The Silence of My Voice

Some people over the years have asked me if I take other people's opinion into consideration before writing what I do. The fact of the matter is, the answer to that question is a hard no. A lot of the things said here might matter to a lot of people. But, it's written mainly because they matter to me. I'm a bit on the fence about how abashed I am about not being amenable enough toward myself  earlier. I reckon subconsciously, for almost an eon, I believed it to be imperative for a certain amount of us trying to be a part of the same race, to be exactly the same, cookie-cut people. And, a lot of times I took cues from anyone, and everyone around me. Until a point came when a genuine reaction from me seemed confusing enough to know if it really was me anymore, or not. I abhor the thought that I put my mind through that, at all. Abhor even more, that it took me so long to gather that I didn't have to like myself at any point of time, as long as I loved me enough to keep wo...

For the better part of the year, most days were dead reality. They came in each day with no itinerary, or an upshot. We really put the motion, in going through the motions; so much so, just an old song was enough on days to unnerve. There are  a lot of people, who lost a thing or a person too many this year. Jobs, family, friends, projects, hopes, dreams... A lot of things, for a lot of us died this year. As one of the smarter species, we're quite brainlessly assaying to depart to better things, only because we couldn't hold on to a good thing. That's a folly. No one ever found anything better by leaving a good thing behind. You find a good thing, feel lucky for having so, and work to the bone at making it better. And, this is an underlying issue with most of us - assuming we'll find a better thing, because we have gotten used to having everything facilely. And, even more of us have forgotten that struggle is what makes that good thing far superior, because you know you...

Hello. I had yearned, and sought to be a lot of things; some of them I became, some of them I realized I already was, some of them I didn't, and some, which weren't even a part of the list, but I morphed into anyway. And, one of them was a me, I didn't recognize. One that was furious with herself, for even rousing in the morning. There were days I found it crippling to be human. I wanted to mould a bubble, and be unattached from the world, for the time being. Even more gruelling is to be cemented in the conundrum of indecision to do whatsoever about it. These days felt as if my brains were being perforated with a corkscrew. Worse is the denial, about needing help. That denial is also about not having enough gall to admit to the ones closest to you, that you indeed do lack help. Which is problematic because after a point, you begin to believe in it vehemently. There were instances, though. Daily. On my way to work, or alone in a train compartment late at night. The mis...

By some freak of nature, I wish it were possible to write your younger self letters. Like congratulatory clues at checkpoints in a game. Because nothing can wear you out like waiting for your compass to respond and point to a direction when you feel every now and then, a preset societal threshold has been championed. I reckon all of us have a different kind of relationship with ourselves. However, I do wonder if any of us have a selfless one. We're all an assortment of personalities put together haphazardly and clumsily wrapped, with the twine never knotting. And often we meet ourselves at various crossroads. One running along to catch a flight, the other awaiting for roots to grow. The real issue is we freely appreciate efforts others make for us; never, though, the ones we make for ourselves. Our exchanges with the outside world are incomprehensible enough - they're impossible to be drawn under our reign. And, every now and then we add in the metaphorical cherry on top by ...

Hello. It's Day One. So this year I've decided to talk to people I know who've influenced my life, or the changes in them and take something from them to write about. It could be something I share with them, or something that has affected them or impelled them to undergo a reform. I start this one with Vami, for whom looking within has begun to mean a lot more. In a city where everyone pencils in their day around local train timings, everyone is living in a playlist they created for themselves. Only, most of us forgot to uncheck the repeat button. We wake up everyday, with either alacrity or bitterness, and rerun through the loop. We, though, don't wake up to ourselves.  Struggles come in a lot of different forms for everybody. And this is something that keeps most of us up in the middle of the night. Work, money, love, drugs - name it. And there are some of us attempting to run away from ourselves to avert any confabulation about the same. But I figure abscondi...

Hello. It's Day Twelve! An anaesthetic mind is a brilliant one, but also an apathetic one at that. Numbness is a nearly adamant quality to adapt as a human. But as humans we're also immensely soft inside. One merely needs a hand and we disintegrate into a million masses of a million people who've been living inside us all our lives. Real isn't what you feel when you're by yourself. You're really your true self once in your life when everything you take as gospel comes crashing down in front of you. When you're busy dissipating along with your beliefs. We all find lost pieces of ourselves in various people we meet everyday. I hardly believe we like anyone because they're similar to us or completely opposite to us. I, undisputedly, regard that we like people who're missing what you dropped off somewhere a long time ago. Because you associate more easily with that sparseness than you do with what you both endow. And we're always looking to lose ...

Hello. It's Day Eleven! We settle a lot. For a generation that's mindlessly nomadic in their choices, we settle for things we shouldn't. And that's probably the issue. That's why we most times we pretend we're happy. The others, even if we are, we are like a switch that's triggered by the slightest of current, and we plummet into another dimension altogether in our minds. That'a because we settled, and ended up in a place we weren't meant to fit in. But we also are a generation that's bent on tailoring whatever surroundings we end up in to fit us. Don't get me wrong. That trait, though opaque, is appreciable. It's a trait that tells me that anything is possible. Anything is buildable. And most days, instead of building what suits us, we rent in with a heavy price where we don't even realise how much we change ourselves for that. Same logic as water in differently shaped containers. Only that we aren't fluid, and it hurts to cu...

Hey. It's Day Two! For the harshness that creeps into the weather this time of the year, there's also a softness you feel. It's as if you can wrap a part of winter around your hand and drag it back home with you. There's something malleable about it, something human. That's what winters are. They're slightly human. Humans are like mosaics - whatever they're a mixture of, somehow all of them end up looking pleasing to the eyes. Winters too, are beautiful to look at, but so grim to be in. And that is most people in life. The only consolation is that summer will arrive. And that's also the hope most of us carry with us. That, there'll always be more people. And amidst that one simple belief, there'll always be things keeping you up at night. I could never quiet my mind. There was always something going on. Restlessness has always been my shadow. As it must be, for most people in different ways. As if there are people who dance, and people wh...

And most times it would remain about the sheer acrimony of everything that contacted you through those tips like hot wax pouring on your skin, each time you pulled out the ill-fated diary. For, each time, you would try to corral her onto your rag of mishaps, your chagrin spread like wildfire all over the pulp, every time your prose approaches with lesser dignity but such allure, the time she validated your existence in her life. For, each time, you spoke of the winters she carried, you reminisced her pasty hands wrapped in the rusty gloves, reminding you of Christmas morning around your expiring pyre. For, each time, you would try to scrawl about trust being the first step to betrayal, you would fondly tell the worn leathers about your birthday that fateful year. For, each time, you curse her narcissism obnoxiously, I hear whispers of you humming a sonnet of her altruism when you found those orphans. For, each time, you would boast over the beer of having held her down the longest, y...

Her hands, withered yet supple handed me the little black books. I found her speaking with a voice roughened with wisdom, repeating the same words I'd heard last in a voice much flintier than hers, "Sky is the limit, Barfi. He taught your mother this. You must inherit it."  Aware of everything the books cloaked, anxiety also misted over me knowing I'll be taking them away from whom they've always belonged to, the sky it belonged beneath. I could feel myself sinking into a conundrum by each second as I touched the wilting leather hardback of the diary that held his entire life. "What if I can't crack it?", shilly-shallying my indecisiveness as always. The bleak moment I saw her smile sardonically like never before, I felt a menial catastrophe that slight action instigated enveloping me.  "Must you be so distrusting of yourself? You're quite like him in a way."  Thrown back by her words, I failed to understand if my behaviour, and more...

The cigarettes let out a bulky quilt against the air that inflated his chest, and he dextrously created stories between them, as he slapped the air for a ghost-less vision. And each time he sauntered through the heavy walnut opening, his past seemed to catch up with its bells high on. The stink of rye, and the stains of scotch. The burn of Cuban spices with the heaviness of the citrus cleanser. The pale, alabaster skin of her derrière, and the impulsive flare of his parchment. The moss of the lamps reminded him of the unripeness of the bedroom doors he squirrelled behind, each night, when the clock struck ten, and his old man in turn struck any visible hide he could find on her body. He'd kill her and bring her back from the white light, time and again. Time and again, he'd push her, praise her, need her. He'd destruct her piece by piece, and make her whole again, until both were gasping for breaths. He'd seen the old man's welts across her back, his...

When I started writing this evening, it'd been a simple enough fictional poem. Bu when I saw the Nirbhaya documentary, I changed my course. Here's  what I wrote on Medium. Please do see the documentary before the Indian government acts like a douchebag, and bans it. For those unable to open or access the link, following is what I wrote: Hi. I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend, a cousin. A woman. I AM A PERSON. I’m an Indian. And I’m not proud of my country. I belong to a family that’s liberal. A family that is open-minded. A family who was proud to have their first born child, a girl. A family that doesn’t assume the limits on my clothing. A family that doesn’t bar me from partying late in the night. A family that has every means to keep me safe and protected. A family that loves me. And I thank divine providence every single day of my life. I’m not like the little girls born in poor families who judge them down to be a mortifying curse. Or the families who are o...

"जब से तुम्हारे नाम की मिशरी होंठ लगाई है, मीठा सा ग़म है, और मीठी सी तनहाई है।" Salt, chilli, mint, cumin, different colours, labelled boxes, Damn it, but where was the damn sugar, Weren't her mornings bitter enough to ingest an obscure coffee, Thanks Dad, she chanted in her breath again, Thanks for marrying a bird to a somnolent vulture, No wait! Make that ostrich, a very bald ostrich, Who screamed like a hooker, and scratched like a dog, Who's the woman, him or me?! Can't easily recall if he ever gave an orgasm to me, Oh, and don't come about talking to me of kids, Maybe if I had a diaper wearing ass running around the lobbies, Who knows, I might have felt better to be wedded to a set of balls of three, None of which seem to devoid of sex, and sperm free, And who was that woman from next door who told me when I was five, That rich men, and four houses are enough for a lifetime? Stupid man, what was the point, When he couldn't even come to the cockta...

Amidst the breathless blabber of shares and finances floating over the massive oak slab, blanketed shamelessly by a traffic of ceramics with mouthwatering, pocket-unfriendly food, he gawped powerlessly toward her face. She had a 50s hairstyle, with her hair mysteriously covering the left side of her face. The opaque ringlets of her frenetic tuft made the coiffure look almost uncouth. Only, it didn't look rude on her - somehow, the lush gloom flowing from her crown flattered the grainy freckles around her nose. He was certain, it was fishy the way she'd styled her hair. He watched her move, table to table, with an insouciance that wasn't, in the least, shoddy. She wasn't beautiful, or pretty; well, not in the literal sense of it. He wanted her to wait at his table, wanted to see her up close. He wanted to notice her freckles, if they crowded just her nose or were they lightly sprinkled all over her face. Unable to tame his resistance any further, he asked for a refill ...

How different were the two? Like the darkness of a liquor chocolate, Against the dewy cinnamon bagels? Or the roaring of the sea, Against the hidden hushes of an avalanche, How different were their voices? Like the inconsistency of your consistent black coffee, Against the bitter carnality of that cabernet? Or, the squelchy parcel from the rains, Against the velvety pats of snow against your face? How different were their eyes when they looked at you? Like the ones which gleam simply in desire, Against the one screaming out to you in need? Or the way a child clings to his toy, Against a weeping bride holding onto her father's shoulders? How different were their hands? Like the robust hand from the heist of a ravenous man, Against the hands that devour you under the sheets? Or the ones whose touch make you whinge, Against the ones which make you close your eyes in conviction? How different were their seasons? Like the sun's fervour fluxing your cream...

And then from top of the Eiffel Tower, The Moon kept screaming, To never again, see the face of the day, To never share that nanosecond with the Sun, Where they could be one, Where they could see each other, eye to eye, Kept screeching, To never be selfless enough again, And hide in the stark clarity of the Sun, And the Moon called out to the sky, And said, Let's walk, let's hide, let's weep, let's sulk, let's everything. And then seldom were the moments, when, The Sun missed those moments, Redundant, superfluous,  For the Moon, the Sun thought, For there wasn't a set of eyes now, Which transfixed on her, as she danced out of bed, Never bothering of the pin-pricking brightness, And She wept, and swore, Never to shine again, and never to bring light again, And She ran and hid behind the clouds, Destructing everything in water, And said, Let's walk, let's hide, let's weep, let's sulk, let's ev...

A few innocent footings, When was it,  That you held grip of you? The you, which was merely ready, The you, which never knew the use of tongue, The you, still hiding behind your mother, Awaken hard by destiny,  You wept, and swept, and crippled,  But still went strong, Like an iron grip of a baby's hand,  On the slender fingers of her mother, Smiling, laughing,  The blows,  Working their way like potions, Raising her, bit by bit, Piece by piece, With each time her growing up,  It kept taking something from her, Sometimes, the strength, Sometimes, the courage,  Sometimes, the will, And here, I sit beseeching My hands folded in obligation to Thee   Take you may whatever, But do spare her, her heart, For it's only the heart, It's pristine goodness, and fondness, That had her from going. Buckets full of love. Always there, Ak.

Have you ever known, what coming home is like? How would you,  When all you've done, is wander, Through every lane, searching, For truths, fighting them with lies, Pulling your own strings apart, Heartbeat by heartbeat, You will never know, What coming home is like. Have you ever known, The warmth of another soul, The comfort of the company, Of another's silence? When all you've done, Is run away, Thinking of everyone as crowd, Selling your heart out, On cheap street take-outs, While only gathering the lonesomeness, Others had on offer, You will never know, The warmth of another soul. Have you ever known, The disgrace of two parted lovers? How would you, When you believed you two, Could survive apart, But what for, really? Because all you did, Was be terrified, but awed, You will never know, The disgrace, the ache, the abomination, Of two parted lovers. I miss this space a hell more often now....

Helplessness.  It's hard to not be deafened by its inconspicuous screams. Shrill, hard, hurtful. When it touches someone, it ceases the soul. It renders, the unfortunate, inhumanly vulnerable. And sometimes, only sometimes, allows the white light to peep in. Imparting its only emotion to the one it strikes on, it never leaves. It sucks them out, feeds itself off them. Its presence starts to be felt in the gut, rising to your heart, increasing its beats, reaching out for your throat to squash it, wrangle it, and choke all your strengths and happiness down the drain. Those people with a frown on their heads, a doubt in their eyes, and a silent scream in their slightly opened mouth? Yes, them. They're the ones helplessness has been feeding off of. Nibbling at their coils, it spreads like termites in your body. You'll feel it. When immobility will dictate over you, and thinking of a way out will only burn those extra cells in your brain, you'll know it. You'll know ...

No matter how expensive make-up you might use, and however expensive a camera might click your face, it's not going to change the fact that beneath all that cake is a woman who could never be anybody's, who could never become what he wanted her to, what people wanted her to. Stop pitying yourself. You're not the only one falling sick and staying up to work your designs. Go gulp a fucking medicine, eat, and get back to work. Smoke's only going to kill you, not give you peace. Hard truth much?  For the complete insecure bitch that you're inside, nobody's going to love you from the outside. Nobody hangs around for a damaged good, or even wait for it to be fixed. Learn to be your own person.  YOU are selfish. Pathetically selfish. All you want is love from people without giving it a thought what you're giving in return to them. You only screw relationships, let alone somebody else.  People change. Face it. You haven't been the same either. Stop bo...