I think something broke inside me the day he touched my face. I felt disrespected and cheap. Not because his fingers felt foreign nor cold when it ran slowly over my cheek and hovered around beneath the wild strands of hair. It was the kind of touch which is inconsistent and restrained; the kind which kills you from inside, steadily, silently. No matter, it was going to disappear the next day. As rightly assumed, it did so.

It was a mistake not because I was afraid of the wild opinions. It was a mistake because it tricked my brain and it made me feel move closer to my heart, letting my emotions rule me, letting my feminine urge to save overwhelm me.

I knew, nothing good would come, now that they have stripped my flowers from its garden. The evil hands uprooted each and every takhellei it could get its hands on. It’s been lying barren and dry for the past three weeks. With each step and each glance I took on the empty patch, a piece of my heart dies inside. 

 After all, the night's darkest before dawn,

I wonder if I will ever forget this pain

just like I can't remember that pain,

only words remain.

Only this, I repeat to myself,

only this, to keep me sane and grateful.

The pines trees looming around

whenever I lose my soul,

whenever I feel the ache,

How I wish the story remains the same

knowing it's never gonna be the same

for I have left myself all these years 

in another's body, in another's soul,

wrapped in my ego, sunk below consciousness

lost between to be and not to be

lost forever as it seems to be. 

Little deaths that comes with little joys in life,

strikes your soul like tiny needles puncturing a giant balloon, not a burst, not a blast, not a bomb,

just a lonely slithering river of sand in the hourglass

holding on to the glass walls

hovering above the quicksand.

ꯇꯟꯗꯟ ꯑꯃ ꯂꯩꯔꯝꯃꯤ꯫ ꯑꯉꯥꯡ ꯅꯨꯄꯝꯆꯥ ꯑꯃꯅ ꯐꯥꯔꯒ ꯂꯤꯛꯂꯤꯗ ꯍꯥꯞꯆꯜꯂꯤ ꯑꯗꯨꯒ ꯃꯄꯥꯟꯗ ꯁꯥꯟꯅꯕ ꯆꯦꯟꯊꯣꯛꯈꯤ꯫ ꯂꯤꯛꯂꯤ ꯃꯅꯨꯡꯗ ꯇꯟꯗꯟꯗꯨꯅ ꯈꯜꯍꯩ‌‌ꯋꯤ ꯀꯌꯥꯗ ꯃꯉꯥꯎ ꯊꯤꯈꯔꯕ ꯑꯉꯥꯡꯅ‌‌ꯣ, ꯑꯩꯕꯨ ꯀꯩꯗꯧ ꯍꯥꯏꯕꯅꯣ꯫

In short,

In the beginning, there was an orange.
An orange which I brought to school.
I gave it to my friend who gave it to him.
And that was that.

Then there was this tall lean shy kid who put on ponds powder on me.
I stood still near the wall closing my eyes,
turning my face to the side,
both my sweaty hands placed on the wall.
He brushed his fingers on my cheeks,
powder all over my face,
he walked away laughing.

I was drenched when I reached school,
offered me a hanky to dry myself
which I washed the next day and gave back.

Another day, another date, I was drenched again,
the only person with no sweater on.
I was offered a sweater, everybody giggled,
I denied.

Other days
I was offered a ride back home.
I denied.

Once in an school excursion,
I brought noodles with me,
big shreds of cabbage on it.
No one ate, making fun of it.
Then a fork swooped in, took a scoop,
He smiled and told me it was really tasty.

We parted.

This was the time when I fell in love with a girl.
She is a bit crazy but exceptionally witty.

These three years,
I have no sweet memories,
only many lessons learnt.

Then just when I thought I have put my life together,
it crumbled in front of my eyes,
howling and whirling,
no life, no cheers,
just a body.

Amidst, I was told I was a firefly.
a helpless tandan after all
in a Kafka's world,
A dead Sylvia to a dead poem.  

Sneaking through towns and rivers,
with every chat and every scenes
the grey pebble in Imphal turel
lurk around and
Whisper to me
of childhood memories
of that lemon leaf in my diary
of evening games in the lampak
of mother's voice with twig in her hand
of the bushes on the river bank
where syringes are scattered
of the potfam of abokmu
where she prepares singju for us
of taji's erratic yelling
for playing in his lampak
of the scarlet jamines
which we used as prizes for the race
of which juice we sucked
and threw at the khongban
of thaja and how she plucked
and stole this rare flower daton got from Ukhrul
of puspi and how she hit me on my ankle with a stone
of the marbles, kokpik and kokchao, tenjei, kotis and all
of the sounds mixed with bombs and festival crackers,
guns and tyre blast
of dipping in the river with our shirts on
and lying one the waves with our eyes closed
the water slipping beneath us
of iche sanatombi being dragged by the erei
and the laugh we had afterwards
I heard she got married but divorced now.
of cheton with whom we hanged out after school
whose sexuality was gossiped by the leikai
whose perseverance let kebisana finish graduation
who won medals after medals 
couple of years back
She died of both kidney failure
My grandma too, of old age
she defecated like hell and ate nothing
her eyes rolled up, my hands on hers
I felt the fading warmth
leaving her ice old
those tubes on her nose and elsewhere
strangling and suffocating her
when she was near death
and me, sitting by her side
holding both my breath and tears
father had told me not to make sounds
in the hospital
he broke down at home, wailed once
near her body which lay on her bed silently
and then there is my cousin too
who had a stroke at 40 and died slowly at dawn
sleeping beside his 13 year old son
in a hotel room in mayangland
He and his wife, nanama, had come to drop me off
at the airport when i was leaving for hyd
they had packed a packet of ngari for me
sister called me up in the morning and broke the news
i cried, he consoled, i pretended, i went for the class red-eyed
i came back and cried again alone
by the time i went home
i had missed everything
except for my sister and her cancer
and the radiation therapy
her hairs falling out, searching for wigs,
buying it and going for echemubi's wedding together
my sister's poems,
my sister's china's stories,
my bother's love stories
my ma's and ba's comforting home.

Foucault is gay
he had AIDS.
Butler is a lesbian.

Gay: Adjective-homosexual.
Lesbian: Noun-Gay woman.

You are gay but not lesbian.
You are a lesbian but not a gay. 

At dusk,
a confused tandan
once sat on a sambal lei,
lean and green. 

A young boy came running
whispers to himself
walks in slowly.

It lies inside his cupped hands
flickering its tail.

He peeks inside and smiles to himself

Trapped in the dark,
it lowers its tail
ceasing to flash,
feeble and yellow.

Somewhere in the corner of my heart,
I secretly adore Aung San Suu Kyi.
What if we had a woman like her!

I loath Malala Yousufzai,
that small hypocrite,
that coward who fled her home
who left her home,
who reminds me of Sharmila, 
who went on a hunger strike
but fell in love with Desmond,
a mayang desmond, a minai himself.

They both remind me of the deserter,
that MU professor, who ran out of place to keep his ego,
who deserted his fellows,
who looks like Joker from Batman,
smile or no smile,
with his creaking voice on Impact TV.

What constitutes a woman?
Her eyes, her slanty small eyes
Her nose, her broad low nasal bridge
Her skin, her soft yellow skin
Her face, her broad budding face
Her hair, her streaming black hair
Her breasts, her tiny uninviting breasts
For which no suitable bra exists in ‘her’ country
For which she needs to find the most expensive one in ‘her’ country
Which resemble nothing like the onscreen celebrity’s.

Her dress, her flamboyant cotton sari
Her anguish, of not belonging anywhere,
of floating around in an ahistorical space,
of being asked to belong to her mother.
Her voice, her elegant voice that speaks of genital organs,
A faceless corpse, robbed of her face, her body, her head, her voice.
A human with blood and veins and a river of memories.

You see your reflection,
In the mirror,
in rivers,
In ponds,
in your photos
You see your mongoloid face and you hate it.
Your little head is confused
'why i don't look like my friends. Them has big big eyes, them has long nose,'
Your little head is confused.
I'm telling you.
Don't. There is no point.
You are who you are.
Your nose is not gonna grow,
your eyes are gonna remain small
Your skin as yellow as you were born.
Well unless you go for cosmetic surgery.
But then, You don't wanna become another Michael, do you?

'But darling, you are wrong
'love conquers all'
I heard it somewhere,
Was it Chaucer?
Was it Socrates, plato?
My English friends told me so,
its all what we must do.
Let me show them my love.
They can kill but I love them,
they can rape but I love them,
why so much hate'
Yes why so much hate,
Why cry when your life is spared if not your dad's, or brother's, or sister's or someone's who you don't know,
Why talk so much when your ngari is taxed,
When your people are evicted for electricity,
That's development, you don't want growth?
Why curse, why wish when your life is spared if not your job, your family, your Leikai.
Why wish!

When lost for words, go for law.
When fallen in a pit, drown and wasted, drag your fellow.
When lost for words, hang on to you gender
Let your misguided soul wander.
Sinking low, icy blow.

It's time to get flowers.

Weren't you the one who zoomed in on the screen,
in the mist of Shillong
and color the studio green?

The iron pieces still cling onto you,
it clings every second
as time slips away from me
like a creeping vegetable
growing in my mother's garden,
stealthily and silently.

I fear if it was you,
or the time that's slipping by,
day by day
minute by minute.

I'm still your bee,
waiting for you
your scent and your lukewarm self,
to reach me again
once more
in a place bereft of people
society,
only you and I.

Let us swim, you and I
submerged in this river,
you in your pyjamas and your absolute self
and me with my genetic brown eyes, synthetic blue-grey glasses
and my full face.
Extinguish the greedy blaze,
my pristine thrist.

Toss away the adorable politics,
the people,
the disposable plastic glasses,
Get more flowers and herbs and heal the world.
Heal the sickness and secure our future of togetherness.

That little death in us

I died as an infant in my mother’s womb,

Before I made my entrance.

I died as a little girl trying to go to school,

Inside the sack, raped and murdered.

I died as a foolish young man in the car,

Trying to get away among the bullets,

A prey to their wishlist.

I died as a young mother, pregnant and helpless

In front of my little son.

I died as an insurgent,

With boots and shirts not of my own.

I died as a lover,

With my breast cut off like a life size doll.

I burned myself in a protest,

In front of thousands of eyes.

Thus my ashes get blown away in the wind.

I starve myself to death, with greedy eyes all around me.

Thus, I die little by little.

I die a little every second that counts.

I die a little with every new news.

My redundant chant bores you,

It confuses you just for a while,

While the pain lingers

And haunts ceaselessly.

Destination undone.

It's the dripping drops that I see,
Streaming down the abyss.
Floating hopes and dreams
stripped away from the mothers.

Gorging myriads of lives profusely
Hiding behind democracy;
Dancing to the distorted melody
smiling and dying,
disappearing,
swiftly,
turning
into
a
.


A void: that's all left.

On a Monday morning in August Amos is riding a bicycle towards South Campus. Dragging his extra fat with the help of a burrowed bicycle, he is riding at around 10:30 am from North Campus to South Campus in University of Hyderabad. Despite his heavy weight, he sweeps on the road quickly with an air of superiority over his colleagues. This is because he comes from the same place where one of the five professors in his dept. (Physics) comes and shares a common language unlike all his fellow students who communicate only in English with the professors. Hence, he pays no attention whatsoever on the road where he is riding nor the poor chameleon which will get run over by his burrowed bicycle later crushing its head.

Kongbrai is riding beside Amos. If you put both of them together in one frame like this…

Kongbrai looks extremely thin and lanky besides the overgrown flappy Amos. Kongbrai, who otherwise looks perfect, is made to appear scrawny by Amos’s unsaturated fat which will eventually take his life away in the future before he turns 40. His boring Christian life is bound to fade with a few heart attacks. No one dares to make a conversation with him about his perennially bulging belly. It is the way, he should not be judged on his physical look.

Unlike Amos, Kongbrai could concentrate on the road because the only thing he does with the air around him is to exhale and inhale while cycling. There are only rocks on both sides of the road and it is getting hot, even more so because of the picture of the dry landscape except for some tufts and concrete buildings for every quarter of a kilometer. The palm trees are of no help in cooling down the heat. However, Kongbrai retains his coolness despite the heat and rides beside Amos.

There it is, a chameleon, camouflaged in the center of the road, one meter in front of the front tyre of Amos’s cycle. Its greyish pale green skin blends in the road.

Kongbrai shouts at Amos, nervous and worried, Amos turns the handle, the front tyre screeches avoiding the chameleon by a few inches.

The back tyre runs over its head. Plop! Blood streaking out of its head, spurting like a garden spray for a second. It lays motionless on the road while Amos increases his speed forgetting about his disturbed BMI. He zooms out from the scene without even looking back once.

Kongbrai, devastated, stops his cycle in a jerk and stares at the motionless chameleon. He has a dream of keeping chameleon as a pet one day. He keeps telling his girlfriend that someday, he shall get one and feed it and nurse it. This reminds his girlfriend of Ceasar in ‘The Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ a few minutes ago. ‘You and your obsession in reptiles’, she’d tell him occasionally. He even proved that it is hereditary, that he can’t help it, that he loves them by asking his brother a question in front of his girlfriend who conveniently replied, ‘Yes, snakes should not be killed just like that. They are the ones who are afraid actually. Not humans. It’s wrong to kill them every time we see one.’

Now, this man, spilling out of his bubble dream rushes towards the half-dead chameleon and realizes that it is still breathing. He looks around for sticks and twigs which he finds after a minute or so, with which he takes up the chameleon, carries it to a side with assiduity and place it smoothly. This chameleon, who is endowed with the ability to change its skin color to defend itself from its prey ends up getting a lethal blow owing to its ability. Its own power transforming into a beacon of its death.