I left myself 
sitting on a milestone 
eyes towards the sky 
wishing more brightness 
for the stars 
and more darkness 
for the dark they sit in 
the horizon to the path ahead 
tucked away ~ like blurred memories,  
in a hyper-aware mind  
there, but not~ 
the sand beneath my feet 
siphons into a place 
beyond the reach 
of my dangling toes 
and as I wait 
for my heart to get 
my feet moving, 
memories imprint onto 
themselves 
like wet words 
the insignificance of 
my fading self 
hammers me down 
until I sink enough 
to show travellers 
their way home. 

My thoughts are shape shifting.
They are the words that make my life a 
story worthy of pride.
They are my North Star, guiding me through 
forests of uncertainty and deserts of sadness.
They are fluttering birds zapping across my brain
like an electric shock.
They are bulbous elephants stomping on my neurones
until they are fried and useless.
They are sharks with serrated blades for teeth 
bleeding my head into an ocean of seemingly 
impregnable fears.
And sometimes, they are every living creature 
one could possibly find on the face of this earth. 
And in times like these, when they are 
bigger than me,
I abandon them in a corner of my brain
they must now be familiar with,
and borrow someone else’s. 
Sometimes, I let me thoughts be engulfed by those 
that I presume the stranger who met my eyes across 
the spice aisle of the grocery store might think.
Or maybe that distant cousin who despite me being 
the youngest, didn’t make me feel small. 
or maybe when I am feeling particularly grand, 
I think I am Frida Kahlo manifesting the next
masterpiece with her pain.
and when I think of this new year, 
which inevitably makes me think of the last year,
my thoughts become stalactites poking 
at my brain.
So I try and abandon them 
only to fail, and
the shards of the frozen limestone rebuke me 
to face the truth.
A truth that tells me that there is a 
long stretch of paper torn from the prettiest 
notebook, waiting to be filled in,
and with my feet dripping in ink, 
I could either lay a path in blue on the pale paper 
of future, and move forward, forward, forward,
or I could stand right where i am and let the 
ink seep through it until my footsteps 
are too ink-soaked to hold up,
and with each rip I go, 
down, down, down.

I am a girl. Maybe even a woman. It’s tough to decide, or maybe, it’s just tough to become one.

My Maa tells me that if I want to become something, I have to unravel each and every piece, of whatever it is I see myself as, and work hard, very hard, to become it. So I took her advice, and started searching for what makes a woman worthy of that title. But all I saw around me was the women in my family being forced to cut and polish their dreams to fit the plans the society had for them. I learnt that one female is raped every sixteen minutes in my country, as if we are flies that the world wants to swat down with the target that is placed on our bodies the minute we are born. I realised that, in my country, as in many others, women earn 19% lesser than men for the same work, as if being a woman somehow shrinks the value of hard work; and that son preference was as common as a kid wanting the latest toy for their birthday. I understood that gender roles are not just some optional characteristics we can choose to ignore, but a suffocating pit, with walls made out of unwanted opinions, set and ready for us to jump into. I saw that…what a woman is, or what a woman is supposed to be, is much more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

But, you see, it is unacceptable to let others choose what a woman is supposed to be, when I am the one who has to live in this world as a woman. When I am the one who has to look the world in the eyes with all its inequalities reflecting in mine. So here’s what I want.

First of all, I want being a woman to mean being able to fight. To fight for the right to stand right alongside the men who have for far too long suppressed our voices with their fingers stapled to our lips. To fight for what is ours, the right to live in a world where gender equality is no longer a pipe dream. To fight to stand together, together with all the other women who have to scrounge for choices in a world that offers them none. To fight alongside the women who have their rights stolen from them as if they were unlocked bikes left out in the streets. To fight to make sure that this fight is not against men, but only against the inequality that has forced women to blend into the background.

Secondly, I want being a woman to be free. To be free to go out alone after dark and not look over our shoulders for lurking eyes that see our body as another lifeless object. To be free to take every step with only the force of our will guiding our legs, not what people think about the clothes covering those legs. To be free to cook because we want to, not because it is an obligation. To be free of the seeming necessity to lower our voice because, apparently, only boys have the right to shout. To be free to sew together our future with the cloth of our own talent and conviction, rather than the measly rags stinking with sexism, the world throws our way. But most of all, I want being a woman to mean the freedom to choose the kind of women we want to be.

And that is not all, because ultimately, I want being a woman to be happy. Happy in the choice to be someone who builds herself up by fighting, by choosing to be free. Happy in the process of becoming a person who loves herself, unburdened with the anxieties of what people will think. Happy in the thought that even if the world can be a scary place to choose the kind of woman we want to be, we get to fight to make it safe. Happy in the realisation that we have the opportunity to create a world that values equality over anything else that a woman needs.

But it is not easy. It is not easy to be free, to fight, to be happy in a world that keeps stacking up new ways to scare us into submission. Into believing that it will never change. That everyday another girl will be raped, and underpaid and harassed and discriminated against. That everyday, we will find new reasons to hide, to shove our words down our throat with the plunger of self doubt and fear. But, you see, no fight fought for change is ever an easy one, because easy doesn’t get you freedom, easy doesn’t get you equality that is concrete enough to feel equal.

So, now, here, I declare, I declare: I am a woman. I am a woman who is still learning what it means to be one. I am a woman who has fears and doubts, but also hopes and dreams, and a lot of fight to keep her going. And, yes, I am not the only one. No woman wants to live in fear, in depenndence. And all we need, all of us, is to stand together. Because we might not know each other, we might live oceans away, but, we face the same unfair world, and in this unfairness we can find a common ground to fight on. To make the world a place where gender inequality, sexism, sexual violence, and other horrifying threats, don’t make us afraid of our womanhood.

Here’s a link to the audio version of this essay: https://youtu.be/FaXjoNA5zQI

I am a girl. Maybe even a woman. It’s tough to decide, or maybe, it’s just tough to become one.

My Maa tells me that if I want to become something, I have to unravel each and every piece, of whatever it is I see myself as, and work hard, very hard, to become it. So I took her advice, and started searching for what makes a woman worthy of that title. But all I saw around me was the women in my family being forced to cut and polish their dreams to fit the plans the society had for them. I learnt that one female is raped every sixteen minutes in my country, as if we are flies that the world wants to swat down with the target that is placed on our bodies the minute we are born. I realised that, in my country, as in many others, women earn 19% less than men for the same work, as if being a woman somehow shrinks the value of hard work; and that son preference was as common as a kid wanting the latest toy for their birthday. I understood that gender roles are are not just some optional characteristics we can choose to ignore, but a suffocating pit, with walls made out of unwanted opinions, set and ready for us to jump into. I saw that…what a woman is, or what a woman is supposed to be, is much more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

But, you see, it is unacceptable to let others choose what a woman is supposed to be, when I am the one who has to live in this world as a woman. When I am the one who has to look the world in the eyes with all its inequalities reflecting in mine. So here’s what I want.

First of all, I want being a woman to mean being able to fight. To fight for the right to stand right alongside the men who have for far too long suppressed our voices with their fingers stapled to our lips. To fight for what is ours, the right to live in a world where gender equality is no longer a pipe dream. To fight to stand together, together with all the other women who have to scrounge for choices in a world that offers them none. To fight alongside the women who have their rights stolen from them as if they were unlocked bikes left out in the streets. To fight to make sure that this fight is not against men, but only against the inequality that has forced women to blend into the background.

Secondly, I want being a woman to be free. To be free to go out alone after dark and not look over our shoulders for lurking eyes that see our body as another lifeless object. To be free to take every step with only the force of our will guiding our legs, not what people think about the clothes covering those legs. To be free to cook because we want to, not because it is an obligation. To be free of the seeming necessity to lower our voice because, apparently, only boys have the right to shout. To be free to sew together our future with the cloth of our own talent and conviction, rather than the measly rags stinking with sexism, the world throws our way. But most of all, I want being a woman to mean the freedom to choose the kind of women we want to be.

And that is not all, because ultimately, I want being a woman to be happy. Happy in the choice to be someone who builds herself up by fighting, by choosing to be free. Happy in the process of becoming a person who loves herself, unburdened with the anxieties of what people will think. Happy in the thought that even if the world can be a scary place to choose the kind of woman we want to be, we get to fight to make it safe. Happy in the realisation that we have the opportunity to create a world that values equality over anything else that a woman needs.

But it is not easy. It is not easy to be free, to fight, to be happy in a world that keeps stacking up new ways to scare us into submission. Into believing that it will never change. That everyday another girl will be raped, and underpaid and harassed and discriminated against. That everyday, we will find new reasons to hide, to shove our words down our throat with the plunger of self doubt and fear. But, you see, no fight fought for change is ever an easy one, because easy doesn’t get you freedom, easy doesn’t get you equality that is concrete enough to feel equal.

So, now, here, I declare, I declare: I am a woman. I am a woman who is still learning what it means to be one. I am a woman who has fears and doubts, but also hopes and dreams, and a lot of fight to keep her going. And, yes, I am not the only one. No woman wants to live in fear, in depenndence. And all we need, all of us, is to stand together. Because we might not know each other, we might live oceans away, but, we face the same unfair world, and in this unfairness we can find a common ground to fight on. To make the world a place where gender inequality, sexism, sexual violence, and other horrifying threats, don’t make us afraid of our womanhood.

Here’s a link to the audio version of the essay: https://youtu.be/FaXjoNA5zQI

Life has taken on 
a strange hue, 
as if all it’s colours  
were siphoned 
into memories of times  
we didn’t hide our 
breaths 
to be able to take 
more. 
Every heartbeat seems  
watered down, 
as if painted by an  
amateur artist  
struggling to find that 
perfect balance  
which makes colours  
seem real. 
Music has a much  
deeper hold on me 
as if the notes 
are drowning  
and have decided 
to bury their  
inhibitions  
under the ocean floor. 
My fingertips trace 
every object in 
their path 
to relish in their 
existence,  
their own stretched  
too thin. 
And my feet,  
my feet,  
they move tethered to 
a hope, 
Hope 
that the earth will 
soon decide that 
it has punished  
us 
long enough. 

I have buckled my seat belt
with my closed fist conviction—
thumping against the moving metal,
The seat seems adjusted
to all the life
i have stuffed
in the backseat,
The roof handle
seems to have forged itself
to fit the deep ledges
of my bitten nails,
My feet seem to have found
just the right angle
to keep them from swelling
with the sick weight
of my mistakes,
My head is high enough
to hold itself up
and to not sway
with any bumps
the journey ahead might bring,
my eyes look straight ahead
with lucidity
I wreak my bones 
to muster,
my pores have scrounged
for every bit of courage
they could find in the dust
billowing up from the road
that I have stroked every colour on—
just the right shade
and not too much water
to keep the tar from melting—
My heart is beating for
every milestone
the dark rubber I balance on
races past,
and for the crunch of the sand
that propels me forward—
against the backdrop 
of a multicolour sky,
because my fingers 
​couldn’t settle on one.

And I cross every metre
of the road
I believe to have painted,
with only one worry
trembling on my lips:
I am not the one
on the driver’s seat.

  I know what my heart is like
  Since it begged for utter silence:
It is like a wet cheeked baby
Howling for love
     With soiled clothes
     And a dirty nose,
Left rolling by the road.

This is a poem that is inspired by “Ebb,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

I know what my heart is like 
   Since your love died: 
It is like a hollow ledge 
Holding a little pool 
   Left there by the tide, 
   A little tepid pool, 
Drying inward from the edge

My father once told me that when he was young, my grandmother used to ask him to bury his broken teeth in the earth of the magnificent Tulsi plant on their terrace. She said that planting them and watering them would make his new teeth stronger. He said that he had believed her, just like any kid who wants to believe every fairy tale they hear, and planted and watered all his broken teeth everyday. Looking back, he said, she had probably wanted him to water the plant without having to ask, and that it doesn’t matter because he still has the strongest teeth of us all. We had all laughed then. My grandfather hadn’t believed her. He told her that she was filling my dad’s head with fantasies he didn’t need. But the damage had already been done. There is not a single broken tooth that I haven’t planted in our Tulsi plant.

Ammaji died surrounded by mystery and shock. It was totally unexpected. A normal day with a tragic ending. She had cooked her breakfast, and then as sudden as lightning, was shrouded in a terrible fever which she succumbed to on her way to the hospital. Papa had been devastated, he had left my brother and I at a friend’s house and left for Dadaji’s. I don’t remember a lot about that time. My head was filled with fantasies that I didn’t need. But I did remember my grandfather smacking his hand against his forehead so hard, that his glasses broke and some glass hurt his eye. 

After all the funerary rites were over, my dad came and got my brother and me from his friend’s house and took us to Dadaji. The last time that I had seen him, his teeth had seemed fragile enough to break if he sneezed. Their sick, yellow pallor had gotten worse and given his aversion to toothbrushes, he brushed his teeth with his fingers using a powder called “dattun”, which he claimed cleaned teeth like nobody’s business. This custom didn’t make his teeth want to hold onto his swollen gums, that peek out from under his lips when he smiles. This time, a lot of sunset coloured teeth had given up and fallen. One even broke in front of me, and later, when he thought no one was looking, he buried the tooth under the welcoming dirt of the Tulsi plant, and watered them with his tears. 
​
My most recent visit told me that he was left with only four teeth, and the Tulsi plant’s earth had never looked lumpier.

Eliza was storming through the set of drawers in my parents’ room, searching for a puncher, when she came across an austere looking envelope with no address. The empty house spurred me on to open it and when she did, she found this:

                                                                                                                             5th Oct, 2019

Dear Eliza, 

It’s Maa. You turn 16 today at exactly 10:53 a.m. The last 16 years seem to have imprinted onto each other like wet words, a blur of so many feelings and emotions, some shared, others left untouched. But I think it’s time to dust off the cobwebs of suppression off them. 

Last month, when you didn’t talk to me for a week after discovering that I never told you that I took a fashion designing course in college, I got a glimpse of what my silence about my life means to you. I have noticed how you look at me with expectant eyes, after your Papa tells you anecdotes about selling kites and comics at your Dadaji’s shop, waiting to hear something about me. But I kept the flood of memories that I had left behind, bolted tightly shut. Maybe because it is not nearly as jolly as technicolour kites flying in the blue sky, or maybe because I feared what it would mean to you, to us. 

This is the first letter in a series of letters that I wish to write to you. I will give them to you either when words have soaked up all the snippets of my life I want you to have, or when that life itself no longer survives.

Let me start by telling you about your Nani. Her name was Sharda. Her delicate cheekbones were draped with lovely brown skin and her ageless black hair would run in a plait down her back and almost touch the ground, like a mountaineer’s rope, just as strong, if not more. I wonder what she would have to say about my greying riot of a hair. Her eyes seemed to be both happy and sad, like the river Ganga that carries centuries worth of sins of penitent men and women, but still sparkles to invite more. And her smile. It was the perfect balm for every ache in the heart.

Your Nani was a remarkable woman. She would make me braid her hair so tight, I feared that one day I would find tufts of her braid in my hands, torn clear off. She would make Nan Khatai for me, just like I do for you. They used to be so delicious and would melt in our mouths as if they never held a solid shape. I wish you could taste them. We would play kanche in the afternoons in our verandah and then fall asleep, her hand on my forehead, on the threaded khats she made with her own hands. We didn’t say much. Just basked in comfort of the radiant silence that we created. But I wish that I had known more about her. So much more. 

Old North Indian houses used to have steel rails cut into their terrace floors so that the residents would know if monkeys had decided to raid it. One day, someone in our house forgot to lock the rails. Your Nani, who was coming back from watering her garden, stepped on it and fell straight through, onto the water bucket the maid had left there while mopping the floor. The sight of her blood had numbed my heart, and I tried to imagine a life without her, only to fail. She had so many head injuries that she didn’t discover one of them until a week after she fell, while washing her hair, and went about doing the same as if nothing out of ordinary had happened. 

Did I tell you that she used to sing? Her voice flowed as if it was being carried by a river and she would turn ordinary songs into such beautiful pieces of artistry that the original piece would fade into nothing more than whisper of her sweet voice. I still remember the feel of the coarseness that years of work had inflicted upon her hands, as she caressed my forehead and sang me to sleep whenever I was sick. But I couldn’t do the same for her. I couldn’t use my touch to make her once strong self come back from the brink of an existence that I didn’t have any access to. She died 17 years ago because of Diabetes. I still can’t believe it. How could her warrior self, who singlehandedly taught me how to fight the whole world, and fought against it herself, succumb to a disease? 

At that time, it seemed like no one could stop me from succumbing to the noose of grief that had gripped my entire body. But then, I discovered that just as I was about to lose her, I had you growing up in my belly. Before she was gone, she had placed a hand on my belly and smiled that healing smile and even in death, she blessed you with all that she had left. I am sorry I lied to you and told you that she had already passed away 2 years before you were born. I know this must make you angry, but I have carried the divine weight of that smile on my shoulders ever since that day, hoping one day to stoop it down to yours, fearing if you could carry it. Now, I know that you have grown enough to take it on yourself. And always remember, you may never have had the chance to meet her, but her luminescence will always follow you into the dark, no matter how blind you feel.

Love, 
Maa

Clutching the letter to her heart, Eliza realised that her Maa’s secrets were no longer a barrier between them, but a bridge built over her own anger and Maa’s lies and silence, that they had to cross together, to keep from falling. 

 In these trying times, all of us have found ways to distract ourselves, and what better way of doing so than music? These songs are the ones that I hold dear, not just because they are musical masterpieces, but also because they are such instances of impeccable artistry that they leave one open-mouthed.

Blackbird by The Beatles

This song has an indescribable undertone of freedom in it. The simplicity with which John Lennon’s voice flows seems to be imploring me to discover the wonders of the world and all the things in it. It describes all that stands unlocked before us once we break those barriers which separate us from ourselves. My heart keeps on oscillating between a surprising amount of alternatives when it comes to what “the moment” is for me. When will I see “the light of the dark black night”? When will all my blemishes fade, or if they don’t, will I be able to “take these broken wings and learn to fly”. These questions remain unanswered, but hopefully, time will answer them soon enough. 

Fource  by Sorority Noise

This song. This song. I don’t really know exactly what it is about this song. But it brings that feeling of being lost in your own self right to my throat and just leaves it there to dry. The singer is not even singing. He is just reciting the lyrics—the melancholically incredible lyrics— and there is this sound of sand crunching under heavy boots that just gets your heart to slow. It is like one of those pieces of poetry that keep floating around in your head until you have no option but to take notice. His voice has a slightly drunk quality to it that reminds me so painfully of the helplessness that tugs at everyone’s hearts at least once in their lives.

River by Emeli Sande

Emeli Sande’s incredibly soulful voice, coupled with the vulnerability of the lyrics of this song, makes me so grateful for all those people who have, in any way, helped me take a step forward when I couldn’t do so on my own. But most of all, it reminds me that there are people out there ready to hold my hand when others keep breaking it. Especially when the chorus starts, her voice takes on this incredibly soft tone that reminds me that I must hold on to someone’s hand too,  just as they hold on to mine. 

Sleep on the floor by The Lumineers 

Even though this song is intended to be a love song, the richness and desperation of Wesley Schultz’s voice in this song gets to my heart as the wanderlust for the places I have yet to visit. It really makes me want to pack a “toothbrush and a favourite blouse”, and leave for unknown places that surprise and scare me. When he asks the person whom he is talking to in the song, what they will do “If the sun don’t shine on me today”, I imagine my wandering self asking my own courage the same and if it will desert me when I need it the most. When I listen to this song while in a car, every other passing vehicle makes me wonder if the people inside it know where they going or if they are just following their hearts. 

Asleep by The Smiths

Stephen Morrissey’s voice has a depth that has the power to make people feel emotions that they have never experienced before. I cannot even begin to describe how I feel about this song. I imagine this is how the dying moments of a life well-lived would feel. The hopeful yearning for “a better world” tells us that they have seen all that they wished to see in this world, and now are searching for “another world”. The tone of tiredness in his voice sounds so pleadingly expectant, especially when he says, “Well, there must be” that the song makes you live in itself even though you have never have stepped anywhere near the place that it wants to take you.

Alive by Sia

This is song starts in agony, there is no other possible way to describe it. There is so much pain in Sia’s voice that it’s difficult not to feel its palpability. But, the song is not just her pain, it’s her triumph over it. The anguish in her voice when she sings, “I’m Alive”, never fails to engender goosebumps. The song is a fight, and as it seems at first, one that she is losing: “I saw my life in a stranger’s face/ And it was mine”. But then her despair is overcome by tenacity: “But I survived/ I’m still breathing’’. This song is by no means a happy, but it is surely triumphant and not for a single moment fails to flow both the sides of life with its throbbing eloquence.

Visions of Gideon by Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Steven’s impeccable voice seems nothing more than a whisper, and at the same time carries itself like a river. Remember that feeling of nostalgia and heartache that pervades one’s heart when they leave behind something or someone beloved and treasured? The haunting quality of his voice brings even more intensity to the enigmatic emotions that arise in me once I listen to this song. Even though I will never be able to capture the artistry of this song into words, I would like to say that it feels like the homesickness for places I’ve never even visited, inexplicable yet profound.