.

I knew him as cheerful and composed,
Happy in his own little world.
I remember how you came into his life
And changed it forever.

.

You made him go crazy for you.
You made him believe you were made for him.
You made him believe you were his soulmate,
And then you left him for someone else.

.

You saw him dying,
Yet showed no mercy.
You let him die,
And seemed to take pleasure in watching him fade.

.

Killing him with a single blow
Would have been kinder.
Keeping him alive like a lifeless log
Was a crueler choice.

.

He too became a victim
Of betrayal in love.
By the way,
Who the heck said love is the greatest medicine?

.

After your chapter in his life,
He walked around covered in his own ashes.
Anger seeped from every pore,
As though he were lying upon his own pyre.

.

You killed the man I knew.
You killed him with perfection.
He was not famous enough
For it to be called an assassination,
But still,
It was nothing less than murder.

The doors to our souls opened up

Through our first long, wet kiss.

That was the day

I kissed my fantasy for the first time.

.

For me, a girl with a cigarette

Has always been sexier than a naked one.

If people can love the smell of petrol,

Why can’t I fantasize about a smoking girl?

.

I was never a smoker before that kiss,

Though I loved the idea of smoking.

I had given it a try two or three times,

Only to quit because of the taste it left behind.

.

When my taste buds met

Her smoky tongue for the very first time,

She tasted like barbecue hot sauce,

Woody, with a hint of sweetness.

.

The day we shared our first kiss,

I fell in love with her and with cigarettes.

As a matter of fact, we kissed,

And there was “Happily Smoked Thereafter”

PS : I don’t smoke anymore. I started smoking with her, but I also stopped when she left.

PSS: Not promoting smoking 🚬

Disclaimer : My dad has published couple of books (Short stories) in Malayalam.

Dad said with a smile, ‘Go upstairs and see my new writing table.’

I was coming home after two months, eager to see the place from where he had written those beautiful stories that were published last month through his latest book. In my mind, I imagined a grand desk, perhaps lined with books and papers, worthy of the words he crafted.

I climbed the stairs with excitement.

And then, I froze.

In front of the cushioned chair he always used sat an old ironing board.

I burst out laughing.

I asked him what happened to his desk, where he would always lay down his collections.

He didn’t say anything. But I understood.

He had turned the ironing board into a desk.

Just then, Dad walked in behind me and said, almost proudly,

‘Now that I’ve retired and no longer have to go to the office, the ironing board is free. So I thought it might as well surf along with my thoughts.’

We both laughed.

But later, when the laughter had settled, I realised something.

Stories do not come from mahogany desks or expensive chairs.

They come from calm minds, patient hearts, and people who know how to make room for their dreams, even on an ironing board.

Here I am, struggling to complete the first draft of my novel on a grand study table, with a laptop, an extended screen, and a few books to inspire me. However, nothing seems to deter me from procrastination.

I take this ironing board as a sign of minimalist inspiration.

PC: Pinterest

Far away from home,

You wish to dance one day,

Naked or in some lingerie.

. 

When you expressed your wish,

I embraced your thoughts

The way they were; after all,

That was some kind of a wish.

 .

When you felt I would judge,

I quickly embraced you with a hug.

I told you that day,

“It’s your wish and your body.”

 .

There is no harm, my beloved,

In being there, in that crowd,

Dancing to your tune,

With your body on a pole.

. 

I don’t know if I’m invited there,

I don’t bother even if I’m not,

But I wish your dream comes true,

May your desire strike a new note.

In love and war,

But I don’t agree with that.

It’s all fair and square

Only in a true friendship.

 .

When my friend sobbed,

She kept my hand on her chest.

I reached out for her heart,

But found her breasts instead.

I caressed them

Till she started giggling.

 .

There was another friend

Who would say,

“She is this hot,

That she is always wet.”

But then, she had been crying

Over her ex, for the last six months.

 .

As she cried without facing me,

I spooned her to comfort her.

The crying never stopped.

I slid my hand into her pants

And told her, “You were right.”

 .

“You are wet even as you cry.”

 .

She laughed without turning to me.

I couldn’t peck her on the face,

But my fingers found her cheeks there.

She blessed my fingers with a moan.

 .

I ran my blessed fingers

To my mouth to taste the nectar.

That is when she turned towards me.

As I sucked my honey-coated fingers,

That was when she hugged me tight.

With her face dug in my chest

 .

Sorry to disappoint you,

In both cases,

We never went

Beyond what’s mentioned.

 .

You might ask,

Did our friendship end?

No, we still talk.

Our friendship only grew

With those moments.

 .

To those with judging eyes,

I have something more to spill.

You see, some friendships

Have boundaries,

But luckily, a few don’t.

 .

It was the first friend here

Who taught me to masturbate,

And the second one

Was the one with whom

I watched porn for the first time.

 .

Perhaps friendship

Is not measured

By the lines we draw,

But by the trust

With which we live by

. 

What others call dirty,

We simply called our way.

And in a world

Where even lovers leave,

One by one

We remain thickest friends.

But I was asking questions,

Taking notes on sex education.

Well, at twenty-one,

I hadn’t found myself yet,

And you, at twenty-two,

Had already become an expert.

 .

We were school friends,

Not the kind

Who would hang out together.

But then, we had some spark,

Though it never progressed.

 .

We had just finished

College in different cities,

And I found you at a bus stop,

Crying over something.

I walked up to you.

 .

I sat with you

As you sobbed and told me

You had just dumped your boyfriend

And a toxic relationship.

I walked you home.

. 

We exchanged our numbers.

Every night we would text

Sorry, we would sext

Till two in the morning.

Mostly, it was just

My weird questions.

 .

“Have you watched porn?”

“Yes, even today.”

 .

“Have you had sex?”

“Yes, with my ex.”

 .

“Do you masturbate?”

“Every night, to sleep.”

 .

She would hardly ask anything.

Then she asked me these.

 .

“Do you consume porn?”

I said “Never”.

She called me a lair

I explain “I stay with family”

Not even with friends.

The nerd in me

Found it little awkward.

 .

“When did you last masturbate?”

. 

I confessed I haven’t, yet.

She said I was a liar.

I confessed I had never tried.

She asked why I wouldn’t give it a try.

I made a failed attempt next day.

 .

She asked,

“How did it go?”

 .

I said I only felt something rise,

But nothing erupted.

As per my internet notes.

 .

She asked me to watch porn,

But I would never dare

To do that at home

With ever curious

Little and elder sisters around

. 

The next day she called me up,

Asked me to rush to the bathroom,

And directed me to stroke faster.

 .

I don’t know

Whether it was the faster strokes

Or her voice that helped,

But it was a new beginning.

Didn’t know then, I would need it

Every night to sleep like she did

When she exited my life.

 .

She would invite me home

Only to help her touch her,

Without undressing me.

She only wanted

my fingers and mouth

And never my heart or other thing

 .

She would always say,

“I love you,”

To the always clothed me.

I tried taking of my clothes

But she would never let me

 .

At twenty-one,

I hardly understood

The thin line

Between love and lust.

 .

And I strongly believed

I had fallen in love,

And so had she.

 .

But the tables had turned.

She had started talking to her ex again.

. 

I thought we were becoming something,

But not something

I believed it to be.

 .

One fine day,

She met her ex.

. 

She told him

That I sexted her.

 .

He called me from her phone

And asked,

“How dare you sext her?”

 .

I didn’t understand.

Where had he come from?

. 

And we had gone

Far beyond that.

. 

She took back her phone

And told me

She would explain later.

 .

She did tell me everything,

But everything she said

Only broke my heart.

. 

I had been making

A fool of myself.

She had been seeing me often,

Even while she was talking to him.

 .

While I thought

We were becoming something,

But it seemed

Nothing had changed between them.

 .

While I was building

A future in my head,

They were only rebuilding

Their past on my ruins

 . 

You taught me many things

How to touch myself,

How to ask without shame,

And how desire could wear

The mask of love and pleasure

 .

Perhaps you never lied.

You only offered me

A place in your loneliness,

While I mistook it

For a place in your heart.

“Wake me up at 12:30h,” my grandfather says before he hits his bed.

My grandfather is 85. He usually retires to bed at 10 PM and is up before 5 AM every day. That’s his routine, but this routine is about to change for the next month.

The reason, you might have guessed it. FIFA World Cup.

I didn’t say no one loves football like Malayalis do. We don’t watch league games like crazy football fans, but you will find only a few Malayalis who do catch up on league matches. Some even try to be regular spectators of the Euro Cup.

But when it comes to the FIFA World Cup, entire Keralam is watching. It’s part of our festival celebrations.

We paint the walls of our houses (yes, houses), compound walls, and roads with portraits of heroes and national flags of foreign countries. We, for a while, forget the Communist, INC, and BJP flags and wave our favourite country flags.

My father supports the Communist Party, and my mother supports the Congress Party, but for the FIFA World Cup season, they both support football and again, two different teams. And, of course, being the rebel in the family, I support the underdog team playing in its first World Cup.

There are constant arguments and mini-fights over Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar. If it’s not FIFA World Cup season, families and friends argue over politics.

From muddy fields to midnight screenings, we somehow find every reason to celebrate football as if it’s our sister’s wedding the next day, and we are arranging everything throughout the night in preparation.

Even the tea shops on every corner turn into stadiums. The barber puts down his scissors mid-haircut to debate whether Messi deserved that penalty or not. Everyone has a say when it comes to Football or Politics in Keralam.

As a child, I remember watching matches on tiny televisions with more than twenty people crowded into a tiny room, the ceiling fan doing nothing against the humid heat.

The world might be watching the FIFA World Cup with some excitement, but for us it’s like watching our gods or ancestors appearing as deities before us once every four years through the World Cup.

We somehow feel this is a legacy we have inherited. Even Gen Z forgets their phones for a while and gets glued to enjoying those 90 minutes with the same passion. We somehow carry this love for the FIFA World Cup in our blood.

And when a goal is scored, I’m not sure if the sound of the celebration reaches Buenos Aires or Barcelona, as the entire village celebrates.

Walk through any Kerala neighbourhood during the World Cup, and you would think you had accidentally landed in Brazil or Argentina. And I’m not joking. This is the truth. This is how crazy we are about the FIFA World Cup.

As the final whistle blows and the trophy is lifted, Keralam will keep the celebrations alive. The flags will slowly come down, teasing the supporters of the losing country. The paintings on the road and walls will fade with the rain, but the stories will linger for a while. We will talk about the present World Cup for the next four years, until we get to do it all over again.

No wonder even FIFA’s official X account couldn’t stop posting the picture below to announce the FIFA World Cup fever that’s spreading in Keralam.

.

Our love is a bait of happiness.
The day death gulps this bait,
one loses a body
and the other loses life.

.

Our love is a journey
into the meadows of an unknown land.
We may have a route map,
but we will soon be lost.

.

Why did we graduate in literature?
Was it because literature made love eternal,
or only to relish these oxymorons,
“eternal life” and “yours forever”

I still can’t write poems for you

After all my poems are griefs and half lies

And you should never be part of

The darkness that I trade off

.

You deserve the moon when it’s full

Not the fragments I stare every night

You deserve a song that’s joyful

But my poems only rhyme sadness

.

So I keep you outside my verses

Where my words can’t stain you

For I have made a home

That’s painted only from outside

.

Perhaps that is why I love you

From a distance

And leave you untouched

With the words my heart pours

Why is Hope so stubborn

Why can’t it live in

hospital waiting rooms

When someone gives up

Their loved ones

To unpaid bills

.

Yes, hope is fragile

Fragile to everyone

Desperately in need of it

With its quiet refusal

We start believing

Darkness is permanent

.

Yet , I write with new rays of hope

To live another day, to love once again

With the hope that Sun brings

I step out of bed every morning

To overpower the grief

The grief that was renewed at midnight

.

When ray of hope overpowers grief,

Even after war and conflicts,

Even after funerals,

Even after love leaves,

With that ray of hope,

We will still plant a tree,

We will still write a poem,

And will still fall in love again.

To Love,

You need time

And these days, who has time?

To be loved has become luxury

Relationships faded

Slowly replaced by Situationships

.

Everyone now speaks

In a language new

The languages of halves (just made up)

In half-presence (virtual)

In half-promises (no more next 7 lives)

In half-replies (every reply feels empty)

.

We learned to text whole night

But forgot to stay for a lifetime

Affection arrives instantly

But commitments takes last metro

Everyone wants love

But love without responsibility

.

We hold hands briefly

Stay for a night

And disappear by morning

Calling it mutual freedom

To be truly loved now

Feels like a antique feeling

Through fiction and poems 

Even before your first love story 

Somehow every love story you live

Feels touched by some magic

Enough to turn ordinary moments

Into part of a classic fiction

.

My heart has rehearsed 

Of falling in love from distance 

Physical presence of a lover

Meant nothing but a bonus 

A simple caring word

Means more than love to me 

Means more than destiny to me

.

To love someone itself 

feels to be loved eternally 

In remembering 

How they held the mug 

To how they drank the coffee 

These thoughts of theirs 

Are enough to feel loved

.

You keep longing 

For the love written in epics

I start romanticising every heart beat

And yet, don’t fall for it, foolishly

My half finished writings 

Are embodiments of last rain

Which made me fall in love again

.

Love, that’s raised by fiction 

Is also fragile and stubborn 

To think of possible storms

Storms that may bring aches

These fear of aches are beautiful 

As if love have to wound a little 

To prove it was purest of love

I open my lips to speak,
For I love the way
You make me weep.
There is a sweet pleasure
In this pain.

But then you left me
Unattended for months,
Didn’t even bother
To give me a hand.

I smell something fishy.
What are you hiding?
Where do you flush those fantasies,
I wonder.
When will it rain again?

For the last two years,
I’ve noticed one thing:
You kept me moist
Without a touch.

Have you lost him
Who made you weep?
Why can’t you reach out to me
And let me help you heal?

What’s lost is him;
Don’t lose yourself now.
Life is a long journey,
And you are still young.

I’m here for you
Till the end of the world.
No matter how old we grow,
I will wait for some sweet rain.

I envy the fact that they
consider the forest their home,
the Sun and Moon their gods,
and animals their friends.

I envy their smile,
for it truly comes from the heart,
which they never learned to fake,
as I learned from my parents.

I envy their language,
for they speak nature’s language;
there is so much warmth
in the words they utter.

I envy their lifestyle,
for it is as close to
what the universe wants from us:
harming no one and being one among all.

I envy their knowledge;
they know our Earth so well,
while we have forgotten
that we were once them.

I envy their love,
how close they are to nature’s love,
and how nature blesses them
with all they need.

I envy their alertness,
for the forest never forgives those
who let their guard down,
they are monks by birth.

I envy their life,
for that life is pure,
as natural as possible,
perhaps that is how we should live.

We are, after all, animals
with the ability to be social.
How far can we stay away from nature?
Our mother will come for us anyhow.

Some debate that it’s inspired by Waterloo, the battle where the great Napoleon was finally defeated by the British. Others believe it might simply be derived from the French word l’eau, meaning “the water”.

However, why would the word LOO have French origins? It could have been derived from ABLUTION (abLOOtion).

But what if I told you that the word “loo” wasn’t inspired by a word, but rather a number? Will you believe it?

This story was narrated by a wise man I met on a train. I find his version interesting and have never found anything similar online.

Here’s how his story goes:

Have you ever heard of room 100 in any hotel? No, right? You might have guessed by now.

Yes, room 100 was dedicated to toilets. So, guests never had to ask the receptionist on the ground floor of any reputed hotel, “Where is the toilet?”

Since there is no evidence that this theory is false, neither can you prove me wrong that room 100 was actually the toilets. If not, you can always show me the room 100.

You might ask what about rooms 200, 300, or 400, etc. They also don’t exist in hotels. If you got the cue, then there are also toilets on respective floors.

And if this story is true, then every time you enter a toilet, you are actually entering Room 100 (loo).

It often feels like complaining has become an unavoidable part of our lives. Regardless of how fortunate we are, we tend to focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right.

It’s almost as if complaining is hardwired into us and has become second nature. In that process, we somehow forget to even start counting our blessings.

I delved a little deeper into the question: why do we complain so much? Is it an instinct or a habit developed over time? I conclude it’s probably a bit of both.

Complaining can be a useful way to vent frustrations and express dissatisfaction. It allows us to voice concerns and seek solutions. In this sense, complaining can be productive, leading to positive changes in our lives and the world. For example, complaints about social injustices can spark movements and bring about change.

However, our complaints are often about trivial matters or things we have little control over. We grumble about bad roads, traffic, long queues at the grocery store and other daily inconveniences. These complaints may not serve any real purpose other than to fuel our momentary annoyances.

Ironically, many of us are incredibly fortunate. We have access to clean water, food, shelter and opportunities for education and personal growth. Yet, we find reasons to complain about our jobs, relationships and minor inconveniences.

It’s as if we’re hardwired to focus on the negatives, even when the positives outweigh them.

Perhaps the goal is not to never complain, but to complain with some purpose or reason. If we can learn to distinguish between concerns that really deserve our attention and inconveniences that just spoil our peace, we may find ourselves living with gratitude.

Let’s remind ourselves that happiness often begins not by getting more, but by noticing what we already have.

Hmmmm

So I too will get to meet him there, leaving behind what’s good for me and what’s bad for him. I will meet him to find what’s on the other side of the field, where no one has yet ventured.

There is nothing I am looking forward to with him. I guess it’s good that way. Why give a name to this relationship? Let us be what we are.

Strangers.

Perhaps that’s the safest thing we can be. With no bonds.  With absolutely no demands or promises. We don’t have to fight over who loved more. We don’t even have to send across those expensive bday gifts.

I will meet him carrying neither hope nor disappointment. There is a strange freedom in wanting nothing from him. With no future to imagine and no ending to fear. Just me and this stranger’s weirdest thoughts on life and love.

When I sighed on a Sunday morning in his thoughts, I didn’t imagine he would give me space to love myself, which had always been absent in my whole life.  I want to call it self- love. Love that has a way of demanding permanence, and what he wishes for me is that I love myself till eternity.

Now, I only wish to be his smile when he writes another poem. I wish to be close to my eyes for a second and feel this stranger.  Close enough to feel him for a brief moment, and I wish in that moment, my mind becomes quieter like every time he does this magic on me.

Perhaps intimacy is not always about being physically available to someone. Perhaps it is about being loved without you needing to explain yourself even a bit. It is perhaps about letting another soul wander through your griefs, and somehow you feel he feels those griefs.

You were right when you said, “Now that you know my grief, you are hungrier for words, and I am starving for words”.

PS: Part of the series I’m working on. “Ashima Writes”. There are more of her words in the post.

You had once said that a thin line separates love and lust, and I believed you. However, after a decade of experimenting with both, I’ve come to realise that love is eternal; that is what I felt for you. Lust, on the other hand, is fleeting. Therefore, I doubt that love and lust can ever be compared on the same scale.

Love is perhaps a genuine feeling, but I’m not entirely sure about lust.

Do we experience the same pleasure from the first masturbation, first kiss or first sex? One might, but the chances are slim. Even if you do, those moments still won’t be soul-stirring like love.

Lust always encourages us to experiment and try something new, while love tends to prefer the status quo. You might be surprised to hear this, but I have changed. I prefer love over lust, unlike how I felt when we were together.

I have become a fan of our moments, and I want to freeze our story with Love and not Lust, no matter how old I grow.

I opened a cafe next to the river.  A cafe dedicated to Masha. I named the cafe 'Eternal Monk(ey)'. Masha thought,  I was the monk she was looking for her whole life and had used to call me Eternal Monk. A monk who writes poems with the words of the Universe. But what I did to her was truly a monkey's act and not a monk's act.

Initially,  I thought to keep the name of the cafe as External Monk, but then added

(ey) to the end to make it Eternal Monk(ey).

 The cafe overlooks the Ganges River. I would start my day by imagining Masha sitting a little ahead of the café, on one of those rocks, next to the river, reading one of my poems. From my cafe, when I imagine her, I forget everything from my surroundings. All I see is her sitting in her black top and floral capris with a sling bag resting on her left and my book in her right hand. I could see her back, and at times, when she would turn sideways to look at the river, I could see a side of her face. Somehow, I never want to imagine her whole face. I can’t look into her eyes. With what I did to her, I can never look into her eyes again, even in my daydream. I never wanted her to turn towards me and face me. I'm happy viewing only her back. I could see her taking breaks and looking at the river. Enjoying the lines of my poems and doing what she usually does with my poems. Absorb the warmth of the lines and look at the river. That's the moment I cherish every day. She was drawing a little more air than usual with a sigh and looking across the river to grasp the soul of my poem.

I write to this day with the hope that she would read my poems someday.

I wait for her in my café even after knowing she is married and settled abroad. Somehow, my heart says she would return one day. She has to. After all, this is where her soul is, with me.  I'm happy that I take a little time every day imagining her next to the river. I keep talking to her or a known soul when I write my poems. I believe that the known soul next to me is hers.  She has become part of my life, and marrying anyone would be cheating my soul.

My love for her is eternal, like the flowing river.

Her soul stayed with me forever. We both lived till my death, Next to the River.

I remembered what Masha had once told me about her wish to give up her life in the Ganges when she would turn old and become a burden to everyone around her. She had said she would meditate on a stone at the edge of the river and allow the river to take her along when the river swells up. She would be so lost in her meditation that she wouldn't know the river engulfing her.

I don't agree with those who say "Karma is a Bitch". Karma is not the bitch; instead, it is the best teacher one can ever find in life. Initially, I was not able to understand all those things happening in my life. But I did learn when Karma started hunting me. Especially the part, on the 10th day of every month, I was getting hurt. I had hurt Masha on 10th Aug, and my painful days started from 10th of Nov of the same year, and it went on for the next few months. My pain intensified on the 10th of every month until I broke down completely. The weird part is that my mind connected to Karma, and I was able to relate Karma's game to the deeds I did to Masha. Weirdly, Karma wanted to make me realise that I was haunted by it.

Karma taught me about its existence. How it plays with one's life. Karma touches everyone. In my case, Karma touched on events in my life with numbers. Maybe Karma always touches our lives with numbers, but we never tried connecting to these numbers. I was fascinated with numbers since childhood, maybe that was why I could relate Karma to numbers.

 I was about to jump into the river, but then a weird thought hit me hard. If Karma can speak to me with numbers, why can't I connect with it by doing good deeds? Why can't I start a two-way communication with Karma and grasp what the universe wishes to tell me? Why can't I hide all that Karma wants to say in the form of poems and leave it to the world to decode?

 I found that day, Karma is indeed the universe.

I even thought I would write about Karma and the way Karma touches one's life. In my last poem, I would give away the key to decode Karma/Universe's secret from my poems.

This thought alone made me feel that I have something to offer to this world. My desire to share this story made me stop taking the wrong step of taking life. Strange moments like these make us who we are. We are indeed a part of this grand universe. Each one of us on earth is touched by Karma in one way or the other.

I was astonished at how close I was to death. I consider myself lucky for not taking my final step that day. I was happy as I felt the universe wanted me to know that I exist and I should live another day to tell about Karma/Universe through poems.

I went on to live each day from that day. One day at a time. One moment at a time. I was reborn that day to tell the universe I exist and to tell the world that the universe exists.