Commotion of Emotions

                Dear Dad,                                 It is my birthday on the sixteenth and I asked mother for a gift. She said that I would be turning six and I should stop acting like a small baby and should stop thinking of mat-rels-tic gifts. Then I told her I did not want an expensive toy because I know she does not have the money to buy it. I asked her for me to spend a day with you. She argued at first but when I said I would run away with the gremlins, she finally agreed but only allowed me to stay out for three hours. Mom tells me you have a lot of money but don’t share with her. Please buy me the red toy train at Gilbert Studio for my birthday. I will send this letter with Mr. Agnes. Mom does not know about it and please do not tell h...

Ten years ago, as I sat explaining my interviewer as to why didn’t I build my career as a photographer, I was troubled. It was tough for me to leave photography, especially when I had knit dreams of marrying it. Coming from a neat, down-to-earth background, I had somehow gathered the audacity to start a revolution in my family, by doing something out of the box - photography. Of course I was criticized; Almost on a daily basis. But I held on to it extensively. I stood alone, so as time passed, I weakened. I was shattered when I couldn’t get into National Geographic’s course focusing on cultural photography. It was my only hope to escape the monotony, and shut everyone up once and for all. But I had failed in it. It was in this moment of weakness that my father convinced me to sit for an interview for a clerical job. I was always good at studies; I was destined for such a job. And so, when the interviewer asked me “Why did you leave photography?”, I faked an answer just as a...

Because it is easier to pretend than to explain. Because it is easier to babble than to listen.  Because it is easier to turn away than to feel. Because it is easier to complain than to solve.  Because it is safer to blend in than to stand out.  Because it is easier to wear masks than to show a face.         Masks Masks atop masks, And a thousand more. All of a different paints, All paints with three tints. Masks greatly designed, To imitate real faces. From the good to the bad, From the sad to the glad. Masks for all, From friends to foes. To let not know the real face, To let blend into the worldly disgrace. Masks producing characters, And so - new faces. For every individual put on a masquerade, Let not reveal that's nurtured in depths. Masks hiding truth, Lies are easier told. So much beauty in a lie, So much violence when truths untie. Masks are used, Or rather masks use. All pesti...

Sometimes I wake up at midnight and roll over the bed to realise where I am. Sometimes I find her asleep, sometimes she’s gone. I start thinking of when I met her. It had been only a month since I had joined the creative department of our city newspaper, when she followed. A new joinee. As time passed, I realised that she was like me. A Hypocrite! Perhaps she understood that I understood this, and kept her distance from me. She had a particular group of friends; I mostly stayed aloof. I’d look at her when she’d be looking away and from the corner of my eye, I noticed her doing the same. Two years had we worked together, but barely exchanged personal words. Until one night. A long time ago, I had been in severe depression, tending to paranoia. I knew the world was consp iring against me. How could it not? They had proved it to me! I remember one day waking up on a hospital bed with a doctor questioning me why I hadn’t eaten for a week. I didn’t remember that; all I rem...

Never had the moon shone so bright in my entire lifetime. Bigger and brighter it was indeed, down pouring its lusty glow to entice innocent dreamers to swim into their hopes and majestically drown in them. Making them believe the impossible was possible and in the process, relieve them of their unnatural belief of changing the system. I had long decided that the way of the elders was not necessarily the right way. In the city, I had learned to nurture a conscience of my own. Therefore in a streak of hope to change my life I decided to tell father everything. "Father" I went out to the garden and whispered to him. “Yes.” “I want to tell you something.” “Yes.” The silence of the moment seemed infinitely long, but I knew I had to break it. “I do not want to marry Vinay.” “What? Why?” “I wish to continue my studies in the city.” “You can do that after marriage”, Father was a good man, he understood me more than anyone else I thought, bu...

How could she forget the labour of nine months in nine dull days? Every moment of every day was planned for, there were no provisions for mistakes. Yet something went wrong. I do not know what. But these nine days, she cried like a baby. Erratic sobs from her room struck me like a thousand needles. I climbed up the bed and sat next to her – quiet. I was never much of a talker. I never understood the working of a language – words. So all I did was look her into the eye and caress her. These nine days made me realize how even the strongest of souls have their limits. I had never seen her crying since the day we met, which was almost five years ago. People appeared from time to time, but the flat was left mostly to us. Every morning she made me a breakfast of cereals and milk usually, and we ate together. She would go out for work then and I’d miss her dearly for the next few hours. Every day she returned I’d hug her and smile to her. She seemed annoyed sometimes, but...

Like the Triassic and Jurassic period, we have today entered the Anthropocene period. It basically means that now, whatever happens to the planet would be a result of our activities. Climate change, Global Warming are natural phenomenon and have occurred before humans existed. What we have done is highly accelerate these phenomenons. What should be unfolded in millions of years, is done in a few centuries. We have already used 100M years worth of fossil fuels from the Earth. And the best part is, it's not the big industries and organisations that use the most energy, that produce the most waste. It is us! Doing our everyday activities, using or wasting energy, mindlessly treading the land, polluting places we visit, wasting food, buying products we don't need and the list goes on. If we can change even one thing, say recycling products instead of throwing them away, we can make a massive difference. It's the little things done by the lot that count. The future is in our h...

So many people are living inside a box. When asked why, they bombard you with an array of problems, excuses rather. The main fear is of becoming different. Different and straying away from what they are 'destined' to be. A boring metronome beats every minute every day and people are fine with it because that is what 'everyone' is doing. Traumatised by 'everyone' they forget that they ARE EVERYONE! And so they are trapped in this never-ending cycle of fear. You may do anything with your life, but the problem arises when this fear affects every biotic element on the planet. And that is bad. What You Do and Don't You shouldn't do this - its off charts, You shouldn't do that - show some regard! You shouldn't scream at them, Neither should you stroll their helm; You should not do it different, Should you not do it in the same current? You shouldn't question, Should not hold place for inquisition; But only you should dis...

James Wise was never exhilarated by matters involving plethora of money. He had seen what greed and power could do to people – to good people. And this was a lesson learned rather recently. Having lost his mother at the age of three, he had learned the fundamental truths of the world, the hard way – sometimes through his house maid Rosetta, and sometimes through sheer experience. The only thing he had learned from his father, was the kind of person he didn’t want to be. His childhood memories of his father only included him sitting at the chintz sofa with a bottle of brandy and a translucent glass on the deodar wood table. In the early days, Mr Edward was entirely occupied by his business that involved buying goods from the city and selling them at reasonable prices in the town. Rosetta looked after James throughout. Only when Mr Edward returned home at eight every night, would he chastise Rosetta for the skerrick, but never appraised her for the mammoth work she’d accomp...

“That’s it! I’m done!” exclaimed Ravi as he thwacked the pitcher down on the deceitful table. “What’s your story today?” asked Neel saving the beer from falling out of the jug. “Same old! That selfish brainless boss of mine! Sometimes I wish to strangle her to death with these very hands and spend the rest of my life in jail, at peace” he strangled the jug instead. “Ah!” Neel interrupted him as he poured a pint out to soothe the daily victim of a horrendous crime, “If you murder her now, you will probably go to jail in your fifties in this country!” “I don’t have that kind of money, or contacts” he took a quick glance at his friend. “But I do”, he replied “Cheers to me and my bill paying friend!” They clanged their glasses hard enough to grab a nearby loners’ attention, who was rather busy, heavily concentrating on the newspaper. He looked at the two in shallow rancour, but the two were too occupied to look back at him. “That despicable bitch!” he ...

                                                                  Tim and Pumeet On one side of a busy city street stood Tim and Pumeet. Traffic hauled up and down the infinitely long four lane road, as they quaintly waited for the signal to turn red and the traffic to stop. But traffic never stops in India. People who valued time more than their lives crossed the road anyway, while the more intelligent and 'time-rich' ones used the footbridge above. Five minutes had the two wasted arguing how Tim had realised beforehand that visiting the government hospital was a bad idea. The mere density of people inside was enough to scare them away; let alone the eerie vibes and the pungent smell of expired medicine. The world moved in a rush, but Tim and Pumeet stood still, starting at it. An element from the hoi polloi, ...

                                                                                                ‘Eid’ literally translates to celebration. It is a unique, placid festival from a religion that allegedly is bent on destroying world peace. Ironically, the root word of Islam means peace, making it one of the most misunderstood religion. Eid does not commemorate an event in history, but demands a share of sacrifice each year – Ramadan. Fitr means breaking a fast and hence ‘Eid-ul-Fitr’ defines the celebration of the breaking of fasts, or the end of Ramadan. A typical Eid morning starts with bathing and cleansing oneself followed by a light diet of dates and sewai, mostly. People from all around the town, or city start gathering at diff...