SADAQAT

Uske khwabon mein
Mai ab tak roshan hoon -
Ya kisi chand ki roshnai mein
Mai raat Kay andhere ki tarah
Chup gaya hoon -
Yeh yaqeen se nahi keh sakta
Magar uski rooh ki pakeezghi ki kasam
Uske dil ki masoomiyat ki kasam
Itna yaqeen hai mujhe ki
Apni saheli ki shaadi mein
Woh dulhan se zyada
Khoobsurat lag rahi hogi

LAMAKAAN

(For B)

Someday
We will never meet
Someday
I will walk
The footsteps of Anna
And jump off
The pages of Tolstoy
And you might wander
The genderless world of love
In Wintersonian universe
While two foolish souls
In a dilapidated building
On a godforsaken mountain
Will keep on tracing the neutral space
Where masculinity and feminity meet

KHUDAI - خدائی

Duniya Ka kadakta shor
Aur bijili si raftaar
Yak lakth khatam kardena
Buhut dushwaar hai
Magar kabhi kabhi
Kaano pe haath rakh kar
Khamoshi dekh lena
Aankhein moond kar
Andhera sun lena
Khudai se kam nahi

دنیا کا کڑکتا شور
اور بجلی سی رفتار
یک لخت ختم کردینا
بُہت دشوار ہے
مگر کبھی کبھی
کانوں پہ ہاتھ رکھ کر
خاموشی دیکھ لینا
آنکھیں موند کر
اندھیرا سن لینا
خدائی سے کم نہیں

OF RELATIONS AND UNIVERSITIES

Within the fluidity of relations
Let the currents crystallize
Brand it and install an authority
Let it make absurd demands
And issue unethical restrictions
Until nothing remains
Not even nothingness
But a formality, a habit, a tic -
This can be one among many ways
How a relationship dies
But this is the only way
An institution kills itself

KHUD KALAMI

Furqat mein
Kuch aur hota ho ya nahi
Ye zaroor hota hai -
Aadmi khud se baatein karne lagta hai -

Tou kisi roz
Agar tumne mujhe
Kisi tanha sadak pe
Apni dhun mein bhadbadate dekh liya
Tou jaan lena
Mai tumse hi hamkalaam hoon

THE ALEATORY POINT

(A NON-DELEUZIAN POEM FOR DELEUZE)

The hollowness
Death, dread and void
Pain, agony and ache
Suffering, misery and affliction
The emptiness -
Philosophy is recognizing
The empty square within life's square puzzle
Wisdom rests in reminding onself
That the emptiness remains unfulfilled
That this emptiness actually
Propels every movement within.
Art is the realization
That the square is
One among many shapes

A PHILOSOPHER SEES SRINAGAR THROUGH POETRY

THE AGE OF EUDAIMONIA
When the great ancient flood abated
Revealing symbolism behind metaphor
Satisar exposed her muddy ribs
My throbbing chest well kept
Inside a web of bridges
Running from heart to heart
They called me the 'City of Bridges'

THE AGE OF STOICISM
When the children cried for help
They fed them iron, bullets and fire
With bridges burned down
My heart gasped in smoke
Some left and endured
Some endured and left
They called me the 'City of Fire'

THE AGE OF HEDONISM
With wires growing out of my skin
Ugly malls mask my face
Copious cars crawl my plastic veins
Cement obscures my feeble heart
No one hears my frozen cries and whispers
Inside warm cafés throbbing with sound and junk
They call me the 'City of Cafés'

GNOTHI SEAUTON

(For H n A)

It all starts later
When everything has ended
Past that last call
After that orgasmic angry episode
In the later part of indifference
It all starts later -
Especially the loving -
After you ended the last call
On that lifeless depth of a tone
I have attended all your calls
That you never dialled
The dupatta that you forgot
Still hangs by the window of the room
Wagging like an unruly tongue
I had many meaningful conversations with

So this time when you come
Be warned
I may know you
More than myself

MAN AANAM (For Jeanette Winterson)

Woh Kehti hai,
Tum apne wajood Kay saaye taley
Apni hi zaat ka saibaan bicha kar
Khud usmein baithey ghum ho.
Ab usey yeh kon bataye
Ki furqat mein
Uskey lams ki khatir maine
Kitni baar
Khud apne nangey badan ko chuwa hai
Bukhaar mein taptey uskey jism ki khatir
Kitni baar uth uth kar
Maine apni nabz ko chuwa hai
Uski gehri neend ki khatir maine
Apne kitney roshan Khwaab siyah kiye hain.
Ab wasl ki na-mahroom dhoop mein
Saaya bhi wohi hai, saibaan bhi
Meri zaat, mera wajood bhi.

من آنم

وہ کہتی ہے،
تم اپنے وجود کے سائے تلے
اپنی ہی ذات کا سائبان بچھا کر
خود اس میں بیٹھے گم ہو۔
اب اسے یہ کون بتائے
کہ فرقت میں
اسکے لمس کی خاطر میں نے
کتنی بار
خود اپنے ننگے بدن کو چھوا ہے
بخار میں تپتے اسکے جسم کی خاطر
کتنی بار اُٹھ اُٹھ کر
میں نے اپنی نبض کو چھوا ہے
اسکی گہری نیند کی خاطر میں نے
اپنے کتنے روشن خواب سیاہ کئے ہیں۔
اب وصل کی نا محروم دھوپ میں
سایہ بھی وہی ہے, سائبان بھی
میری ذات, میرا وجود بھی

FOR TATHI

My Father tongue is my father's
But my Mother tongue
Is my Grandmother's
That's how twisted it is
But not for her
Kashmiri was all she knew
And wanted to know
She never understood any 'pairum'
Nor did she ever try to

I had to learn it for her
That was my connection
To her world
And to Kashmir
The language, the nation, the life
Her guttural Kashmiri speared
From Kabali attacks to Sheikh Abdullah
(Post-Abdullah, politics was all fuzzy for her
Just people with party names)
Along the vernacular terrain of her narrative
Lay marble milestones of Moi Muqadas theft
And visits to Hazratbal
Along with her female friends
With hard earned money from 'Yinder'

She mixed phrases and slangs 
Like brush strokes of Gogh 
Visible yet sublime
The obscenities from her tongue
Vibrated like a single chord
It struck music

Where she is now, they say
Arabic reigns
But I wish the divinity speaks to her
In Kashmiri and I bet
She will outwit angels
And joke about their buttock-less backs