Nascence

A token of remembrance

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 10:25:28 +0530

It’s amazing how some incidents are etched in my memory through the simplest objects. Like an old radio, bringing back the memories of a 4 pm music show I’d listen to – out of my wish – after coming back from school. Or a wooden chair, reminding me of dadi while she’d sip tea around 4 pm on the porch. Or the parijaat flowers, that take me to the time dadi would pick and keep them on the shelf of our temple that’s full of grandeur. Or the shelf of the temple that, funnily enough, urges me to think of a birdhouse we used to keep there, back in the childhood.

Lifeless through seasons

Sat, 15 May 2021 18:35:40 +0530

I look at this window every now and then
As it reflects different stories on this rectangular canvas.
Seasons change, so do the colour of skies
What does not change are the curtains on the two sides
As lifeless as they could be, through days
The only time they’re lively is
when they flutter with a sudden gust of wind
As if dancing out of joy, after ages of waiting.
But the wind doesn’t come often.
And when it does, the windows shut
To avert the mess inside.
And everything is still, again.
It is like,
I’m the curtain and you’re the wind
And the window is my heart, trying to forget you.

The leap

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 01:06:24 +0530

What’s the best thing
about waking up in the morning?
Is it the sunlit sky
Dripping of the tangerine hue
The scent of coffee, as it brews
Tangled hair that play with cold breeze
The pillow, that smells of your shampoo,
Or is it a respite from long, gloomy nights
Charred lungs, unsettled soul and sunken eyes
A pause button in your dark episode
Or a harbinger of new hope,
Hope, that today would be better
That today would be new,
As fresh as the morning dew
Indeed, the best thing about mornings
Is that you can wake up sober
And knowing, that you can start over.

Red light

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 11:04:05 +0530

Glistening eyes and fragile hands
She was chirpy like a little bird
Giggles echoed around
Across the street, as she swirled

Until darkness clouded her eyes
And hunters found their prey
In a blink of an eye
Was her home snatched away

Woke up to another world
In a small cage, the little bird
Stranger eyes and deafening noise
Fluorescent walls and red lights

Sing to them day and night
For that’s what they do
If they don’t want to die.
Sing to them, forget how to fly
There’s no key to this cage
You will never see the blue sky.

How common is gender role reversal?

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 22:15:57 +0530

There is a woman I know who worked before her marriage. She left her job after marriage but wanted to work again. She tried to convince her new family that consisted of her husband and three other in-laws. The mother-in-law insisted that she can recommence job but she’d still be responsible for cooking for the family of five. They were not ready to have a professional cook. The woman joined a company and worked morning to evening. She’d cook before coming to the office and would repeat the same after going back home.

ओझल

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 03:01:23 +0530

बेरंग सी दिखने लगी सारी सड़कें
जब आंखों से तुम ओझल हुए
मन में कितने ख्याल थे मेरे
जो आसुओं की बारिश में धुल गए
यूं तो सर्दी की शाम थी तब
चाय की चुस्की के बहाने ही रुक जाते
या डर था कि पूछ लूंगी मैं वो सवाल
जिससे तुम हमेशा हो कतराते –
क्या जाना ज़रूरी है?

What if…

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 13:29:09 +0530

If you want to hold me
but I want to fly
If I refuse to bow down
after our little bloody fight
If it’s not my tears this time,
But words, which rain
Tell me darling,
would you still love me the same?

Monsoon evening

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 13:22:22 +0530

After drizzles in monsoon
on some dusky evenings
I’d take you for a walk
For a glimpse of rainbow
And other beautiful dreams.

‘Normal is an illusion’

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:08:02 +0530

Before I raise a point, I want to ask you, who finalizes a major decision at your home? Is it your father, husband or brother? Why – Because they are elder, have more experience or simply because that’s the norm?

I almost never thought about this before, but a look-back shows me how normal it is to accept a male figure’s decision as something set in stone. Of course there have been times when my mother was against a step, but a nod from my father changed her decision. There have also been times when my mother convinced my father for something. But I want to ask – why are women given convincing power and not the power to make the final decision or to refute a statement?

Irreversible

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:20:24 +0530

Don’t look back,
They say,
It’s a tree burning in forest fires,
An unfathomable ocean,
A ramshackled bridge
You’re standing on
That’s breaking loose from one end

Don’t look back,
It’s the past
Irreversible,
Like a flower that’s already bloomed
And as pointless as
A life jacket in a torched room

They say,
Forget about it
It’s like a bad habit
But,

Can a moth unlearn
Drawing towards the flame?
Can sunflowers shy away
From the sun?
Some things are deep rooted
They come without a skip button

In your veins

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:52:19 +0530

Let me grow on you
Like a drug making you high,
Let me run in your veins
Like a painting of summer tree
Consuming the sky.

The Moon

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:48:01 +0530

Crescent or full moon
Caramel or white
Hidden in the clouds
Or taking over the sky
You blatantly claim what’s yours:
The tides of the ocean
And all my attention.

Silhouette

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:46:29 +0530

The moonlight pays a visit
Every now and then
And draws my silhouette
As I look through this frame
Waiting for you –
When will it draw two?

Fragile as a flower

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:44:03 +0530

Buried inside rosy lips
Peeking through emerald-colored hair
Is an artless soul
Lost in vines of thoughts and fears
Get closer, you will find me there.

Sanctum

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 15:41:37 +0530

I never enter here alone now. Along with me enter endless memories that make this place even more sacred to me. I always see you sitting in the corner sewing flowers into a garland, asking me to light a diya. I knew where you kept all your secret offerings, all the new clothes and prasad. I even remember the minutest detail, like how I could never light a matchstick because the matchbox was always covered with diya oil.
I don’t know if worshipping everyday for 10 years made me religious enough, but the most important thing I learnt from you is dedication – to the God, to your family.

फ़रवरी की बारिश

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 22:05:35 +0530

फ़रवरी के महीने में बारिश?
बारिश की बूंदे इस कोहरे भरी खिड़की पर थपकी दे रहीं थीं। रात के सन्नाटे में ये सुकून भरी आवाज़ जैसे एक लोरी की तरह थी। एक तरफ की खिड़की खोली तो मंद हवा एक भीनी सी खुशबू अपने साथ लिए मेरे बिस्तर पर बैठ गई। जास्मिन के फूलों की लगती है। मैं लोरी सुनते सो गई।
सुबह उठी देखा चारो तरफ पत्ते बिखरे पड़े थे। नीम के पेड़ की वो डंगाल टूट कर गिर गई जिसपे गौरैये का घोसला था। जास्मिन के फूल भी टूट कर गिर गए। आज सुबह कोई हलचल नहीं है। लोग धूप में खड़े हो कर चाय की चुस्की नहीं ले रहे। ना ही आसपास के कुत्ते भ्रमण के लिए निकले। दुबक कर, थरथराते हुए, ठंड और बारिश से लड़ रहे हैं।
जिसे मैं मंद हवा समझ बैठी, वो तो तूफान निकला। सोचने का समय ही नहीं मिला और एक तूफान जैसे अपने साथ क्या कुछ ले गया। अब सब कुछ कितना बदला बदला सा लग रहा है।
सच कह रहीं थीं बुआ, अब सब पहले जैसा नहीं लगता।

Christmas Wishes

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 19:41:21 +0530

On a chilly day ahead of Xmas
I was strolling along the street
The night donned fog
And trees played with the breeze

As my podcast stopped playing –
Why’d you only call me when you’re high
Someone broke the silence on the lane
With a deep, hoarse voice

Now I know it’s dark
But who can convince the heart?
I looked for that familiar stranger
Who stopped by the book mart

The tree in my backyard

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 22:43:01 +0530

Slowly,
The creases of my hand
Are erasing the imprints
Of the fingers I’d clench
When I was a child.
The tree in my backyard
Is also shedding leaves
As if ready
To pass the baton
And let them fly.

Slowly,
I’m stepping into a world
Of the unknown,
Of mystical beauty
Of (delusional) freedom.
Those fruits
Have also fallen
On the barren land
Unwary of strong winds
Careless of the season to come.

फाल्गुन की होली

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 23:12:36 +0530

आज फ़िर एक नई सुबह थी। सूरज की रोशनी कमरे के खिड़की के पर्दों से छन कर मेरी बंद आँखों पर बैठ, मेरे उठने का इंतज़ार कर रही थीं। मुझे रोशनी में नींद नहीं आती, ये उन्हें पता था। आखिर उठना ही पड़ा।

कमरे से निकल कर बाहर आई तो देखा कि घर के नीम के पेड़ पर फल लग गए हैं। एक अजीब सी खुशबू है। नीम की? फाल्गुन के मौसम की?

A letter posted to Heaven

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:47:21 +0530

Silver shining hair
And a golden nosering
Vibrant colours on your dress
And also on your crocheted mats
I guess you loved every colour
Just like you worshipped every God you knew.

I still remember the chants you made me learn
And how to bow down before closing the doors of our temple
But you never taught me
How to unsee the void at the porch every evening
And that green wooden chair where now only the dust sits.

You reek of cigarettes.

Thu, 27 Dec 2018 21:19:19 +0530

The doorbell rings
At four in the morning
I reach the door
With blurry eyes
The room smells of smoke
From the candles I lit hours before.

It’s you at the door
Clenching my favourite flowers
Greeting me with a grin
I ask you in my mind
“Where were you last night?
I waited for days and hours
To get a glimpse of this smile.”
Guess you heard me,
Like you always do.
“I was caught up in work”, you say
Giving me reasons for your absence

Meant To Be.

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 22:08:44 +0530

Two sides of the same coin
We’re like a glass of
half water, half wine.

Just as the kettle is meant for tea,
And the hill always shelters cold breeze
Just as every picture has a memory,
Some things are meant to be
Together, inseparable.
Like the green of the forest
Like the sweet in the dessert
Like your hand in my hand
In a 0°C weather.
And I may not ask for perfect endings.

Bayt: Home

Sun, 22 Jul 2018 11:52:36 +0530

She was trying to
Find the oxymoron
To her sorrowful life
As she turned
The pages of the past.
“I will travel the world“,
She had once proclaimed
When asked what her dream was.
Oh, what an irony it seems
That she travelled through countries
From the Arab states to Turkey
And sailed to the beautiful Greek islands
Which were nothing like her home,
Where she woke up to dark skies
And where the alarm
Wasn’t the chirping birds
But deafening explosions
And still, unhappy,
As if she regrets
what she dreamt of.
She now searches for a covert
Which would be her home
But unlike her home
Where faces wouldn’t be so alien
And love and food would be in excess.
And as she takes refuge
In the next alien country
To be persecuted again,
All she wishes for her life
Is to turn from awful
To awfully good.

Summer

Thu, 17 May 2018 21:14:14 +0530

Like a bright light
You came in through my
permeable window-like heart.
I opened it all for you
For flowers to bloom
And darkness to fade
But too much of something
Is bad, they say.
The heat burnt my skin
The flowers wilted
The home of amour I offered you
Was filled with hot air.
Guess you were like summer
Seasonal, transient
Leaving raindrops as you depart
Washing off every trail
But making a promise to come again,
Making a vow to come again.

Nostalgia: Part 2- Spring.

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 12:35:08 +0530

While most people have summers or winters as their favourite seasons, spring is equally admirable to me. An underrated, yet a beautiful time of the year, it is associated with colours. In summers you’ve yellow, sunny days. Winters are all about white and grey. Spring starts with yellow leaves, eventually transitioning trees to green, while I watch the orange flame-like flowers bloom under the blue sky.

Spring brings me memories of childhood. It’s the time of year when I used to have a short vacation before getting upgraded to the next class. I’d walk on the yellow path that the neem tree at my house adorned with its leaves. I’d also regularly observe if the mango tree bore any mangoes, because collecting raw mangoes was definitely one of my and my cousins’ favourite pass times. We have always been enthusiastic about plants, due to which we sowed numerous of them during the time. Before the vacation ended, we’d start preparing ourselves for the summer break. We’d take out our ludo and carrom boards after a year, and start having demo games to be skilled enough by the summer vacation.

She.

Sat, 10 Feb 2018 11:57:27 +0530

Draped in white,
She,
Born in hospital
With all the glee
She bloomed like a flower
Away from thorns
A daughter, a sister
Cheeks, red and curls, brown
Embracing red as she marries
Discovers a life
That’s not about fairies
A brunt of home
She, a wife, a mother
Eyes glisten bright
Hiding all the trouble
She grows old
A stick, no teeth
Her soulmate has died
She’s all bleak
When end comes near
God, they see
Draped in white
She.

Just Another Day

Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:56:25 +0530

You wonder, how resilient
Are those sunflowers
At the backyard
Fighting the winters
To be able to see
The sun, afresh.
I see a sunflower
Everyday, in you
Tackling issues
And waiting in calm
To be ready to bloom
In the morning, yet again.

The story that wasn’t

Sat, 20 Jan 2018 18:54:29 +0530

Twirling to the song,
I giggle endlessly

Trying to plie and flip
As I open my arms
Not sure if
I should move along
To this catchy beat
That’s taking me away
To the world of happiness
As I go on with my sway

What was that phrase
In the ‘Kite Runner’?
“They only let you
be this happy
When they’re preparing to take
Something from you”
Well let’s just risk this once
I will see what to do
So I take a leap
To get in to that place
But guess I’ll fall
And break my legs

Saudade

Thu, 18 Jan 2018 13:41:41 +0530

Years from now I’ll reminisce
How you and I were a thing
Lending shoulders
To sleep and cry,
But got estranged
In a labyrinth
And couldn’t come back.

The Song

Sat, 16 Dec 2017 21:53:33 +0530

You wrote a song for me
Said it entails everything
From what we had since the beginning
You added tunes and jingles
Took all the efforts you could
And presented it to me
On a sunny day, in the woods
I didn’t like it
It broke your heart
Disheartened, you went away
Somewhere far.
Turns out the song
Got imprinted in my head,
I listened to it everyday
Till my death.

Beautiful Things

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 09:56:42 +0530

Some things are beautiful
Only when they’re distant
Like a bee sitting on a flower
Humming a song
Or a radiant sunshine
Constricting your brown pupils
Some love you yearn for
Are too, riveting from distance
The closer love gets to you
You get off the deep end.

Nostalgia: Part 1- Durgashtami

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 23:02:35 +0530

As I sit with a cup of tea on my balcony, I realize it’s my favourite time of the year. With my birthday and Diwali approaching I could sense the festivity in the air, except that this air isn’t something I’m familiar with. I’m habitual of a much higher frequency oscillating in the air, the frequency of the enchanting music playing in durga pandaals in every nook. That’s the difference between a metropolitan and a town. The euphony fades in the noisy, busy city. But it persists in a town in different forms.

Routine

Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:19:15 +0530

An old weighing scale, probably rusted; a mat; notebooks and pencil: That’s what she carries everyday when she leaves home for school at 8 in the morning. As the school bell rings at 2 in the afternoon, all the kids run towards the gate barging each other. She is calm. She wouldn’t run. She has a brunt on her shoulder; not of the weighing scale but of her siblings, her senescent mother. So she can’t afford even a single scratch on the scale lest she falls. She marches to the same spot she’s been sitting on for last 4 months, earning whatever she could with that old machine. She sits on the mat she brings with her and keeps the weighing scale in front of her. Her elder brother sells balloons. At 9 in the night he picks her up and both of them return home.

भाषा: Language

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 23:07:56 +0530

“When people fall into servitude, so long as they cling to their language, it is as they held the key to their prison.” I remember the quote from the story, ’The last lesson’ by Alphonse Daudet from my class 12th English textbook. It says, the only nexus that binds the people together when they’re slaves to a colony is their language. I relate to it as I’ve gone through the Indian history texts- slogans by our leaders, writings by Indian authors have remained the subjects of our study. From freedom fighters to our Prime Minister, everyone has been trying to endorse our native language, Hindi, to bind the country and to use it as an antidote against any external threat.

Kharab Chai

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 00:32:15 +0530

We’ve seen sellers fighting to be the best in the competitive market, trying to serve the best of products and services at customers’ disposal. But how many of you have observed sellers trying to sell the worst?

Years back I was traveling by a train to the holy city of Varanasi. We had entered the borders of Uttar Pradesh and I started observing vendors selling different specialties of their cities. While some offered the famous ‘Agra petha’ others resorted to tea/coffee. Needless to say that Indians, who start their day with tea, wouldn’t deny for a sip or two. Myriad of sellers came to offer tea claiming to be the best. Some accepted the offer, some didn’t.

THE BLUE

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:21:14 +0530

“It’s a good day”,

You come to me and say.

You shine like the sun

Laughing all the way

Vacillating,

Whether to jump or fly?

Fear adulates both

But so do you.

So what if you fall

Into the ocean of misery?

I’m standing

Right where you began

To help you swim through

To the shallow end.

Again you stand, you rise,

For you were destined

To seek the ether of wise.

TO BE AN ICONOCLAST

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 00:34:09 +0530

My periodic meetings with the pupils have let me observe certain similarities amongst them. Everyone seems to have a yearning for art in some way or the other. In the refreshment time everyone would go and fetch colours of their choice and start drawing their imaginations: some would draw houses, some would trace silhouettes on the paper, but some are consummate sketchers. Ankit is one of them. The sketch I’ve shared is his magnum opus-The Ironman. I asked him where he took help from, to which he replied he drew it on his own without looking at any pictures. At the first instance nobody would believe him, neither did I. It was then when he drew a sketch of doraemon in a jiffy that left me awestruck. By doing so he defied the belief that children from marginal family groups can only make good workers. I sensed a scintilla of iconoclasm. Do you sense the same?

The Grin

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 14:45:00 +0530

The beginning of the blog was accompanied with the beginning of a new day for me as a teacher. Yes. My penchant for kids was so irresistible that I decided to teach the children of lower income groups. There’s no denying to the fact that kids are always filled with kind of energy that intrigues you-intrigues your eyes while your eyes start to press you to smile-a complacent grin.

The first two kids were Monu and Nisha. Now if you think such kids are intellectually weak or uninterested in studies, you are in a universe of nescience. They are bright, diligent and I confide in their capabilities. I would be proud to see what my nation could be like in the years to follow if we manage to abate the high-school dropout rates bydiverting a trifle of funds from the sectors like the nuclear sector for a better education system.
While talking to them I asked what they wanted to be when they grow up. Their eyes shined, eager to show me what they could see through their eyes for their future. I was hypnotized by the constant wide grin on their face. “A pilot!” Monu answered. I couldn’t have been more overwhelmed. I didn’t want this statement to be an irony in any way – a child from lower middle class, with meager facilities but intense curiosity, dreams to fly and explore the cosmos of what all he could do from up there. In fact I was right in believing that every child dreams and rejoices in a similar manner and hence,each child is equal in the eyes of God.I recalled one of my train journeys when I was looking through the window and saw a village girl waving a goodbye to all the passengers from her little beautiful hut. The village was remotely located so I’m not sure if she had ever been to school. After an hour I reached a town. It was sheer co-incidence but enough to make me gape when I saw a school boy going back home. While going home he saw the train coming and started waving his hands bidding goodbye-hisfacelightedupwitheuphoriawhileplayingthisgame**.**AtthesametimeIcouldsensehishappinessofgoinghome,reflectedthroughthegleaminhiseyes. It was thought-provoking how every child finds happiness in more or less the same trivial matters unbiased of gender, caste and race. Who is man to categorize or disparage them and choose aspirations for them?

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nascence is about the stories of emergence of dreams. The posts majorly cover my perception of social life, and pieces of my amateur poetry.

About author:

Sakshi is currently pursuing MBA from IIM Kozhikode and is a Commerce graduate from Shri Ram College Of Commerce, Delhi. She loves to contemplate, explore, discuss and write about current issues.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sakshimaurya