#AboutLastNight

Liquid courage, they call it;
A swig is all you need
To take life by the balls
And to chase your dreams.

One swig
And you'll stop being scared
Stop wishing you'd dared
That one time
When you ran away.

It's fight distilled from adrenaline

It's the balls to say what you mean.

Liquid courage
One swig and you're super human;

You're doing stuff they said you can't
You're breaking rules
You never believed in
You're saying words
You rehearsed
A hundred times in front of a mirror.

A sip to remember
That you're the boss
That it's your job
To take charge
Send that mail
And goddammit, ask for that raise!

Your best friend
Leading you to the dance floor
That lying bastard
Who says you're a bomb
When you're probably more a nunchuk
And that REALLY shouldn't be
Your song.

Your wingman
Who hates to see you crash and burn
But knows she's so damn far
Out of your league
That you probably shouldn't even dream of her.
A swig is all it takes

For "Hi, what're you drinking?"

That idiot
Who told you "You have a dream""
"You have a gift
Damn, you should perform your poetry
It really speaks to me"
Except they've been swigging
Pretty damn hard themselves.

Aged for years
With wisdom imbibed from
Oak casks, and brewing tanks
Microscopic bubbles of yeast-fuelled logic
Pushing their way into your mind
Telling you what you already know
Just don't have the impetus to go for.

Liquid fucking courage.
Because for some reason
Without one swig
You have a duty to suppress it
You know what you want
But you're denied it
Flight fights back
Flight comes in first place
While you cower in the back
"Bhai daaru lao..."

Recipe: Breakfast

Two mugs pulled sleepily off their hooks
Fingers fumbling where closed eyes can’t look
To see just where the kettle sits
Deftly concocting the perfect mix
Of coffee, sugar, doodh aur paani
Differing from mug to mug fractionally
Carefully chosen breakfast spread
Of a thousand dips to eat with bread
And then settle down quietly;
Two mugs, sister, toast & me.
The lull before our daily storms
Begin to rage & drag us along.
As a ritual for keeping calm,
Add some judgement, if you want
There’s no one listening in on you
Coffee, food & just you two.
Or three, or four, as per taste
But don’t add too many, or it’s a waste
Of the carefully crafted simplicity
Like with coffee, sister, toast & me.


A friendly tip; for best results, consume this mix repeatedly.

#KadviKaakdi - A Bitter Tale

Like when you walk in on Friday with "plans for the night"
And find yourself right there when Sunday says goodnight.
Timeless thwarting of humanity
An out-of-nowhere whammy.
Evil hiding among friends
Revealing itself not till the end.
A toothsome treat gone badly wrong
Sorrow deployed with every dining gong
Sneaky devil in disguise
Kadvi Kaakdi... With the innocent it hides.
Like the spreading smog across the earth
That can't be traced back to its source
Rooted in pure disdain
Of anything but causing pain.
Kadvi Kaakdi crackles into the night
At every besieged diner's plight
Ageless evil is here to stay
From Birth of Nations to their Salad Days.

Aaji's Fridge

We're all a bunch of nomads
We don't have roots, we have a family tree
4 daughters, 8 grand-daughters & assorted family
Who all set out to travel as far as could be
Festivals were different wherever we would be
Even the hours moved very differently
Days passed by at different speeds
Reunions became distant dreams
But there's one place we gathered at
One place that remained
Aunts, cousins, husbands cats
One place to which we came

Open the door and take a look
You'll spot all parts of the globe
Work, travel, business & fun
Snapshots from wherever we'd go
Spices sourced from Italy
Saffron straight from Spain
Chocolates from Duty Free
And achaar always remained
We never met all at once
What with work, life, college, kids...
But we still connected somehow
In the interiors of my Aaji's fridge

No matter who, or where they were
We brought back lovely things to eat
Because we knew, once safely stored
They'd be the way the family meets
That fridge is a symbol of the family
Each taste different, each choice unique
Each ready to partake cheerfully
Of the complete insanity

There was always something for you there 

Whoever you were, there would be

Something special just for you 

Included in the mix carefully 

You knew, whenever you rummaged through

You were where you had a right to be

It wasn't just another fridge

It was a tribute to family

I don't know where that fridge will go now
Nor does the machine matter to me
I only wish, somewhere, somehow
We find another excuse to meet
How else will we share the love
What else could we use to bridge
Time zones, people, countries without
The central point of Aaji's fridge?
Where will home-made bhaaji meet
The sinful chocolate of the Swiss
Where else will the fancy Cheese
Meet gharcha loncha in total peace?
Our melting pot is unhooked now
The shelves morose & empty
We'll find another, there's no doubt
And on those shelves, again we'll meet
But the central point will always be
The shelves of my Aaji's fridge
Where we returned religiously
Despite work, life, college or kids.

Aashna Iyer - The Last Supper - Airplane Poetry Movement

Traffic

"One chicken sandwich and one muskmelon juice" she exulted at how she had managed successfully to circumvent the "Madam do you have change?" problem. Nobody dare ask her for change when she was paying a fifth of her note.
She sat down and looked around.
The exultation wore off as quickly as it had appeared. Now what?
She looked at her phone. Oh crap, no service. Couldn't edit things either, the stupid battery was low.
She looked around again. The road in front of the cafe was crowded, dusty, broken and gravelly. Why anyone would occupy more than half a road in India for roadwork was beyond her. It was sure to result in... Oh, there it was. The invariable traffic jam and argument.
One man, one group of labourers, and a huge scoop were yelling at each other, while others in the resultant traffic snarl craned their necks to see what was going on.
She was quite amused. Maybe a poem could come out of this... She looked doubtfully at her phone... Would it live through a creative spurt?
Just as she was gazing at it in an attempt to gauge its mindset, the guy arrived with her chicken sandwich, which he hovered around her face looking around for the customer who had ordered it. He took it back inside, ignoring her frantic waving; her voice lost in the argument anyway. He brought it back in a second, and put it on her table. Then came with her juice.
Now she had something to occupy herself with, she allowed her phone to rest for a while. She'd remember this stuff later, she wasn't a sieve.
This sandwich was delicious. And the juice always made her happy.
She ate. And sipped. And sipped. And ate.
And it got over.
And then she got up and left.
Because she had already paid up the round-figure-no-change amount.
The traffic snarl had cleared up and everyone had gone home. Ab kya faayda? She was a writer who recorded the gritty truth of the everyday. Now if she wrote, it would be fiction, and then Plato would kick her out of his Republic. And then what would she do?
Who would marry her?
No, the traffic snarl was better forgotten.
That was really a delicious sandwich... "Must come back..." she murmured to herself as she crossed the road.