All that I want to do.

There are people awake, making beautiful music right now, somewhere in the dark dark night. My eyes are closed, and I am afraid to open them. I am afraid that this dream will shatter.

Fingers like talons, digging into a pound of your flesh. Pulling you closer by your thighs and drinking from your lips. I want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to love you. I want to suck on you. I want to hold you till your marble cracks open and the wine streams out. Then I will smear that wine on my forehead and dive back, this time for blood. 

Scheherazade

You are unattainable again, tonight. 

Like you were sometime ago. 

When I would read your poetry

over and over. 

Try to look for you in your words. 

Deciphering your codes, your secrets. 

Pretending that everything you wrote

was a riddle for me. 

You wrote about your men and your city. 

Your life and your death. 

Your realm. 

And the silent futility of it all in which

you strangely seemed to revel in. 

I didn't even remember how you looked like back then. 

Just your hair. 

And your hands, your tiny little hands

as they sifted through the sand.

Soft delicate fingers caressing with care. 

And then you wrote for me. 

Scribbled verses about me on a tissue, 

using my back as a support, 

with the pencil you stole from me, remember? 

And I was so jealous of your words. 

For they came to you like old friends. 

My words fooled me.

My words gave up. 

You loved me like you were born to love me. 

I just gave you a thousand and one nights worth of stories. 

You were supposed to be my muse. 

That was the arrangement. 

But you, with your mysterious ways, took me in.

And I became yours.  

 

A better way to lie.

We're miserably failing, you and I.
Our shoes lying morosely in the sand with their mouths wide open.
Poem doesn't come the way it used to.
Now we have to grunt every sentence out.
Push it out like a morning shit without a cigarette.
Too young and too scared and already,
way too tired to be grown-ups.
The sea eats up the beach inch by inch.
Consumes all the empty beer bottles
and the torn fishnets and the condoms.
Then burps.
A nearby dog wakes up from his sandy nest.
We're too scared to write.
Too sleepy to be honest.
Too hungry.
All the time.
(I am already bored, in the middle of writing this poem.
For what's the point. Its not a good poem.
Its a bunch of shit.
There is no rhythm. There is no conscience.
No yearning, no ambition.
No swear words. Not even thinly veiled truths.
Nothing to salvage.
Maybe if I end it with a pretty image...)
A warm night falls on us. The shoes are gone.
The sea ate them. The bastard.
The dog comes over, sniffs at my toes.
Then pisses into the sea
and goes away.  

A boat ride on the river.

Last summer, I went on a vacation to Goa with my family. I had a lot of fun there. My
favourite part was the boat ride on the river Mandovi. It was a huge boat with a lot of people.
Me, my parents and my little brother enjoyed the ride a lot.

It was a pleasant day and my mother had packed us some tomato sandwiches. We sat in the
boat looking at the blue water and took a lot of pictures. I loved putting my hand inside the
water but my mother always shouted at me for doing that. We went deep inside the river and
the uncle who was steering the boat pointed inside the water. All of us looked at where he
pointed and we saw a dolphin in the water. The dolphin swam with our boat for a long time.
People tried to throw pop-corn in the water but the uncle asked them not to do that.

After that we saw the sun set into the water from the boat. I was tired when the day was over
but it was the best boat ride of my life.

Poo-tee-weet.

Around that time, writing left me. Every night I tried, sat there with bloodshot eyes waiting for the morning, doodling distorted human faces in my notebook. Mornings were unbearable. The brightness was too blinding. The paper would still be empty. And the birds would start chirping. Poo-tee-weet. That really annoys me. Birds chirping early in the morning. I don't feel that there is anything worth chirping about the morning. It is way too bright, plus you have to fight the sudden realization that there are others awake now. Last night's mess is visible now. 

Once it is morning, sleep comes almost shamefully. Like a rape victim. Mornings come with cottonmouth and hunger and futility and the fucking chirping of the fucking birds. I would just smother my head with the pillow and make it as dark as I possibly could. And every morning, as I drifted off to sleep, I would think about those bands they use to cover their eyes while sleeping. Sleeping masks. That's what they're called. Sleeping masks. Every morning, I would think about sleeping masks. 

I close my eyes right now trying to remember that evening in Zari. Well, one of them, really. They have all melted and merged into a single representative by now. Of over-burnt tea and cow dung and Old Monk and incessant smoke. Or the long lost nights at Renusagar, on the dark little hill with the lake overlooking a million chimneys reaching up to a million stars, filling the air with grey clouds of nocturnal industry. Sad nights. Accumulating slowly but surely, coming to get you, little child. 

Dead dog lying in the middle of the highway, guts spilling out, still fresh. I walk around the carcass, minding the crows. I hate crows. Somewhere in Panjim, a car with bloodstains on its grill must be pulling over by now. People come to Goa to escape their sad meaningless lives. Where are the people already living in Goa supposed to go to? I go to Zari. Sit down in Patil kaka's chai shop listening to him verbally abuse his thirteen year old nephew. Watch the thin frail ghost of Zari stand dead center on the little road, arms tied behind his back and people driving around him, narrowly missing the possibility of another dead carcass. Watch little kids throwing stones at passing cars. Watch the dark concrete eyes of workers coming back from the factory. Watch out for all the shit, piss, scum and cat litter in the universe.

There was a fair here two days ago. The little village spiffed up. Most of the dog shit was gone. Long strings of pretty flashing lights were put up. In the evening the little street that bifurcated the village looked like the centre of the universe. So many people! Buying, selling, negotiating. Little stalls of cotton candy and ice cream and shiny metal trinkets. Footwear and handbags and little plastic helicopters that fly twenty feet when you pull the string. Little kids crawled like critters among sequoia trees; looked for their mothers. Balloons and toffee and earrings studded with shiny stones. Today it is all gone. The saffron on the street is there, though. The torn festoons are there. The only remnants. Like spoilt make-up on a weeping woman’s face.

Patil Kaka’s stall becomes dull at night. The feeble little tube light tries so hard, but falls short. Little crevices of darkness here and there, the place seems smaller than it actually is. A dusty calendar and a ritualistic photograph of some solemn deity sit on the pink wall, overlooking everything- the equally solemn patrons, Patil kaka telling his thirteen year old nephew how he will never be able to fuck in his life, and me, a stranger here too. Only the nephew is friends with me, for I buy him chocolate sometimes. And the poor little shack takes me, all my companions, even the government issue box of free condoms into her rat infested abdomen, with a surprising sense of complacency. It’s not like she can do anything about it anyway.

All she does is wait. Wait for a group of seven year olds, who come by every evening carrying pots and pans almost as big as themselves, begging for food. The whole village waits for them. For they go to every house, every shop and beg. And they take everything they get and demand for more and mix it all into those huge pots and pans that they carry; All of Zari’s leftovers into one. And they chirp around like tiny little songbirds, poo-tee-weet, in a language you and I will never understand. They brighten up every place they go, and the little shack waits for them, for they give her, and us, the one elusive shy smile we’ve been searching for the whole dastardly day. They take the loaf of bread Patil kaka gives them and keep it carefully among the pan full of yesterday night’s rotis. And then, tumbling amongst themselves, they fly away, leaving us utterly clueless, utterly alone.

The little shack darkens again. Utterly clueless, utterly alone. Like a lover, left behind.

poo-tee-weet.

Around that time, writing left me. Every night I tried, sat there with bloodshot eyes waiting for the morning, me and the empty paper. Mornings were unbearable in a way. The brightness was too blinding. The paper would still be empty. And the fucking birds would start chirping. That still annoys me. Birds chirping early in the morning. You are lucky if you can go to sleep when it is still night. Once it is morning, sleep comes almost shamefully, like a rape victim. Mornings came with cottonmouth and hunger and futility and the fucking chirping of the fucking birds. I would just smother my head with the pillow and make it as dark as I could. And every morning, as I drifted to sleep, I would think about those bands they use to cover their eyes while sleeping. Sleeping masks. That's what they're called. Sleeping masks. Every morning, I would think about sleeping masks.

One point five...?

I reached the bus stand at around noon. That was the job. To go around Panjim and sketch. Bus stands were good. Railway stations too. Just a huge congregation of people not wanting to give a fuck. I would stay there for around four hours sketching people. Then go to Daily Bread around the corner and get an espresso and sketch some more. So many people. Tourists and vendors and clerks and misfits. Some with hidden agendas like mine. Most just waiting for the bus to take them home. Eventually. Snoring on the benches with their children in their arms, Spitting, yawning, selling, women in their sixties with tobacco stained teeth smoking beedis. You don't find that everywhere. All of this speckled with grotesque beggars who would caress your head and bless you if you spared them change. Two in the afternoon, the cleaning ladies wearing bright fluorescent yellow vests over their sarees would sweep all the dirt and all the spit and all the dogs away into designated corners. The spit would soon come back. So would the dogs. And the women would squat in their designated corners watching it all pile up again. People moved about, dodging mice as big as cats, towards the conductors who furiously, almost forcefully beckoned them towards their respective rides.  The whole setup was a careful pandemonium. And nobody gave a fuck.
"Excuse me, Sir, will you please lend me twenty rupees? I have to go to Mhapusa urgently and I don't have money."
He was small. Almost insignificant. He was wearing a dirty, frayed shirt and dark shorts which exposed his thin legs which ended in tattered slippers, holding a dilapidated little briefcase. He stood almost cowering in front of me, his round unshaven head bobbing up and down. You don't get to hear English like that from a person like this. The small man looked at me, summoning his sadness, his urgency.
"No change." I said and walked away.
I walked towards the other side of the bus stand. A little girl holding her mother's hand stared at me. I turned around. The small man was still there, looking for a pair of sympathetic eyes. I went to him and gave the money. I bought twenty rupees worth of satisfaction. He smiled. I smiled. For the next half hour. Nothing boosts your ego like charity.
I roamed around a bit more until I found a good spot to sketch. My model was a dog, lying seemingly dead except for the occasional whisk of his tail for the benefit of the flies around him. He was a Goan dog. No one could dare disturb his siesta. People sat around me, sneaking peeks into my sketchbook. I would get on with my work, pretending not to notice. Two minutes later, they would get on with theirs. People are like dogs that way.
A little boy wearing his school uniform came and sat next to me. Kids are fun. They don't know how to do small talk. Or mask their expressions. But then they grow up and start talking about the weather and the rain and the JanLokpal Bill and don't laugh anymore when someone farts. This one was stick thin and wore glasses too big for his face which made him look like ET. He sat with his schoolbag on his lap. His feet didn't even touch the ground. So he swung them in the air, left-right-left-right his thin legs went. I went back to my dog, who by now was too stoned to even flick its tail.
The kid got up as a lottery wallah approached. They knew each other, for the old man smiled and nodded.
"Abba kaise hain?" How is your father, he asked.
"Aaram hai."
"Aur ammi?"
"Theek."
I sat looking at the both of them. The old man was carrying the metal case slung over his shoulders like all lottery ticket vendors do. His silver beard struck a sharp contrast against his dark wrinkled face. The little kid opened his bag and took out his stainless steel geometry set. Opened it. I remembered it from my school days. A compass, a divider, a ruler, two set squares which we used to shine beams of sunlight on the ceiling and on the teacher's back as she wrote on the blackboard and a protractor. All enclosed in specific plastic compartments. The kid took out the plastic compartment to produce a neatly folded lottery ticket which he handed over to the old man. They had my attention. The dog didn't seem like he was going to leave anytime soon anyway. The old man proceeded to check the numbers against his list. His eyes moved with his fingers.
All three of us waited. Could this be the one? The kid tried to tiptoe his way into the list. I craned my neck. The old man whispered the lucky numbers under his breath..."Do, paanch, teen.."
"Nahi laga." Didn't win, he told us. Sigh. Tell you mother, he said. "Ammi ko bolo nahi laga."
The kid nodded. Took out a twenty rupee note from his little stainless steel safe and bought twenty rupees worth of luck. The lottery wallah left, his metal case bouncing with every step.
The kid neatly folded the tickets, worthless and priceless both, and put them back into the geometry case. I asked him his name. Yusuf, he said, as he packed. And then, before the grown up in me could think of any conversation starter, he swung his bag over his shoulder and ran behind his crawling bus, his slippers pittering behind him.
The dog was still there. It had to be dead.
Two hours later, the small, almost insignificant man with the little briefcase was still roaming around looking for a pair of sympathetic eyes.

2.

...The next day I left the studio and got into the last bus for the wharf. The driver was drunk. Music was playing. I got a seat. They rarely play music in these things. Sweet soft saxophone sang a lullaby. Cars honked outside. People got in. People got out. Fished for seats. Fished for change. Quarreled. The driver swore. It was beautiful. I sat there, listening, thinking, isn’t this fucking beautiful? A Konkani crooner overtook the sax now. Someone hummed with. Behind me a mother told her kid to stay up for just a bit more. The bus will stop now. Then home, dinner and then sleep! The little boy looked out of the window.  

The ferry was late again. I sat at the edge of the water, waiting. The river was dark, speckled with ships. The bridge was dim, distant, wet. Huge ships renovated into casinos stood docked in front of me. Shiny multicoloured lights, moving, shimmering, hypnotizing. One of them had a big electronic billboard. Casino Pride, it advertised. Then the C in Casino turned into a roulette wheel and went round and round. Round and round until it vanished and there was a dealer wearing a red vest doing card tricks. He vanished and there was a busty woman at the table screaming with joy. Now a fat man with a goatee kissing a card before he played it. Now another fat man ordering a drink. Now a bunch of cakes. Now a brunette in a bikini, winking, pouting. Now a smiling bartender. Now two blondes clinking glasses. Now a roulette wheel going round and round and round again until it turned into the huge C of Casino Pride. Now the busty woman again. And everyone was so motherfucking happy. The fat hairy men were happy. The women were happy. The dealers were grinning like the end of the world. The doorman was fucking ecstatic. The waiter gave you an impression that he would lay his life for a twenty percent tip. The tourists behaved as if the whole world was trying to sell them something. I kept on looking at the bizarre hypnotic show, smoking. Waiting for the brunette. All the lights were there but there was no sound. Just smoke. Just a constant hum of some distant yacht. The fat man ordered another drink. Someone spat at my feet. Everyone was waiting for the brunette now. More lights. Flickering lights, shimmering lights, mad wondrous dancing lights. And no sound. The water lapped softly at my feet. The fat man won his hand. And then, as the brunette finally winked again, the tired dark rusty blue ferry came to take me and my tired rusted people home.   

1.

I was a lost young man when I found this city. It wasn’t much of a city really. More of a town. The streets were cleaner and the cops smiled at you and you could smoke anywhere you wanted. It even had a river. And a ferry boat across it. Casinos on the water. Hookers on the street. Bars everywhere you look. Bars next to schools. Bars next to petrol pumps. Welcome to Panjim, sponsored by Kingfisher. I had to catch a ferry everyday to go to the other side of town. Everyday I would pile into the blue rusty monster, like a little kid getting on a boat for the first time, amongst fifty odd people, bikes, scooters and the occasional car. Tired, sweaty and wet at the same time, inching closer towards the exit as the shore came in sights like a tired old army bound to attack a beach. Thick horizontal rain would then pour down, soaking your underwear, rocking the boat. I would pass my time imagining an accident. The monstrous boat suddenly would seem tiny. How windy must it be for a boat full of fifty people to upturn? I would look around me and wonder if the others were thinking the same things. People, clutching everything they could reach, turning their heads against the rain, holding out communal umbrellas, waiting for the little blue boat to stop moving. Waiting waiting waiting. Checks to clear, weddings to attend, offices to reach, memos to read, cigarettes to smoke, prices to haggle, bosses to kill, waiting. All that while periodically sneaking a look at that wet ass in the taut white skirt in the corner. Thank God for that ass. The incoming shore would vanish in a spray of mist and rain. And someone deep inside the heart of the suffering boat would calmly light up a joint.

I was staying out of a small apartment which belonged to the artist I was working under. A Three rooms and a terrace with an open kitchen. Sparse old furniture. A drawer which looked like a chocolate bar. I felt lonely at night. I had some whiskey Krithika had left me, but I didn’t feel like drinking. My only friend here was an eighteen year old Nepalese kid called Vinod. He had never seen Nepal though. And yet he still had the accent. I found that funny. He worked at the coffee shop next to my place and taught me pool after dinner every night. The first night after we were done and I was picking up my jacket, a step out of the door, he said, “Goodnight, Boss.” And he said that to me every night since then. I would come back home and smoke a lot of cigarettes, try to play the guitar, try to write. I couldn’t. In the end I would just stay up smoking in the dark, looking at the godforsaken furniture around me till I was so tired that I slept. 

Mañana

.... He writes about being young and wild and free and out of your fucking mind. Out of your fucking mind jumping and talking and writing delirious poetry and smoking up and making love and getting drunk and passing out and laughing so hard and  singing wild incoherent inebriated anthems huddled around a guitar and weeping silently and never never never sleeping.

Oh I feel so INSUFFICIENT! I feel so little. Everyone around me is old and wise and grey. They’re getting jobs. Making money. But you and I? No. Let’s dream a bit more. Let’s sit and stare at the water a bit more. Cause maybe, just maybe, somewhere in there we’ll find this most brilliantmotherfucking idea! Maybe. Just maybe,  we’ll find satisfaction.  Let’s write another poem. I think I’m getting pretty good at it. I don’t hate them as much the next morning. Let’s keep writing and writing and writing till we finish all the words and then invent new ones and write some more. Let’s be maniacal for once. Y’know, kill-someone-with-your-bare-hands maniacal. Let’s rip apart furniture with frustration. No. Let’s write with frustration. Eh?  Write till we stop feeling INSUFFICIENT so much or atleast fall asleep.

Look outside your window. No. LOOK OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW. This room doesn’t even have fucking windows. But if it did I wish it would show me city lights. Look outside your window. Now tell me, what are you afraid of?

I am afraid of being..ordinary. I am afraid of not being loved. I am afraid that my dreams are wrong. I am afraid of insignificance. I am afraid of expectations. I am afraid of being poor. I am afraid of wasting my talents. Fuck. I am afraid that I might have an utterly dissatisfied booze addled worthless shitpile of a future.

We live life like we are going to live forever and we know that we might die any second now. I love that about life. She told me yesterday, you’ll end up running after the exact opposite things you’re running after today, thirty years from now. Aah. Seems so futile an exercise. I’d rather not sleep and write like this- something totally pukelike and inexplicably liberating- like this. Fuck fear, man. I am too fucking lazy to be afraid. To fear, we say mañana. Mañana. Not today. Mañana. Mañana. Mañana. Mañana...

eh, well.

They got it right man. Fuck. Dylan and Keruac and Bukowski and fucking Radiohead. They got it right. They lived the same shit a million others like them did and they fell off staircases and got into bar fights and puked their asses off and read the newspapers and cried in public washrooms and shat blood and missed breakfast and got bad trips.

And God they whined. About the politics and the corruption and that photograph of the malnourished Ethiopian kid and that head splitting hangover and the blood they shat that morning.

The waitress pours you a coffee and you light up your morning cigarette. You don’t give a fuck about the corruption. You kinda like it, infact. It’s convenient. You don’t give a fuck about the war either. It doesn't bother you. It’s like global warming. Your second cousin was on the railway station when they blew up the train but he was okay except the fact that he crapped his pants but you didn't like him much anyway. The hangover bothers you. And that’s what you end up writing about. That’s what you end up whining about. Fucking hangover. You give a fuck about getting laid and you end up writing about it. You show what you wrote that night to people and they use words like ‘honest’ and ‘passionate’ and ‘uninhibited’ and ‘I see Bukowski influence’ and some pseudo-intellectual crap like that because, well, they give a fuck about getting laid too. It’s just that they hit on chicks instead of writing about it. Or jack off. Fuck.

And deep down, at the end of the day, when you’re making apt arrangements for the next morning’s hangover, you know, in your heart of hearts that you are one sleepless night closer to your greatest fear- to wake up the next day and realize that you have nothing to write about except shitting blood.  

So..
Long time, no see. 

This one

Talks. And tries to make me

talk.

About my creative process as an artist and a writer

and my influences and my inspirations

and other bullshit people talk about.

I tell her that I write because

when it is 3 o'clock in the morning

and its a power cut and you're suffering

from chronic insomnia and you're drunk

and you've just

puked half your guts out

and you have a spare

flashlight,

there is nothing better to do.

Except make scary faces in the mirror I guess.

But that gets boring, eventually.

And she whines. Oh so much.

She tells me how she hates

Bengalis and Porcupine Tree and shallow people.

Makes plans about the future. For me too, which

slightly annoys me.

Makes the most amazing brownies. 

Writes poems.

Reads more than most. Then gets whinier.

Disappears. For days.

Because she can.

Makes me heart wrenchingly curious about

what she is doing right now.

Some chicks

just brighten up your day.

Fish curry and rice.

Four car pileup. He says. The car crashed into the truck

first.

Then the Tempo whammed into the car. Then the bus

hit the Tempo.

No one died though. Well, a dog did.

But that doesn't count.

Oh, a dumpster skidded on the broken glass and

collided with the divider

half an hour later.

I was there, he says, gnawing off the head of a fried fish

with his front teeth.

He had helped them

take out the bodies.

Seen a real live amputated leg

up close

for the first time in his life,

He smiles impatiently as he tells me.

Oh fun.

They serve good fish curry and rice here,

in this vermin infested, scavenger prone shithole

of a chai shop.

I often end up here in the evenings because there is

nothing else to do.

And their samosa paav is an commendable effort.

And it is right across the road from my favourite bar.

And because my only worry when I end up here

is how to balance the scalding teacup in one hand

and the cigarette in the other without burning myself

with either object.

I guess, there is no good fish or bad fish.

There is just, fish.

Unless you want to eat it.

Or it wants to eat you.

Wonder if they've moved the dead dog off the road yet.

Overdue.

Dear Blog,

Sometimes, when I write, I don't know who I am talking to. I never questioned my purpose to write when I started writing. It seemed worthless. I guess it was just that there was so much bile and shit and strangled words and almost-cliched thoughts which needed a secret box for safekeeping. If you were a notebook, you would be three and you would be lying between the broken table-lamp and the empty bottle of rum in my cupboard. I guess why I chose you over the notebooks was because I took a certain twisted pride in the fact that you were out in the open for everyone to see and yet, no one did. 'I need people around me to prove that I am a loner'. That I could purge myself of all unsaid, unfinished utterly useless bile and that you could take it, you inanimate object, you.

All said and done, you're just a trash can for me to dump dried remnants of washed up memories. But you're there, and that's a relief.

Thankyou, and belated happy birthday.

Me.

Indeterminate.

Backspace. Broken, twisted fingers as blood trickles downwards from the left arm and falls down on the already wet floor with a resounding, ominous plop.

Red.

Red has the maximum wavelength in all visible light. Things which we perceive to be red, blood, for example, absorb all other colours in white light and reflect red. Red of blood. Red of the panic button. Red of your full lips which, what with all their priceless little imperfections, I assure you, are still inviting. Red of the big red panic button.

I remember my Grandmother's hands. Long thin aged fingers covered with paper skin. Arms tanned so much that they looked like snakeskin in sunlight. And the small vitiligo patch near her right elbow which looked like a star on a dark horse's forehead. Her hands shook so much when she held a teacup that the rhythmic rattle of the teacup against the saucer echoed in the room. The rough papery warmth as she would hold my face in her hands and how they enveloped my entire universe and how she smelt of parsley and sandalwood and home.

I do not wish to write to be remembered. I have no story to tell. I have no wars to wage. No fight to win. My words do not have strength enough to propagate ideologies. Or overthrow them. My will is not patient enough to defend them. I am not an orphan. I am not a criminal. I have not seen the inside of a prison cell. I have not killed. I have not seen the night sky illuminated with the soft ethereal brilliance of the aurora among the millions of clear radiant stars so that it looks like the last remnants of a million of God's own Roman Candles. I have never experienced that infinite moment in time and space as I fall down from the sky with nothing but the earth below me and watch it accelerate towards me as I scramble for breath just as I scrambled for my first ever breath. I have never looked into a pair of eyes and in them realised my purpose in life. I have not lived enough. Leave me be. Leave me be. I do not wish to write to be remembered. I wish to write, to remember.

Panjim in the rain.

The last dregs of my coffee cup

and the water in my shoes.

Small change in my wallet

but a pocketful of blues.

What business do you have here?

I wish I could explain.

I guess I'm here, just to look

at Panjim in the rain.

The road is like broken glass

fallen from the sky.

And poetry is nothing but a better way to lie.

The moths drink up the street lights

and I drink all that remains.

Swig by swig, under the stars,

in Panjim in the rain.

The mice and men are in their holes

hiding from the Gods.

The empty street and the empty pier

can't stand an empty glass.

Everybody is a sinner in this town,

searching for a saint.

All they find is alcohol

and Panjim in the rain.

Water water everywhere,

but not a drop to drink.

Laughter laughter everywhere,

but not a thought to think.

My bartender is as nonchalant as they come.

"When it rains, it pours", He says.

Then pour me another one, and let me drink

to Panjim in the rain.

MCQ

One day, I am going to die in a car crash or a plane crash or cancer or a successful suicide attempt. And you are going to die too. Until then we're going to sit here with our empty glasses and overtold stories and the rest of our lives waiting waiting waiting and dreaming as the cold winter mornings come like a splash of cold water and your teeth chatter and your body shivers trying to generate some warmth. You can literally see the trees wake up and the road is a fucking polar ice cap.

Winter makes everything slow down. The stray dogs wake up and start looking around for a sunlit spot to dig a hole and do God knows what. Same old city. Same old apartments and same old trees neatly lining the same old roads. Same old muffler clad sabjiwaalah comes to the colony porch every morning. Same fucking stray dogs. Your friend's siblings are now your sibling's friends. Evenings are spent in the same old coffee shop repeating stories you'd told last year. When did this town shrink so much? You drive past your old school trying to see if anything has changed. Then back to the coffee shop.

There is a frustrating anticipation in this stillness. A new year is about to begin. Car crash, plane crash, cancer or suicide attempt?

White noise.

He didn't even remember how you looked like. What your name was. How you took your coffee. Which side of the bed you liked to sleep on. He didn't remember. He didn't remember your favourite song. Your happy place. He tried hard but he couldn't seem to. Don't blame him, but he didn't remember you.

Your beauty was lost to him. Your words forgotten. He saw you on the crowded street today. You passed each other, in fact. You even turned back and apologized when you brushed shoulders. He didn't recognize your voice. A mutual smile was all your give and take. He thought about you for the next nine seconds and controlled the urge to turn back. Afterall, its not everyday that you bump into pretty strangers.

Don't blame him, really. It was a long time ago that you met. You talked about all the things people usually talk about and that was it. You never kissed. It was nice meeting you, have a good night. He thought about the recently deceased conversation for the length of a cigarette and smiled to himself. That was it.

Wait. Do you remember him?

Fuck you too.

I don't want to be able to think anymore. For some time atleast. Not think about the next sentence. The next note. It has become too tedious a job. I want sleep. 

I don't want to be able to think anymore. I want sleep. Sound dreamless sleep. Deathlike sleep. 

I don't want to be able to think anymore.