The Modern Fable

Sandy stood motionless in the bus. Staring from the window to the other side of the road. 'Are you who you are?' People brushed against her in the corridor. Her heart jumped for her breath. The homeless man held the cardboard sign to his chest. The handwriting was wobbly. Some alphabets were straight and bold, like a slap to the eye and some were cursive and sloppy, like a meek reminder unsure if it was important. The man raised the sign above his head when he caught her eye. His bare chest was taut. Sandy looked away in disgust, bile rising in her throat. As the bus curved along the curb, it was inevitable to see him. He kept his piercing eye on her. Even when the bus exited the main street she felt a pair of eyes on her head, as if she was a target about to be taken down. She stepped down at the next bus stop and checked herself for any inconsistency. The pencil light pink skirt was creaseless. The matching pink cardigan was pale as ever. Only the black bow bouncing under...

Disha looked both ways before crossing the road.  Direction was the meaning of her name. When parents forced her into marriage, it had changed unwillingly. Though the road to preschool was of bitumen, the daughter holding her hand had set her path in stone.

The mind that doesn't hold still Brings the body to rest. It can't raise the head to catch sunlight Nor walk to the park To behold children  Wrapped in bundles of joy  Aware of the secrets of life. The mind makes the eyes that look back in the mirror the enemy  And praise the ones that demean Sometimes with their gaze And sometimes with a phrase. The mind flutters in the dark But not as a butterfly. As the Venus fly trap That crushes the wings of hope. You no longer know  How to bear  Weights that once lightened you. Separate a lie from truth Imagination is dead  What remain are loops of thoughts  That do not serve you. The mind feels heavy It too is tired  From the life it leads But gallops away  when you hold the reins For it no longer serves you. You do not see eye to eye Only carry on  Fighting invisible ghosts  And a lifeless past In fear of change To accept the future  That could save you.

Trigger warning: Mention of suicide   She would think, "Why can't my parents live happier?" But Raina was not 11 anymore and she had given up on having a peaceful domestic life. She stretched her arms on the bench and closed her eyes in the cool shade of the banyan tree. She could feel the skirt grazing up her thighs. But her neck hurt and she didn't care to comply and pull it down. The society could go to hell. They could give her a visit. It would be a change in her life. She would come to the park behind her house whenever her parents would fight. She had been doing so for 10 years. During summer vacation, she would spend all her days poking around the empty park. School was over and her father had not allowed her to go with her friends, as usual. From the empty bench, you could see the road sloping upwards beyond the railing and faint outline of hills enveloped in mist. She felt a sudden urge to be touched. Someday she would feel so aware of her body that it ...

Static There is static everywhere, At every corner or crevice, Except inside.  I am never taught to fight, Only to submit. Never to resist, But to comply. Never to stay willing, But to whine. Never to stand my ground, But to crumble inside, From the dead weight, We call life. Not to look straight in the eye, But to avert my gaze, From the common enemy, Of mankind. For it is the sin of accepting, Suffering as a life. As a motion to be passed, As a means to achieve, What does not serve me. You see, I've been taught many things, But never, to live a life. /Published in the anthology 'The leverage in words' available on Amazon/

You need me, I can see. I feel for you, I want you to know just how much, But somehow  cannot move these leaden feet. Don't fall apart in front of me. I want to help,  I really do Yet my position is already defined. In your moments of rage and ecstasy  You were teaching me  how to treat you. I have trodden on these oaths dutifully.  Oh! But it is so confined.  You have found yourself  In a mess That you have created  Time and again. You battle yourself  And I have to stand by and see. I cannot fight your fights,  To expect so, would demand unfair of me. You would not mind it, Even an ounce But I will not sacrifice  The life I have carved out for me. For you to be so shallow, I could not have dreamed.  But if that is the way you have chosen,  Then let it be.  I tread around you carefully,  I am scared of your grief engulfing me. To relieve it, I will have to lose myself,  Change directions, my entire trajecto...

Kung fu Panda and symbolism   It is important to be aware of what we are teaching children through media. More so for teenagers and adults, because we have forgotten about what we knew as children. On the surface, Kung fu Panda seems like a funky animation movie with witty comebacks and great action sequences. But it is so much more. The Dream The movie starts with Po's dream which really is his life’s dream, to become a Kung fu warrior. He imagines himself to be the opposite of what society deems him capable of. “ Never had a panda been so loved or feared.” In the dream, he is fierce, swift in his actions and defeats his foes easily. This is how he pictures himself.   The Panda is a stand-in for the whole race which is overlooked because of their body weight and structure. It points to the concept of body shaming and how readily we judge the other person’s capabilities based on what is visible. How many times have you thought that someone was not...

I was introduced to the U.S. College admissions in my Grade 10 when I saw an Instagram advert of Stanford. The pandemic was still raging and that was my excuse for not being able to work on my extracurriculars which were practically none. I postponed the activities to next year, the year 2021. I look back and think how naive I was. I was waiting for schools to open and blissfully waiting. The next year came and the situation still seemed bleak. It was then I realized that I cannot wait for things to go offline. My final exams of a grade that was spent online got cancelled and I was free by mid April. I was so fickle minded when it came to which college degree I wanted to have. All I knew was I wanted to study abroad. My junior year school admissions were postponed too. For a while I was happy about being cut off from the tethers of board exams. But satisfaction does not stay for long in my mind. When May came I was frantic about my extracurriculars. I was so desperate fo...

  Reading is so simple. Just pick up a book, find a corner and read. Yet when you are running a race to finish, it becomes agony. I have always struggled with impatience which was why I couldn’t read as novels as a child. I have been taught to read since I was a child. Or so I thought. I was taught to decipher the alphabets written in clumps called words, stringed together in a sentence. But merely understanding the apparent meaning is not enough when reading through a novel. I use the word through because that is what I did. Not reading it but reading through it. Flipping through the pages, their numbers adding like on a tally sheet marking a point for me. Ultimately, I would score the final goal and close the book, only to feel dissatisfaction. I had raced through the book treating it like a challenge,  wrestled with it rather than trying to experience the novel. The loss of an experience that should have been effortless but I ignored with added effort, is disheartenin...

Poetry is foolish, It is unnecessary. Why waste your time In metaphors and rhymes When you could be out there Doing law, engineering or medicine Saving lives and making your life. But what are you saving them from? What is this sickness that invades our body It festers in each one of us You could call it melancholy. But that is not the cause, Only the symptom. Why do I feel this yearning? Something I cannot define Yet I have never felt anything so whole Why do these words relinquish yours? Act as a balm and soothe your spirit With the knowledge that someone, Somehow, somewhere out there Understands. Buried emotions, intruding thoughts, The wonders the world has to offer, Raging desires, drowning sadness, Poetry has it all. But is it necessary? It teaches you not to get something out of life. But to live life itself. It translates the humdrum of daily routine, Into a couple of words and stanzas. It quietens the buzz in your head. It makes your long uneve...

I don't think I have really lived my life. I take the happenings in my mind seriously, yet the rest of the world seems to flash by, in front of my eyes. It leaves marks on my body or rather I do, which I recollect in solitude, giving proof to beliefs of my existence. The wounds validate me. Of my humanity in their vulnerability. It is a strange world I live in, elusive yet impactful emotionally. The tumult I undergo are unseen by the world Soon forgotten when I look back. I recount the events that occurred in my lifetime, unaware of my folly, as half my life was lived inside. Inside a shell. A womb that fails to protect me. One that hurts me, more than I care to remember. I am hurt yet do not know why. I am melancholic, perhaps that's the way it's meant to be. I am satisfied with what I have made my life to be. It is mine, I dare say. I can hand it over, give it up any moment I please. Yet for the time being, I choose to be. The em...

I am nostalgic for a time, I never had. Imagination is the only friend  of the poor. It allows us to escape  the bleak existence, life carves out for us.

They say words can't kill you, Yet why do they cut me, Make me bleed, The sorrows that rise and fall, They do because of these, These shapeless carriers of humanity. A sentence made me lose my father, A rejection letter took away my peace. 'We regret to inform you....' Save the rest! Oh please... The rest is obscure, futile For these few words have chipped Away my heart. Its pieces are infinite . A potpourri of unlived feelings, Of murdered desires, discarded emotions And love.  Lots of it. Ah! It makes such a mess. I marvel at its ability to wound itself It is majestic even in its death. It may appear sudden but it Had it coming for quite a while. I marvel at how far It has limped along, Cracking deeper and deeper Until it broke apart. I fixed it with words I did not believe, The very substance that brought Me to my knees. I strap it together Because I need it to live my life I cannot afford to give it up It is a luxury that is given to some...

She smiles even if it kills, Her from inside. She laughs when she would  Rather cry. The tears she weeps  Are hidden from the world Or rather the only part of it She really loves. Her children, her offsprings Living the life she dreamed  To be worthy. Then tears rise but they are not of  Regret but pure joy That comes from Living a life To witness something  That fills her heart With love, happiness  And then she cries Her children are free to fly The climb has flattened  And so recede the battle cries She has lived her life with might And now the reason is walking by Around her, saying goodbye. She waves them away  Walking towards the horizon, The horizon that they had broadened  And now they recede into oblivion.  The sun is setting on her life The sunrays shimmer away like  Forgotten shadows. She closes her eyes To drift off into gentle slumber For tomorrow she has to wake up Again and face life. The sun is gone,  The shore ...

The world is more real when I am sad, The edges are more defined  I have to stay wary of them. They will cut me and I will trip On pebbles that look like milestones  Then my spirit weakened by curses Will falter.  It will break down Like an old engine  With its parts rusting with despair I will be a sight to see To poke and laugh. My failures will be put up  When I try to get back up at my feet To remind me how filthy I could be.  At my lowest, when everything seems dull It becomes black and white and I see the true colors of life  The way it was meant to be seen. Truth persists, when everything else breaks down  And down and down it goes To float away in the draining spirit.  I jump among the few rocks  Jutting from the spewing gutter My eye is at the end of the tunnel  I see light. It teases me Lures me to come closer I let it fill and consume me But not so much that it blinds me. It tempts me to be in awe, To worship the only tru...

Grow I did not grow up, I grew out of you. Your nitpicking job, Your superior self,  Your judgment set in stone,  Your loving clasping around my throat.  I did not grow up,  I grew out of you.  My planned life in your head, My potential already decided, Did not let me grow But I did, I did.  Your false sense of control,  Did not let you see, That my horizon was broadening,  My gaze was set far, Far, far away, A place where your fears could not seep in, And become my own. Fears that I had to carry on my back, Blaming myself for weakness, Unaware of its imposition, Unaware of the game Of you and me burdening each other With ignorant lies.  You did not let me go, You never have and never will. But my wings are made to fly, And fly they will,  Despite your proposed love, Binding them.  I stand on the shore,  Sun rising, spreading through the dark clouds, Are the clouds above or in my head? I do not know. The sea spreads vast. I loo...

Not every self help book is right for you. Reading self help books are all the rage these days. If you’re not reading them, you may feel you’re doing something wrong or that you are not on the road to success. Do not follow the herd mentality. Just because the book is a bestseller,  doesn't mean it's right for you. Out of the multitude of books, you should focus on your niche, like I needed to build better habits so I chose Atomic Habits because the idea of making small changes resonated with me. I easily get overwhelmed so this was a good starting point. The number of books you read doesn't matter. Somebody I know boasts of having a shelf full of business productivity books, yet I have never seen him implement any principle. His bank account always has a red line and loans that should have been paid years ago are still pending. He is sinking under his constantly piling debt especially due to the recession from the pandemic. When you feel the urge to pile up...