A.V

It's warm, but there she is In the corner trying to warm herself. It's another summer night, One that looms softly Until you fall into dream's lap. ​I see her wrapped in a shawl, Still distant. Face and hands pale, With little hint of blood in them, Her breath turning to fog. ​I kneel down, as I whisper, "It's okay, dear." Her hands trembling, Eyes exhausted, Rough hair covering her face. ​My hands move, And recoil from the coldness in hers, Then softly my fingers find themselves Greeting her hesitant ones, Her small, frail ones. ​I can feel her hands calming down. Mine accepting, holding her frozen ones firmly. I feel their twitches, their coldness seeping in, Slowly melting away. Shimmers of life dropping down from her eyes. ​Minutes pass by, hand in hand, sitting across from each other. Small glances and tired smiles are all she passes. In this silence, I can feel her heart pumping away. As I move my hands to grip hers more, I see my fingerprints slowly etc...

The sky's overcast, daylight slowly giving way to dusk. Moving at 50 km/h, from Rishikesh to Narendra Nagar. Me and my father. Swaying from right to left, as the seatbelt hugs me tight. I feel the rubber moving against the asphalt. I hear the wind blowing past, the slow Nepali songs playing in the car. A car bearing the presence of two silent but different humans. I don't know him, but I have witnessed him. Him talking to my cousins, counselling them. Him enjoying movies frantically with my mother. Him insisting on doing everything alone, even as he comes out of an operation and scolds the staff there. I have seen him act childish with my mother, and grow angry at his juniors at work. I have seen him talk about finance and his regrets. But, I don't know him. It's okay, I guess. I don't have to know him. I get to know him. My eyes are fixed outside as the whole city of Rishikesh passes by. We came here to shop. Stopped at a CNG station instead of a petrol pump by mis...

We are traveling again, not for reasons like sightseeing, thrill, or business, but with all of our stuff, to another room in a new city. It's raining, the type that just looms softly. Not blasting down, raining cats and dogs, but like dribbles of snow, slowly fading away. The horizon's white. Not the snow's white, but the clouds' white. Like living in a disconnected pocket world that just never seems to end. As if pulling down the render distance in Minecraft. I see through a window beaded with droplets, dead eyes fixed outside. Hands a little coarse, stomach a little empty. Stuffed in the back, with bags beside me. I see plastic clogging the streams, invasive species encroaching slowly, Rocks small and big fallen from above  Rubber moving over wet asphalt, steel guardrails on one side, jagged cut stone on the other. Occasional houses, built impossibly. A.V.

For three days, we built walls from words. Rows of desks, raised hands, carefully sharpened opinions. We stood beneath flags and microphones, defending ideas as though the world depended on them. And perhaps it did. But evening arrived regardless. The Sansad fizzled out, a place that saw the LOP being thrown out five times by marshals, was now empty. We too moved out, closed the lights, closed the fans, closed the doors. Slowly, all moved to the open theatre. I could see the equipment lighting up with power, as the sun lingered above the hills, unwilling to leave first. Familiar faces shining among the crowd. Soon, the rhythm of drums and keyboard picks up. Soon, it all fills with Pahadi words that I can't understand. But their resonance still hits us all, anyway. And it all starts to come together. The arguments loosened their grip. The minister, the opposition member, the organiser, the volunteer, the stranger whose name I never learned, all became simply people. One ...

  Storms and hail fall almost every night. I open the windows and doors for them to take away this stagnant air that lingers, rotting me away. The room feels cold, not one that pains, but one filled with petrichor's delight. Wind sways the curtains, as cats and dogs rain down. Yes, a cat had rained down. She had barged in uninvited, inspected every corner, let me clean her with a damp cloth, And now she sleeps peacefully curled upon a warm blanket. I too wrap a shawl around my shoulders As slow songs fill this dim room. I lie beside her, petting her softly, her ears twitching at the slightest touch. When slumber embraced me, I don't know. But for once, The restlessness had faded. A.V

There are moments. Like the time when the night city life accompanied me walking down lanes, after hours of studying in a cafe, after quelling my hunger with dosa, after finishing a book. "A day well spent", I whispered to myself. Content in my own company. Grinning childishly all the way home. occasionally skipping along the way. The air felt cold, the kind that embraces you in autumn. The kind that makes solitude feel like companionship. The kind that makes being alive feel quietly enough. Then, There are days when all I do is count my mistakes and curse this wretched self that freezes at the slightest conflict. Nights, my mind fails to surrender to sleep. Falling down a spiral that I hide, as if asking for help would be shameful. Days I find doing anything impossible. As I lay in the bed watching the ceiling, as things stack up Dishes to clean, cloths to wash, floor to mop, room to tidy. I whisper to myself, "Stagnation kills". Knowing full well, yet I fail to mo...

It's 2:30AM With no signe of sleep The fan blows fast In this dimly lit room by my fairy lights Arodred with butterfly of paper. My mother, father and brother sleeping soundly. Father often readujust, perhaps his nose is irritating him. It's been a month, since they came hear. We have had operation of mothers ear and fathers nose. Brother too showed his spine to the docters. A month of being surrounded by docters and roaming around rooms filled with white and blue. Hearing the rattling of alluminium in medicine wrappings. It's been an experience.  Been some time since we have spent so long together. And now in a few hours they will leave. I have not been good to them.  I have not been kind, like I promised. And I blame myself for it.  But perhaps I do think a lot Perhaps I do compare a lot. I am not a good child right? I see my hanged creations swag. Mother sleeping besides me. I guess families are ment to Messy And in the end it's the choice that matters Th...

Here I am again, in a place I know all too well. Down in the dumps. Awake, fighting sleep. Unable to do anything. Feeling unworthy of even the warmth of food. Too awkward to reach out. Too absent to step into a room. Too hollowed to hold another person's warmth. Too frozen to let anyone in. And all I can do is repeat a mantra that tears apart my wings: I was never good enough. Perhaps it was better if I had not existed. Tired I am. Of living sometimes. Wishing to disappear  not loudly, just the way dead autumn leaves do, carried off without ceremony. A.V

 I often see a couple, a couple, parents to two boys, whom they raised living far apart. They fought, they cried, made up. They learned to love, to be what the other needs, not what the other wants. I see them. For what they are, because only stories reached me from their past, those they chose to tell, not their mistakes, not their conflicts, only the lessons from them. I remember stories where mother would cry over something father said. She would hide beneath beds, and father would apologize in tears. I know they saw things together— death, old age, sickness, business. They dealt with things together. Like the times mother would rage over something others said to father, while father remained silent and only smiled, hearing mother reply to the inconsiderate comments. Even if they lived most of the time apart, rearing children in different cities, not being able to be with each other all the time, they still grew together, witnessing the wei...

“Kya soch rahe ho?” Her voice rang softly into my ears. “Kuch nahi, soch raha hoon if it's better to leave or stay.” “Let’s leave,” she replied to a question I asked myself. I nodded with a soft smile. Leaving this crowded place late at night, we walked home. Cold winds blew strong as spring was taking over winter slowly. The leaves rustled, some fell and skittered along the road, some crunched under our shoes and sandals. It was a full moon, yet the sky was overcast, almost clement for people like us. Lightning flashed lucent from behind the clouds. Clouds that threatened to fall any second. Wind whispering, “A new season is about to arrive,” as it breezed past us, teasing our hair. We walked, as her metal bangles rang in one hand, sandals tapping the road like a metronome. She was in a white kurti, hair resting down from her small shoulders. Lightning reflected from her silver earrings peeking through her black hair that framed her face. Eyes jaded from all that ...

It's hard,  being kind to oneself. When every cell in you screams  you don't deserve the softness, the warmth of comfort.  When your demons rage  to engulf the small soft corner  you were nurturing. Everything comes tumbling down, like dominos, one after another. Your feet freeze. A weight settles on your chest. Breath shortens. Vision blurs. Then they fight. It was just a mistake, you're allowed to be human. Fuck you. A mistake is something you’re not allowed to make. You ruin things. You cause damage. Don’t listen to that voice, child. It’s wrong. Then why are you frozen? Why can’t you speak? You know exactly what you did. It was you.  It was fucking you. You don't deserve the kindness. But..... You don't deserve to be alive. Better die. Right. What have those softer voices ever given you? Permission to be imperfect? Permission to be kind? Let me remind you When you don’t want to be a burden, you are not allowed mistakes. You are not allowed t...

Mother has been sent for operation. Minor, they say, but still an operation. Not a trace of fear shows on her face. Perhaps it hides somewhere in a quiet corner of her heart, like it does in all of us. Now, we wait. Along with many others. A long hallway, lined with cold metal seats. Light pours in from one end. The air hums with people. Stretchers roll past, seeking space, seeking hands. Some stare into the distance. Some fiddle with their phones. A few yawn, tapping their feet until sleep finds them. I sit and watch. The whole world seems to pass through here, people of every age, moving to the rhythm of doctors and interns. White and blue own the place. Bags and quilts rest on the benches. Names are called, one by one. We wait for ours. Hours pass. Half-asleep. A little tired. Still waiting. A.V

 Tired, I am, of knowing there is never a perfect time, yet still trying to force a perfect version of myself to meet it. I am never ready. Never complete. Never enough to begin. And still, I wait. What are you afraid of? Showing people an imperfect you? Failing to deliver what you imagine as quality? Or being seen… and judged? You know the answers. That’s what unsettles you. You watch the heights you envy, and stay where you are, unable to step forward, unable to even be proud of yourself. O child, how will you grow if you wait to be whole first? How will you learn if you refuse to begin? A.V

It’s raining again. The slow, thoughtful kind, the one that comes to stay. The kind that reminds you of what you had forgotten. I’ve always seen rain as a mirror of the heart. A somber heart makes it heavy. A guileless one finds it full of glee. The sanguine see it as something almost beautiful. Today, The wind carries something back to me it reminds me of who I was and who I have become. Kinder than before. More carefree. More childish, perhaps. We move through the city, lights dissolving into the falling sky. Beads gather on the window as I look through them. What was once pure settles into the earth, turning to mud. We laugh, lost in small conversations, as the car crawls forward among its own. The small ponds shimering with trafic lights and break lights. I pause. Close my eyes. And take in a long breath of petrichor.