You aren't that genius

You aren't that genius-
One with scrawly handwriting,
With an inept deducing glace,
To be born on a special day.

You aren't that genius-
Struck by sudden thought,
Ignoring and leaping over logic,
Convention with primordial moratorium.

You aren't that genius-
Who can paint beauty,
Rendering words obsolete,
Daring to throw colours in the dark.

You aren't that genius-
Who can compose
Inordinate sounds to
Pose divinity into a note.

You aren't that genius-
Who can bend time to a sum;
Bring together the unseen
To a scrawl on a rough paper.

You aren't that genius;
You aren't what you want to be,
You aren't what you suppose,
You aren't anachronistic or an iconoclast.

You aren't that genius,
Which the papers would talk about,
Which galleries will present;
To have a statue at Tussaud's.

You aren't that genius,
Your mother wished you to be,
Your friends wished you weren't,
You thought you are.

You aren't that genius,
You are just another writer,
Yet another painter,
With a different signature.

You aren't that genius,
You aren't a talisman to this era,
Or a zeitgeist among diffident opprobrium.
You aren't a maverick.

You aren't that genius,
You exist on the breaches of a party,
Smuggling petty thoughts to
Write, Draw, Carve and Delight.

You aren't that genius,
You merely exist, sometimes live,
And one day shall be buried or burnt,
Without much going amiss.

The Light Shines The Brightest

The Swing

This swing,
That has hung here forever.

I bend my knees and plant my foot
On the mosaic tiles, I kick
And rise higher.

The wind rushes through the window grills
With a fleeting insistence; Hits the face
With nostalgia of hot, powerless summer nights.

This flight-
As my hands reach for the ceiling fan-
The same moment, lived again;
Yet never before, as a four-o-clock
Falls slant on a  four-legged teak chair.

The effervescent, the grotesque world
Of colourless television, Of radios,
Of phones with circular dials,
Of careless dreams, Of acting,
Of heroics, Of the days
you went higher than the previous.

The growth,
Daydreams of endless flight,
To the moon, the planets,
To the distant places of kings,
Demons, barbarians and anglophiles.

This swing,
It is here. The same chains that creak.
The blunt triangles and rectangles,
The swan like hook strung through
The circular holders, held by the tension,
Since your granddad told you about it.

The candle lit shadows, of games,
Of incorrigible numbers, Of fastidious
ambitions, of marginal reverences,
Of confidence and leaps.

The furniture breaks, the walls change,
The swing, firm without dust, remains.

I kick again.

The Light Shines The Brightest

This is where hope comes from

This is where hope comes from-
Past the crumpling paint of decadent buildings,
Past the lazy coconut trees with still crows,
Past the satellite aerials of empty terraces.

This is where hope comes from-
The transition from a green to a red,
The mechanical measure of blind turns,
The ordered chaos of the city's traffic.

This is where hope comes from-
The fear induced restrain of stray dogs,
The aimless loiter of garbage eating cows,
The packed roads of a festive market.

This is where hope comes from-
The loaded buses and stuffed taxis,
The crumpled shirts of everyday heroes,
The water lorries racing against the traffic.

This is where hope comes from-
Big white cars with flags on the bonnet,
The empty trains on the lay-by,
Lonely planes traversing a cloudless sky.

This is where hope comes from-
The countless sand on the beach,
The underwritten rhythm of the waves,
The colossal colonial buildings.


This is where hope comes from-
The sauntering solitude,
The shimmering silence
And the wind breathing slowly.

This is where hope comes from-
The stations of cascading clamor,
The dying canal and stories of glory,
Palaces and tales of crushing foes.

This is where hope comes from-
The hegemonic game and its numbers,
The statues of servants of the imperial,
The omnipresent superstars of silver screen.


This is where hope comes from-
The poster-ed politicians and the manifesto,
The octatonic music and presiding deities,
The blaring speakers of road side meetings.


This is where hope comes from-
The house of ghosts and broken cycles,
The wells of change cemented,
Trees uprooted and planted.

This is where hope comes from-
A place where I belong,
A place of growth and dreams,
Of failure and learning.

This is where hope comes from-

Some call it Chennai,
Some call it Madras,
I call it home.

The Light Shines The Brightest
 

Where the four roads meet

Where the four roads met
On a silent Saturday night,
There was no honking,
Only flashing headlights.

The stray dogs slept
Under the twisted road signs,
With shadows of neon lights
From pharmacies of all night.

The garbage of the day,
Spun in frilling patterns;
The chocolate wrappers,
Shimmered deep into the eyes.

The few trees stood eerie quiet,
As the fire burned still, cooking rice;
Plastic cups strew around the bins,
A crisp smoke rising from tired lips.


Crumbled dreams, abandoned,
Lurk in the eyes of drunkards,
While wheels of frenzy, screech
As the road takes a sharp turn.

Sirens in the distance,
Hurry away to rescue
Anything of that dream,
You had when you were a child.

Sirens in the distance,
Approach to patrol,
The by-lanes of parallel roads,
To check the dark recesses of your life.

The park stood in a collected breath,
Waiting for the sleepless crows
To cry one last time
And then to fall again to a nightmare.

The djinns prowled in vapours,
They caressed the dead,
Took away the heedless souls,
Possessing anything that could be.

Beneath a pale moon,
Glasses rang in collision,
As words, hugs and handshakes,
Sealed friendships, never to part again.


Where the four roads met
On a silent Sunday night,
There was no honking,
Only flashing headlights.

The Light Shines The Brightest

A festival

As iridescent lights crackle the sky
Emerging from tiny holders within the suffocating smog,
A slow drizzle rattles the frame of the aircon-
dripping pertinent onto the cemented ground.

Aura of festive exhilaration,
A collective breath of forced hope;
Vindictive noise, dispelling, reminding,
Myths of forgotten ages, old and new.

The heat lacks the fight-
Heroes and villains invade homes,
With merry victory over vanity
And the dark moonless night.

Not all is lost as draped beliefs
Play out a montage of tired history,
Shared by a umbilical cord
Of grit and survival across distances.

To sever not the runes of ruined times,
When the crops danced in ignorant bliss
Taxed by lords of many seas,
Orchestrated by those shoved into the slur.

A joy founded on the hopeless misery of existence,
Dominated, weighed down by the coils of time,
The chains of unashamed masochism,
Worn with subservient anguish.

As iridescent lights crackle the sky
Emerging from tiny holders within the suffocating smog,
The world labors on, unaware, living the moment,
With mythical belief and pride in its past misery.

The Light Shines The Brightest

The Dedication

Even as whispers contrive gossip,
The broken emotions stir a strength.
The tampered tiles of self-belief,
Fill the gaps and seize brows of marked worry.

The rickety wheels of an forgotten era
Turn once more and again and again,
Even as windmills of current, swirl
In the whimsical breezes of a timeless flow.

The land tilled by sweat and planted,
Poses a still before it fissures, breaks
And is blown away as crumbled wishes
Into the black eyes of a passing stranger.

The perfidious roads sudden throw a bump,
Even as the wicked curves of certain tarmac
Lay await for the gilded souls to enter the
Service roads from a forgotten village.

The puffed waters crash with a fury,
As if all the world's problems they carry
Are smitten loaded on to rocks whose
Knees creak a bit more under the gush.

The tide awakens and dreams,
Unhindered by need, want or thirst,
Into the shores, malign with force
Begot from meditation under the dark moon.

Clock towers vindicate and strike,
A second more and another and another
Tick by oblivious to the drunk men
Who lean aside on its port side.

The trains bound on tracks,
Carry the burden of generations
To places far away, unknown-
Those that cannot be found on the horizon.

As the sun sets behind a veil of evening clouds,
The stars of every hopeless night, shine bright,
Telling tales of the dedication, which they too had
For the universe and the worlds they served.

And as the lighthouse comes on to guide
The mariners of past, present and future,
The waves eat the sands once more
And carve the rocks yet again.

The vendors selling pirated glasses
And empty sea shells with the sound of oceans,
Gibe at the world with faithless smirks
Deep embedded in unknown fantasies.

On a morrow a stream is to be born,
Through the rocks of hard fate,
Feeding birds of prey, leading,
Flowing into the ocean of faith.

The Light Shines The Brightest

I stood still

I pick up the broken sticks and lay them straight.
I rearrange them in a square, as a kite, as a diamond.

I pick up grains of sand as my wet feet dry,
they hold tales long forgotten by man or any other.

I pick up the loose threads thrown away,
They talk of clothes they were made to be.

I pick up the broken glass with dried blood-
I see that violence that shattered it.

I pick up the wax from a burnt out candle-
It feels cold and waits for a day to melt away.

I pick up a torn piece of paper,
It had someone's will scribbled.


I caught a rain drop from a little cloud,
It talked about lands unknown.


I picked up an ant, it tried to run away,
I held it; It bit me and in a fury, I almost crushed it.

I caught a butterfly, it stood still.
We saw each other and I let it flutter away.

I stood still.

The Light Shines The Brightest

Shadows

Dancing shadows-
They leap and spin around;
Thrown by lights,
They prance, unbound.

Ignited by oils of fragrance,
Little wicks in contention, burn,
Ruthless and flaming,
Camphorous mirages of a yearning.

Bokehs of light shimmer in respite,
Till you see your nightmares walk away alive.
Flashes of instinct and grays of panic,
There is always a shadow nearby.

The torches- they hunt-
They look through the Satin curtains,
Into the penumbra of your granddad's chair,
But the shadows slip and run conspicuously.

The streetlights dimly show a path,
And shadow's four follow you in parts;
They wait, in eager, fastidiously,
For the moment you walk past in a hurry.

Headlights that blind all eyes,
They cast shadows from within,
Deep into the roads of the city,
Hiding potholes of forgettable dreams.

In every light, they wait,
Ministers of souls that cannot agitate,
They cast your lies alive,
Even as your search for a comforting shade.

The darkness that possesses the glitter-
With calming hopeless fury and poise,
They record lives with a chronicler's voice,
In neat impressive slanting calligraphy.

Voiceless wraiths of all that ever was,
They scale the brinks of existence,
Like the paint on dead buildings,
Waiting to be resurrected, conceived again.


Dancing shadows-
They leap and spin around;
Thrown by lights,
They prance, unbound.



The Light Shines The Brightest

The sledging reality

The sledging reality-
It refuses to go away.

The bright face with brilliant eyes
and felling laughter, the brows arch perfectly.

The turnstiles keep rotating,
They seem to grant access to the past.

The glass doors break the words,
But not the emotions within.

The eyes give it all away,
The hands clasp the mouth in disbelief.

Abeyance. The wicked fate of relationships
Founded on belief and tacit passion.

A faint sense of irony; Clenched fists;
Yet the yearning, for that comfort.

It refuses to go away,
Those words with the burden of having to mean.

The mesmerizing eyes, which clasped
And dragged, with blood dripping, into a dying sun.

In the dreams, in every waking moment,
With that unknown joy and pain, they look on.

The sledging reality- 

It refuses to go away. 

The Light Shines The Brightest

Breathless

Breathless.

The traffic crawls through another signal,
A medley of horns thaws imagination.

The dread- of having to keep it moving,
To not let go and hold on to the break, tight.

A symposium of everything that keeps it alive-
The world and whatever else there is.

Neon lights, archways of a sojourn and
Bridges that lead into junctions- all a pointless perjury.

The city pants, overgrow and made up-
Its blood cells are all almost dead.

It waits, for the impending strife,
A disaster to relieve it of this painful existence.

Somewhere, the end waits berthed,
Harboring the inevitable, relishing the prospects.

The city, it waits-
Almost breathless now.

The Light Shines The Brightest