in the avoidance of books that I love but hate because I have to glance

through them fast and I can’t taste them slowly and swallow them with

joy; the way I enjoyed my food today.

So I glance at them and look away, at the choices I have made

Of distant poets and story tellers and lovers of words whom I love

and I stare at their lives so deeply with tears in my eyes wondering

if they ever feel the way I feel sometimes; and if I will ever feel the way

they do; and if ever somebody else will wish to feel the way I feel

today

And whether the hunger in my soul and the thirst in my heart

will ever be quenched by my fulfilling the promises I keep making to

myself every now and then.

The book continues to stare at me and I continue to smile at the computer screen

telling myself that there are more important things

and that this time here, my laptop and the candle right next to it,

and the fire it holds, is much more important than learning I will forget

the day my exam gets over; though I hope I don’t.

The Boy Who Creates Music

Right across my room lives the boy who

creates music; dham dham badampam dham dham

giving me wanted and unwanted sounds all day

dham dham dham dham; and inside the room I can see him

his specs staring hard at the screen, his face wearing a

smile; dham dham dhadam dham bam

“Would you like to listen to my new piece?” he says

“Nahhhh, I haven’t got the time”; dham dham

“aacha chal jaldi se suna”

He’s the guy who gives background music to

my life.

But this boy who creates music doesn’t really know

that he creates so much more.

he creates joy for those struck with sadness

and laughter for those who have been serious too long

he creates sparkles in eyes

he makes complete opposites stick along

he creates food everybody loves

and the best chocolate coffee I have ever known

he is everything that is right with me

and everything that is wrong, corrected, and then rolled

into one.

He is crazy plus innocent

like a recipe made of chocolates and music,

psychology and sudoko, chicken shawarma and momos

a pinch of french fries and chhole bhature

and of every random tasty street food

the streets of Lajpat Nagar can produce.

The boy who creates music

gives rhythm to my heartbeats

and a base to my life

a tempo to the speed of work

and a sound to

make everything alright. 

Happy birthday, Sid. You are loved :*