Twenty three years ago, i ploughed through everything single waking hour thinking, that after that days struggle, i will have set everything right, that the next morning will let me fly. Yet that next morning and everyone after that was like the one before.

benaras 2024

At benaras 

My agent gave away plates of breakfast to the sadhus and beggars. One entitled Brahman in my group questioned it. And then that sadhu gave his one plate to several other beghars as they share it.

A photo would demean their dignity.

A photo of my Brahman co traveller would demean mine.

A moment of deep sadness.

I spent a few moments watching bodies burn at the manikarnika ghat. Alone on the boat with the boatman, who seemed to have normalised lying lifeless on a dirty ghat.The women on my trip largely Brahman women and some lingayat women asked me why I was not travelling with my "yajman" their term for husband, and from interpretations of the language "yajman" means that, "owner". And while I responded saying " I don't have one" , I laughed within saying " now, that will be a new one, a yajman for me"!

Kashi, I am told will not let a woman do pind Daan. I shall go to gaya, where I will do it rightfully for my foremothers on their behalf. Well, I don't blame them, my more world wise mother still accuses other women of being divorced, if she could me, she would also. I can empathize that women are taught that they are helpless without the yajman 

I walked past the discrepit missionary home, 

Benaras feels like all those unwanted people recreating another life tucked away in broken mansions.

I enjoyed my boat ride 

I enjoyed the group of Muslim boys playing cricket and the sadhus keeping score.

The Siberian gulls will fly away next week.

my father's suitcase

Acha (father)

Writing to you as our day ends

March 22, 2024

And yours has begun

Onwards

To a distance

As I lay down

After your internally grieving wife

Finally purged her sorrow

Before falling asleep

I'm thinking of what to pack for you 

Like you always wished,

We put your wedding suit on for you

The ivory shirt and the soil brown suit 

Forgot your floral tie though

But form your journey onward. My father.

Let there be 

An abundance of love

No dearth of worldly travels 

A life that is light, may be flippant too

A box full of magic

A breath full of the ridiculous 

A page with bad grammar

May you travel light

In whatever universe you choose

Do carry your courage

And the will to live

But light.. light 

looks like...

There was once a woman who kept hearth...

The blue windows opened outwards

And she unfurled....

wish for my son, written in bits

I'd like you to have a million million friends. 

And for you to make them 

by giving unconditional love when you encounter them, 

but 

without losing yourself

That, there are only friends and friends

Where you give some in some 

and some more in some 

and a little some in some

And that these friends fill your heart with a lightness that your heart needs

Like the feathers of a bird in flight

To kiss her in her cheeks 

as if she, 

life that is, and you are falling in love

A second time.

The first time is always awkward

Kissing that which we love, the first time is awkward

The second time, we can tease a bit more

The riotous clamour

Between our silences

nothing

When water bodies breach 

Debris float

And then meander towards the  

already choked manhole;

My debris

needs to be picked:

After my son leaves home..