My humble offering

Wish I could love you; give more to this affair
But my heart has been torn apart; beyond repair.
It doesn’t have any feelings to spare
You give yourself to me in totality,
Without doubt or fear, you love me unconditionally.
It’s more than romantic evenings whispering sweet nothings,
We stare at stars, and take walks in the mornings,
We share dreams and give them wings.
You love me truly, without effort, without pretense
Unable to return it, I offer you my battered soul’s shavings.

poetry in prose

All theoreticians of eroticism know when there’s no distance, there’s
no border; when there’s no border, there’s no taboo; when there’s no
taboo, there’s no transgression; and when there’s no transgression,
there’s no desire.

- Bernard-Henri Levy

How easily he has put forward the idea; without pretense or melodrama.

I am drinking in the words.

ode to the deceiving male

Kiss her on the lips
Take me around the world in ships
With her be locked at the hips
But know, she’s a momentary eclipse

With me read, write, rhyme and pun
Go to her for all the fun
Tell her she's the one
But come home to me, 'cos I mothered your son

Relive your passions within those walls
And getaway from all domestic bawls
Ignore my phone calls
As you hold her in thralls

But my love, if you’re two-faced
Don’t think I’m chaste
I'll make you happy,
and let you have your way with me.
But what happens when am alone;
You’ll never know, honey!

Dus Kahaniyan

Take any Hollywood movie, translate all the dialogues, and introduce a few item numbers in between. Of course, a lot of melodrama has to be thrown in as well, and lo and behold – you have the present day Bollywood movie. The Indian film industry (evident from its name) has become a badly cloned version of it’s more popular western counterpart. Now these directors have gone a step further, by attempting to adapt famous novels and stories. If you want to know what that resulted in, watch Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Nishabd’, which is a classic example of such literary sacrilege (Nabokov would have surely turned in his grave).

I watched a movie called ‘Dus Kahaniyan’ a couple of days back. It’s an anthology, by a host of six directors, comprising of ten short films telling ten different original stories, and starring close to 25 different Bollywood stars. The idea seemed nice, and I was looking forward to watching it. Then again, originality is perhaps the last thing one could expect of the mongrelized and recycled world of Indian cinema. The first story itself turned out to be a horrible adaptation of one of Roald Dahl’s short stories. Needless to say, six out of the ten short films were sleazy versions of different short stories. To expect to get away with their claims of originality after stealing the entire plot and characters from famous stories, the film makers must really think their audience to be an ignorant lot. I would have let it pass if they had just drawn inspiration from some stories/ideas. They not only took the gem, but went ahead and stole the whole crown! Badly written script caused loose ends in the story to stand out, and bad direction made matters worse. On a slightly positive note, two of the stories – Rice Plate and Gubbare - were good, as the story had some substance, and the acting was also quite commendable. They were probably the only stories where it did not seem like random scenes were put together to fill in a fifteen minute slot. Half an hour into the movie, and the audience knew what to expect – all stories would have a totally unexpected and tragic ending. The script writers wanted the stories to be different, and got carried away in bringing out a twisted end at the cost of ruining the plot. On the whole, it was quite a disappointment.

The idea of putting together short stories reminds me of my theater group back in Chennai, where we used to work on a similar idea. It was so much fun, and I miss it all terribly. Anyway, if you are planning to watch the movie sometime this week, take my advice and grab a good book instead.

Love

Your eyes are the color of rain cloud,
there’s thunder in your lips;
Mischief in your gait,
and magic, at your fingertips.
The need to touch becomes stronger –
A delicious urgency
together, we move in undulant motion,
And doors of a different world open up for us.

‘I love you’, you tell me
I nod, as I bask in the cool candor of your words.
Yes, I love you, my dear
But do we mean the same when we say that?
We know it’s more than a mere primordial urge
You are special to me,
I'll give myself to you all over again, if I could.
You excite my mind, indulge my body and illumine my spirit
Evenings of poetry sipping beer, walks by the sea,
Perfect conversations without uttering a single word,
Long drives on moonstruck nights;
you permeate my life; you're a part of my soul
am haunted by the memory of your touch
most content in your arms, am enraptured as we make – that tricky word – love.

Being together forever is an illusion,
it can never survive realism
Don’t try to hold on to these moments, and lose them at that
Love me in the fierce, honest way you do
And I will love you in return.
Let not the shadows of the outside world fall on us
And darken the brightly lit recesses of our hearts.
Let not the practicality of everyday lives eat into our togetherness,
but the uncertainty of tomorrow weave us closer today.