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Returning

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  I didn’t believe I would survive this. I didn’t. All that kept me going  in the rain of the adamant downpour of exams, amidst the unending trail of worries, uncertainty, and the blankness of a tentative future looming before me, was a dream. The dream of making through the end – and after all got over – standing   at the terrace of our little home, far away in the villages and sniffing the wet scent of the air with my dress puffing in the howling wind. Everything were at sixes, my head was a messy cellar of age-old ruminations, cluttered and in ruins. I searched my way out in frantic despair. I wondered if I should give up, if I should let it all go. At moments like these, I would close my eyes and return to our little home in the village, under a thousand stars, the stars that were mine a million light years ago, the stars that birthed my broken beautiful self. I don’t know when my story will find its destination, but I believe in the truth of this moment. I believe in the seren
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The Road To Chandigarh

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  There are two things in life that can stop you from taking your own life, even if it is a few minutes away. One is a sense of purpose – when that unfinished task holds you back. Another is the deep love for a person –when you don’t want to leave that person alone, or you are scared of losing that person forever. Victor Frankl wrote this years ago but it took me years of agony and a drive to Shimla and back to Chandigarh, to finally assimilate the truth in it. Without beating about the bush, let me venture straight into my story. … People go for a vacation to take a short break. This year however, when a bunch of my friends decided to set off for Shimla-Manali, I looked upon it as a golden opportunity. I was not in for any short break. Fuck that. I was all for an absolute break from life. I didn’t plan on returning. Once we arrived, I discovered that the mountains were not so suited for jump-off. They could hardly be called steep, and even if you did dive, you would possibly
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The Spaces in Between

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  “… So don’t forget any of it. Remember it all and overcome it. If you don’t overcome it, you’ll always be the kid whose soul never grows.” – The Boy who Fed on Nightmares by Moon-Yung   Have you ever felt that you have lost chunks of memories or pieces of your life? Gaps in a sequence that doesn’t add up? As if your system has simply deleted those memories, wiped them off your brain. You remember the feelings, the sting of pain or rage or breaking grief… but not what exactly happened. Flashes of colours, one or two words, sensations of heat or numbing cold, choking dust, taste of salty water… but nothing else. If you want to recall them, your mind does tricks. She weaves those pieces together, stitches the gaps with imagination, intuition and emotions and makes you feel contented with the stitched-up memories. Obviously, the contentment doesn’t last long. It happens to me often - with the memories I want to forget. My head does the wiping off for me. That should work, shouldn’t i
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I Have A Dream

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Someone had once asked me, “What do you want in life? What would make you happy?” I said, “A room of my own with a writing table, a window of sunshine and a cup of coffee.” A place to love, laugh and live. A place to heal. Somewhere I could feel safe. I have always felt this is just a decent thing to want in life. But recently, I stopped believing that. Every day I find myself asking - Is it too much? Is it too much that I want to stop running for once ad want time and shelter to heal? Maybe, it is. In a world where thousands thrive on the streets, thousands go hungry all day, in a world where so many walk alone, healing is a luxury… a luxury the balance sheets of the world cannot allow. I don’t know if it’s too much, but I can dream all the same, can’t I? We all can dream. We all dream, one fine morning, we will stop running, we will stop looking over our shoulders, being chased and haunted by our nightmares. One day, we will stop thriving and start living. Oneday, we all will
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Scandal

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A few months ago, I went to visit a friend of mine who was admitted in a hospital for her messed-up sexual life. Naturally, I had to deal with her flabbergasted parents as well. I am no counselor and worse still, when it comes to parents. Anyhow, I tried. “See, I sincerely feel that the prurient mindset of today’s adolescents and youth regarding sexuality can be attributed, in some cases, and in some extent to apparently isolated incidents of sexual abuse in their childhood. It may appear to be distant but, it does have its impact…” I was going to blabber more in my flow of gospel-of-sex-education-and-awareness, being poked on and on by vexing questions of their daughter’s sexual life. But her mother interrupted- “Yes, I know. There had been one such incident”. Instinctively, she lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “She was then in class four. Her music teacher did ‘things’ to her. And just to think of that! She didn’t even tell me about it!” (OMG! Your eight-year old daughter didn
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Lovesong

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  There is something heartrending about the word ‘melancholy’. Heartrending and musical and pure and beautiful. Just like rain. I don’t connect rain with melancholy as most people do. I never find anything sad about rain. But heartrending, musical, pure and beautiful? Of course it’s all of that! Yet somehow, these two words ring with almost the same frequency, within me. I cannot think of one without thinking of the other. Both are as innate to me as the colour of my eyes or the texture of my hair. I don’t even have to think – they simply occur to me. As natural as it could be. Where I live – a small peninsula at the southern end of Asia – it’s been raining day and night… for weeks at a stretch. It might be insensitive of me to say this – considering the havoc this has wreaked elsewhere, but these days have been the happiest of the year, to me. All night, I could hear the rhythmic sounds of rain – falling, falling, falling, on my gorgeous city, my vagrant city, my lost city and my
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Wysa - Your 4 AM Friend?

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Recently, a mail landed in my mailbox that punched me right on the face.   It announced the arrival of a new app – Wysa. Apparently, this app had been designed by Google Assistant to aid those struggling with psychological disorders. I was both intrigued and elated to find that this problem has been addressed finally and by none other than ‘The Google’. With rushing adrenaline, I installed it and a sweet little penguin welcomed me in. Somehow they have managed to categorize mental illnesses into Depression, Trauma, Anxiety, Sleep and so on. The Home page burst with a riot of colours, cute penguins, and neat, organized sections. It offers you mental exercises to calm yourself, rejuvenate yourself, physical exercises, options to talk to a therapist, even stories to lull you to sleep and many many more. There are spaces labeled ‘Improve Self Esteem’ or ‘Get Energy’, ‘Beat Stress’, ‘Manage Anger’, ‘Manage Anxiety’ bla bla bla where you can chat with Wysa on a chatbox and listen to
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