Noise

The traffic light towers ominously above

In its countdown of your death race.

You call it life, the green signal calls it rat race.

Innocence is shattered into a million dust particles

By the blaring horns here.

The chaste are stripped till they become one

With the savage,

Pruning themselves in luxurious cars

For the midnight orgy called night life

In the city.

Aspire to be one amongst the brute.

Aspire to procure shiny metal packaged in murderous fuel.

And then, you will hear

The symphony of necessary evil;

The song of dis-illusive reality—

Coiled tightly around your dream—city noise.

A Walk with Gustav

The silence of the mountains at night can instill one with a sense of unnerving purity. Even at day time, the birds, bees and an occasional dog barking in a distant village are the only sounds one hears. The sheer lack of any noise somehow tends to refresh my memory.

I am here, in the only place that offers a surreal calmness and yet, I am torn up within to sighs behind this façade of normalcy. I think this is the true definition of ‘life’.

I can keenly feel the transition into adulthood, into boredom, into mental stress that presses upon you, creeps into the crevices of your soul, as eerily as mists and clouds passing across hills. A slow yet steady and dampening catharsis—of impact, ideas and irony.

Gustav too, does not understand my pain. He’s always had a cheering effect on me, helping me alleviate sorrow, blocking away the memories that come as suddenly and as heavily as cloud bursts.

I decide to walk with him amidst the lonely mountains, free birds and a humming breeze drenched in pure snow.

The silence deafens me to a numbness of the mind that veers close to abysmal insanity. I am lost—in every definition of the phrase.

Gustav, however, is rock solid by my side. He looks away when tears fall helplessly from my eyes, onto the rock-table below. He tugs at my hand and pulls me toward the local tea-shop, silently saying, ‘Time to eat’.

While I peck at a plate of noodles and milky, sweet tea, Gustav regards a group of young men with caution. With a slight hint of aggression.

He ignores their bickering and maintains his poise, waiting for me to finish my typically hill station meal.

Gustav and I are more than friends, in one short walk. It is a love that, unspoken, says everything.

Gustav is a white mountain dog. And I am a dusky city girl. The universe works in unusual ways—I learnt and experienced love most keenly, not from or with another human being, but from man’s best and perhaps oldest friend—a dog.

Mildly Offensive Content

A warm sky and rusty swings in the park.

I like to sit on the swings in early evening hours

Else, I am bullied into a corner by the stronger kids.

I’ve even got a chocolate to keep me company

As the swing talks to me, excitedly:

Scree-scronk, scree-scronk

Scree-scronk, scree-sconk.

You watch me from the bench and smile.

I see you have another chocolate and that’s a magnet, right there.

The shiny wrapper, your encouraging smile and then,

Your hand against my thigh, climbing up.

I begin to cry and your penis alerts itself to just, that.

My muffled screams, my bloody torn vagina and your hands

Your hands on my adolescent breasts.

These images, will stay.

Too young to remember.

My mother never lets me out of her sight.

And I have a natural aversion to brown beards

To pot bellies of old men, that make me nauseous.

Is it because of you? I’m never allowed to talk to you.

Did you strip me naked and eject your lust on my infantile body?

And now, your own daughter sits astride your lap, with TRUST.

I liked a boy and movies about perfect snogging.

I also loved sparkly nail paint and vibrant dresses

That made the boys in class smile at me.

Then you offered to take me to our tuition center.

And my teenaged mind was ecstatic

“Teacher will drop me. Mouths will jabber. Yay!”

The people talked, but not in envy. In pity.

And I, grew obese in the confines of my room.

Remembering the bougainvillea creepers that pricked my face.

As you tore threw me, with your erectile monster.

I now eat away, the memories of after.

Of dropping out, of baggy clothes and losing my body

To the love of carbs that don’t and won’t rape my solitude.

Trust and its emissions on a young working woman.

I’m me, I’m her and I’m nobody.

I’m the girl you see on the metro and forget.

I’m the girl haggling with auto drivers that you glimpsed from your car.

I’m the girl who loves discounts in the city malls.

I’m the girl who lived next door to you and borrowed coffee.

So you knew, I smoke, I stay up late. Alone.

I’m the girl you came to, pretending to be hurt, asking for a bandage.

I’m the girl who took you in, out of humanity, without my pepper spray.

I’m now the girl you raped, tying up my wrists with that camping rope you bragged about.

I’m the girl into whose mouth you shoved, the carabiner, for silence.

I can never climb a rock or go on a trek. Again.

The old lady buying vegetables in the colony.

You would touch my feet, and offer to carry my bags.

I thought it was respect, it was sympathy for my asthma ridden body.

I should conform to my type— old, widowed and wise from age.

I did just that, and treated you as a son.

You came to fix the leaking kitchen pipe.

Instead, you took my trembling body and ravaged it.

You reaped a long lost harvest and walked away, laughing.

It was only a challenge from mindless friends, to you.

All of these are stories, one and many.

All of these are voices, silent and vocal.

All of these are orphans of society— the absent parent.

All of these women, are and could be— you and me.

Writer's Block

It’s been a while since I wrote anything worthwhile; heck, anything at all. The sense of an impending writer’s block is scary in all its granduer— delusion, annoyance, restlessness. And the sense of losing your mind to the ravages of time and age frustrate my anxiety, hitherto used to childish fantasies and reckless writing.

I find myself, searching more and more desperately, for an outlet from this abyss. Even in penning down these thoughts, comes the most feared monster proclaiming ‘this is shoddy’, ‘this is not your style’ and the worst, reserved for last ‘this is average’.

I find myself asking, ‘Do I need a holiday to restart the thought process in my uncontrollable mind?’, ‘Do I need to start exercising more vigorously?’, ‘Am I eating too much packaged food?’. And yet, I know this is all age taking its toll on the child I wish I could always be.

With youth, came excitement and the possibility of attaining life, hands full. With graduation, came the anticipation of landing a job, becoming a senior at work. And now, with work, comes a sense of stagnation— work responsibly, party responsibly, and respect your body. Rinse, and repeat after each weekend.

I find myself shying away from meandering thoughts—inking a date on a dried leaf as a memoir, staring at people on the metro train and imagining a hundred different tales of their lives, imagining the big city as a zombie land with animals running free and people in zoos; from spontaneous actions—blowing back kisses to a street kid, buying biscuits for a puppy, cancelling a haircut appointment because I was floored by a kitten in a dark alley; from mindless decisions— buying lunch for everyone in the office team for no reason, spending money on a lavish dress that a friend liked, just to see her happy, telling my landlady that despite her outrageous relatives, I miss her when I am away.

I believe expectations are a problem here, and a norm in the world. But words like renunciation, expectations, belief make me feel like a fake organic-vegetable-eating-hypocrite who lives in luxury and buys health food at exorbitant rates.

I wish the fireflies I tried to bottle into a torch as a child, fearless in the thickening darkness of the night, would come back to enamour me and haunt away this subservience to the right path.

Being Chased By The Rain

Earlier, I read about bomb attacks, rapes, suicides and abductions in the newspaper. I would ensconce myself safely in the warmth of a sofa at home, and read casually, sipping my tea. Now, in the recent past, these incidents have happened to friends, to acquaintances or to people I shared a public space with, on a daily basis.

I just got to know about a crime in JNU. Apparently, a man attacked a classmate with an axe; she screamed in pain, in terror; and he proceeded to slit his own throat and consume poison. While they were rushed to the hospital, a knife and a pistol were also recovered from his bag. He died on the way, but she is in a critical state.

When we look at a crime from a distance, we assume this cannot happen to us, or to those near us. When these crimes happen to people you knew even distantly, the enormity of it strikes with full force. Last week, a friend of mine was found possibly raped and murdered in a hotel room in Bihar. Despite active online campaigning for justice, I know in my heart that not much will be done. I know for a fact that enthusiasm will die down. I know for certain, that it will take years to bring justice for a crime committed without remorse.

Last evening, while returning from work in the evening, I noticed the urgency in everyone’s footsteps. They were scurrying to run home, to escape the onslaught of the rain on Delhi roads. Our CM says ‘one can/must only pray’ to avoid water-logging, flooding on the streets. So, we ran home-ward bound, to avoid being electrocuted by AC wires hidden in the rain, to avoid car engines breaking down in the middle of a road, where the water reaches its bonnet, to avoid being drenched and leered at by by-standing men, to avoid the costs of over-charge to cabs and autos—to avoid, being dead, raped or destitute.

While in the shared auto, I could see the raging black clouds behind us, creeping up stealthily, consistently. And each one of us, meek as a mouse, was hoping to get home, to escape the fury.

Being chased by the rain brought on realisations of growing up, of stressing out, of realizing the mortality of parents, of siblings, of friends, of yourself. Being chased by the rain, made me dwell on the horrors around me. Being chased by the rain made me look within, and wonder, is human existence meant to be so fragile? So futile? So worrisome?

I’d rather be a dragonfly, unaware and free to flit past the monsters of humanity.

For Sneha

For Sneha, a brave and spirited woman, who was found possibly raped, and murdered in a hotel room in Munger, Bihar.

She was a shining example of a state
That has become a metaphor- Bihar.
She fought for independence, for disengagement.
From her tribes of yore.
She revolted to become a phenomenal woman.
To break the shackles of slavery
Her womankind had been bruised with.
She revelled in laughter, in children, in the little things.
She turned the government on its head
Being a part of the system that mocked her.
Working, shoulder to shoulder, with men
Who wondered agape at her ferocity.
She gave herself to educating the little ones-
Still clueless of the marshes that lay before them.

She now hangs, by a chlorine scented bedsheet
From the window- semi-nude, for the world to see.
They heard her muffled screams, they heard that cry.
And muted themselves against the carnal monster
Feeding himself off her.

They said it was suicide.
They said it was HER.
She is dead now. Dead.
In the inhumanity of your warm, safe homes.
Dead. In the sub-altern theories
Written with your pens of power.
Dead. In the comforts of marginalisation.

Go. To. Sleep.

Nameless

All things of beauty

Can be found in the penance

Of the trash big cities churn out.

Painted on your walls, with precision

Are the works of art that come

With dollar tags imprinted on your mind.

This is your weapon against loneliness.

This is your armour against the solitude

That your soul craves.

A squirrel on a rhododendron tree

Nibbling away with alacrity

Will only seem wondrous

If you paid $1000 a night

At that resort you planned a vacation at.

To ease the numbness that defines you.

Any other day, you would brush away.

An an annoying monsoon insect

The jarring image of the old withering man

Picking his lunch from the trash can.

Where you chucked your potato fries-

Cheap and unhealthy, to you treadmill toned body.

As you munch on a herbed salad.

And discuss innocuous details

Of a rat race that you won, and he lost.

Live your reality of soundless screams.

Live the horror of 'a life well accomplished'.

Accomplished, yes. Within your amnesia of ideology.