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".