.a written note.

I had to go away from writing to realize even more that this is ingrained inside quite everywhere. The last time I was here was sometime in 2013, when I remember I would write so much every single day. It felt like bleeding. Liberating. Never had to worry about 'consistency' and 'originality' in my creative expression. But then the rest of the internet came along, with it came a few writer's blocks and before I realized, I was drifting farther and farther from words, be it reading or writing. As time passed, I notice now that I was moving away from self but also at the same time searching for that missing piece. I knew this was it and sometimes doubted if it really was. Perhaps all I needed was time. Sometimes, it only took writing to feel whole and sometimes it needed more than that - the pause, the wait and a floating mind. But I must thank myself for discovering that I still have access to this blog as the words here archiving the old writings for the...

You know the lane by heart, because you carried it everywhere you went. The cracks on the wall, the colour of the powder when you grated bricks for fun, the smell of summer evenings and the sound of quiet afternoons because children were supposed to sleep till 4 o’clock. Along those lines live the directions the kids gave to the autowallas on the way back home back home, back home. Where the trees are intact albeit not ageless, you’ve carried with yourself the smell of water splashed on mud and cement. The sound of children of the house cheering, playing hide and seek till 8 o’clock. I want to write more, about the hours occupied in laughter, conversations and more of them, about the hungry lunch times and a relaxing ritual of tea-making or brewing great-grandmother’s coffee. about the annual ritual of going through wheat grains, rice and lentils. I want to write more, but how can one define the colour of nostalgia?

I feel it. I feel that I’m losing the grip over myself Was there supposed to be any? I thought I had it, I thought I could get myself together and get up, walk and just do things that I always was going to do I didn’t know I’d fall I didn’t know a fall would be like this like this giant void Which can’t be filled with or by people Their noise and silences I feel this giant void that pulls me down way further and more. Void is what owns my grip, the grip that I long to have I long to connect. to merge and be one with myself.

That’s the thing with time. One day you’re sitting doing your everyday mundane activity and it hits you. The truth behind this whole thing called life hits you and it hits you hard. All those sayings and philosophies about making the best of your life, enjoying every bit of it and making the fullest of everything — it stands no meaning in this particular moment. It’s a mundane activity with the sound of a prayer from a distant dargah . The typical dark night of 8pm. The time comes to you authoritatively, telling you one day, one day it would all be over. That slowly everything will fade out. The people near you at this moment, you can hear them talking but suddenly it’s all in slow motion. There’s going to come a day they’ll no longer be there. You’re going to wish you made the fullest, that you lived the moment fully, as long as they were there, while they were there. One day as a matter of fact even you’re going to die. The reality hits you. Whatever you have in this v...

ऐ दिल, तू मान जा, समझ ले दुनिया की रीत और याद कर हररोज़ की ये तो एक नांव है, कभी शांत, कभी ज़ोर से बहती.. तू इसमें है बैठा, जैसे बैठे हैं कई हज़ार.. ना उनको पता, ना तुझे ये पल्ले पड़ता की दुनिया है घूमती अपने ही घेरों में, जैसे है तू सुनता अपनी ही धड़कने.. ये घेरे हैं थोड़े घने, बरसो से अटके इन्हे तू सुलझाने ना जा, बल्कि समझ ले वो गूंजती हुई दास्तां, जो है हर एक के लिए अलग, पर सीमित नहीं.. मुश्किल है, पर अधूरी नहीं.. ऐ दिल, तू मान जा मुझे समझा दे ये दुनिया।

What is the name of this place? Does it have a name? As I sit here, a white sheet before me and my fingers running on the keyboard like the most desperate kind of an animal, the keyboard acts as a mirror to my mind. A scanner- clearing dust from the minutest of details, I am slowly falling into this place and it’s dark here. I am able to see myself. Not from a third person’s point of view but my own. How did I end up here? I smell fear, doubt and all the other insecurities right from the smallest thing to a life choice. It’s all in here and there’s no space. How do I clear one knot to detangle another? As I keep writing, I am confronted by my own emotions- the first time in the whole day, first time in the last four days, since I last wrote. Is this what happens to the writers when they don’t write? My emotions consume me and the epiphany takes over. I need to write. I need to write. I need to write. I need light in this place.

Aren’t thoughts a world in themselves? I am on my left, a little dizzy, with WhatsApp screen on on my phone. It’s standby and I have something going on in my mind. I know this. I know what it is. It’s time standing still and I’m no longer in the same place. Like an unpredictable summer wind, I’m taken away and back to the 90s. It looks like film. Grainy. Old times really do look grainy- a blend of red and yellow and a sad brown, sepia. I see my brother, 4 years older to me, with his smile just as innocent as I recall it. His signature full lips, a wide smile showing half of his teeth, it is so intact now that I see it. Alongside him, there’s me, 4 years younger to him, a sister that wanted to fit into his idea of a good sister. He’s wearing his red Polo T-shirt and my frock is brown and white. I’m playing with him, trying to generate in myself an interest for bikes and all things mechanical so that I too will have a say in seemingly interesting conversations between him an...

Last week, first visit: After days of only planning to visit and restart with my classroom now after three years, I visit finally in the last week. With little hopes of meeting all of my old students in one place, I still wish I’d meet them all for I’ve missed them so much. When I actually go to the classroom, which is basically an extra room provided by one of the families from the community, I am ecstatic to meet all of them slowly, one by one coming to the classroom as they get to know that their Arundhati Didi has come. Pankhudi is a non-governmental organization that works towards providing education to the underprivileged kids in a slum in Pune called Patil Estate. This slum is situated in the middle of probably the busiest locality in Pune that is Shivajinagar. However, the slum itself gives birth to a different life that I became a part of back in 2013. I had served there as a full-time volunteer till the middle of 2014. All of them are just as surprised as I am,...

I think of you. I think of you a lot of times. Sometimes you occupy my entire day and there are times I wake up in the middle of the night because of the nightmares I get. Nightmares are made of thoughts at the back of one’s mind and more often than not, those thoughts are unaccepted, denied or just scary. I think of you when I’m walking rounds and rounds after dinner, when I’m waiting for my station standing in a crowded bus, when I’m with people laughing and talking excessively, when I’m having good days, when I’m reading a book and come across a similar character like you — like any one of you, when there are extreme joyful situations and also when there are lowest lows. I think of you. In other words, you didn’t leave my mind. You’re either no longer in my life or you’re on the verge of leaving but you haven’t left my mind and you will probably not. I met some of you in the most typical scenarios and there are those of you I met accidentally and unexpectedly. But eit...

if it leaves, it’s not pain. It never was. If at all it hits you hits you hard, it’s like a blue ink it leaves behind stains that refuse to vanish no matter who’s doing the laundry. It entertains like a dream long enough to confuse you into reality and it elopes into a faraway land turning you into a melancholic mess engulfed in solitude that becomes a more fathomable, a more comfortable white-sheets bed. So, in your mind you may think you're alone all indulged on your own, what will you answer if I say I too am one, one of your irrational thoughts or loathsome imageries that hide behind the curtains of your eyes? I am the sight you thought you lost. I am the intrigued audience when you’re on stage. Therefore, let there be a time apart from their goody mouth and promising handshakes for they're all true and pretentious at their own convenience and you must not ever stand waiting For you have a universe within you dying to come alive and kill with a smile.

Writing has its own advantages and disadvantages. Yesterday I wrote about maturity. I do enjoy writing on paper before blogging. It’s just how I function. However, at this moment, I am directly typing this all and planning to post. Let’s talk about blogging. It was five years ago when I first started blogging. It interested me to a level where I realized how immensely did I enjoy writing. It was a hidden hobby and Blogger became the medium through which I initially wrote. It wasn’t a diary where I regularly updated daily happenings, it was more than that. I started with expressing how I generally felt about things and how certain things drove my attention at the moment and I’d talk about it on my blog. The blog grew with many fellow bloggers who became my readers and for the first time in my life, I was virtually surrounded by people with whom I developed mutual interests. We would only write individually and read. It wasn’t a compulsion, it wasn’t a necessity. As a few...

How do you get over a city? How do you get over a city that once gave you some of the best times of your life and not to forget the constant emotional reminders of those times! I think cities are a hundred times more difficult to get over with than a walking-laughing-talking human being. Interpersonal relations are sometimes too overrated. They’re overwhelming, yes. But they’re overrated. I, having entered twenties and still not being too comfortable with the fact that I am actually growing up this fast, have come to think that people are only as hard to understand and deal with as you treat them. I’m not a consultant nor am I an expert at interpersonal relations. Rather I’ve recently grown very bad at them. I’ve tried and tried, but some things just can’t be helped. On the other hand, a city. A city is a tremendo us pack age of self growth, a good makeover to one’s perspective and if you’re new to a city and have almost no one to go to for starters, then trust me, you’...

Writing has become tough. It’s like that small town not too far from where I live but whenever I plan on visiting, it’s either raining heavily or the traffic is just too much; meaning I postpone. Procrastinate. Unlike before, when I didn’t visit but lived there for as long as I wanted. It was home. It was easy. The traffic, the rain, none of it mattered. The town existed within. It helped me connect with myself the first time in life and I still haven’t experienced anything close to that feeling when you know how well in sync you are with yourself. It was just so unreal and the most real experience all at the same time. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be classy. It doesn’t have to be overflown with self-love just because I mentioned connecting with self. Rather, it’s not about self-love. It’s about self. I’ve lately come to understand how essential it is to know and be generous or at least, acceptable about or with oneself, your own self. I didn’t real...

Tonight lying exactly under the sky gazing at the stars and moon I am feeling no fear inside no fear none at all none cares here for the good laughter, enjoyment, music and whatnot I am intrigued by all and I can feel there’s no reason to be scared of anyone ever in life I finally understand I am a whole human being and the value of it I have a whole universe within and rushing through me there’s a galaxy in just about everything about life breathtaking is what I’d call this this enchanting endeavour.

Writing has become tough. It’s like that small town not too far from where I live but whenever I plan on visiting, it’s either raining heavily or the traffic is just too much; meaning I postpone. Procrastinate. Unlike before, when I didn’t visit but lived there for as long as I wanted. It was home. It was easy. The traffic, the rain, none of it mattered. The town existed within. It helped me connect with myself the first time in life and I still haven’t experienced anything close to that feeling when you know how well in sync you are with yourself. It was just so unreal and the most real experience all at the same time. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be classy. It doesn’t have to be overflown with self-love just because I mentioned connecting with self. Rather, it’s not about self-love. It’s about self. I’ve lately come to understand how essential it is to know and be generous or at least, acceptable about or with oneself, your own self. I didn’t real...

It shouldn’t be a sunny afternoon. You shouldn’t be indoor at work on a sunny afternoon when it’s time to realize that you’ve become a loner. I gaze outside at the tower beside the building of my work. Aimlessly. It’s a sunny afternoon, but the afternoon that comes on an odd Tuesday. Now, how empty does that feel? No birds around to chirp as it must be too hot outside around 2 PM. I scribble a paragraph or two on a plain white paper and it feels surprisingly good to write. I feel the sudden urge to write it all out, to pour my heart out with the ink that’s vivid blue. I recall each and every event, every tiniest bit of deed in the recent past that may have led to being a loner. Here I was, sitting idly in the middle of work, never thought I’d be a loner but who can help it if I feel it so deeply within? Probably the bedtime playlist, the small seemingly unimportant epiphanies every now and then, when ignored, along with other casual needs of indulging in my own company, ...

It’s been so many days. The thoughts you probably controlled back in that year, do they still trouble you when you’re the only one awake in the room? Is the scared monster still trying to not let those thoughts reappear? I suppose so. Photographs trigger such thoughts and I ponder over the possibilities of having at least one photograph with her. She is endless. I’m now more familiar with the phrase of trying to find someone in a bunch of crowd. Some people leave. They leave such impacts over us that cannot be wiped. Days pass by and I’m window and curtained by the fact that uncertainty is certain and cannot be avoided. I really envy those with less active minds. My mind doesn’t want to win this race. All it wants is to know why, in the first place, it entered this race.

Reading your own old writings could be so relaxing. It’s like you’re having a conversation with yourself. **As I come out of the shower, I see my granny sitting outside and actually enjoying the hot air specially after a cold Indian night, knitting a purple sweater, probably to gift someone. The way her wet shiny white hair form a coordination with one another, letting the fresh air dry it. The way she knits without her spectacles on. The way that Purple coloured something seems to be forming a new big shape every two minutes, having started from just a woolen thread and now turning into a cloth. A cloth that’ll provide someone with warmth and her love in cold, inspires me. Despite everything.** I read this prose as I go through my old writings. Automatically, my mind compared my granny back then and now. I miss her. She’s been one strong pillar in our lives, my life. I recall the times when she stood by me in the same bedroom when I studied for 10th grade board exams, how...

Summer afternoons are at times tough. They’re usually filled with idle sittings in your bedroom and if something really strikes your mind, a little bit of artwork. Apart from this, there are constant winds driving your mind to the good ole days when summer used to be an exciting thing. I really am not trying to sadden this post or the day for that matter by giving my thoughts a finishing touch of nostalgia. But you know what, they’re thoughts. They’re unplanned. They’re natural. At least one of the very few things that remain untouched by the manual work of a human being. Getting back to the topic, home, it’s quite fitting to one’s mind how the picture of your home is always there resting somewhere at the back of one’s mind. The walls, the familiarity of the wall-paint inside and outside and its warmth. Whenever I visit home, i.e. once every two months or sometimes more, I take along with myself the invisible shelter above my head that the home had gifted me when I left...

What are we if not a coincidence?