My New Favorite Author

One of the worst hobbies you can pick up is writing. With other hobbies, you need to dedicate specific time to nourish them and practice them. For instance, you can't just paint randomly, there's a setup involved no matter how basic you want to get. Whereas when you are writing, you can just be doing it while writing an email or sending a text or just solving an exam question but are you REALLY doing it.

Like yes, I get the point that those are different kinds of writing but how do I control the accidental 'cooking' I concoct while offering unsolicited advice to a friend or when I execute an autonomous humorous bit during a discussion in the group chat. Those are well-worded sentences that will never be published with my name, and at best will be regurgitated by my cohort to a larger more appreciative audience.

I did say writing is 'one' of the worst, but not the worst because reading is the worst one. Period. It's got the same problems as writing and then more. It is such an annoying hobby, because while all-consuming and enveloping there is not much you can do in this hobby except indulge in it. You cannot really get any better at it; reading faster isn't always the best. I suppose one of the points I am trying to dodgedly make so far is also that hobbies like everything in our lives have become a victim of capitalism. You cannot simply indulge in it. It has to be turned into something productive, it has to be something you can invest into and get greater returns from, it has to be able to be screamed about or social-media-fied, and you have to keep improving and if it's nothing of those things is it really a hobby?

I digress, let's circle back to reading. It is hard to even talk to someone who enjoys reading because really most of the time you are talking about the book more than the act. The act too has evolved so much over the years.

You must forgive me, I haven't written anything cohesive that has made its way out of MS Word from my 'E' 'R' and recently dethroned 'H' key-less laptop in about two years. There are going to be a lot of diversions and meaningless meanderings. But I promise, there is a point or two in here somewhere.

For the longest period of time my go-to answer to what my hobby is, has been: 'Reading and Writing'. I actually enjoy(ed?) doing both of these activities and felt like I could hold a conversation as well, even if I weren't actively doing them. Or really getting any better. I reservedly might have publicized like a couple writings in the past 5 years (despite having written at least a hundred or so, all of them rotting in MS Word files, or my Notes app) and according to Goodreads my annual read books are only decreasing.

I say 'according to Goodreads' because I want to add an element of mystery to my persona—as if I might be secretly reading dozens of books off-platform, hoarding literary experiences like some kind of bibliophilic hermit. The truth is more mundane: I just forgot to log some of the books I read because the website feels performative and I'm lazy about performing.

Anyway, speaking of performance, I recently decided I'd maybe try writing more, no matter how dog-shit it looked to me, (this is my fourth rewrite of this entire 'essay(?)' as well) and I would let more of my writings see the light of day and not let my ideas compost waiting for them to blossom a garden for which no seeds were going to be sown by me.

Did I say there's going to be a point here and there?

If you enjoy reading and have ever told someone so, you must have been hit with the question at least once: 'Who's your favorite author?' The favorite book is easy to answer and say that it is hard to make a choice. But to say the same on favorite author puts your claim of having reading as a hobby into jeopardy.

For me, the answer was very straightforward for so many years: 'Neil Gaiman'.

Long, long pause.

Last June, when I traveled to the US, whispers had already started. But I didn't want to believe them—or maybe I couldn't afford to. I happily carried my 'American Gods' copy wherever I went and got multiple nods on the title from people who caught a glimpse of it. I loved Gaiman because his books felt authentic despite being compelling stories in a fantastic world. There were lessons in his books, wisdom wrapped in myth, and when I read them I could hear his voice guiding me through impossible worlds that somehow made perfect sense (regrettably I still would, if I were to read them).

Then the allegations became impossible to ignore.

You know that feeling when someone you've admired from afar—someone whose work has shaped how you see storytelling, imagination, even morality—turns out to be fundamentally different from who you thought they were? It's not just disappointment. It's a kind of retroactive embarrassment, like realizing you've been enthusiastically recommending Typhoid Mary’s Diner to everyone. Suddenly every conversation where you'd praised his work felt tainted. Every time you'd quoted his stories or shared his wisdom, you'd been unknowingly promoting someone who had caused real harm.

When the news hit mainstream media, my world collapsed, not only because I'd supported a terrible person and preached about his stories, but also because suddenly for the first time in my adult life, I had no answer to the question of who my favorite author was. Without any trigger warnings the omens were no longer good; the monsters weren't neverwhere but in front of me; no amount of stardust romance with an open marriage or paternal love with a haunted recreation of a Kipling story was redeemable; the smoke and mirrors had been dissipated to show mans fragile image of self that once wished to even hide from the Sandman. Unfortunately, there was no milk as well.

It was like losing a piece of my identity that I hadn't realized was so central until it was gone.

It was a very busy, busy, busy time of my life though, which provided welcome distraction. And I found myself unable to field an answer to this question were it ever asked of me. Thankfully, no one did. Actually someone did ask. And it was myself.

I blame my inability to read 'any' book for the first four months of 2025 on this very conundrum and indecision. The weight of every book felt heavy because I wanted it to mean somthing. Every time I glimpsed at any book or heard about Gaiman again I cringed simply because I had no answer to the question, who my favorite author was. It was a gut-wrenching feeling. Of course, I understand now that this was a vin-dit.

The breakthrough happened when I was sitting in an old bookshop wondering if I wanted to buy a book or just pass time in a semi-pleasant manner. I came across a book that showed the drawings of many famous authors. By this time, I had already short-listed some favorite author names in my head and involuntarily right now I was only looking up those specific authors, their drawings and their thought process behind it.

And to my surprise, I really liked what Kurt Vonnegut was cooking.

Let's get this straight. I am awful at recalling stories, whether that be from books, movies, shows, or real life. I can recall the gist of it but the particulars are always hazy and I blame my mass consumption of media for it. Keeping that in mind here are some facts:

• Sirens of Titan is my favorite Vonnegut book—it's got the perfect balance of his absurdism and genuine human tenderness
• I liked Slaughterhouse-Five particularly the 'So it goes' repetition. It imparts a sense of doom and frivolity in the writing that adds to the deadpan satire of the book
• I think the absurdism and particular brand of comedy of his books might not be best suited for the current era, which makes them feel like a secret handshake with readers who get it (You see I am just propagating the absurdism)
• I have read most of his stories and I find some of them to be strange, and some just feel unfinished. Maybe that's the point—life is unfinished, stories are unfinished, we're all just making it up as we go
• Cat's Cradle is one of my most frequently re-read books, probably because it perfectly captures how arbitrary and meaningful everything is simultaneously

There are more observations where these came from, but be content and have your fill out of these for now. The implication of all of these facts being that when I left for the US again, because another wampeter was waxing in my life, the only book I carried with me was Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

My new favorite author.

This is not the end. As you might have guessed by now I am awful at getting to the point. The title is foma, misleading, this isn't about my favorite author. Never has been.

You see between the time it took me to choose a new favorite author, my life was still ticking by. I got into the NBA for one—meaning I became obsessed with basketball in a way that surprised me. Other things were also happening at breakneck speed. My karass was expanding (or shrinking into a duprass), I was learning new habits and forgetting old ones. I was becoming what I was pretending to be and being very careful at what I was pretending to be. I got so much and most mud got so little.

And the only real lesson I learned is that I have got to be kind.

I used to say my favorite verse was by Philip Larkin: 'This Be the Verse'. I will replicate it here:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

I used to think of this poem a lot too. It was still my favorite but something didn't feel right because I did not fully believe in it anymore. Then, without any warning one day I found myself penning (yes actual ancient ritual of physically writing) this down:

Thus Became The Verse

They fuck you up, your mom and dad.

Who says they don't mean to? — they do.

They fill you up with the traits they had,

Then stitch some extras into you.

A chain of fuck-ups — now it's your turn

To pass on baggage and fuzzy coats,

A lineage of fools, kooky and stern,

Bludgeoning their mantras down your throats.

Still, man hands down misery to man —

Or so tells one spine on the bookshelf.

While you're here, enjoy what you can:

Fuck around, or don't; imagine Sisyphus… yourself.

It's not exactly Keats, but I liked it. I might have written better flowing more loquacious poems or verses but after a long time I had written a poem I was proud of. It let me stop resenting Larkin's verse. I could still say it was my favorite and have a rebuttal, a footnote of my own at the end of it.

Before leaving for the US my brother randomly put an Indiana Pacers cap on my head. They were in the NBA finals at the time, and him doing it just felt right. I am not particularly a fan of the Hoosiers, but I do like to say 'What the Hali' every time Haliburton clutches up, which is a lot.

In the flight, while re-reading Cat's Cradle I realized Kurt Vonnegut was also from Indiana. Finally, man (me) got to tell himself he understand.

And no, I am not going to Indiana any time soon. But that's not the point.

You see the point though, right?

See the cat? See the cradle?

Limbo

It is 2024 and there’s still no cure for malaise.

The black bile distillate from my blood is still the predominant humor coursing through my veins. It is astounding to me that despite five years of medical studies I still believe that there is an organic cause to the ennui I suffer. Well, duh, it is a distinct lack of neurotransmitters if you want to go there, but we don’t believe in that pseudoscience. Serotonin, norepinephrine pffft, take your orgastic-like energies and other established theories far far away. Let me explain and work my own way out of this.

A lot of this writing comes out of Limbo by Bernard Wolfe. I re-read it. I thought it would help me explain my…lack of ambition. But it doesn’t. Ironically, it infuses ambition into me by making me want to research into things and not just fall into the… I have noticed that I must grab words from thin air now while previously they would come easily to me. It doesn’t help that there’s no ‘R’ key on my keyboard. It’s a little nozzle. It is a little funny looking. I wish that it was easy for me to physically solve all psychological problems. I don’t know why my mind keeps going back to Wilhelm Reich who tried to solve physical problems with psychological solutions…wait. This feels very recursive and obtuse to read. Let’s try again. My aim is to get it out. Rip it out, if necessary, because truth be told it does feel like at this point a forceful…force uh or a jerk is needed to get it out. I hate how I keep recycling the same phrases and words.

There’s a line in Bible, and really the main premise of Limbo, that the most obvious solution to your problems is to literally severe the part that is causing the problem.

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.

Bernard Wolfe really read this and decided to run away with it. I hope you know that every time I must press ‘R’ it is not that smooth and easy as the other letters.

Apparently, there’s a neurosis in all of us. Something integral within the superego, which propels us towards self-non-sexual masochistic tendencies. It finds everything wrong in the external amplifies it and wants us to punish ourselves for those things. And so, we become like this magnet of injustices. I have seen or rather psychoanalyzed too many people who I have felt like keep account of all the ills and keep those records close to them waiting to use them at any opportune moment. That moment does not have to be a revenant moment where they take out all the pent-up frustration onto the aggressor(s). A lot of the times in fact those moments are just moments where they can punish themselves, adding insult to injury. I have found myself in an analogous situation many times, where I find myself keeping tabs of miseries. It’ll go on for some time and then I’ll try to remember why I am doing it. Sometimes it is to vent it out just cathartically over to someone, sometimes it is so I can use those moments of despair in an even graver moment as comparison and maybe feel better or feel like it was just coming privy to my sodden luck. Rarely it is to justify my own shitty action towards someone else. I guess you shouldn’t trust me. Maybe the rarely is the more often chosen action. I am the epitome of an unreliable narrator.

So Freudian psychology and logic dictates that there is a basis for why I feel like I deserve terrible things and why they make sense to me too. It also explains that I seek out self-sabotaging habits as an enema to such tendencies. Well, not quite an enema. But something. Sigh. The awareness of this knowledge is comforting and makes me feel better of every time I broke some pattern where I was hurling myself at breakneck speed towards points of no return in some manner. For instance, I don’t understand my whole stick with staying out of social media. Truthfully, I think there is more to that debate, so I am going to call a raincheck on that for some other time.

So, this appetite for self-suffering is not pointless. And it hinders me from living my life to the fullest, prevents me from becoming my own Übermensch. That is so neat. I love how if nothing else at least science is so helpful and makes it so convenient for you to feel good about yourself. There’s a point to be made somewhere that it could also be just a reflection of reality but that doesn’t fuel my WHATS THE WORD tendencies. It is even more quaint that just as a part of me that is constantly bombarding me with the need to punish yourself, there must be another part that is combatting it. Right? I support this hypothesis with the Newton’s Third Law, every force has an equal and opposite reaction.
Not enough?
Then I further corroborate it with the Two Wolves in You Theorem. Sometimes I really think I am funny.

I’ll take this whole business about psychological masochism one step ahead and state that this eager receptivity for self-harm is actually masked by self-pity which fortunately for my yet functional mind takes precedence and really just makes me pathetic but okay. Call it a defense mechanism if you will. The pity is harm but of a milder, more subdued and controllable nature. After all it is quite easy to hype and pump yourself out of this shed of loathing at the smallest achievement than it is to undo any other meaningful harm inflicted on the self.

I feel like I am going in circles, but it will make sense when I finish writing all of this and re-read it. Or such an assumption is necessary for me to believe in to finish writing this into something meaningful. I am breaking the fourth wall now.

For the need to hurt myself to morph into self-pity, it is also necessary to register that tragedies have been piled on to me. Some of my own doing, and mostly by others. Which all ties in neatly to how I started this conversation about people collecting their injustices in pokeballs and using it even outside Trainer battles. Maybe they are just filling Professor Oak’s Poke Dex. But what I really want to say is that as an adult I am much more reliably going to turn a ‘bad’ thing into a more solid memory than a good thing. There is genuine scientific research that theorize on how negative information is remembered better (Meditation Model and all that, holdthat). And then when I need to hurt myself, to feel bad, to satiate my super-ego or whatever craving some hurt, I will bring out that injustice and say ‘Aha, I deserve this. I deserve to feel bad.’ And then the pit just digs itself and the mud is shoveled out sometimes as anger, sometimes as avarice. Never anything good.

But what do do.

None of this is a solution. Bernard Wolfe would prefer to give me prefrontal lobotomy and solve all my problems. But as most of mass media has shown, such an intervention would take away most of what make me me. It would stand against his own principles of cybernetics, which I assume he must religiously believe in after writing Limbo:

The human being must always be central, not the products and objects of his skill and energy.
The object in this case being those feelings. All of them.
So,

What do do?

At some point many years ago I had hypnotized myself into believing that it was by writing that I found my outlet. It was my boulder. In this absurd existence, I would keep doing it because it was the only thing that I really wanted to do which had a point. I do think I have a new boulder or maybe many new boulders now. But I cannot just abandon what was once my only Sisyphean task uphill. Then I run into the Kierkegaardian existential crisis, of losing one of my ‘tags’. And eventually run the risk of being totally enveloped my oblivion, God forbid I somehow lose any of the boulders I have recently found for pushing uphill. What will be the Moral Equivalent of my War? How many boulders can I realistically push till I realise that I am no longer doing what I initially set out to do, and have committed philosophical suicide? That I have been involuntarily conscribed into a war of attrition where I keep trying to find distractions and calling them boulders. Whereas the boulder was never meant to be a distraction. It was meant to be the thing. ‘The’ being the operative word. Continuing the very vague and ill-fitted metaphor, maybe it is time to crush, or rather ‘shot’ the many boulders to smaller pieces and gel them into one and call it a day. (I had to do it, my playlist started playing Shots by Imagine Dragons and it just fit, please don’t judge Spotify, it is not to blame, and I am definitely not to blame for listening to Imagine Dragons in 2024).

I don’t know. Maybe it is time to sit at the brink of the gaping hole of the existential black-hole and have a think, instead of just having a think elsewhere. The black hole really puts things into perspective. Maybe this weird writing is the introspection I needed. Now, hang on a minute, isn’t this writing approaching its zenith-al end?

The truth is, I am at least glad that I managed to get this out. This tirade of pessimism and melancholy that reads like a diary entry of an edgy teenager. I would like to believe that just by writing this and wanting to believe internally that I will write more often, and not just book reviews, I have saved myself from a fate like Rimbaud. I have not surgically removed myself from writing while still alive. Or as Camus would remark of his resignation from literature – and revolt itself – in his later life, claiming that there is nothing to admire, nothing noble or even genuinely adventurous, in a man who committed a "spiritual suicide", became a "bourgeois trafficker" and consented to the materialistic order of things.

God, being called the ‘bourgeois trafficker’ sounds like the highest order of insults.

There is still potential of The Everlasting Yea in me when it comes to hoping for something for myself that isn’t rotten and fermenting. I may not make it on the list of great men, who’s biography combined Carlyle believes is the account of History as we know it, but I’d be damned if I get wasted by life and its essence and am not of use.

 

Four Years After

 

Note: Wrote this for the college magazine. Four years ago I initially wrote it for a blog post and then sent it to the college magazine, now I wrote it for the magazine and will be posting it on this blog.

It is a well-established fact that getting into a medical college is not a piece of cake," I wrote in Raigzaar about four years ago, as a public-places-white-coat wearing, brimming with enthusiasm first-year student. Now, from the vantage point of pristine copies of Harpers, Guytons, Robbins, and Davidsons, I modify that statement: "It is a well-established fact that getting through medical college is not a piece of cake."

Nobody prepares you for the overwhelming sense of unpreparedness that engulfs you in your final year. Exiting Lecture Hall 1 just as my seniors did four years ago, I search for a glimpse of my naive self in the sea of first-year students. Back then, my seniors seemed to have everything figured out, exuding confidence and knowledge. They never confused Bruzdinski with Kernig, nor considered axillary lymph nodes as mere figments of imagination invented as alibis to practice tickling on patients. They were probably the experts who discerned Grade 1 murmurs with ease. As for me, I often wonder if the faint pink hue on my male patients' nails is mehndi or a subtle sign of underlying kidney injury, a perplexity that eludes the many proficient doctors otherwise monitoring the patient. And the conjunctiva remains a mystery—should I search for pallor in the pink part on the inside of the lower eyelids or the slightly pinker area beneath the globe? Or perhaps it's the more inferior part of the eye? They say, "You are who you surround yourself with." Well, one of my friends once held a stomach model during Abdomen stage and proudly called it a bladder.

One constant struggle throughout my medical college journey has been arriving on time for the first lecture. There's no valid explanation or external blame—whether it's a wonky circadian rhythm, occasional hypersomnolence, traffic, roads, or skyrocketing petrol prices. We've all experienced the guilt-ridden entrance into the lecture hall, hugging the side wall, desperately wishing it would envelop us and transport us to the farthest row, away from the risk of inadvertently catching fragments of the ongoing lecture. Amidst this, I've developed immense respect for our teachers. I've witnessed classes where rows resembled graveyards, heads slumping onto backpacks, while the teacher diligently expounded obscure mechanisms of diseases aaa-currence. It's been five years, spending countless hours with friends, yet we must continually catch up on national politics during class, all the while knowing the teacher is periodically glancing in our direction. After all “Darr kay agay jeet hay".

The canteen remains a perpetual disappointment. Nestle should consider paying dividends to our college canteen, for it is the sole source of nourishment there, apart from the occasional samosa my friends coerce me into buying. To those fellow juniors and classmates who dare to purchase more than Nestle products, I salute your resilient microbiota. You are the living embodiment of the hygiene hypothesis. Relaxation spaces are nonexistent; benches to sit on are an elusive dream. Students perch on stairs, wander through corridors in repetitive loops, speeding up or slowing down based on their desire for privacy in their conversations from other overtaking groups. Perhaps the administration should invest in traffic lights within the corridors—common rooms seem redundant after all.

Nevertheless change has permeated into our college. When I encounter alumni or reminisce with juniors, it becomes evident that things have shifted. The exact cause eludes definition. Perhaps it's the aftermath of the post-COVID world or individual factors at play. The college has changed, for better or worse. It now requires greater inertia to accomplish tasks. People seem more focused on their individualistic expressions. Events like the literary week, which were once prominent highlights of the academic year, now receive less than a week of attention. Even places like Crush Hall have been vivisected and rechristened into examination halls. Speaking of change, I too have undergone transformation. I believe I've become more tolerant, and hopefully tolerable. This growth is partly a result of the extensive exposure to human nature that we, as medical professionals, experience. However, the majority of this change can be attributed to the incredible friends I've made along the way. They are extraordinary human beings (you know who you are), and their presence has made it easier for me to embrace and appreciate other individuals, as well as love and accept myself. This newfound perspective ignites a desire within me to become a better doctor—a compassionate healer who can genuinely alleviate the suffering in this world plagued by complexities and sorrows.

As I lay down my pen to rest, a somber feeling envelops me, knowing that this journey is coming to an end. Amidst the ups and downs, there were moments of joy, mingled with questionable lows. Yet, one memory stood up vividly right now: sitting with my friends in M-II ward, transforming the manometer gauge of a sphygmomanometer into a makeshift spirometer. We take turns blowing into it, and amidst the laughter, someone accidentally sucks in, causing the needle to do a 180. It's a moment of pure delight, a respite from the professor's anticipated arrival and the weight of patient histories waiting to be taken. In that instance, tears of joy fill my eyes, my belly aches from laughter, and I realize that every single second of the past five years has been unequivocally worth it.

The state of affairs

Nowadays my personal growth from the last couple of years over self love and other elements of love seems to be culminating over a certain break point. I have learnt through persevering words and actions of others love and through introspection and identification plus fulfillment of my own needs that I do not have to necessarily hate myself. And that there are redeeming qualities in me that make me half decent. Even if all of these were false and I am completely rotten to the core and have only managed to delude myself into thinking otherwise I still have the ultimate failsafe of claiming that I am a human.
Loving myself has also allowed me to more than just tolerate others. Words like empathy, care and compassion that previously felt bookish and only found in the dictionary now reside in quiet corners of my heart waiting to unleash themselves at the appropriate instances. So yes, love has been dumped onto me but I have eked out measly portions of it to others, still greedily holding most of it but occasionally dishing it out. Which has also made me much more sensitive to emotions. Maybe half a decade ago I would’ve said that such sentiments make me weak. In fact I still have similar notions. But they’re weaker now. This amalgam of emotions makes me privy to other’s mood and makes me read too much into their meaningless actions or words. I give them too much worth sometimes and it ends up hurting me.

I am writing about this very hurt. I think one of the worst possible things that can happen to a person is to not be loved unconditionally. Not being loved at all is still tolerable. There is room there for some sort of improvement. A complete absence denotes to the possibility of a potential presence. Self hate isn’t imposed by others but is done by the self and hence cannot be the worst possible thing because the self always acts in its own self interest, sometimes it manifests in nihilistic masochistic ways. The tragedy of modern times is that all of us are more or less loved. It would be hard to pin down a person and ask them, do you think no one loves you? Images of better halves, children, parents, siblings, friends, pets, that one relative who resides on an echelon above others, all of these entities and more just flash past your eyes and even if you are compelled to say ‘Yes’, you still hesitate. And that hesitation is enough of an answer.
Parental love is conditional. They have their own interests and suppressed self-expressions that they either mould you into achieving or expect you to stay true to their guidelines. The very act of birth and conception is selfish and stinks of a yearning for legacy in the face of mediocrity and pressure of evolution or the continuity of the entire species. Love from an offspring is ‘pay back’. The love from romantic partners has the potential of being fueled by lust. And the love from siblings stems from shared experiences or a more visceral way of putting it is ‘blood’. Most other loves including friends, companions, relatives and pets have much more materialistic conditions associated with their love that I do not need to necessarily list down. Neither will I generalize these assumptions for fear of rare individual experiences. And don’t get me started on God.

The trouble with no unconditional love is the lull that hits you in between bouts of normalcy. The smallest sign of distress or mental fatigue, any predilection towards mental instability is a harbinger for much more serious and worrying thought processes.

You aren’t allowed to say no one loves you.

And at that exact moment, you cannot also quite pinpoint who loves you.

A quantum state.

There is an impulse to lash out and stop fulfilling all the conditions that allow you to be loved. To really and truly become the ‘bad boy’. But then the scary prospect of being alienated and in the cold grasps of an emotionless cruel world terrifies us.
The other more sane, typical and thus the cowardly option is to take a big gulp and just swallow whatever ego you have, to not pay any heed to any distress or any disruption in your precariously balanced on the tip of the needle relationship. Just continue it. Keep fulfilling whatever conditions that you must. Consider it a task if you’ve to.

Remember what crumb you get of love, by whatever means necessary and at whatever steep price is worth it at the end of the day, in this soulless piece of rock that we have already been doomed to live on.

A ghazal

 

A concerto of wistfulness in froggy croaks arcs and laces in my ghazal

Flowers of lexically bastardized ideas imbibe the verses of vases in my ghazal

One legged belle-lettres written piping hot for the beloved with no prowess

At risk of sedition, ironically, for the janu burger there will be no praises in my ghazal

 

Bees marshalled like beady seeds onto the rim of a slice of watermelon

Poetry wrangles to sham such rife notions at myriad places in my ghazal

 

If the white escorts green, the green must always whelm the white

In camaraderie with reality, I relegate the minorities to the cramped spaces in my ghazal

 

At my familial home, once dangling crystal balls are now crushed to shards by modernization

No profound image in any couplet, this sentimental singularity was the chassis in my ghazal

 

My strife with writing is the muted nature of the endeavor, the product never speaks its meaning

Or maybe the silence speaks of the mediocre nature of phrases in my ghazal

 

A Happy meal of apocryphal serotonin valued higher than the celibate happiness in a tablet of Esglit

In this land, of my country in decay, a cynical picture I’ve painted in stages in my ghazal

 

Near the end, the mind itches yet again to hold the beloved by ink between index and the thumb

Albeit a tenet’s infringement, her presence will break the fast; serve as an oasis in my ghazal

 

My mahi will spend another Eid away from me and my bewailing, not for much more years

K defeats M to live before -iss in a mental Manichean heresy, as words turn into kisses in my ghazal

 

Mehwar, of these slippery toad-like warty words, takes your leave gratefully now

Before my newfound ardor, craft, contentment disjoint the homeostasis in my ghazal