The last half hour

(My sleep, assuming the next morning is ‘working’, is divided, on most days, into two unequal halves- the first usually sound six-and-a-half hour and the last eventful full of sounds half hour before waking up; this piece is a tribute to the second half)

Bathed in the rays of the virgin sun

Oh, wait- Poetic lies!

There must be sun somewhere

But doesn’t it care to sneak in,

On a tranquil winter dawn.

A thin blanket pacifies the raw breeze

That takes shelter in my room;

Ah, I always forget to shut the window

Before I go to sleep.

But I have been woken up

By distant horns on roads,

Blarings of senile engines

And occassional screeching tires

Brushing past the wind

With a whooshing sound.

Then I pick up the cellphone

Lying leisurely beside my pillow;

And as I try to look at the time

It asks for the pattern password

Such a turn-off

In those blessed moments of ‘half-sleep’.

As trembling fingers vie

To get the pattern right,

Digital figures glow-

Oh, there’s still twenty minutes of sleep.

Turning from one side to the other

Restlessly crawling-

Won’t I get up for pranayama,

As I promised Baba?

Five more minutes of sleep- without bother.

There’s something more disturbing-

Ah, the dripping sound

Incessantly invading my thoughts

From the bathroom-

Again I forgot the plumber

Wish I’d saved his number!

With every passing minute

All these sounds turn scary as hell

Louder than ever;

The horns, the tires, the crows, the water

And finally the ‘music’.

I promise to myself-

I’ll never let me hate that beautiful song

Because it’s the morning alarm!

Erring orchestra

The orchestra before the city czars

So elegantly arranged with guitars

Keyboards, percussion and brass

By the master who conducts the class.

Melody flows into the audience like a boon

When suddenly the piano goes out of tune

The music is no longer a serene lagoon.

Listeners wake up from a sweet dream

As if to a loud scream

The master has to decide before it’s late

How to bring all instruments in unison

To help complete their slumber-

Sensational, sound and with passion.

The Price Tag

There is a price tag attached to every item of clothing so elegantly hanging in this outlet. This tag is to be borne by the cloth until the time someone decides to buy it. This dress badly wants to grace the body of some beautiful girl. But, no one is buying it. The price is too high for some and despite desperately being in love with the dress, cannot afford it. There are other shoppers in the same outlet to whom the dress is too “cheap”- they would rather prefer some international brand and thus decide against spending on it.

Now, this dress and this tag are tethered for a long time and they are so integral to each other. Without the dress, the tag is useless. The dress can of course do without the tag but- consider a case where the tag is replaced by some other tag; the dress might in fact end up being sold to someone else for whom it wasn’t meant.

Despite the tag being so important to the dress, it always wants to get rid of the tag…..

Reality and dreams

Aching body wastes away on bed

From last night’s sleep

As it merges into the day ahead.

Dreams never let me get up,

My body clinging to them

Wishing for a magic final lap gallop.

They always said-“Dream, dream”

They didn’t tell me to wake up

And get behind the wheel.