Sir, she said, if you had only asked for love 

I would have cut my heart into pieces in a Licious pack and 

placed it at your door

If you had asked for company

I would truly have posted myself next to you with Fevicol glue 

If only you had asked for dreams 

I would have stolen stars for you and 

Dunzoed it to your doorstep

If my love you had asked for me 

I would have packed myself up into a pigeon hole 

and nested on your wall 

Had you but told me that it is my attitude 

that bothers you for being too proud 

or my stupidity for being too prudish 

or my tendency to tear up for being too sensitive

would I not have enrolled for the next EI Mooc on Edx?

or made friends with Tony Robbins to learn how to live and love?

If it was the freckles that adorn my face 

or the lines on the forehead that show my struggle 

or the receding hairline that shows my wisdom 

or the growing waistline that carries hopes

that so troubled you

I would have jumped on to the next treadmill

spent hours on end at Gold gym

among handsome hunks chasing the myth 

of a body far too beautiful to be real 

emptied my pockets at the fanciful salons

among those aestheticians churning out 

magical bodies and lovely ethereal countenances

at MISS FOX, Maison de Joelle Jumeira

or just the local Stylin Salon 

minute by minute, nay, second by second 

and cleared off fluff, flab and fancy 

to make six pack a possibility

in such a jiffy that even Swiggy would be shamed

But, Sir you ask for indifference

for a happy heavy dose of amnesia 

You indeed ask for nonchalance 

and seek my support in your happy pursuits 

You have after seeding hopes 

on endless days of hot pursuit 

decided to find greener pastures 

and now want to me aid you with horses 

numbers, interested parties and what not

to help redeem you points of hedonistic valor

so be it, I hold no grudge, no rancor 

for your gargantuan appetite for sensuousness 

nor do I judge your vision of existentialism 

but do me a favor, Sir

unfriend me, block me, disown me and 

for sure count me out of your many acquisitions 

erase me out of that secret check list of yours

adieu! alvida! au revoir! 

(hmmm! maybe, maybe not!!!)

The sofa sank under his weight

the cushion cover wrinkled in complaint

the back of the sofa groaned in surprise

not used to such exercise.

She watched his hands that reached far 

the other end of the seat

His head was tilted to the balcony

his long hair brushed against the wall

dancing in the wind raised by the electric fan

He picked the coffee mug and drank noisily

a drop of coffee hit his beard and sat confused 

before deciding to tumble down on to his chest 

and get lost in the hair again

the little coffee mark sat shy on the shirt 

till the wind of the electric fan dried it off

he picked a cookie and raised his eyebrow

reading the name of the cookie from its chest 

his neatly cut nails rubbed against the cookie 

before his fingers pushed a side of it

into his mouth to be crunched and grounded

crum, crum the air said in between the deep sighs

he lifted his eye brows again to ask for water

water came to him sitting in a glass on a tray

he sipped it noisily 

he nodded his head twice

as she sat demure

waiting for the eyebrow to move again.

The yam trees stood tall and proud

in neat lines dressed in military green

against the rain and the winds 

and dreamt of going deeper into the earth

unaware of the banyans and the peepals 

the bending jackfruit trees or the coconut bearers

beneath the yam trees grew a yam people 

walking with care in the rains 

worried of deep furrows and puddles nay ponds 

and then a yam child running naked in the rains 

ran beneath a yam tree for shelter when 

the pounding rains deepened the ponds

the furrows and the child cried loud

an old yam man ran out of his home 

with a few youngsters in tow 

to lift a grass blade and put it across the furrow 

the little boy ran back to safety smiling 

the mother wiped her tears 

faraway in the skies the banyan and the jackfruit 

caught each other’s glances and laughed aloud

a few leaves fell and the yam men ran back to their homes

their dreams were fragile so was their homes yet the hearts were strong

but the men and women above moved on as if nothing happened

It was a world they never knew of or will ever know.