First in a trilogy of photos taken while I was waiting for a train at the train station in Koblenz, Germany.

I saw
You at 3 am
In a distant dream
Pensive and withdrawn
Collecting marbles
Of desire
From the mantelpiece
And arranging them
On the coffee-table
To form my name

—–

At 10 am
I heard your voice
Whispering in my ear

I smiled
And cupped your sounds
In my fist
And jiggled them
To gel with
The sound of my love
And then
Hung them in the sky
To match
The colors of the rainbow

—–

At midnight
We exchanged
Dreams sleeping
In our eyes

A bond
Of trust
And inner fears

Rivulets of passion
Flowing through
Our thoughts
We slipped into
Liquid love

Thrust into this dark well of despair I begin to imagine your beautiful body in my hands. The way your hair cascades down your neck and always smells fresh, a faint perfume lingering in its depths. Your forehead hiding heavy thoughts behind its broad expanse as I give it a fond kiss. Your ears with their rubbery taste, teased by my tongue, making you squirm with erotic delight. Your eyes, mirrors of desire, and gazing at me with that naked look of love that sends a thrill of joy down my spine. I kiss your eye-lids, leaving gentle imprints of my love on the windows to your soul. I rub my nose against yours, uniting our breath for an instant that lasts an eternity. I shift a little and gently trace my tongue over your lips, waiting for the faint quiver. They glisten with raw want. I kiss your mouth, hungrily, my tongue shooting in and searching for yours. There…I found it. And our tongues begin their sensual dance around and over each other, rubbing, rolling, caressing, and squeezing every ounce of emotion. You take my lower lip into your mouth and suck on it, trying to drink in my desire and I reciprocate by taking your lip and tasting the love waiting to explode behind it.

I kiss you again and again, full on your mouth, hungry for you and your body. My hands move all over your soft body wanting to greedily touch everything at once. You pull my head back and latch on to my mouth, thrusting your tongue in, wanting to pour what you feel into me. Like meteors shooting across the sky we burn with fire and desire.

My lips travel down your neck, breathing in deeply your basic smell, kissing it lightly, blowing my warm breath along its sinuous curve. I find your breasts, my fountains of desire. They glow with an inner light, the light of passion wanting to be touched and felt. My mouth envelops them one after the other. My tongue hungrily sucks on your nipples and feels them going taut. You squirm and moan, your eyes watching my mouth work magic with your body. I go on, wanting more and more, rolling your erect nipples over my tongue, kneading your other breast with my free hand. I travel down your body, tracing my tongue along the long highway between your breasts and your darkest depths, I linger along your belly-button, exploring its shallows, and I examine with the edge of my tongue the contours of your stomach and the twisting curves of your pelvis. Your sighs increase in momentum as I near my destination. The pressure of your fingers on my hair increases by that small amount. And I reach home.

The well spring of your desire and the playground of my dreams. I run my tongue along the outlines, gauging the wet heat emanating from your center. I prolong it, to tease you. I linger and linger along the outer edges while you stare down at me with a fierce hunger in your eyes, wanting to urge me on but failing to find the words for it. I take pleasure in watching your frustration grow and just when you are about to shout I thrust my tongue in. Instantly, I’m enveloped in your basic smells, in the searing heat, and the raw raw taste of you. I lick and suck to all my hearts content. I search for the spots which will melt you like butter and concentrate on them, the thick mound of flesh just on the outer edge, and the upper part on the inside edge. Your voice is high-pitched now, your eyes are closed and your hands are holding on tight to my head as if you are afraid that you will take off into the air. A hot flush runs through your body and normal senses desert you. You are on the threshold of another world, a world where lust and desire are your masters.

Suddenly, I stop. You are slow to notice it, your eyes open up reluctantly and look at me, confused. I smirk with the happiness of the one in control and return a look of disarming innocence. You realize that I’m up to my old games again. Without further ado you plead with your eyes and pull on my hair with mounting frustration. I would like to extend this little game but today I’ll indulge you. So I go back to what I was doing. I kiss your mound and suck on that little overhang. It is time now to go into the highest gear. Faster and faster I thrust my tongue, in and out. In and out. Your legs are thrashing around me. I hold them with my hands but my tongue does not stop. I go deeper if it was possible to go any deeper. You flail your hands and try to pull me off. But I cannot be stopped now. I go mad with my own desire and try to plumb your depths with my shooting softness.

In that instant you explode. Like an underwater volcano your raging depths release their contents and drench my mouth with nature’s purest juices. You shudder and thrash. You shake and pant. Your moans reach a crescendo which no soprano can ever match. You are in that world now where words do not exist. You experience the purest pleasure possible, untrammeled by any physical boundary. You are one with the elements.

I watch all of this silently, taking pleasure in having given you such sublime joy. You return to your senses, slowly. We disengage gently and stare at each other. We share the unparalleled bliss of fulfilled desire, reveling in the warm glow of our bodies entwined like thread in cloth.

The film ‘Matrubhoomi – A nation without women’ is an exceptionally powerful one by new comer Manish Jha. The theme dealt with is female infanticide in rural India. It is a fictionalised description of a village where there are NO women left because whenever a girl child is born she is disposed of. The director tries to imagine what life would be in such a setting. How would the absence of women affect life? What would the nature of interpersonal relations between the men be? The setting is eastern UP or Bihar.

The film is extremely well crafted. Cinematography by Venugopal is excellent. The ambience is authentically recreated and the lighting is marvellous. The background music is amazing. You can feel an undercurrent of tension running through the film which hits you with the force of a sledgehammer later on.

I found some flaws in the film. One of the criticisms is that the lone female protagonist is depicted as a helpless persone and the director has not given her any agency. I would argue that that is the reality in villages, particularly in North India, so whats wrong with depicting it? And I thought that the way he depicted the caste violence was a little amateurish. And ‘kalki’s(thats the name of the female protagonist – newcomer Tulip Joshi) hindi sounds a little out of place. The others in the film are obviously theatre people and authenically manage to carry off the dialect prevelant in the area.

Apart from these flaws, I think the film is a genuine attempt at exploring one of the burning issues in ‘Bharat’, unfortunately one that not many people in ‘India’ care about. But I would be interested in getting a feminist perspective on the film. I want to know what women think about it. So please watch this movie.

In your eyes
I see the tears
Of a love struggling
To find a foothold
On the cold crags
Of my frozen feelings

These words flowed
Like fresh honey
These words purred
Like a snuggling cat
Once upon a time

Some things never change
My solitude
My melancholia
Partners in crime

Strewn
All around me
Are fragments of hope
Scarred and burnt

Eternal
My love
Fleeting
Your smile

                                                                        Perhaps
                                                                        I’m to blame
                                                                        But remember
                                                                        You are not clean
                                                                        You are not a saint
                                                                        Either

                                                                        Don’t waste
                                                                        Your breath
                                                                        Cursing me
                                                                        As you said
                                                                        I’m not worth it

                                                                        Go ahead
                                                                        Blame me
                                                                        For everything
                                                                        You were so good
                                                                        At that anyway

                                                                        Perhaps you forgot
                                                                        The heavy silence I got
                                                                        From you
                                                                        When I had opened
                                                                        My heart
                                                                        For you, twice?

                                                                        My silence
                                                                        Was not
                                                                        Of my own
                                                                        Making

                                                                        You
                                                                        Like many others
                                                                        Refused
                                                                        To cross
                                                                        The doorstep

Your words came
Like the sea
Drowning me
In questions of
What if?

And now the dreams
Can be burnt
In one big bonfire
As farewell signs

Sometime, somewhere
When someone whispers
Look around
It might be me

Somewhere
We will live
And dream
About a love
Left to dry out
In the harsh glare
Of our indifference

Silence
Reigns supreme
Gloating over
Our still-born dreams

In its latest issue, the science journal Nature has produced a special Outlook section on the current state of science, and in particular life science research in India. The articles are uniformly well-written and objective with very little of the usual condescension shown by Western scientific establishments towards Indian science. Together, they give us an insight into how research is done in India and the many problems plaguing it. From a scientific culture which frowns upon independent thinking and instead rewards conformity and obedience to the lack of accountability and appropriate funding, from the lack of proper regulatory frameworks for critical areas like stem cell research and human clinical trials to the heart-warming stories of a handful of research institutes leading the way in life sciences the issues are many.

To name a few; India is still way behind in research spending as a percentage of GDP even when compared to other developing countries like China, Brazil or South Korea. Ayurveda is another crucial area where India is sitting on a goldmine of traditional medicine that could be a potential source for new drugs if only the traditional knowledge is subjected to rigorous scientific analysis. The education system also needs to be upgraded and revamped. The present emphasis on only the theoretical aspects of science should be changed and equal emphasis needs to be placed on the experimental aspects, which are what makes a good scientist in the long run. This is one crucial area, I feel, where science graduates from India in general are behind their Western counterparts. I am a product of the Indian scientific education and have experienced first-hand the deficiencies of the existing system. Most of the crucial experiments in Genetics and Molecular Biology were either demonstrated to us or worse only described. We rarely had hands-on experience over techniques which would be considered standard laboratory work elsewhere and this was in a central university where the standard is much much higher compared to state universities!

But do not despair yet. Things are slowly but surely moving ahead in the right direction. The success of independent research institutes like National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune and few others is reason enough to hope for more change. Scientists from these institutes regularly publish in high-impact, peer-reviewed international journals and their numbers are steadily increasing from year to year. Start-up biotech companies like Biocon, Avesthagen and established pharma companies like Dr. Reddy’s, and Ranbaxy are also growing in strength and stature. All that India needs now is good support and direction from the government in terms of funding, less bureaucratic hurdles, and last but not the least, for a critical mass of life-scientists to develop to give research the right push. This could usher in the next revolution, for after IT it might just be the turn of BT!

Dew drops
Line your lips
I lick them off
Tasting the smile
Underneath

—–

The rose blooms
In your eyes
And fills me
With the fragrance
Of your soft skin

——

I open
My mouth
And speak
Your name
Aloud
And
Hear my
Heart beat
Faster

—–

My fingers
Moving along
Your curves
Finding, feeling
Love’s many shapes

—–

The sun shines
In my eyes
And in the
Bright blankness
I see you looking
At me
With a slow smile
Forming a single dimple

—–

My eyes-
Mirrors of love
Swirling with
Fragments of you

—–

All the thrills of life
if distilled will not fill
my eyes with enough
tears to cry for a love
lost without you

The state of lawlessness in Bihar seems to have no bounds when one reads this. I wonder if India needs nuclear weapons and a seat in the Security Council when some basic human rights of her citizens cannot be protected.

The night rolled away powered by our flights of fancy. We were outside the city on a small hill. The Zinian’s alu-boats could be seen far above us ferrying important members of their entourage for a night out in the glittering city that glowed behind our backs. I looked at her sitting by my side lost in contemplation of the crystal sand at her feet. I brushed away the dark hair falling into her eyes. She did not turn. I don’t think she even felt my fingers.

We had to come to a decision soon. For the thing between us would not be a secret for long. Most importantly, our actions would have grave repercussions that could and would concern a hundred planets in the multi-verse. It was not just about simple and pure love. It was also about big words like inter-life relations, space-culture dynamics and other arcane jargon.

She was still an enigma to me. From the time my eyes fell on her in Tulot’s hybrid party I’ve been fascinated by her inscrutable looks. She had the looks of a goddess but the face of a diplomat. We got talking soon. I did not find out her true nature until much later. But how does that matter? For the first time I found someone with whom I could discuss my inner dreams without that person secretly laughing at my naïve notions. Three thousand years of human development and still we hunger for the old basics; love, companionship and emotional bonding. She had a resolve and intelligence within her that could have propelled her to great fame in the known inti-verse. Strangely, she was not in the least bit interested in that. She was the exact opposite of me in that respect. As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted to be famous. I’ve always desired for people to talk about me, to recognize me from a distance as I walked down the virtual boulevards of Semperi City, or when I took a weekend break in the brilliant blue waters of Hintenia’s famous never-ending oceans. It was a hunger that had been driving me mad with frustration. But being with her soothed the raging fires of my twisted ambition. I had never felt more at peace with myself.

“Do you want to talk about it?�?, I asked her. She shook her head gently. I sighed silently. She had been difficult that way, refusing to discuss our situation, even though more than me she knew how difficult it would be for us once everything came out into the open. I let her drift back to wherever she had been mentally. I suddenly started. Perhaps she was consulting the RCI. She trusted that…that thing too much in spite of knowing that I did not like it. What would the RCI say? Would it agree to mediate on our behalf in front of the Global Bureau? I snorted at that. The RCI was notorious for its cunning, almost like a bio-human many said.

She got up suddenly and nodded at me. It was time to go back. I got up and brushed the sand off my clothes and looked at her. We stared at each other trying to divine our respective thoughts. Her eyes were wet with some deep emotion. Was I right? What had that hulking monster advised her? All of a sudden she pulled me to her and kissed me full on my mouth. A deep, deep metallic kiss. I could taste her cold tears in my mouth. Her lips melting and her tongue searching for mine with some desperation. Her hands gripping my head with a fierce determination. I had never been kissed like that before. She let me go as suddenly as she had pulled me. She turned towards the city and started walking without a backward glance. Confusion was stalking my thoughts and nothing seemed to make sense. Perhaps, there would be time for words later. I shrugged and set off after her.

Tell me can a man ever fall so utterly and madly in love with a robot?

I celebrate life
In electric dreams

Jumping over elemental mountains
Swimming under DNA fountains

Serendipity beckons
With a nod
Of her electronic head

“Let us praise blind vision
Let us raise atomic fission�?

A procession
Of gods and demi-gods
Like broken lightning rods

In the dark
Withdrawn stimuli
Lead the way
To the neighborhood park

A smell
Of metallic urine
And soft shit