Acrid yesterday

Having thought myself a good person always, 

i am dumbfounded when someone points out the contrary

when the ghost of the one thing I have disliked in people, has emerged from within me,

and made a permanent residence in my nerves and sinews,

I wonder now, how could i not know when this absolute possession happened?

and how is it now that i should throw this tiresome and acrid tenant out?

Of sepia moments

When i make friends with a person, i like to keep discovering newness in them, the same people i have grown to know so well;

A couple of years ago, a batch mate with much command, ordered everyone to get their baby pictures while coming back from vacation, and in that whole process of oooh and aaahhs and pictures being circulated and flicked by random admirers, some were as it seemed lost forever in the banter and confusion. 

With no negatives to make copies from, it seemed like a part of some peoples past was taken away. 

Now that everyone has packed for the last time and sent trunks and trunks home, many have found some pictures of unknown babies.

I got a chance to look at pictures of two such people recently,

both good friends. Having always wondered where a certain personality trait came from, this seemed like a possible answer to many musings, a kid in the class photograph grinning with his front teeth missing, another little one hiding while others burst crackers;

What if these were some moments which made them a certain character, and slyly i feel like an illegal entrant to past of the people who don't know that I know.

Pictures have a way of throwing an entirely different age and time on you, little does it matter, if it is some one i know in the picture or someone i don't.

Did the fact that your mother made you wear your sisters frock, make you the fiery individualist that you are? Why do you stand apart from the group, so rigid and lonesome in all your pictures? Did i just take a peek into a part of you that is obscured by years of reading P.G Wodehouse?

Corrode

Now there is a ruin in sight,

one can smell, the decay, the hope

forming an overwhelming odor which now clings

in to sun-bleached clothes, is woven with the weave,

settles as grime in hair

Irrespective of personal hygiene

some traces will remain

and craft themselves as anonymous stories

to be told to one time acquaintances,

and little children who cannot comprehend.