Save me a thought my friend
Save me a sunset frame
Of friendship forever

Of a happy valley
In a drizzly rain.

Of a beige bus stop
Of a grey canteen
And a roundabout walk back.

Save a thought for the years
Of leaning across the cities
To pat shoulders, keep moving.

Of a Cinderella poem
Where the Godmother
Decided to wait

An old man once
Opened a wallet
Lying on the table

And was harshly rebuked
By his daughter
“The kid is in school
Leave her wallet alone.”

The kid watched on
And knew her mother’s heart
Who would bring the old man home?
From drunken stupor beside the stream

Grief has its own rites
Sometimes it waits not
For tears.
Some heartaches
Just ebb and flow
Some heartaches
Last longer than lives.

Some wallets
Lie unopened.

On your Birthday
Dear Friend
I set out to write a poem.

You see, prose didn’t work.

I tried,
But couldn’t tell you
How much a cup of tea
(Or did I not give you one? )
Shared atop a kitchen-top
Sharing dark deep secrets
And light swinging gossips
Mended my life.

How you came in late one night
To sort out some old baggage
Steadied me
For a new turn in life
Put me in a plane
and dropped your cell in rain water :-)

How the slanting lines
of mehendi
You drew
on my fingertips
Made me walk on
With head held high.

How haunting a mall
with a mobile
and a friend talking from far
can make you pick up pieces
of a scatterred mind
and go back home
To build
brick by brick
dreams anew.

How very much
Seeing my friend
fall in a chamki ka dibba
dust off some
n walk on
to meet her life ahead
Mattered to me that day.

Happy Birthday!

Amid all my wishes
For your life to grow
More beautiful each day :-)
Is a very selfish one :-)
May these verses grow lengthier
And tell you of more wonderful times
That friends make for friends
Year through year of
"being there".

wat do u call a guy
who when he needs to leave
at midnite
for office
takes his brush and toothpaste tube and towel along :)

just cos he doesnt know wen
he can get back home !
(he is still there)

and leaves aside
for his wife to find
when she opens
her sleep smeared eyes
her toothbrush..well propped
against his shaving set
with a smear of paste
just enuf for the morning ritual :)

wat do you call the lucky wife :)