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When it was time, I stepped into the bath full of spider webs. Some quivered with rage. Some crackled like silence does, like pomegranate seeds do. I crusted over their collective mutiny of light, shimmer, shade, and thought to myself—it’s time to...

Is this love? Is mossy green the right shade for Earth? Why doesn’t love last? Why doesn’t blood? Why does this longing? How to paint gnawing? Can’t figure out and yet I paint brokenness, roots—why? Where did I read about Shiva’s third eye? Did...

When I was young, I saw whispers escape the fog of their memories and spread on the kitchen floor. They sat facing the fire burning the timber of tales of partition in such a way that it sealed the knots, grain of every pain felt, seen, heard—of...

“The sex is so good.” I used to gush like a mynah bird. Heard a bulbul sing recently? Intently? Kyun nahin, nahin, kyun nahin, nahin. Sounds don’t translate; words do. Be mindful where you place your words, your love. Making love is not the same as...

this thin world all full of talk talks of cyclones that blew out stars stars too dim to listen to prayers we send send to them as kites tethered to lines of crystal crystal when crushed cuts through flesh flesh bleeds, fridges rust this thin...

We drive to the park for our weekend walk. You, me and our angry complaining silence superglued to us tight. Shut. I turn the seams of my thoughts inside out can’t find any traces of the us we’ve practiced all these years. So, I turn the radio...

Don’t commit the folly of using your eyes to pick the best. Ripe, luscious, juicy. Tsk. Don’t have a clue, do you? Superficial fools! Listen, pay attention—close your eyes. Don’t peak. Hover over the fruit with other senses; smell, touch, gut,...

when days were mangoes, I sliced open a Sun slid one half over the horizon and kept the other in my pocket pulp, juice, smell, innocence I was copying my grandfather – his kameez pockets were always full of jaggery the mango seed, I scraped clean...

This defined Love (of stories and tragic ends) La ILA Majnu Romeo Juliet, Heer-Ranjha is a kite carved out of SKY poured and pushed into frame-hearts of mortals to pulsate with pulse in a lover’s chest. Lines of colour, of religion and all games...

All the things I’m meant to receive today; sun warmth on yoga mat bird song orange jasmine lush lime peeking through windows vacuum cleaner whirrs; the cleaner is back sweat on brow hover over me like a child whose mother died; she’s four years old...

Deodars tall. Tall and rock-hard. Soft, the softest mist on mountains melts you into me— hidden half, in full view those valleys and those peaks. I sprinkle pink Himalayan salt on sliced tomatoes, freshly washed rocket leaves. Our memories. Daisies...

Plant your gaze on anything but his face. His face—less than ten in years lived holding orbs cave-rimmed dark, deep. At the traffic signal. Your car hums a cool song at 42 degrees Celsius.   Pick up your phone and stare at the screen. His...

Devi Divine of garden pots (and patch of green plot) stood verdant resplendent at my dehleez and said Your garden, my child, is full to the brim. I’ve done what I could with hibiscus and neem. Not forgetting frangipani, of course. She holds, like...

I pick pebbles from riverbeds and distant shores mark them with names: places they were picked and arrange them on my desk, windowsills. Indelible bookmarks of a day in the sun, family fun. Holidays far from home. Kashmir, Chicago, Cyprus....

The moon split in half – unequal, lopsided hides behind unseasonal clouds half-hidden, clearly visible as I take one step after another on my evening walk. “Why do we need feminism?” a question I’d read recently follows me down the quiet road. The...