Sandeep Kulshrestha's Poetry

Circa 1993, a splendid corrosion of old identities   dissolved at a business school   the mindset of allowing   new ipseity to harness itself   took me to my new evanescent dream   which was never to be   a cursory stealing glance from her   through my accounting notes   was enough fodder for my anticipation   somehow lead us to exchange our phone numbers   and the first call was missed   as I was away, attending the “beating retreat”,   a celebration of the republic   it was a joy of the superlative kind   can’t manifest here, in few words   the news of a phone call was full of a beatitude   Delhi was never so beautiful   the next wintry day   made me see   a girl in shawl over few cups of tea   over the terrace of an old building,   a makeshift education space   I scatterbrained myself, off...

Coffee brewed in my mind when the drizzling Sunday morning arrived and I thought that a warm luscious chocolatey muffin could give a good company to the decadent latte and I drove down silly to the space where the endearing muffin dictates taste and aroma to the unwitting cup of a brown liquid which had an ancestry of beans  not so long back Muffin, all yawning and in its day dreams was just out of the oven not yet properly garnished or displayed it was raw and fresh and kind suddenly everything became uncluttered  and the naughty glimpse of the sun dislodged me completely and when I came out of my reverie the muffin had cleverly melted in my soul Sunday mornings can be so appetizing! 

  Emulsified into a new mode of being, a new luminescence acts as a metaphor  of breaking the shackles  of the past clutter of wilderness  The jumping rhapsody of vision has led to this new clarity as if a newest testament has been revealed and new ideals have emerged I have grown into a virtuous self of sorts looking at each moment of seeing within as a way of understanding the world  Through the lens of a kind of self-renaissance,  the world we live in Is superficially old and yet surprisingly new, In the “here and now” we exist We are always on a path of renewal and this transformative beam of light Is a new room I live in Life is but a breathtaking journey, If only the hearts are open to see other hearts melting for you

  I know what I am saying is sort of a cliché that you are wonderful and your kind demeanor creates a surreal bond of which I do not have most appropriate  words or phrases but to say you are wonderful this flavor of being connected to an indefinable sweet energy field is beyond the frontiers of many minds my narcissistic self at least feels so that what I feel for you no one else can do and it sounds such a simple poem as if it is a ballad of a teen fantasy but then I think of you  more than I should think of you In this wonderous spirit of life you give me a reason to believe that someone could be so wonderful as you are  

Tyranny is human made and so is the chocolate mousse or mobile phones or sleeping pills excessive chocolate mousse in its larger impact may get appointment to the dentist closer to a cozy dinner with a loved one a tyrant's fury may leave you emotionally naked and physically wounded the exhaustion can look like death or a hazy perception of  something bigger taken away that something bigger is plain and simple life in its mundane as well as interesting forms of calling the plumber when the hose is leaking or to call mother on mother's day or to genuinely get hung over when it was not needed the tyrant takes it all away all it takes is a simple word - hate mobile phones come in various technically incomprehensible jargon while the tyrant disseminates the very sense of the breath that keeps us alive tyrant looks like a human while a pastry chef is a human, or the person who works at the car clean shop we have forgotten one thing in the bargain of knowing the truth that...