Beginnings are all alike.
Nothing to lose or to live for.
Just the sudden surge of warmth.

The two hour journey by bus
could be spent happily everyday
probing into the higher orders of life -

Kafka, Shergill,
horrors of teenage love;
or how one day relatives
suddenly turn cold
after a perfectly hot
dry patch of summer.

Her eyes were just a hint of the jitters
as she found me guard her seat
early in the morning.
About the same time I realized
silence could be rewarding
only when sugar-coated.

Then the fall of civilization
and our turning into animals.

Samartha Vashishtha