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A Shifting Poem


When you say, You have got to be funny, that's when You actually start becoming funny.
I mean the moment you say something is funny, it becomes funny.
I mean funny itself is not a funny word.
I mean confidence comes in funny ways.

Like the time when mum thought I was throwing tantrum.
But really, I was only throwing food around.
My mother laughs at this now.
But at that time, she stopped the cassette
that played ‘mai nikla o gaddi leke’
And listened to Jagjit Singh
For the whole time I collected my tantrum.

We ran 11 houses to get to the building where we are now
And it will be really funny if you believed that 11
Were the only houses we shifted away from.

The funny thing with houses is they do not shift. People do. And yet people say -
We are moving houses.

We were all watching Jagjit Singh on television,
when mum said that her sadness level is not Jagjit Singh vala level
and asked me to change the channel.

She was the one holding the remote.
After the song finished, she changed to the one playing
‘tujhse naraaz nahi zindagi’
And we listened to that too.
Sometimes as a family we watch only one song.

Sometimes as a family we dream only one dream.
In one dream, when the first robbery was about to happen,
we all were sleeping. We were dreaming even in that dream.

Dreams acted funny that night
as all four of us dreamt of Dinosaurs getting robbed of their attitude.

With all this, sometimes,
We calculate how 11 is
Not that big a number. What is it.
Just 1 added 11 times. 
And bricks are not that big a deal.

It is my theory that a funny way of getting to know people,
is to find out how people shifted there,
How they shift,
How they are
Shifting.
Shifting is a verb that loses action, becomes an adjective, takes on a proper noun, makes up a poem all about itself
every time we added 1 to 1. One day
We even turned living room à bedroom
And bedroom à living room.

Every time, my art teacher asked me
To draw living room in my art file,
I have flipped the page.

I mean confidence comes in funny ways.

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