Dirgha Aayu

The mosquito in the corner is watching me. I know he is watching me. Unbidden to my eyes, to my knowledge. He is a patient one that one. Oh, he is patient. He waits for me to settle into my bed and slip into half a sleep. Yes, just that point — half a sleep. Then he attacks me. He sings in my right ear. Dude, what’s with that? Yes, always the right ear. Then I retrieve my right hand and bang it on the ear. In vain. A few more winks and I feel his brusque touch on my forehead. I retrieve my hand and bang the area. Again, too late, only in vain! Then there may be some love bites [wait, what is that word Rachel uses in Season 2? What’s that word? Anyone? Any F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans in my head can enlighten me?] on my neck, chin … Grrr. I get up and load up my armament — Goodknight Liquid. I slip down into its sickly sweet smell. The night may be non-controversial post this. Sometimes, however, the sickly-sweet is not available and handy. Sickly-sweet. Grrr. Then I have to rely on my second-in-command — Mr. Fan. Well, Mr. Fan has his eccentricities, you know. He is as the Malayalam catch phrase describes it “either on the aashaan's chest or outside the kalari.” You have to be conversant in Malayalam to know this phrase. If you are not, you could have made out that this has something to do with the martial art of kalari. If you could not at least make that out, well, your general knowledge is not good which is another way of saying that you are a dork. If you do not know what a ‘dork’ is please refer to the great, big F.R.I.E.N.D.S. repository of slangs and similar knowledge systems. Now, coming back to the phrase — well, I would like to explain it. If you know the meaning, please gnash through the next sentence. The phrase refers to the kalari student who, in a fight, either lands on the aashaan’s (master’s) chest or outside the kalari (‘kalari’ here also implies the fight square drawn on the ground similar to a Karate fight square). So, coming back to the original object of eccentricity in reference of which this phrase was used — Mr. Fan is either too slow or too fast. So when the mosquito blips and rips my sleep graph, which rightfully but for him should keep sliding to a calm horizontal into the dawn, I get out of bed and position Mr. Fan from ‘4’ to ‘5.’ Now, as you have already been informed, ‘5’ is too fast and I tend to get cold in sometime. I, then, get up again and position him back to ‘4.’ And then, I do not know how exactly, I spend the rest of the night. The sleep graph is jagged and rough. But that is how it is with the mosquito. I think the mosquito and his brethren could be reincarnations of Zen fight masters. What say?! No wonder I came up with that kalari phrase out of the blue.  

Acts of Love

The day is weary
But the night is young
The starry night plays on my left foot
The violet anklet is snug where it is
I steal a glance at his almond eyes
Red-edged almond eyes
I know he had looked at me a moment before
We are careful not to coincide
My chest is aghast with a wild song
My fingers numb with desire
I want to touch him
My phantom has done some things
Confessed some things
My mortal shell remains frozen
Bitten by chips of reality
Tiny chips that together make a frenzied resonance
That make me calculate actions divided by outcome which could be multiplied by the unknown probability of rejection
Rejection, I know tastes like sawdust
The result is nil
I am still, still
I watch the thoughts die
I watch the moment pass
I witness my suffering end
I witness my small death
I wake up, make my bed
I make him breakfast
By the door, as I leave, he thanks me
Why, I ask
Not asking truly, but as a natural flow of conversation which leads to silence and full stop as I enter the lift shaft
Did you take everything, he asks
I assure him and gravitate down
But I return in moments
My handkerchief is missing
Somehow the handkerchief was important
I ring the bell, he looks for it
We both stand then in an awkward moment of embarrassment
I leave again, without a goodbye
Later, in tea-break,
As I walk towards the loo
I find my handkerchief in my jeans pocket
Where I always keep it - handy
Earlier that day,
The train journey away from his home was quiet
Quiet and sunny
The sunrays entered my left eye from the window as I stared out
Entered and stay put
I was still
I hadn't even thanked him for the violet anklet.

- Chandni Girija
19-11-2017

Stay Safe in Thailand

Mother, you are me
Me, you
But as Gibran said about children
I came through you, not from you
And so now I wonder
Where do I originate?
I used to think,
I had a start
My story began with the stories you told me
Of the day I was born
And of the days later
I thought I had a start
Somewhere from where my memories began to stay-
Stay, etch and institutionalise.
I thought.
I competed against 200 million other possibilities
And won existence
I was chosen in you.
Did you choose me?
Did I chose you?
Are there choices, Mother?
I think there are.
Somewhere along the stretch of time and human existence
A domino was chosen to be pushed
Which pushed other dominoes
And hence we met, in your womb.
Like a speeded Natgeo video
Of a sprout growing from soil
I grew and sprouted
And grew
And kept growing.
Now I am, even larger than you.
And as days go,
I feel you grow smaller.
Like the days you strapped my sling,
I wondered with wonderment,
How you could be so much smaller than me!
Surely, Mother
You are growing smaller.
But I also wonder
If were were to count the age of the lines that existed
The lines of time and existence
The line that I am
The line that you are
Who is older, Mother?
Me or you?
Who pushed the domino?
Do I originate?
Or are we two infinities that have crossed on this graph?
It doesn't matter.
What matters is the intersection continues
The length of lines continue to flow
As they keep intersecting.
As time will have it,
Like the thread roll of a kite,
The finiteness of the intersection on this graph will stop.
You will go your way,
I, mine.
You will keep moving
And I will too.
We may meet again,
Or not.
We may remember some things
Like the dreams I had when I was sleeping in you,
They may recur when you may be born in me, may be in another graph.
May be.
But nothing will be gone.
Nothing ever goes.
It only transforms.
We have told all our tales to the universe
And stored in it every thought, every cell we have shed.
When people will read from the tree of time,
They will read us.
We will occur as thoughts
We will be born again.
But for now,
We are snug in this intersection
We are good
Like a cowboy movie
Let's keep walking to the sunset
(Our hands are already held)
And when the sun plops from the horizon,
Other movies will begin,
Other journeys.
You remember that family photo
Taken in Foto Techniks, when I was four?
I was grumpy with tears
Because you had chosen to wear my gold chain.
Today, again, you have chosen to wear my gold chain,
Twenty-four years later
And with it you shall be landing 2400 kilometres away.
Stay safe in Thailand, Mother.

The Hole in my Soul

The void sings to me
This moment, it does
I am the matter
It lacks
It knows
And I do
And yet,
And yet
I give it your face
And hers
And his
And I try to fill
The void with other centian matter
And, so, it leaks
Empties even before half full
Now I am tired
Not with the void
But my farcical piling

- CG 22-07-16 00:00

The Tattooed Woman

She drapes her grace
In a piece of silk
Round it snakes on her
From her feet
Her waist
Her bosom
Her shoulders
It punctuates on her neck
Through a colourful butterfly
She hangs about the railing
With no care in the air
She croaks in a tough voice
And stamps her personhood
In a heckling feminine space
Which notices her
Then forgets her
She is just the fringe co-traveller
Carrying differing contents inside her silk

- Chandni Girija 

22-07-16

Empath

An empath is a bastard
Who feels the surrounding energy
The glow in the hearts of others
And the heaviness of their sadness pit
An empath is not a saint
An empath is not equainimous
An empath is the fulcrum of dynamic energy
An empath is always disturbed
An empath feels all
But no one will claim an empath
Because she is too much
And so
An empath is a bastard

Come :)

I know you have begun, rains. The ancient instincts you shelved in me tell me so. I know your dance will now commence. You shall flood us and stop the trains :) Oh rains, it feels so nice. You know? It has been sunny for so long. Ah. The sun felt nice too, on the back of my arms and the curve of my back. I have, like water, enjoyed the scorching. And now as I see, the season is turning. The earth has turned, the winds have turned, the clouds have turned and we have you here! Watch my lips. They too turn. Which way, you know. For your lips turn too as you watch me - slanting, upwards.

I am ready, rains, for a new season, another season. I love the deaths I die each night and the lives I birth each morning. Watch my lips, they part. My grin is toppling. Don't try, you can't contain it. My throat gurgles. You know, now I am gonna laugh that full-faced, full-throated laughter of mine. My face would twist upwards to the sky and you could glimpse the virile presence my throat insists. My eve's apple would bang once on its wall and my face would arc back to its genesis. You would want to possess me then. But you know I exist nowhere but in moments. I am here, and I shall be gone. I shall be foregone and I shall come back. I am changing. I am the seasons. I am the woman who watches the droplets and I am the droplets that fall from the sky.

Watch how the electromagnetic fields of earth and existence rise on my body. You call them goosebumps. I call them nothing. Rains, wait no more. Come, come, make crazy love to me. 

Split-second Insights

"Shhh"
Said she
A black-bangled hand
Shaped the sound
A straight finger, a dangling thumb and four folded fingers
Said "shhh" to me
But her lips pouted another sound
...
What was that?
I closed my eyes
And cringed my ears
Then I could hear it
Distantly
Like a train jogging in the night
Or a wave crashing on an angry beach
"Come..."
She said with her lips
I opened my eyes in shocked comprehension
The knowledge was sudden and surprising
Like a childhood memory that I grasped so late
In a single shot it killed my naivety
And injected the power of  unknown, exciting opportunity
Opportunity that promised of danger and derision
Opportunity that smelled of exhilarating fulfillment
My heart stopped right then
At that moment
Cold fear like cold water flooded my inners
Oh, I was submerging
I shall soon sink!
Is this what they call, 'cold comprehension'?
But I was warm everywhere else
No hot
No, I was feverish everywhere else
My forehead vein made its presence known
Rightly splitting my head into equal halfs of the conundrum
Her nostrils were apathetically calm at the sight that I was
She breathed so evenly
While I was struggling for air
I dared to raise my eyes and meet her gaze
Oh, oh!
That murderous woman!
She was smiling
In the most sweetest, detached form possible
A smile that could have twinkled in the eyes
Only of the enlightened ones!
Oh, the contradictions you inhabit
And the choices you offer!
The way you play
The tests you set
When I smirk the satisfactory smirk of the puppeteer
You turn the gameboard
And there, I find myself
Twiddling breathlessly as a puppet
You horrible woman
You know I hate you
You know I love you so bloody passionately
You know I am your child
Your helpless, tantrum-sprouting child
Your crazed lover
And, rarely, in paucity
Your husband
Who stands firm and walks straight, holding your hand
Oh goddess!
I am trailing and fighting
To wear the crown that I crave
I am waiting for the day
That I shall stop writing poems
And be solely your master!!

- Chandni Girija
17-05-17

To hell with binaries!!

I stand with legs apart. Not just bcoz of the 'Hero' I'm balancing. Bcoz my balance is more important than my grace. 
I am comfortable in my skin. 
I am carefree.
I am confident. 
I am assertive. In words and voice and poise and presence.I am MASCULINE.

Yet, but, even more, beyond it, I am, so, ah, how do I put it...there's no single word. I am a WOMAN.
Before the laws were created of how the womb vessel should clatter and the seed carrier should clang, before the dawn of organised civilized clutter, I roared wildly over the raw horizon. Do you hear it? Untwine your veins and connect them to the chords of the ancient energy swirling in the winds of the universe. The voltage would blast you into dust. 
The, if you had the courage, to keep going, to know me, beyond my strong sinews, you would meet my smoothness - silky, thick, voluptuous. Murderous to all your senses, you would be shocked to meet another adjective. Yes, I am SENSUAL. 
Tell me, can you contain me? In a glance, in a role, in a relationship, into even a WORD? 
No, that single word is one billionth of me. And adjective? There's isn't one born to define me yet. Not even PHENOMENAL.

Talking with Pictures - 5

Silence is golden
And sunshine is silent
It steals upon you
Like still water
Water, still
Still, pond
Like still pond water
That you waded in
In your native village
And stood half-trunk out
Half in, legs still
Watching nothing
Just feeling
How the water cuts you
Into two worlds
The water world and the worldy world
But I am talking of water!
Sunshine, too
Cuts you
Into two worlds
- the lighted world and the dreary world
You watch your skin
Patching in shades
Colourfully singular, yet so, so wide
Brown if you are brown
Yellow if you are yellow
Unlike the wetness of water,
Here you are dry
Drier
Sunshine, like pond water
Gathers around you
And suddenly occupies you
Silently, suddenly
On your skin
And seeps inside
With its feel
Its very distinct feel
You know you are inside sunshine
As you are in water
Even if you are blinded
Or blind-folded
Sunshine also is moody
Softer, harsher
Intense, shallow
As the time of the day
And time of the year
These days are beckoning at summer
And I can truly feel sunshine
Occupying me
Furrowing my brows
But easing my smile lines
Baking me slightly
Under the outer wrappings of my clothes
Baking the little cracks
The little, finite cracks
Silently, seamlessly, selflessly
How royal, how graceful
How intangibly beautiful
Sunshine is!
You may find me tanned these days
But do stop to knock at my skin wall once
You will find me tougher, more robust.
These days I do not chose one over the other
Water over sunshine
Sunshine over water
But I find it more alluring
Sunshine, golden, silent and strong!

- चा. गि.
02-03-17

The Song of Fatigue

ये माघारी गं फुलणारी
घेऊन गोष्टींची उशी
यथार्ताशी करूनही लग्न
झाले मी अनवाणी
तुझ्या पांघरुणाचा अंधार आण
तुझा घाम, काखेचा वास आण
शिशिरात कात माझी फाटली
तुझ्या ऊबीचा विणकाम आण

- चा.गि.
25-12-16

तुटक्यात बोलणे - 2

She felt like men's cologne, the one that was popular in the 90s, what was it called - Brut! - alluring, yet with a rough, hard lingering aftertaste on nostrils. Yes, she even sounded - her feeling - like "Brut."

अर्ध चंद्र

स्तब्ध कळ्यांचा तो चंद्र
उगवलाय दूर आकाशात
त्याची अर्धता, पुसटशी
पूर्णतेच्या रेखिवपणाशी घेणं-न-देणं असलेली
कंपार्टमेंटच्या लायटी डाव्या डोळ्याला बोचतांनाही
खिडकीचा वारा उजव्या कानाशी वाद घालतानाही
त्याची मंद शांतता माझ्यातही शिरते
स्मर्नोफ वोडका सारखं
हळू हळू छातीत पसरते
माझ्या स्पंदनांनामधे आजून अंतर आणते
एके दिवशी हा अंतर इतकं लांबावणार
कि श्वास ही स्तब्ध होतील
तेव्हा पर्यंतची ही उघड चळवळ
हे शरीर
हा मेंदू
हे आयुष्य
तरंगांचा
कोटी रंगांचा
धडपड कशाची, कशाला?
नसण्याच्या, असण्याच्या भ्रांतीचा?
आहे, आहे, काहीच नाही
अगदीच काहीच नाही
न राहणार
काहीच
अगदी काहीच नाही
तो चंद्र कदाचित उरणार
कदाचित तो ही विरघळून जाणार
मात्र तो तृप्त आहे
परिपक्व
परिपूर्ण
आणि मीही.
:)

- चा.गि.
06-01-17

(वर्षाची पहिली कविता/First Poem of the Year 😊)

टिमटिम लडकी

एक टिमटिम तिनका
आँखों में मेरी, तुम्हारी...
मेरी रेंगती,मिटती, बनती इमारत में
एक यह भी जुडा तिनका
झगमगता, सुनहरा, मीठा
दो पल गुजारे मैने बचपन के
तुम्हारे मासुमियात के साथ
दो पल झिझोरकर देखा
मेरी दबी, छुपी ममता को
सोचती हूँ आँखों में तुम्हारी
हसी इतनी विरल क्यों हैं
तुम्हारी भेद्यता को देखकर
अजीबसा दर्द होता हैं
हलकासा, मीठासा
फिर उसे भूल भी जाती हूँ
अपनी रेंगने, मिटने, बनने में खो जाती हूँ
और फिर कोई दिन तुम्हे
फिर देखती हूँ
छोटी बातों पे तुम्हारा हसना, शरमाना देखती हूँ
और छोटे छोटे, तिनकोवाले लड्डू
मेरी आँखों में भी फूटते हैं!

- चा.गि.
27-12-17

😜

शायर से ना पूछो
"कभी इश्क किया हैं?"
कलम तो फितरत ने थमायी
स्याही तो मोहब्बत ने बहायी!

- चा. गि.
24-01-17