SNOW BURIED PROMISES. A tribute to the martyrs of Siachen Avalanche

More than anything else, the promise was to come back. But up there, the mountains had different plans. They moved, as the unforgivable snow came sweeping down the terrain in threatening waves, shrouding the brave lives with a cold jacket of death. However, they stayed just like that – meeting death in its eye below the frozen earth; crushed by the snow; blood slowly ceasing in their limbs, as life kept company of their mangled bodies, no better than that...

PROHIBITED

‬ Like wildlife reserves, even relations come with their own well demarcated, accessible and prohibited zones. There are these spaces where everyone is allowed. Every single soul, in their free, undisturbed roam can go wandering without any inhibition or even bothering to measure the consequences of their doings. Such spaces naturally come with an uncalled safety. There's really no one to probe you with the protectiveness of it all. Simply being ...there,...

WILL

It was getting tougher for him with each passing day. Not being able to put his feelings into words was a crushing feeling that drove him crazy. With every breath, all he ever wanted was to let her know how much he loved her.  And so, finally, that day, he summoned all his courage and decided to call her up and confess his love. Just when he was about to call her, his phone lit up on his palm and with her name across the screen, it felt like...

ARCHAELOGIST

I love her like the blue lake, might love the migratory birds on its banks. Scattered in an array of colors; diving into the waves, swooping out of the trees and singing to the delight of the visitors. At once gathering, accolades from the world. It is her moving away from me, her circumstantial absence, that feels like the winter. The grass, then, pales out on my banks. The mist rises over the horizon. The sky sheds its indigo jacket. The pines...

VAGABOND

‬ My verses were a population of vagabonds, Moving along the painful distance ... Separating my heart from yours. The heartbreak that you sometimes tore me with, Were the sudden raids in the middle of the night; Driving them away to clear the land. Those tongue splitting words That you hurled in rage Were vehicles leading the raids-- Smashing through their huts, Sweeping clean their existence, Grinding honesty to dust. Still, The vagabonds that...