A Memory In Eleven Berths Read Single →
2026 – Dream in Berth 61
In Berth 61,
the chai floats upward.
It steams against the roof,
then vanishes.
I unzip the seat
and fall into a hallway lined with berths,
some smell of river-light,
some of protest slogans under peeling paint.
An ant brushes my wrist.
It speaks.
I don’t answer.
Two shadows sit across from me,
one hums something older than words,
the other colours his mouth with silence.
They pass a bottle between them.
It rolls,
and rolls,
and rolls.
I wake with my hand on the railing.
It feels warm.
Or maybe remembered.
2009 – First Ticket
My jeans too baggy, ticket damp with sweat,
Mumbai is a blur, Patna has not arrived yet.
Ants form a queue by the steel seat rail,
Chai froths over like stories I can’t tell.
Dreams jolt loose with each turn of the track,
Father’s voice wrapped in my lunch pack.
A boy hawks chakna, his voice cracked raw,
Hunger has rhythm. The train, its own law.
Night falls in vowels I don’t yet speak.
The berth is cold. My warmth and future leak.
2011 – Country of Waiting
In S9, three boys debate corruption
over samosas gone cold,
vodka in green PET bottles.
Their slogans rhyme too easily.
Hope folds like paper flags after rain.
They got off at the wrong station
just to pull the chain and get down near their village.
One of them said,
“India’s true stops are never on the timetable.”
A vendor sells litti soaked in old oil,
even resistance tastes like leftovers.
I scribble a poem
on the back of an Engineering Mechanics book.
Let’s call it: Country of Waiting.
Outside: buffaloes, dust, the usual hawk.
Inside, I pretend change hums under the fan.
2013 – Signal Loss
I text you “Did you light a candle?”
You reply, “Rain in Patna again.”
The tracks repeat their metal scandal.
In my palm, headlines fold and mangle,
Between compartments, news dissolves in pain.
I text you “Did you light a candle?”
The coach smells like wet socks and sandal.
Two men whisper shame then pull the chain.
The tracks repeat their metal scandal.
Your message arrives without preamble.
Just a poem, half-done, half-sane.
I text you “Did you light a candle?”
Protest lives in signal’s shambles.
We love between signal loss and stain.
The tracks repeat their metal scandal.
There’s fire in cities. Our texts are fragile.
And yet, we keep them like refrains.
I text you “Did you light a candle?”
The tracks repeat their metal scandal.
2015 – Thickening
Mother watched the curry thicken on the stove. She placed a folded receipt inside my file folder. She said nothing. She trusts rice to say what words can’t. Her fingerprints stayed sealed in the tiffin box, untouched. Now my laptop rests near the AC fogged window. That’s where the future lives. A man outside sells lottery tickets in monotone. Even fate sounds tiring. In the train bathroom, a lone plant grew wild from a soap holder — foamed, watered, thriving. No one questioned it. It just stood there. Green and not giving up.
Offer letter sealed
in turmeric paper folds
ambition steams, then cools.
2016 – Notes Beyond Belief
A line outside the bank blooms like grief.
Coins become prayer. Notes beyond belief.
My father counts 100 rupees notes like soft beads.
He’s not praying. Just waiting for a debrief.
I see a woman barter old blouses and sarees
for bread — history stitched in each motif.
I queued thrice. Token said, ‘Come yesterday’.
My wallet carried only expired relief.
A country with cashless gods is cruel.
The beggar’s bowl hangs like a leaf.
O poet, measure your metaphors well
You’ll find no rhythm inside this reef.
2018 – He Wore Red Lipstick
He wore red lipstick to the Jantar Mantar.
That was all it took — boots, a baton, a cell.
We wrote slogans that sounded like thunder,
But our feet still knew how fear could swell.
His phone’s last ping came from a metro pole.
The one we graffitied with hearts last June.
At Patna junction, I forget my role —
what to say when silence comes to prune.
His kurta hides bruises, shame stitched in gold.
My smile rehearsed, my rage carefully groomed.
In trains, I sleep in berths that feel too cold,
Like freedom half-tasted, like hope exhumed.
Outside, the chai burns my lip like a lie.
Inside, I fold grief into pleats and sip it dry.
2020 – Berth 61
pantry closed
chai dusted
masks folded
no names called
berth 61 still smells
of someone left behind
a water bottle rolls
and rolls
and rolls
like time
without
passengers
at Bihta
a pigeon waits
no one feeds it
people without
masks line up
for sanitiser shower
2022 – Zero Likes6
I met a woman in B2, 62
who said Patna smells like
second chances and burning tires.
I said, “So does hope, most days.”
She unmatched.
But once, a co-passenger
with cracked Nokia and wisdom teeth
shared tilkut, a playlist of heartbreak songs,
and 30 hours became a brotherhood.
No swipe, just sesame and jaggery.
I buy date bars and forget to eat them.
I date people who text in lowercase
and disappear by morning chai.
Mumbai keeps moving.
I keep checking.
My ex’s dog has two Instagrams.
My silence gets zero likes.
I don’t know if I want love
or someone to just hold the phone
while I cry
so I don’t see my own reflection.
2023 – The Boy Who Trusted Rain
He bathes in river-light,
his ribs piano-thin,
humming something older than language.
A crane looms behind him,
not bird, not grace — just metal neck
eating the sky.
The child sees nothing.
Or maybe everything.
He splashes joy
into a river being bought in parts.
His stomach growled,
but I wrote his hunger down.
Turned it into a stanza.
I want to tell him
the water will not stay.
But I don’t know how
to explain eviction
to someone who still trusts rain.
2024 – How to Leave Quietly
This time, I arrive with nothing,
no text thread, no guilt — only ticket.
Just memory, that treacherous guide.
I touch the station railing.
It feels colder.
I pass the house that once had turmeric walls.
It now has rent signs in English.
Bhojpuri echoes from a vegetable cart.
It sounds like a civilization clearing its throat.
I do not respond.
In a train bathroom mirror,
my face warps with movement.
It blurs, then clarifies,
like language — then loss.
Somewhere between Buxar and Danapur,
I delete a draft poem titled How to Arrive.
I name the next one: How to Leave Quietly.
