गाड़ियाँ

कुछ गाड़ियाँ  ऊपर गई,

कुछ गाड़ियाँ नीचे आई,

कुछ और गाड़ियाँ ऊपर गई,

कुछ और गाडियाँ नीचे आई.

कुछ गाड़ियाँ किनारे की गली में घुस गई,

कुछ गाड़ियाँ साँय-साँय करती हुई सीधे निकल गयी. 

मैं उन सब गाड़ियों को दूर खड़ा देख रहा था, 

सोच रहा था, काश, इस मनहूसियत में कोईबदलाव आये,

एक के पीछे एक, दो गाड़ियाँ ठुक जाएँ,

कोई कमअक्ल, जल्दबाज़ी में एक गाडी के निचे आ जाए,

कोई बिदका हुआ कुत्ता, मुल्ला या पण्डा अचानक से यहाँ खड़े कमक्कालों के खून का प्यासा हो जाए,

दो गाड़ीवाले, लड़ते लड़ते, एक दूसरे के सीनों को, अपनी बाप की बंदूकों से काली छन्नी बना दें,

दूर खड़ा वह ठुल्ला बिना वजह, पास खड़े भिकारी का सर खोल दे,

कहीं दूर से आता Indian Oil का वह टैंकर, एक धमाके के साथ सबकी तेल बनने की प्रक्रिया शुरू कर दे. 

हाँ, वो नहीं आई,

और अब शायद आएगी भी नहीं.    

The expanding Universe

Source: Hubblesite.org

Amoeba: a single celled organism.

Cerebral Cortex: Outer layer of the brain, plays vital role in memory storing.

The Creation of Adam: is a fresco painting by Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.

Centrifugal inertial reaction: a force that appears to act on all revolving objects , drawing them away from the axis. It is the reason for the formation of waves in the ocean.

Zeno's paradox: In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.

The Universe is expanding since Big Bang.

The Universe is expanding and,
galaxies filled with stars, planets, matter and us,
have been hurtling outwards at an incomprehensible speed.

Like scent, diffusing in all directions,
like the contours of an Amoeba,
with no rational logic,
without us noticing, 
the Universe has been expanding.


NASA's estimate places the figure at 46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles per second,
but I, somehow felt that it was quite an underestimation
as I walked your street again after those four awkwardly silent years.

The houses lining your street and the cars outlining them seemed to have moved further back since I last visited.

That badminton court at the corner and the park opposite it seemed to have acquired new dimensions. 

The trees, the electricity poles, the garden hedges and even those rugged white stripes on that only and annoying speed-breaker seemed to be further apart than ever,

just like us. 


I won't heap the newly discovered vastness of Noida Sector 48, Pocket 4,

         on the immensely heavy ocean of longing in my heart,

or,

on the inevitable errors and upsets of the memory storing neurons in my Cerebral Cortex,

or,

on the fact that every time I visited you, things somehow got crammed in my pants,

or that my heart was always in my mouth trying to jump out and enter yours.

No, I will reason logically and make the widely acceptable scientific phenomenon accountable for the increase in square meters of your block,
the Universe is expanding.

Could it be, 

that our  words, promises and our confessions,diluted as they traversed this space oddity to reach our feeble ears and got incoherent? 

That your goodbye, to reach me took four years and now my don't go will take another eight and your reply 16? 

That when every time I left your place it took me more and more time to come back, till I was so far away that I could not locate you anymore? 

That as you waited for me to come back, you went further and further away to a place from where you couldn't see me, feel me? 

That all the time we were together, we barely managed to keep our hands clasped in a wildly swirling universe and now have become the gap in The Creation of Adam that can never be filled?


Just like,

every time the body grows and separates the heart and the head further,
every time the centrifugal inertial reaction due to Earth's rotation sends a part of the ocean crashing into the shore; never to be its own again,
every time Achilles runs faster Zeno moves the tortoise further away,
every time the craving is so much that the craved becomes irrelevant,
every time this sum total of archaic carbon atoms executes free will to harm itself,

we never knew that while we played spoons leaving no space between us, we were being flung apart at 46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles per second because, 

the Universe was expanding... 

  

Prelude and epilogue

Prelude

Sometimes,

I wake up to find you,

sleeping all over me,

Your legs royally,

making a pillow of me. 

Your arms,

cordoning me,

from the world like a prized possession.

Sometimes,

I wake up to find you,

fussing about the room, 

as delicately as possible

 to not,

wake me up, 

but somehow, I always do. 

I,

have woken up,

to find you talking to me,

just to stop after,

seeing my eyes opening.

Then you seal your speech with a kiss. 

Every morning, 

waking up next to you, 

the preceding nine, ten, twelve hours,

feel like a beautiful reality,

stashed in some other dimension.

But,

yesterday, I wasn't your pillow,

yesterday, I wasn't your confessional,

yesterday, you weren't my night,

yesterday, I was just a guy who had slept with you.

It's true, we will not forgive each other for this. 

Hormones & processes

I know,

when I see you,

the adrenaline causing the,

excitement before that,

gives way to,

dopamine.

I know, 

when I see you, 

my body produces enough,

estrogen to make me,

feel overwhelmed. 

I feel,

it'd be the testosterone, 

causing all the vertical movements,

when in between talks,

I catch a waft of,

your breath. 

I think, 

when we are together,

I am not thinking of you,

or you of me,

but our own separate

imagined version of us. 

To say,

that I am writing this for you,

or you are singing that for me,

is somewhat not true,

for all that we know of each other,

is just a memory retrieval at that time.

Intermission

Reality is a function of real,

& unlike the universal ones,

the glowing sun and the sinking moon,

our reals are fickle,

& our reality subjective. 

You disappear,

as you dip into my personal space,

to kiss me.

Only the experience remains,

and then the memory,

copied, converted and protected

to suit my cognition. 

Of my existence and yours

There is something that,

connects the morning you,

to the night you,

the sad you,

to the hyper you,

the stoned you,

to the sober you,

and that something is me. 

There is something about me, 

that makes you,

an angel, a rainbow, a comet,

that makes you, not you,

but what I imagine you to be. 

When you are next to me, 

you are me.

When you are looking at me,

it's me looking at myself.

When you are talking to me,

It's my introspection.

For me, without me,

you don't have an existence.    

The familiarity of your lips, 

the non-mystery of your thoughts,

the smell of your hair,

which I know so well,

all have existed in my head always. 

To say that I've just met you,

or that I met you then,

would be completely false,

because I've never met you, 

every time it was just another version of myself that I met. 

Epilogue

Peeing out of the,

two one-inch

 circles,

I can't see the world in its totality.

Calculating inside those

3 pounds,

I can't reach anyone

but myself.

And I know you feel the same.