Resting my brain under a weeping willow.

The elegiac nature of self writing verses terrify me. What does it take to meet their ends? As a child, I was seldom confronted with questions. Trifle bits swallowed me in entirety. A few secluded summers back, I blurted out, "What if the sea takes me away?" In a gentle reprimanding fashion, I was told that the sea was a selfless wayfarer. It grieved in giving, in giving it growled. "The sea never snatches anything away. Nor lands, neither the people. The sea is a giver. It draws in the mischievous, only to pave their return. No one drowns into disappearance in the sea. Situated within the bellies of the patchy blues lies a country of men dressed in blues. They sharpen their armour with corals and sing Bhatiyali tunes. They are the rescuers." I have been keen on writing my own elegies. If I go, I would like to know beforehand. In disbelief, I had tucked open a square handkerchief off my brooch, crouching down to the waves and letting it sail away. I had waited a for...

I am eating an amloki to stop myself from going insane.  I spot a gigantic iron jackfruit placed in front of a hawker's hub. A young girl in a frilled frock lightly tucks at my dress, pestering me to buy a red rose. Dusk descends down the slope, slanting into a rosy tint on her cheeks. I like being called didi . I fancy being called names that aren't mine. It must be quarter to six at Delhi now. The men sit in herds and hunch around the fire like a Nainsukh painting. The chirps phase out in a grey swathe of darkness as a swarm of hands reach out for three cups of chai hastily placed on the canteen counter. There, the nights last longer. The air smells of burning twigs and the tinkling sound of bicycle wheels grow closer. My new cycle lies ruptured in the parking lot, pushed to a marshy corner where the water leaks erupt and rust her bells. I have been away for way too long now.  This evening, my professor urges me to call her didi . I think she fancies names as well. Placed p...

The desire to be dictated is a brand new feeling. To tackle the birth of a feeling so enormous is to cradle it whole in a scoop, to slouch still and quiver. I have started to write here because I want to fear things larger than a blank sheet of paper. I want to fear losing a friend over a mid-morning conversation, but the thought of butter running rancid, flowers that arrive as gifts shrinking into a skeletal contour worries me sick. If the home fires do not last long, how should I brew my tea for two? How must I comfort this unannounced visitor, this feeling? Be my guest? Drink my tea. Use my cups. Wear my socks. Shapeshift into my bed. Tell me I have bad eyes. Squinty and pale. Arch into an U shaped territory. Take my name with gnawing teeth, jumble it all for me.  Morning at four, I plop into your flesh. We play unscramble through the cracked phone screen. Coterminous. Ominous. Bituminous. Fiddle sticks. A sick cat rubs her nose on my feet. This is my birth month and I am contes...