The Dream

"Haven't you tried Tinder?" "Tinder is a lop-sided game, man. It is for the ladies. After weeks without matching I uninstalled" This is not a washroom conversation. Wait! It could be a washroom conversation, one cubicle to the other. Nevertheless the conversation is a common one amongst men. I was tempted to add an adjective in the previous sentence and end it as "amongst 'eligible' men but Tinder offers no such restrictions. So it is just men and it seems to rarely work for them. I am on Tinder and I've known other men and women who have been on Tinder. Quite frankly, the stories of people on and off Tinder are fascinating to say the least. Dating in an Indian context is confusing enough. If you bring in dignity into the mix and make tall presumptions then the complexity has just gone up several notches. Let me explain what I mean. To put it simply Tinder has a reputation. It is assumed that the app is primarily for people trying to get s...

I see your eyes The contours of your face Those pupils dilate wide Time to win the race I see your hands tuck that tummy in A mental note on extra mile of running I see you comb your hair to the back I see your stubble it needs more black The black shirt makes you mope In the white shirt there is hope A hope today will be brighter Despite the same time, same route, the same jeans thats getting tighter I see in the depths of your eyes, a longing That today shall be the last day of wishing I also see you keep forgetting That longing is the why you see yourself waking In a long day I only have seconds with you The smile in the end I look forward to For all I can be is just a reflection It is up to you to read it’s perfection In the night when all goes dark I can show you nothing, it’s stark And I am a mirror, I stay that way You don’t need me, I am not in your way

How do we define fulfillment? We find fulfillment when we find meaning in things we do? How do we go about finding meaning in a 9 to 5 corporate job. There are occasional smiles at the end of a certain time period or maybe there isn't any of that. That isn't essentially bad news but it is just like life. It keeps going on. How then do we find meaning especially outside work? I see people chase other goals. Traveling the world. Are you traveling to experience or is it letting you tick your bucket-list of places you want to cover because of popular opinion? People work out and want to stay fit. What happens once that's done? People take part in marathons. It's a new kind of purpose just like the bucket-list of places. Each one of these things strike me as shallow. It isn't surprising that people who indulge in the above are usually married with 1 or no kids. The ones that aren't married are busy trying to get to the point of a relationship and eventual marriage. ...

Where were we before we hid behind sepia and black & white  our sentences were interrupted by chimes And the most important light came from a notification  Where were we before We defined our likeability by likes We had more than 140 characters to say We spoke in words rather than cartoons Where were we before Loneliness got replaced by the virtual Our friends became display pictures  Their stories only last a day Were we happier then When we thought about people And waited a long time to tell them Rather than feeling them in black font on a white screen We weren't happier then We missed and longed and met and rejoiced Today we meet and are disappointed because The person is nothing like what the display picture said

2B West road, West CIT Nagar, T Nagar, Madras – 35. This is a famous address especially in the erstwhile Madras. Some knew it as a house which housed about 3 families permanently and a number of families that lived in depending on the time of the year. The house always smelled of filter coffee. There was a large gate at the entrance of the house. There was a badly mowed lawn with a tiny clearing that led to the front door of the house. There was a huge mango tree at the side of the house. In the shade of that tree, resting on the wall of the house, you would always find a black Hero cycle. The front door of the house was almost always open. It provided great ventilation against the sultry heat of Madras. We didn’t have air conditioning back in the day. The open doors signified something else. It was a welcome to all the people who wanted to come in. What’s more was that we would almost always have guests who were sitting in the front room. When there were guests it meant one thing,...

I look hard and then swipe Seconds to decide that I like The person in the picture in myriad hues That’s all I have by way of clues I can go left or I can go right Second guessing which way she might If she ever got to my colorful picture And decide maybe I am worth her It isn’t words because I only get a paragraph I cant put a song I can choreograph Or tell that I am cool but essentially love deprived Instead say I am intellectually derived We want to come out But in coming out we are caught We want to look incandescently desirable In the attempt end up avoidable The backlight of the mobile phone goes dark Snaps me back to life stark Notice the person sitting across and smile “I haven’t seen you in a while”