Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts

Sunday, 14 September 2014

Yarns 9






He stands under the roof of a renowned book stall, selling pamphlets, featuring his compilation of essays. 

Some students come and hand over a five rupee coin, out of pity, take the pamphlet and leave.

After a tired day, he exists and steps out. The sight of strewn pamphlets brings tears to his eyes. 

He realises that money not the only thing, that an artist needs to exist.

-Sayantan Datta

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Boo Radley

Boo Radley

-Shriyank Mulgund


When I was young, I read about a certain Arthur 'Boo' Radley.
This Radley character was indeed a curious one.
They said he stayed locked up in his little room all the time.
Said he'd been that way for twenty-five years,
Said he stayed that way because he wanted to.
I was young. And baffled, yes.
Why would someone do something like this?
Stay locked up and miserable for so long,
Not wanting to come outside and see the world.
Not wanting to play, like other kids, like myself.
So, in my mind, I asked Boo Radley why.
He said nothing.
Just smiled a knowing smile.


When I grew a little older, I scoffed at him for being the way he was.
Called him names.
Made ridiculous self-assumed conclusions about the cause of his condition.
I tried to convince myself that he wasn't quite right in the head.
But,
In my mind, he continued smiling his knowing smile.
And though I didn't show it,
His smile aggravated me.
And so, I resolved to forget him.
Cast him to some remote and apparently inaccessible corner of my conscience.


Last night, I turned as old as Boo Radley was when I first met him.
I haven't seen much of the world.
No, I'm not the old hermit I am supposed to be.
After my last cup of coffee, I locked myself up and threw the key away.
Locked myself up in my little room,
Like Boo Radley had been,
All those years ago.
As I turned the key in the lock,
He smiled at me.
And,
I smiled back.



(Inspired by Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird')


Thursday, 11 September 2014

Confessions Of An Uneducated Queer


Confessions Of An Uneducated Queer

- Zuniga




I am a queer living amongst queer. Hence, am not queer. The queer is the most unqueer thing in this world.


-Sayantan Datta


Sunday, 7 September 2014

Yarns: 8

It's sheer great luck to be born as 'human'.

This is the best a soul can aspire for, and get.

"Flamboyance", said the wise.



-Sayantan Datta

Saturday, 6 September 2014

Yarns: 7



A thousand rebukes later, she decided to take the drastic step.

The world now knew she was a victim. The world now knew she didn't have a perfect hymen, body or soul.

Today, she has a family.

The world isn't that bad, they say. 

-Sayantan Datta.



Saturday, 30 August 2014

Yarns: 5



With a gleam in his eyes and a beaming smile on his face, he looks at me and says, "I'll be a big doctor, one day." 

I smile, trying to stop my tears.

As the nurse drags away, five year old AIDS ridden Kamal, I realise how 5-year old dreams hurt.

-Sayantan Datta





Thursday, 28 August 2014

A HUMAN

A HUMAN


I wish I could flash a brilliant smile and say, "Well that sure did make me stronger" to every heart break that I have encountered. I wish I could gulp down the hitch and speak the truth, however harsh. I wish I could speak without being tongue tied, scream all the things that I am afraid to say. I wish I could bare my heart just as easily as I guard it. I wish I could not fall out of love just as easily I fall in love. I wish I could say with conviction that nothing fazes me. I wish I could say that sleep came easy to me instead of at 3:00 am and then too spend the night tossing and turning plagued by memories. I wish I didn’t search for validation or a home from someone. I wish I didn’t need music so loud that I can’t hear myself think. I wish I could have a seamless train of thought in my mind and not a raging hurricane. I wish most of the lessons I learned came from books and not from people. I wish I didn’t waste so many years trying to get accepted or unnecessary rebelling. I wish I could die only once. I wish I could challenge life to beat me and run against time. I wish I could but I can't. I am bursting at the seams. Decomposing and disintegrating like a perishable being. I am, unbelievably, a human.

A human who can climb, run, fly, dive, grope, slip, stumble, but, heaven forbid, walk. I am unbelievably a human and undeniably so.


-Maupali  Khan.


Saturday, 23 August 2014

Poem: Before the moment passed away

Before the moment passed away

-Nilesh Mondal



Have you some time for me,
Then I shall write you,
a tiny little love song,
that smells like you,
 that talks like you,
and when you tickle her
she giggles
a giggle that grows old
with lofty brown pinewood trees of discourse,
 And I shall write
A tiny little love song,
a tiny little,
and a little tiny, song,
 with finger tipped in sonatas and star-sap,
That roll off dull white poem paper,
like trickling syrup sweet,
And I shall write a love song,
For you,
 Of smiles with frayed ends
and freckles of playful frolicking
that border silk smooth
smooth silk aanchals,
And I shall write a love song,
For me,
 Of recurring dreams and wanderlust
that dissolves in my blood like Tutankhamen's tears,
And I shall write you,
a tiny little love song,
that shall shine through winter evenings,
like gas lamps in Paris,
 that shall grow up in deeply drunk dreams,
like rusty red lighthouses,
that shall take you by your hand,
 and rain down on you every August,
And I Shall write you a tiny little love song that shall sing
Wait a little on the threshold of my heart,
For ages later
Peace has breached it's doorsteps again.



Wednesday, 20 August 2014

A White Light In This Dark Grey World

A White Light In This Dark Grey World

-Shreshtha Chakraborty


We are from different worlds, in a different place.
Yet, it's surreal how we merge in a way.
In this grey fairytale of mine, I am your queen.
Together, we rule, much to our suitors' chagrin.
You are my dark armour-clad knight, on a mystical white horse,
And I would be the damsel in distress, s'il te plait.
The moonlight frames your silhouette in monochrome,
Shaping a gilded perfect profile of a sculpture, that is mine to own.  

Sunday, 27 July 2014

THAT BENCH IN THE PARK


THAT BENCH IN THE PARK



"When I moved a step closer,you moved two
 Now when you have moved a step away,shouldn't I move two?"
That was she was thinking. The calculation was easy. They always are. But each time she failed to understand them, fool that she was. When people told her she was building castles in the air she replied that she would fly up to them. When they said that Sahana, that was her name, would leave her just like others did---that was what calculations said and was inevitable, she jeered at them. It was their turn now. About ten days have passed since then. She often sees Sahana on the streets now, with Partho. And each time those words come rushing back to her. When Sahana smiles at her, she tries to look through it and find her Sahana,the Sahana that she had known for all these years. But each time she fails abysmally. That day is clear in front of her eyes as if it has just happened. It was the last day of spring when she had gone and hugged her from the back in that bench in the park. People watched with curious eyes, they always did, but they hardly cared. It was the first time that Sahana moved away instead of hugging her back. It was then she felt the signs of impending doom. It had hardly taken seconds for her world to fall apart. It was funny cause that was the world which she, sorry, they had lovingly built over the years and now it lay shattered. Though she doesn't clearly remember each word Sahana spoke but she remembers she ended with this- "we will definitely keep meeting like friends do and moreover, you see, the re-enforcement of Article 377 will make things more difficult for us."

Monday, 21 July 2014

The Eternal Bliss

The Eternal Bliss

-Natasha Ahmed




A tiny little life fell from the sky today

He was slow, yet he was a ray of hope; a life saviour.
He fell from the sky wet-ting my palm, which for the world was not disallow.
I felt embracing 'em tight to my arms,
Soon he called for his comrades, and formed a large army.
Attacking the city will a fierce storm, they clattered against the roofs of the city.
It rained torrentially, returning Life to the dead trees, the shrinking river, the tired flowers,
And proved to be a Bliss, past the destructive hours.
The relief was still breathtaking,
and the rain thanksgiving.
As the rain was brought down on the parched earth,
I felt an unbearable lightness, and....
The peace
The relief
And an Eternal Bliss....

Saturday, 19 July 2014

Don't Fall For the girl who writes

Don’t fall for the girl who writes



Don’t fall for the girl who writes.

Saturday, 12 July 2014

I Will Return


I Will Return

-Yashraj Talan



The evening was cold and the breeze chilling
Her eyes were wet as if they were conveying
Conveying the love she had always felt,
The flurry of ecstasy she wanted to share,
The beautiful smile she would forever bear.
Bear the smile with an aimless sight,
Unaware of the world and its enduring plight.

She wanted to be one with his soul for eternity
To feel the flutter of heartbeats racing,
The joy of unity and incessant gazing
Into his eyes, deep and hazy.

O Time do stop and the moment freeze,
Was all she was asking at the brink of peace,
Let this maze of life never end,
Let his hands be in mine at length,
Let me for this once get my worth,
Let no tears bring pain to his world.
Let us share our happiness a little more,
Let every pain, every fear perish
Be buried into an abyss, never to return any more.

He looked at her and their eyes met.
He held her arms and forgot the mess,
The mess of gory, of war, of life
That was to part and destroy two lives
Whose crime for sufferance was to have loved,
To have promised to protect for having fallen in love
And walk in togetherness come what may
But today, he had to go, go away to cast off the clouds of dismay.

“I will return,” his stammering voice could hardly speak.
She looked down, had she grown so weak,
So weak to lose her trust, the trust she put in him devoid of buts?
Why was she such a maudlin, why losing faith,
Faith in his promise, true words of her soul mate?
The man stood up and spoke one last time,
“I will return again,” he told her with a smile
And he walked away, far away
With a gun in hand to face the violence, all unafraid,
To destroy the barriers that separated the world,
That had stained it with fear and blood.

With violent thuds of a sniper’s bullets
The man collapsed in the mayhem’s bash.
His courage was failing; his body tired,
Tired of struggling in the combat.
He remembered his promise, his promise of return
To her company of bliss, but he could not live to his word.
He sighed in the throes of the piercing pain
The pain of bullets and his heart’s longing too faint,
Too faint to be heard, too faint to be entertained.
And thus his soul left behind all pain
And flew above into light, high above the clouds bringing rain−
Washing away the red, all the red of pain.

Hearing of her loss the girl could not bear,
Out of the thirst to meet him she stood up in despair
And jumped into battle with a desire to be fair,
To be fair to his valiant efforts and his every promise
Of to give her the world at the moment’s notice.
She felt a searing pain of a bullet’s pierce
That hit her chest and down she fell
To leave the struggle and battle of life so fierce.

Perhaps the limits of time could never have stopped the two
For they met in heaven, their souls so true
So true to their commitments and love for each other
That not even God could distance them from each other.
They loved and lived for a wonderful eternity
And showed the world that love, indeed, is true.



Friday, 11 July 2014

Light at Day's Dawn

I was aroused suddenly from sleep. The night was intensely dark and quiet. I felt that there was someone else in the room. I tried to switch on the light, but my wrist was seized……….

And at once I knew it was him.

The little moonlight that strayed in from somewhere made him look like the perfect sculpture ever. His eyes were down, with a deep touch of dismay. A long silence bore down between us, sometimes interrupted by the heavy rustle of grass. I kept staring at his face, and he fixed his gaze on the floor. His lips twitched a bit at the corners, and he finally began, “It’s hard for me to do this, terribly hard, but I’m persevering this time.” He let out a sigh.

Moving his eyes towards the edge of my bed, he couldn't withhold his chuckle, “You‘re reading this again?” He raised his brows. There, at the edge of my bed laid carelessly my torn legacy of “The Notebook.”
“Yeah.. Um, I jus- I just cannot go on without it.”

“It’s good that you think of going on.”

“Just trying to be a little Optimistic..” my voice broke at the last word.

“I think I should leave now. It’s almost dawn .”

He advanced towards the balcony, ready to leave. I couldn't help but say, “Are you coming back again?”

He turned to look at me, a heavy look of grief on his face.

“No” he said. And then he was nowhere.

I sat there on my bed, in dim moonlight, breathing in the scent he had left behind… The coming back of Soviets to power, achievements of the big ideas of the Czechs, the political disturbance at Budapest, today had caused my love, refugee from Communist Hungary, to come meet me for the last time. He had just announced his departure forever.
Silent tears rolled down my cheeks, and I looked at my wrist which had been under his hold a few minutes ago, the feelings still not very comprehensible. But there was one thing , which I was totally certain of now…

“No more hallucination. No more pills.”

-Natasha Ahmed


Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Love In Grey World

Love In Grey World
-Shriyank Mulgund


Lets fall in love because there's nothing else to do,
I'm broken on the inside and so are you,
Pick up the pieces and try to be whole again,
Together we might achieve what no one can,
Give me your soul and let me join it with mine,
We'll brew a spirit more potent than any known wine,
And drink it little by little, every day,
In goblets deep, under skies grey,
And dance to the music of our own heartbeat,
Till we collapse, tired, with sore feet,
For, in our world, there shall be no dawn,
No Sunshine, no hypocritical Sun-spawn,
Only Clouds shall rule the Sky, dark and grey,
Darkness will prevail, be it night or day,
And in a black tower, we'll have our black thrones,
Side by side, We'll rule our world,
Eliminate the hypocritical human herd,
And lend the essence of our dark spirit to the clouds above,
And fill our goblets when it rains,
And drink and dance all over again,
And collapse one final time when we're at Forever,
And in the dark dirt of our Grey World,
Be buried under the clouds,
Together.


Tuesday, 8 July 2014

THE GREEN THEORY


Skadoosh! Bang Bang Bang! Down went the windows! BOOOOM, and a missile blew Uncle John’s car. No it wasn’t a science fiction movie, it was happening for real. With no place to hide and no place to run, petrified and helpless cries of people begging for mercy was aloud in  the 16, Manhattan street,a place usually known for its jostle and extravagant living standards. BANG! DOWN, went something again, I lost the count, I fairly remember fainting as a gas bomb struck our doors like a blizzard.