World Mental Health Day (October 10)

When world becomes too small

And time is too confining

I find an oven for my sadness

An asylum for peace

I hang my dreams naked

From my indifferent ceiling

And shoot the voice in my head

I find a river bed for my sleep

Or my last beaten drink

Yet at times

Accidentally

Before I find all this

I manage to write my last note
To be delivered posthumously 

Ever Ending Season

I lay lifeless

Like a scarf hanging from your balcony

An echo of your laughter

Makes me smile

As if I know you’re happy without me

I think of passing seasons

To convince myself reluctantly

That you don’t love me anymore

And our season of love has long gone

But then time plays its trick once more

Winter comes back as winter

Like spring finds its way back too

No season ever ends

There is no ending to us

Jihad-e-Akbar (The Greater Struggle)

If

Today

Right now

At this very moment

Everyone in this whole world

Who is in love

Tells the one they love

In real

I wonder…

Wouldn’t that be actual “love jihad”?

The greatest tragedy of love is love unexpressed

It’s Eid, Mother said so

She covers her fast greying hairs

With her favorite scarf

Her body pains

Inside a beautifully tailored cotton suit

She hides her grief

Behind

Well practiced

Well-polished smile

For this Eid

She behaves like God

In her many humanly ways

She calls me

Speaks in her usual joyful tone

To reassure me

It’s Eid

And that I shouldn’t be sad

It Only Happens in Fairy tales?

“I might not live longer, my love!”

…

“Don’t you dare say such a thing!

I’ll even bribe God for you

If that is the way it has to work…”

…

“It does…

That’s why I am going

To bribe Him for you.”

Happy Dussehra

Ye anokha jihad bhi dekha hai maine

Ki Ravan ki shakal mai

Kai Ram jalte hain

P.S.: The best way to destroy evil is to create goodness within first.

Ibtida

Love is always a new beginning

Much like the birth of a child

Painful yet promising