Why I did not see Soundarya's first smile

The coffee-steam fogs my glasses
By then, Soundarya has smiled
Her first smile

In memory of Teacher T

The awful thing about growing old is, you die
The awful thing about life is, you've to summarise it
The awful thing about an apostrophe is, you never know when it is diacritic
The awful thing about memory is, most of it is italicised
Unreliably

Teacher T
Was no voluntarist
She made minds
In Marathi rather than French
Provided tales of grammatical technique
Collected wrist watches (a new one per day)
That should come handy as time ticks
In eternity

12 shorts on a rainy day

1.
I visit the market
Purchase a fresh set of lies

2.
My first date, I recall
The water I sip, it tastes like blood

3.
What if God is pretending to be someone else?

4.
Today, I'm Sherlock Holmes
I reach for my cocaine bottle
Then set out to spy on Mr and Mrs Watson, honeymooning

5.
The orphan boy who delivers my newspapers
Offers me peppermints
He says, no news today
All dried up, it seems

6.
It has started drizzling, again
How many droplets make a rain?

7.
Great openings are for rookies
I collect endings


8.
I watch the movie in mute
My Oriyan neighbour wails
She is being beaten by her husband
Yet again

9.
The bunyan tree has a nice shape to it
What is it?
Arjuna making love to Draupadi?
Bhim wrestling with Duryodhana?

Perhaps both?

10.
When he died at 87
They buried him with a ledger in which he jotted down the names of his friends from class one
None of whom attended the midnight funeral


11.
I dust inanimate objects
They come alive
My nightmares multiply


12.
I call the local police station
When I spot Orestes being chased by the Furies
In the middle of the night

The policeman on duty tells me to turn the page

Up above the sky

The grey and ugly sky fell
Squashing everyone's brains
Forever

I stepped out of a window

I stepped out of the window
Onto the top of a neem tree
Swaying in the breeze
As I tip-toed on a leaf or two

A bat
Stared with one eye
I told him
Try vodka sometimes, upside down
It gives a solid kick