Hush

Hush, dear mind; this is not helping,
You've chained me without chains, this spell is paralyzing.
We are well past the days when goodness was presumed,
You may stop picking at those scabs now, rubbing salt to my wounds.

No, dear mind; you are becoming my foe.
The memories don't help anymore, it's getting difficult to let go.
You are known to bend forks with your infinite power,
You choose to bring me down to my knees instead-a tramp locked in a glorious tower.

Thank you, dear mind; for not clipping my wings yet.
But you have sewn my lips into a smile- to flash at everybody I have since met.
You have spiked the ceiling I intend to break with pieces of glass.
You have only let me say "I'm fine" , to those who happen to trespass.

Stop it, dear mind; this safe place now feels like a cage,
You've turned me against myself- all I now have is rage.
There is a person staring back at me from the mirror I no longer recognize.
You need to let me change; I've been left for too long in this disguise.

You need to let go, dear mind; you are not saving us.
Instead of adorning my life- you have adorned me with cuts.
I know that you intend to fight for us, but it's me that you crush,
So listen to me for once, when I tell you,
 'Please hush'.

The Atlantis to your Greece

There must be a place where forgotten dreams reside,

With the real you, before you let the others decide.

Where earnings are measured by simply a heart's content .

The part of you they killed, smiling, with your consent.


Where lessons from fairy tales still guide your day,

Where you stop to smell the flowers and kick stardust on your way.

Where your life isn't strangulated amidst this rat race,

Where the struggle isn't with somebody else, to keep pace.


This must also be the refuge for the thoughts you crowd,

To some corner of your mind, to hush out the noises loud,

To be dealt with later , or simply to live in denial forever ,

Only to haunt you when you don't see it coming, until sleep becomes a difficult endeavor.


The monster stays dormant only until it grows on itself,

Until the things you refuse to talk about are the only things you know about yourself.

A war you waged for so long- but its intentions you now doubt,

You see the scars, but have forgotten what the fight was all about.


You shut down, hold back, shout, sometimes speak-

to conceal; a call for help is after all, only for the feeble minded,weak.

The two worlds collide when this monster breaks free-

To conspire with your dreams forgotten, to perform a feat of alchemy.



They take possession of your demons ugly and breathe language into their ears,
It throws open your windows, to let in the light, preparing for the final release.

To help let down that burdain once and for all,
leaving you feeling exposed uncomfortably, but finally at peace.

Your fists loosen to paint pictures on the walls you once punched, your silences find music,
words strung together in the depths of the night, now look a lot like your life line;

And just like that, one day, with the sun shining bright, the winds blowing free, you'll find that you mean it,
when you tell the world,
"I'm fine!"

Aye, Aye, Captain!

We bring our model ships to sea,
Made from nights and days of dirty work,
eyes ablaze with visions of sails brave,
Not entirely sure if in reality, it is of any worth.

Our mistakes show themselves at once,
As the water collects around our ankles- fixing our eyes downwards.
We topple and turn in the uncharted waters,
We know without looking up that our mast is pointing everywhere but upwards.

An effort to wipe off the sweat from our knitted brow reveals your silhouette,
Legs wide apart, elbows bent, arms at your waist, your eyes-of confidence, a lake;
Your ship, brilliantly afloat, steady;
To us, just short of a super hero's cape.

You don't laugh at the vanity that created our ship,
Instead tell us how to keep our mast pointing upward,
You teach us how to stay afloat, survive the waters rough,
And for once, watch with pride at our ship moving forward.

We write this ode, stringing one word with the next; appaled at their inadequacy,
To honour you, who, to our dreams, are a shining beacon;
to the superheroes of these uncharted waters,
To raise a toast and say in unison, "Aye, aye, captain!"

Dear God,

Dear God,
I write to you from a forgotten corner on earth- my house is erect, my neighbours are alive.

None of the rapes in my locality have made it to the news hour debates in a while.

So I completely understand if you don't know me yet.

You sure have spoken to my friends, but we- we haven't really met.

I have heard of you ofcourse- devoted narrators
 swearing over the honesty of their version on their lives,

It's somehow wrong to ask them questions about you,
so I nod,trying to figure out where the truth about you lies.

You've been to me like that cool senior in school, that everybody was talking about.

The charmer who was everywhere,
but when I chose a spot, he always chose to back out.

There were stories, theories, everything imaginable
revolving around him- a life extraordinary.

That was when I realised why I didn't get to see him-
I belonged to the class of boring within the ordinary .

So I hope and understand that you are with that boy my nephew's age ,

Whose toys began bleeding , whose childhood got locked in a cage,

who was dining with his family seconds before
 turning into the only survivor, his house around him- a big heap of rubble.

I understand that you are busy cleaning up behind us-
 we are adept at cooking up major trouble.

I hope that it isn't a sin to be frustrated from not knowing why , but to understand -I really try,

For when we were breaking down before the TV screens miles away, that boy- he couldn't even bring himself to cry.

So I'm sorry. I do not understand why
it is necessary to kill an entire country just because two leaders don't get along.

Or why it is important to brand us with scars,
to take away the people and places to which we belong.

If faith is a journey, then I'm definitely on board;

Alone- for when it comes to you , nobody seems to strike with me a common chord.

But it was never you, was it? My race itself seems to have lost their voice of reason.

They pick differences where you see none- they kill in the name of religion.

I hope that you haven't walked out, tired of picking up after us,

That you haven't given up putting back together the broken mess that is us.

I know that we are the only race that in peril hesitates to seek help from its own kind,

Who throws a blanket over all their woes, proclaiming confidently that they are doing just fine.

I hope that you understand that we are just trying not to get hurt , not to fall prey again to sweet lies.

I hope that you haven't walked out on us, flinching at the sad state of our terrible minds. 

Silence

The teacher to a disciplined sage,
The best friend to every recluse,
The cocoon surrounding the womb divine,
An enchantress waiting to seduce.

An ally found in the dead of night,
When struck with the spark of ingenuity ,
It hovers, hypnotises, holds aside the fear paralysing,
Of the work turning into obscurity.

For the brave at heart, silence is a release,
With no grasp however of the passing number
Of hours, minutes spent on repetitive , restless thinking.
An innocent lullaby to a peaceful slumber.

On weaker nights however, the hush turns deafening.
Dissecting life pitiable, bit by hideous bit,
A mind sadistic turned against its own.
Time spent staring at the ceiling, your eyebrows knit.

Silence can twist around your body
Like a climber on a tree- sturdy and green,
Reaching out to those untouched corners ,
Unsettling the dust, you were not yet ready to clean.

The momentary pause in your voice,
The hesitation before the sigh,
Paint a picture you may with your words colourful,
But your silences do not lie.

You may be identified
 by the cacophony of noise
you splurge through the day,
You are defined, however,
by the things you choose not to say.

The 24X7 Helpline

This is a poem about a group of adults-
an under appreciated bunch;

For whom a perfect date is never with a person,
but with a very yummy lunch.

This is about that person in your gang,
to love yet uninitiated.

Though in the face of tragic heart breaks,
the 'love guru' the gang has officiated.

Their phones are either engaged or they are at midnight online,

Without knowing when or how, these clueless humans became the relationship hotline.

They listen , say the right things , there's nothing they don't seem to be able to mend;

They won't tell you, but they often Google 'Ways to cheer up a friend'.

When people their age talk of the other gender with spite from experiences bitter,

You will see them patient with the whining, understandingly nodding, turning into a baby sitter.

Ironically labelled 'the kid' , this person knows more than the grown ups of your clan,

Simply because they don't have to set aside, while on the phone, a significant personal plan .

Inspite of it all, they are never sure of where in their life they are expected to fit in a spouse,

Because in their own self, in silence, they have found a comfortable house.

Although the underdog of the bunch, their signature lies on major events of your life,

Like the day you broke your silence once and for all, or entertained the thought of ending it all with a slash of a knife.

A loyal bunch, the goofiest characters, with days seemingly uncomplicated, simple.

They are the ones who pick you up, dust you and when all seems dark, help your life rekindle.

Because, Not All Men

"Boys will be boys". This is a phrase I have grown up with, every single day of my life.
'You shouldn't show skin, because boys will be boys.'
'He cheated on her. He is a boy after all!'
'He said things about her that he shouldn't have. Boys..'
Fed on this mindset, day in and day out, we now talk of men to the likes of sharks- that bite at the faintest scent of blood, who have no control over what they do and have significantly gone back in evolution.
 By normalising bad behavior, these sad excuses for human beings took the center stage, putting an entire chromosomal type to blame. Soon people who had done nothing wrong began apologising for the ones who had. They too were tricked into believing that there was something inherently wrong with the entire gender. The need to punish and shame the wrong doers is paramount for this very reason - because not all men!
Google the words "Men will be men" to look at the context that they mean it in. Not one picture puts them in a good light. You will even see a picture of a baby boy reaching out to a woman (with her cleavage exposed) , with these words written beneath. The ones who propogate this aren't even ashamed of sexualizing a child's innocent behavior. How can they ever be right? They have set a standard so low for people to achieve that they need to lose touch with humanity to reach there. 'Man enough' is always associated with aggression and sexism. Vulnerability and kindness is said to be feminine. Humanity however, is a healthy mixture of the two.
If feminism is about equality , this is something that needs to be talked about too.
From the stranger who waited by my side at 3am on a deserted highway until my father came to pick me up because the bus had dropped me at a point where it usually doesn't, to my friends with whom I can have actual conversations with, more human to human than girl to boy , irrespective of the time; the ones I respect aren't the prototype men that they try to sell as brands - these good human beings are all around me. I don't need to search through history books for them. They are here.
When girls are taught that they forever will be the damzel in distress en-route to suddenly mutating into 'sarva-gunn-sampann', boys are taught that they have to be strong, sacrificial and quiet about what they feel because 'mard ko dard nahi hota'.
Yes, there are people who believe that intentions have the power to change with the position of the sun-that a setting sun can mean a significant drop in moral standards. Like a girl texting at night could mean so much more than just that. This narrow minded thought process isn't reserved for men alone. There are women who think this way too. Small minds are not gender specific.
The fact is that if men are like the ones the advertisements and media project them as, the fight would have been between men and women. Now that we know better, the fight is against these moulds that we are expected to fit into; the fight is against equality and inequality .
The fight is to be honest to what we are, to be more human.

Death

I see you standing at the horizon, tantalisingly close; yet far away,

Do you yearn for me as I do for you, to give me a hand on my final day?

They are afraid, they call you names; but they don't see,

Among them all, you are the most faithful a friend can ever be.

While I conclude my life story, leaving it for wagging mouths to criticise, agape;

You will be the one who will take me out on my final act of escape.

When my show is done and down goes my curtain,

I know people will change, but among the uncertain; you- I know, will be my sole certain.

You lure me, entice me; tempting me to take that plunge once and for all;

Nice move; but you can't deprive me of my fairy tale end- to be saved by you, my charming prince standing tall!

You will take off my armour , scrape off my paint , tear me away from all pretence;

You will see me for what I am- skin, bones and hair- you will breakthrough my every defence.

You will break me down to my essentials; undress me, unchain me - I will from that day forever be yours to keep;

When I am no longer useful; you, I know , are that friend, who will for the last time, tuck me in to sleep..

We need to talk

We need to talk- you and I - without anybody to moderate our conversation. We need to talk about this border that separates us. About our history texts tarnished with lies to suit a section of the world. About how our hands were entwined so intricately with each other's that when they tried to pry us apart faster than we expected, we didn't have the time to let go of the other. Now we have a knot shaped tangled mass of fingers lining our border , some fingers scarred, some bleeding. 

I know that you have lost loved ones on the other side of your border. So have I. Maybe that is why as greedy hands of power try to pull us apart, tangling the knots further; even though I have now lost track of which finger is mine and which is yours , I refuse to take an active role in freeing my fingers away from you. How can I? We are family .

They tell me that it is a fight of religion. They tell me that my country hates your country and your country hates mine. Ridiculous. We haven't even met. Aren't we all individual genetic masterpieces? The question of whether we would like each other or not, should honestly be left to us. Generalising a country to be of a certain kind would be a showcase of ignorance. Differences of opinion can occur. That isn't a crime. War, however isn't the solution. We may or may not read the same books on 'religion' , but we recognize this, don't we- the need to keep our family safe, the prayer that they stay healthy and never sleep on an empty stomach, the hope that we get to see our children as they grow older and make their mark in the world, not haunted by the effects of acts of violence from our end.  This too, is a kind of religion, isn't it? 

We were victims of a crude plan of power hungry men willing to risk anything to rule. Even today, this hatred is being fed to us consciously by countries who benefit by this war. You see it too, don't you?

While my country hikes it's defence budget every year to get ready to fight you when the time comes; poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and lack of adequate Health care remain the pressing issues. I am sure that you have your own set of hurdles in your country.  

Here I am; extending a hand of friendship , silencing the voices around me that tell me that it will be chopped off; to instill in me fear that will turn into violence. They feed on our hatred, you see.. 

But I find that my hand is already

in yours, entwined as one at our border. They have buried it under years of bloodshed and hatred; but I can feel my fingers against yours. Can you?  

Life In a Nightmare

The best things about nightmares are that they are just nightmares. You wake up- and everything is fine. Today however , I woke up sans the relief of this being a nightmare after all- it was a condensed version of the life I was living .
My problem was simple- I was being stalked . There was no real evidence that he was bothering me. He was everywhere and he wanted to talk ; sometimes touch. All this while, I was never on the dreaded lonely road. I was always surrounded by people. They would react- oh yes, they would. They would ask me why I wasn't wearing a dupatta over that kurti , or that these things were common these days because 'kids like me' were not like 'them'.
I wanted to file a complaint, but I realised that I ran the risk of the following: an acid attack- because that is usually the next step, my character being put at the stakes- because I stepped out of my house , or even if I was lucky enough to live to see the man go to jail, he would obviously get a bail like everybody else and would want to get back at me for the disgrace I have put him to. Helplessness was quite the hero in my dream  .
I woke up realising how much I had moulded my life so as not to 'encourage' behaviour like this.
I wear clothes that hang loose from my shoulders, I am never out at night, I don't travel alone if I can help it, I don't drink, I don't wear clothes that are revealing. My biggest fear while talking to men- sounding flirtatious . Because being called uptight or reserved is better than being called a flirt. A flirt to them translates to being called a prostitute. Did you know that they think that you do not need consent with a prostitute?
I have been very careful and yet been molested multiple times- I was not asking for it. For instance, when a doctor who happens to be a girl is rushing in the casualty from patient to patient because delay could mean death- she is NOT asking for it. You think that a mob that watched the very doctor who made them feel better being assaulted to bits ,would react when I 'claim' that somebody groped me? Yeah right.
Remember the 'me too' posts that flooded the internet? That took immense courage. Because being molested in India automatically makes you damaged goods. (If a boy is molested, that makes him gay and unmanly) Nobody will ever want to marry or be associated with damaged goods, they say. Although I am yet to meet one person who hasn't made it through life without what they call baggage. Some wierd thought process makes you the cause for disgrace in the family - even if the molester is a family member. After all, we hide the faces of rapists, and talk about the time the victim was out wearing those revealing clothes.
What was I even expecting you ask? My government wants to adorn me with bindis and kumkums which for them is essential (for their pleasure) , while a sanitary napkin is a luxury. My teacher taught me that a luxury meant an inessential , desirable item , which is expensive or difficult to obtain . No, using a piece of cloth isn't a good option- it is unhygienic and it doesn't absorb the menstrual blood well enough. We cannot function at our best when we need to go to the rest room every hour. You may not want to understand this , because you- the ones who wanted taxes imposed on them ; are a group of men who might have never gone to school. If you have, you are a good example of how education is not equalent to knowledge and compassion .
While you still scream Bharat mata ki jai on the mike sets, or debate about national anthems in movie theaters ; do not open your mouth and ever call me India's daughter. You do not know the meaning of the word- you are not a good parent .