NaMoWriMo #4

it has been a long, tiresome day and I have a lot of work to do.

this is almost all of what I have to say today.

Anouncement

It has been long since I’ve logged into WordPress to blog and a lot has changed since then. I have officially wrapped up my first year of university (I know, can you believe it? It feels like yesterday since I posted on the first night in my hostel room!). I have moved back home and embarked on a three month long summer that has me fidgeting to do anything productive. My hair has grown up to my lower back, and it looks lovely. I have entered my last month as an eighteen year old. I have started reading more books as pdf files since I’ve realized that it is practically free and economically helpful. I have worn out my favorite pair of jeans.

My sister has entered her tenth grade and is prepping well for her board examinations at the end of the year. My mother has completed her training as an Art of Living teacher and taken two courses already. My father has submitted his Ph.D thesis and is training to be an Art of Living teacher. My friend Anusha returned from Thailand and got me nothing (thanks dude!) and Anahita is going to the US for the summer and Palak completed her high schooling and it looking at college options.

Why am I acquainting you all with these changes, and why now?

I have not been  good blogger of late, simply because blogging has not been on the top of my priority list, and let alone the top, it is nowhere on my priority list. I have been avoiding my blog of late because I don’t feel the need to blog anymore. Earlier, this place was an catalyst to let the creative juices flow.  Now, I am writing, but it is not making it to my blog anymore. Maybe it is because somewhere I feel like I am censoring myself. The honesty and truth that I like my work to contain has been restricting me from posting here, for I feel that it is way to personal for such an intimate area, with so many people I know reading it.

That is why I have decided to take a short break from my blog. In the next thirty days, I will continue writing, and I will think about the future of this blog. I don’t want to do something out of guilt or obligation to myself or anyone else because that would not be fair. Maybe all I need is a do over but I am taking this time apart to see how it I really feel about nurturing this blog. In the meanwhile, I shall be extremely happy if any of you get in touch with me to chat if you want.

Until then, I hope that you all have a wonderful time. See you in 30 days.

xoxo, Akanksha

Broken Bottles

The rigged edges of the broken bottle
glimmer in my hand like diamonds;
the glass cuts through my life like diamonds;
I know which shrapnel loves which vein,
how the vein colors each piece and
the shadows they cast when I hold them
against the dying sun makes me want to
unlearn the fine line between pleasure and pain,
all over again.

The broken bottles cut through my skin
as easily as a knife through ice cubes- yes,
it isn’t easy; my skin adjusts and readjusts,
it trembles, it shakes- an earth predicting its quake;
I have to dig and I have to press; it pierces
and pain strikes me like a thousand comets
attacking my skin in symphony; the effect makes
me want to separate my skin from muscles;
body from body.

The skin gives away like scissors slicing paper,
the pain faded away, a dull throbbing at surface
as warmth gushes out, red painting my skin
with the passion of an artist working on an eye
of his favorite muse, the efforts of a poet
to find the word that can convey his veneration
to his sweetheart; the pain ebbs- it spreads
to every cell like smoke on a windy day
and I collapse, the broken bottle slipping
from my hand.

Short Story: Tree of Wishes

She left and three years later, I received a letter. After three years of no contact, I received a letter from her- one that told me why she left, why she gave up, why she never returned. I never understood her. She was my true love, my happily ever after and she left.

John. You will receive this letter long after I’ve been gone- where, I can’t tell you because I know you will never, ever forgive me.

The day she left, we hadn’t any electricity. The heating in the apartment was dysfunctional and the room had felt so cold and miserable. I made us coffee while she sat on the table, clutching her favorite pen. There was just enough illumination in the room for us to see each other, but we never did. We never saw what could have saved us from drowning. I never saw the abandonment in her eyes; she never saw death in mine.

I have to leave- she had said finally, once the silence had amplified all the words unspoken. I nodded.

I never asked why; she never ventured.

There is a tree on the other side of the river, north to the roundabout that we met on, on New Year’s Eve. It is believed that if you whisper what you want to the trunk of the tree, you get it. A superstition I never believed in. Until I met you.

On the sixth day after her departure, I looked up the tree she talked of. Turns out, they call it the Tree Of Wishes and it is a fairly popular tourist spot in the city. A week later, as chance would happen, I had to meet with a friend near to the place. We had Thai food and while returning, I walked past it. It was a huge wide-trunked tree, its foliage expansive and some roots emergent. By the river, it looked majestic.

I wondered if I would have known about it had she not left me. I was a person of reason. Wondering around in the other side of the city for pleasure was something I would never do. That day, sitting on a bench near it, I looked beyond the river, into the city, hoping that by some strange way of fate, she would walk past the tree, talking to it of her plans of coming back. But of course, she never did or I wouldn’t have let go of her.

Getting take-out from the same place that night, I returned to our home, but I have never been back.

You were a wish John, a dream come true. You gave me a reason to be happy. However, it never takes long for dreams to metamorphose into nightmares. Happiness is fleeting.

I remember the day I found her crying. I had barged into the bedroom. Curled up on the floor behind the bed, her eyes were puffed up and her chest labored as she shook. She didn’t ask me to stay, nor did she ask me to leave. She just looked at me, for one infinite second, and everything inside me moved. There was nothing I could so. I simply sat on the floor beside her and took her head in my lap. I asked her what was wrong. She didn’t reply. So I just sat there until she fell asleep and I fell asleep beside her that night.

This became a ritual- she would break down, I would sit beside her, and we would both fall asleep. She never told me why she cried, I learnt not to ask.

I realized that this was the only way there was- not talking about it.

The truth is- I was afraid. I had fallen in love for the first time. I had never found myself dreaming about someone before, looking forward to talk to them all the time, and sleep with them, and cook with them. I never felt that and suddenly I was feeling all of it. It was as if I just realized that there are infinite shades possible or that there numbers never end. I didn’t know how to control my feelings for you. All I knew what I felt was never ending. And I was so afraid. I was so afraid of the immensity of what I felt.

The day that we met, she was talking about her favorite book with her best friend at the cafe where I worked part time. She wore a white button down with cute light blue flowers and jeans. She had a black coat on and a smart scarf that tied around her neck. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail but a lock of hair framed her face on one side.

Her eyes were sparkling, her expressions was animated and her hands danced around in front of her. Never once did her gaze shift from her friend while they talked and they sat there for over two hours, both lost in conversation. She looked so passionate, so vocal, so in the moment that I was mesmerized. When she left, her server handed me a tissue paper she had asked him to, bearing her name and number. I was shook.

I called her that night and she invited me over. She took me to her roof where we drank beer and watched the stars. We were facing the immensity.

I was so overcome with emotion every time I saw you that I would cry myself to sleep for being so lucky so as to have fallen in love with you. But I guess that is where everything went wrong. I had dived headfirst in love with you that I didn’t realize how much it hurt me. Until slowly, the pain was all I felt, and then, nothing at all.

By the autumn of our relationship, we were just two people who shared a house. There was no conversation, no luster of the time passed by. We hid behind the ghosts of who we used to be, not once realizing that we’d have to shed that persona someday. I did long shifts at work and sat till even later at the bar while she stayed home, doing whatever she did all day.

Her breakdowns were much more frequent and prolonged, so were our silences. Perhaps, the only time that we talked and touched and bore the faintest resemblance to who we used to be was the time when she broke down. But what we felt for each other had long since vaporized. We were two actors in a play- we were playing the part but we had long ago emancipated from the character.

It was around this time I started writing- about what I felt or rather, not. I wrote about our past lives, our present selves. I wrote about who we used to be, about what made us work, about how we were two people who were stuck together out of habit and how we were two people who had lost themselves and were thus losing the other. I wrote about myself, of who I was now and who I used to be. I wrote about what I wanted and what I didn’t. I wrote about my day, my job, my breakdowns. I wrote about you.

It was by chance that I came across her journal. Hidden in the sock drawer of our limited, shared closet, I had asked her what it was when my hand brushed against its cheap plastic cover by accident. It was then, with a faint smile that she had told me, she had started writing. I had just returned from the bar and was a little buzzed; when she had told me that, I was so surprised that I kissed her roughly. That was the last night we ever made love.

The events of that night are still unclear. What stands out, as brightly as a summer sun, is the smile on her face when she told me that. It was magical, transporting me back to the time when we were in love, and I had remembered a little something of the first day that we met. On our first date, she had told me that all she wanted to do was write. I had asked why.

Words are the powerful tools, we as humans have, she had said. We can make someone, break someone, hurt and love someone, all with the power of words. If my words can change even a single person’s life, I shall be the most fortunate person in this world.

These words still echo in my ears sometimes.

John, writing gave me a purpose in life. It gave me meaning again. We had stopped talking long ago. Our relationship had died. We were just too scared to pick up the pieces and move on. We walked on those pieces every single day. And seeing those times killed me, they did. My world that revolved around us was empty because you weren’t there, John. And no matter how many times I called for you, you never came back. Maybe you weren’t the person I wanted. Maybe because you weren’t that person anymore. Maybe you never heard my cries for help. It doesn’t matter anymore. The truth is that writing made my world feel a little less lonely.

The day she left, we hadn’t any electricity. The heating in the apartment was dysfunctional and the room had felt so cold and miserable. I made us coffee while she sat on the table, clutching her favorite pen. There was just enough illumination in the room for us to see each other, but we never did. We never saw what could have saved us from drowning. I never saw the death in her eyes; she never saw abandonment in mine.

This letter will reach you long after I am gone. My moving out was step one in moving on, in learning to feel again the same way we felt when we first met all those years ago. It was finally collecting the pieces and storing them respectfully for they were memories of a life that I had loved, but lost. It meant walking on a path unknown. It meant learning to fall in love all over again.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t see people anymore. There was no one who looked at me the way you did when you first saw me. Or maybe, I didn’t have eyes for anyone anymore. My world was a perpetually hazy cloud that refused to fade away; it was the winter morning fog that never settled. I had lost myself, I had lost you, I had lost my life. There were few moments of clarity. In fact, the only time I felt clear, alive was when I wrote. So I tried to do that every day. And I started a novel. And I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote. Until it finished and I stopped. And I knew that that was it. That was my end.

Her novel got published two years ago. It received critical acclaim and was the recipient of multiple awards last year. I never tried looking for her, she never tried to contact me. I continued living in the same house; the walls faded, the heating stopped working, the curtains fell apart. I lived in a place that had seen me fall in love and fall out of love. The memories of my past also faded, until I barely thought of her, but some days, I would encounter a piece of paper in her writing, or a book that she had bought, or scent of her favorite perfume and I would go back to visit those wonderful years that night.

Still, I came across her interviews many times in the newspaper, but there was no pang in her heart, until one day, six months ago, a newspaper reported of her death. Apparently, she had overdosed on some anti-depressants in a motel room not far from our house. All her earnings were bequeathed to multiple charities. She left me this letter and her pen, the same one that she was clutching when she decided to move out.

Many times, over the past two years, I’ve heard people talk about her book reverentially. I’ve read about how it has changed people and lives.

I’ve never managed to read it myself. I can’t.

So I carry it with myself. All the time. In the hope that one fine day, when the sun is bright and the day beautiful, I will go by the Tree of Wishes and read.

So dear John, all I want to say is that I hope you can forgive me. I like to think of you as my closest friend and whenever I am stuck, I think of what you would do. Right now, as I sit with these pills in my hand and a glass of wine on the bedside, I imagine you wary, coming closer to me as you try to talk me into abandoning these pills. But by now, I expect you to have learnt that I am not much for caution and that diving head first is more my style.

Suicide Note From The Dead

I tried, I tried, every single day
I lived, I wished I wanted to live
but I also wished to live a little less,
for despite my life was very recent,
it had unexpectedly darkened
by a cloud of thunderstorm that refused
to condense and rain.
So I watched, I watched in fear,
I watched as thunder shook
my fragile little heart of a house,
and darkened my house by noon;
the wind wolfed outside
and blew the candles I lit
inside, the lantern outside.
I wept, I wept, as days passed by,
I wept as the wind blew off my roof-
the little warmth left abandoned me-
first drops of the corralling clouds
drowsed my home thoroughly;
hours later, when the raindrops faded,
frost nestled in crevices of my heart.
I felt, I felt the numbness creep,
I felt it slither across the floor,
and it climbed over onto the walls,
and drape it across the high ceiling,
shutting me in, and everything else
out. The dark and the cold
never abandoned me.
I fell, I fell, as the they collapsed,
I fell as the darkness and cold
crushed over me, crushed my hopes;
I could never stand; their weight
crushed my bones, and yet,
I willed myself to walk, for I
should be fine- but I was wrong.
I jump, I jump, for one last time,
I jump to escape from my life.

A Day In My Life

Many a times, I wonder what I am doing with my life.

A typical day in my life would start with me waking up at about quarter to eight in the morning, occupy an empty toilet in the bathroom, brush my teeth, wait for a bathroom to vacate, bathe, and leave for my nine o’clock class sparing seven minutes for the commute. Fit in a hurried breakfast at about ten thirty, an lunch at one thirty, my class gets over by three thirty in the evening, Ideally, I like to fit in a workout at the gym for about an hour, but it is not an ideal world. I grab a bite, usually junk like chips or biscuits. Then depending on the amount of work I have, it is either studying or I chat with my friends, listen to music, catch up on my TV shows, or simply sleep. At about eight thirty, I go with my friends for dinner at the mess. Coming back at about ten thirty, I study for an hour or so, and then call it a night.

Then there are days where I simply get nothing done right. I sleep late; consequently, I wake up late, either getting late or missing my morning classes altogether. I forget to eat because the food sucks, I fight with my friends, I don’t go to the gym even though I know I should, I sleep the entire evening, only to wake up late at night, when I can neither sleep, nor study because I am too groggy. Those days are the worst because I end up feel like a useless lump of skin. I feel disgusted by myself for having slipped in my routine, just because of my frivolous attitude.

Coming to the university, I had to change a lot and adapt to a lifestyle that is befitting to me, which actually brings out the best in me. Last semester, I had classes only two days a week, which were absolutely packed. The rest of the days, I had no work, nothing on my agenda. I fell into a vicious circle of laziness and lethargy. I would stay up till dawn watching movies, and would sleep till noon, getting ready late in the evenings. My productivity was all time low, I wasn’t blogging, I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t doing anything. I hated that feeling. Thankfully, by the end semester break, which was almost a month long, I almost had a proper schedule, and I promised not to let myself slip again. Since the starting of this semester, I was inclined to give my hundred percent in college. I eat food, I study frequently, I am regular to my classes, I am happy.

Today was a wrong day in sorts. I slept late last night, working on an assignment we had been given. I set my alarm for seven thirty, waking up eventually at quarter to nine, giving me barely enough time to get dressed and rush to my class. I had a class from nine to ten and two consecutive ones from eleven to twelve and twelve to one. My eleven am class was cancelled at precisely eleven am, after I had wasted an hour in the block doing nothing when I could have taken a bath and change. I came back to my room at eleven, ate chips, drank juice and buttermilk, watched One Tree Hill. I went back for the twelve noon class, attended it, had lunch and was back in my room by two fifteen, feeling a little flustered by the hot sun, and my unwashed, unproductive state of being.

There is something in the last two weeks of February and the first week of March that just lightens me up. The weather is just short of hot in the days, and appropriately cool in the night. I blossom in this time; even the most mundane tasks suddenly seem very exciting, I am ten times happier. Maybe it is the winter fading, maybe the approaching Holi that I absolutely love, maybe it is just seeing and existing in the sun when it is not melting you, I love this time. If you ask me to give up my most prized object at this time, I would probably give you. I would even share my food at this time if I am extremely happy.

Any when I came to my room, I listened to some music, the fan airing away all that I was feeling and the sun outside, the cool inside, I was actually very relaxed. However, arriving quarter past three, the idea of going to the gym was growing on my mind. I am the type of person who needs to lose weight to actually be healthy but gives up way too soon, before any results of all the hard work that I put in are visible. But as I said, it was spring, the weather was absolutely perfect, and the guilt of not having gone for the past ten days was killing me. Instinctively, without giving myself time to change my mind, I changed into my gym attire, ran a brush through my hair and was off to the gym, a water bottle in one hand, earphones and phone in the other.

It was a sweaty workout, I can say. I wear a woolen sweatshirt over a tee shirt so that I sweat more, so that was that, plus considering the fact that I hadn’t worked out in over ten days and started a month ago, I was impressed with my performance, particularly my stamina in running. I can also say the The Pretender by the Foo Fighters is a great song to work out to. I returned at about twenty minutes to five, absolutely knackered, sweaty and itchy all over. Again, without thinking, I went to bathe (with cold water, the first time since winter departed), knowing that if I think, I will probably not go. Came back, cleaned the room, my bed, folded my laundry, dressed up (a little fancy), and sat down to study all before five, which is when I started this post. All my frustration of being unproductive had washed away while I bathed. Admittedly, I am really proud of myself today. I think I am finally learning how to adult #donotjinx

I don’t know where I am aiming at with this post today. Maybe I just wanted to share my little victory with someone. Maybe it is the spirit of spring that inspired me to write this uncharacteristically personal post- a glimpse of my everyday life. I don’t know but I am feeling very happy today. Sometimes, you need to step closer to reality, look at the little things instead of the big picture to be content.

So now, I guess I am going plug in my earphones, and study since I have my mid-sems just a week away. What is your daily routine like? Have you done anything, no matter how tiny that has made you proud? Does the spirit of spring also transform you like it does me? I’d love to know.

Cheers!

A Night In The City

The sun has almost set in the sultry winter sky
And to every poets consternation,
Each nook of the city smells like cigarette smoke;
They wonder what they should write today,
A pint down with a burning throat
They walk through the city, to capture life.
The night is piercing, even the hookers have put on modest clothes
And somewhere in a multi-storey building
A girl sings in the dark,
Her drunken voice bewitching the entire city in its merry spirit;
And further down the lane,
An old man collapses, and with a wheezing breath
Denounces his possessions to his son
And he breathes his last in the snow clad streets,
The stars bearing witness to this commemoration;
And a girl stands over the bridge,
Whose coat flips carelessly in the icy wind,
As she readies to jump into the freezing waters,
Thinking desperately of last words that’ll hopefully
Last longer than she herself did.
And somewhere an artist’s fingers roll the joint
After he’s fucked the same guy he did last week,
And the one before that and the one before that,
Wondering if this is what love feels like:
No late night conversations, no meals,
Just two hot naked bodies writhing in passion
And the familiar smell of smoke and sweat.
They all wonder, they’re all living,
And thus the city lives on-
They all wonder, they’re all looking for something,
Or finding something or making something,
Or just being.
The city breathes through their breath,
And the world feels alive, thriving,
Even though nothing is similar and nothing is different
Because it has all happened, it is all happening,
It will always happen
And yet is is never the same- the girl’s voice
Has never sung of that one morning, ever again
And the old man’s son will never know how proud
His father was of him.
And the artist has woken up to a realization
That what he loves has, and can never love him back,
So the next morning, when the moon descends
And the first shy rays of the eager sun wake them all up,
The poets, well, they’ll already be wide awake, with cheeks blued, and hands gritty,
Forgetting to see the sunrise, forgetting to breathe
As they write about the cities they’ve never left,
The cities they’ve never seen,
The cities they’ve never been,
The cities they’ve never owned.

50 Questions Tag

So a few weeks ago, Cynic (as she very kindly lets me call her) from The Finicky  Cynic did a  little 50 Questions Tag which I found very interesting and which is what I am going to do today. While of these questions are quite random, and general, I thought it would be fun and different from the usual poetry that I’ve been posting for quite some time now. Hopefully, my new bloggers friends will get to know me through this, and my old ones a little better.

So here we go-

1. Were you named after anyone?
   No, not really. My name- Akanksha, means ‘desire’ in Hindi. The story behind my name is that my father heard/saw this name somewhere and decided on it almost immediately: he liked it so much. When I was about to be born, many members of my family tried to convince him to rethink his decision for they worried people might mispronounce or misspell it (which they do all the time!), but to no avail.
2. When was the last time you cried?
   Well, this is embarrassing because this was precisely two nights ago. I was trying to download a torrent for a movie and in the process, I infected the laptop with a virus. While my father was fixing that, I was also trying to convince him of buying me a hard disc, and which is he adamant to not do. Fast forward four minutes, things got a little out of hand… and I rushed into my room, tears running down my face.
3. Do you like your handwriting?
   I used to. I had really great handwriting up till class ten but the frantic note taking of eleventh and twelfth class and substituting my laptop for a pen and paper has pretty much robbed me of all my good handwriting practice. Most of the time now, writing things down seems like a pain in the ass.
4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
   Since there are not a lot of options available in India as per the choice of meat- I’ve only ever had chicken and lamb- I would have to say chicken because I absolutely love it. If given an alternative that doesn’t get me killed and which I like, I’m welcome to change.
5. Do you have kids?
   Very predictable, but no. Also, I’m only 18, so no way.
6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
   If I were the person that I am right now, today, this very second, and if I were to meet me, who I am this very second, there is no chance in hell that I’d be friends.
   Let me clarify. I keep to myself so the chances of me going up to someone else, even if we were all strangers in Hunger Games and the only chance of escaping would be to gather five facts about each other, to talk are minus. I’d probably keep expecting the other me to approach me and try to make a conversation. At the same time, if the other  me is also like me, she’ll also do the same thing, and we’ll both never talk for the rest of our lives. So no, we won’t be friends.
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
   I’ve started to recently, ever since I’ve come to college. But I think I need to lose it or I’m going to lose friends over my inability to give a straight answer.
8. Do you still have your tonsils?
   Yes. I don’t know any people who’ve had them taken out, I think.
9. Would you bungee jump?
   I like to think I would but realistically, the only way I would is if someone pushes me off the stage (?), and even then, I’d probably wet my pants.
10. What is your favorite cereal?
    Not a cereal eater, but the last I ate, Kellogg’s Cornflakes.
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
    Never have and I don’t think I ever will. Who’d bend down just to do that?
12. Do you think you are strong?
    Yes. And here, I’d like to borrow one of Cynic’s own hashtags: #Strongindependentwomanwhoneednoman
13. What is your favorite ice cream?
    Choco-chip all the time, all the way!
14. What is the first thing you notice about people?
    I think their physique, most probably, I’m not sure. Or their hair.
15. Red or pink?
    If we are talking about the bright Barbie pink or the ambulance red, then neither. I have no particular affinity to colors that scream. I don’t mind blood red though.
16. What is the least favorite thing about yourself?
    I have to say, my introversion. I have missed out on a lot of great events and awesome gatherings because of my wish to laze around, watch a movie and eat pasta.
17. Who do you miss the most?
    My best friend Palak, who shifted to Bombay two years ago. I would actually kill for her to be with me. #longdistancesux
18. What is the nutrition or fitness strategy that I need to work on the most?
    Well, I’ve been trying to lose some weight on-and-off for the past two years now, and I’ve tried both dieting and exercising and I haven’t been successful. While both are good, and for me it is necessary to do both, I always fall short or one. If I am exercising regularly, I would quit eating healthy and gorge on all sorts of junk, and if I diet, I never exercise. I need to moderate the two of them.
19. What color shoes are you wearing?
    None, at the moment. Who even blogs while wearing shoes?
20. What was the last thing you ate?
    Paan. It is an Indian betel leaf after-meal sort of a thing that’s really sweet and refreshing.
21. What are you listening to right now?
    Again, nothing right now. But I do have Troye Sivan’s ‘Happy Little Pill’ and ‘The Cave’ by Mumford and Sons on repeat this week.
22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
    I’d be sea blue. I love sea blue color.
23. Favorite smells?
    The aroma of the food that the aunty on the first floor makes, when we are in our parking lot.
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
    My sister. She was out so I asked her to get cake from my favorite bakery. Midnight snacks are so cool!
25. Mountain hideaway or beach house?
    I love mountains, always have. So a mountain hideaway it is. Also, if you can arrange it in Kashmir, I’ll give you a three of my beloved books.
26. Favorite sport to watch?
    Cricket. Can’t hit a ball for hell but GO INDIA!
27. Hair color?
    Black with brown ends at the end under a sun, but only I can see that. I am however thinking of getting my hair dyed blue this summer.
28. Eye color? 
    Black- I hate it. My roommate has such amazing grey-green eyes and I hate that no one can write poems and songs about my eyes the color of the sky or green the color of sea. Dammit!
29. Do you wear lenses?
    No glasses, no lenses. I have perfect eyes, thank you very much, even though they are a little small.
30. Favorite food?
    I have no answer, sorry. For me, food has always been about what I feel like. I eat what appeals to my heart. So I would say it changes, depending on how I am feeling.
31. Scary movies or happy endings?
    I love happy endings forever. If Bauji hadn’t let go, I’d have killed him- Raj and Simran are meant to be together. Even otherwise, I am hardly scared in horror movies. I am known to have burst out laughing in the hall, watching a particularly scary scene in the Conjuring, so no horror movies anyways.
32. Last movie you watched?
    I watched Jaane Tu Yaa Jaane Na last completely (also another happy ending). Otherwise, I watched the second half of Whiplash on TV just earlier this evening.
33. What color shirt are you wearing?
    A poster blue t-shirt that’s probably too old and holey to wear decently now. *I have to keep it safe, ma might just get rid of it.*
34. Summer or winter?
    Summer, in the early months when the temperature is like 30/32 degrees outside (I mean this is Celsius), or winter in the mountains with a winter wonderland.
35. Hugs or kisses?
    Hugs to close friends, kisses to mom and dad, and to friends if I am feeling particularly happy. So, most of the time, hugs.
36. Favorite dessert?
    Can’t name one. My favorites would be Kaju Katli, Gulab Jamun and fruit truffle with whipped cream.
37. Strength Training or cardio?
    Cardio. Have always done that. Found it more exhaustive.
38. Computer or television?
    Computer. I can do without all those long, senseless commercials or the lack of change. Plus, a computer (by which I mean a laptop) is way more handy and convenient.
39. What book are you reading right now?
    Currently, I am reading ‘Unravel Me’ by Taheren Mafi and ‘Love In The Time Of Cholera’ by Garcia Gabriel Marquez. I am also going to start ‘Milk and Honey’ by Rupi Kaur pretty soon too- it is currently waiting on the table in my hostel (I am at home for the weekend) waiting for me to dive into it.
40. What is on your mouse pad?
    I don’t ave a mouse, let alone a pad for it. I use the finger thing on the laptop.
41. What color is the moon?
    Yellowish white, I suppose. I am not very sure.
42. Favorite sound?
    Definitely not the lawn mower outside my hostel room window that starts up every day at seven in the morning and makes up enough racket to wake people up from the dead.
43. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
    Arctic Monkeys, ha ha.
    Honestly though, have never heard any of them sincerely so I can’t say.
44. What is the farthest you’ve been from home?
    It either has to be Kashmir, Bangalore or Bhutan. If you bother, look up the distances from New Delhi and please comment. Thanks!
45. Do you have a special talent?
    Um, I can replicate food recipes really good, and most of the time, I make really good food.
46. Where were you born?
    Moradabad, in Uttar Pradesh, India. I was just three years old since I moved out from there, so I’ve been living in this area for about fifteen years now.
47. Where are you living right now?
    Nearabouts New Delhi. It’s not really the city but I would say what you call the NCR region.
48. What color is your house?
    Our house has different color in each room, and white. So there is each of the rooms have pale green, yellow and lilac plus white. It looks nice!
49. What color is your car?
    Not my car, my parents. But one is white, and one is metallic blue. I don’t know how to drive a car.
50. Do you like answering fifty questions?
    I do. And listen to this, I started this Saturday late evening, thinking I’d post this on Sunday, but then, I was really sleepy so I couldn’t finish it. And sunday, I was really busy so I couldn’t complete it. So this weird monday noon time, I’m posting it. But hey- it is still Sunday somewhere, hopefully!

 

Turned out to be a pretty long post! To all who read this, I would encourage you to do it, it’s very fun! Hope you enjoyed it and that you got to know me a little better. See you all again soon 🙂

My Diary

You appear inflated, the pages that
I have browsed through repeatedly
are dog-eared, stained, and smeared;
the remnants of the pages I tore,
with secrets spattered like spilled ink
haunt me like ghosts, for they remind me
of a time when love was forbidden;
and the different ink that I started
to use, halfway through, brings alive
the pen that wrote of my first kiss;
running my hand across my own scrawny
print, smudged slightly in the corners,
ignites in my fingertips the same urgency
I had felt, twelve years ago, to release
the anger I felt towards my friend,
the night of my eighteenth birthday;
and the movie stub I stuck on your
last page, fell out today, immediately
transporting me to the last movie
I watched with my mother, ever-
You hold memories that photographs
can never do for me, for I chose to capture
these moments, they are mine; you ignite in me
a desire to inhale you, to take every word
in, to back in time, to live again the words
I diligently wrote, and which you never
told; you have held my life in leaves, sewn
so delicately-

Take me, fly me away, be my time machine
when it gets too much.

An Instruction Manual for a Gravedigger.

Step 1: You turn off your emotions,
that constriction in your chest just might
make it difficult for you to dig, when the snow
has covered every inch of the equally marked landscape;
identifiable by names, relationships- by how people saw them.

Step 2: Don’t let the seed of gloom
plant itself in your heart, you don’t need
a growth that cannot be weeded out; the silence
interrupted by the rhythmic thawing of the land need
not be layered with an unhappiness that is not yours to begin with.

Step 3: Along with every clump of soil
that your spade collects from the ground,
say a little prayer; what you are digging it for
will soon melt- the skin will integrate with the soil,
and the evidence of any wrongs the body had done to
anyone else, will cease to exist. Say a prayer that the hurt
are delivered their justice, so that one end doesn’t bring others.

Step 4: Know that each body will return
to haunt you one day, when you are tossing
in bed, late at night, unable to separate yourself
from the fingernails that are scratching your back, hurting
you; their frozen masks of fears, hatred, happiness, forever
etched in your mind like stone, will surround you, try to overcome
you. At that time, close your eyes and hope for forgiveness, from whatever
haunting them; maybe the next night, you’ll sleep tight, having put their demons to rest.

Step5: Remember this, for I know, what
you do is never who you are- don’t let the freshly
covered grave enchant you with its heavy barrenness;
there is nothing immoral of what you do; don’t distance
yourself from the living, or you might as well, dig a grave for your
own self. Plant flowers near the headstone, wait for them to bloom,
learn that no ending is beautiful; it is merely the start of something new.