A Quiet World, A Better World

Imagine all the people you ever came across staying back, never leaving your side, a world without goodbyes or heartbreaks, of all friendships and acquaintances retained, of never being through abandonment, of no one ever forgetting anyone or letting go; our lives would've been a bloody chaos. An incorrigible disarray of lives breathing down our neck about their dreams, desires, and apathy. Much like the city's Sunday market strip: an alley thronging...

Diwali: A Realization

It's much more than just lighting the lamp.In fact, it's the easiest of all - to strike a match and lend the flame, guarded in the cave of your palms, to an oil-slicked wick curled in the hollow of the earthenware. That's it. The lamp comes to life, its muffled-yellow sheen encroaching upon the dark, like weary ocean waves closing around rocks, catching our appreciation altogether, our love. But that's not all - the oil, meanwhile, would be quickly depleting...

Oh! Poor Man

What's hugely distressing, sardonic and unpardonably hypocritical, and in all probability is leading our society down helpless despair and imparity is, where a happy looking man in neat, ironed clothes at work, carrying lunch boxes packed with delectable, sumptuous food is attributed to being blessed with wonderful and loving wife; is, on the contrary, audaciously endorsed as a disciplinarian with so-called high morals, when she starts panicking of being...

Fools, Flowers and Falls

I remember keeping your rose in an empty beer bottle on the bedside stool, as I got home that night. Passing the stem through its mouth and withdrawing my fingers, letting it drop. Its petalled bulb coming to rest against the rim in a soundless thud. I do not know why I did that. On other days there would have been no bottle at the first place. Having never realized sense in the idea of a person dutifully showing up at my door and asking for a bagful...

Just Hugs

Let's just hug each other to sleep tonight. No, don't get me wrong - I am not saying you're unattractive or that you don't turn me on. Trust me, my feelings belong to no one but you, moored to your soul like sail boats at the harbour from being blown, for you to cut me loose with your own hands and row me ashore. Nor do I possess any dark desire for someone from the past either. If there was a way to click and save everything I see once I close my...

The Bookcase

I love sitting hidden between the doors of my wooden bookcase. In fact, when I am too unsure about picking a new read or simply feeling worn out by the chores of a routine life, needing a deliberate escape, I do exactly that: pull up a chair in between; the doors hanging from the hinges by my sides forming impenetrable walls to the most private, quietest, thought-inducing space I can have to myself, and sit with my legs crossed on my lap, smelling...