A DIFFERENT BEAT

To breathe life into these pages, that once was my abode To paint them with colors of characters I never could be To live the life of children that smell only of goodness To love, to be unrequited in love To celebrate, to be lonely To the words that gave my thoughts the intensity I wanted I bow. To Sanaya, the esteemed who smiled back at life To Munna, so young and tender who is back on her feet To Manish, who happily holds his wife and daughter in his busrides To Surabhi, living life on her terms To all the daughters who fought and lost their battles for us to win the war To Smriti, who is Appu's Vaachi too To Malavika, who no more carries the bundle of that man stories, but memories of a father she never had To Shriya, growing up to dance in the rain and run up the hills To Suchita, who is more than an aspiring feminist To moments of fractured freedom, where hope bleeds To the dreamer that Nandana continues to be and Miriam learnt to become To Preeti's unb

“Either you were late or I was” he heaved into the phone. The voice pierced the last cell in my heart and I bled in tears. “Bye.” He was accelerating his journey away from me, never to return. I bit my lips, cried in soft monotones audible for just two of us. “Don’t hang up, please,” I mumbled. It was beating wild in my heart, the undying flutter of wings. Wings of love, craving to be together. Realization that we would never be husband and wife, would never be one, chained my wings. It hurt me more with each passing microsecond. “I love you,” he said. Every time he had said this in the past, I danced like a child in my heart. The sun would shine right there in the centre of my heart. But this time that very sun was burning my heart. “What use?” I cried. “I know. But, I will love you for ever.” He sounded less guilty than he should have been. Here, he was offering water to my thirsty being for ever, with the condition that I cannot have even a single drop of it. I was waiting

  As I sit and sip my milk coffee in a hotel somewhere in the centre of mainland India, I switch on my thinking self. Yeah, I often do that, maybe I even overwork on that mode. But it is unusually working at this hour. Today is February 14th. Oh I know what your expression must have been (Ohhh is it???? We didn t know!!!). Hmm...that day of the year to flaunt your lover, declare your love and what not. Valentine's Day for me in all its glory has always disappointed. No lover, no roses, no gifts, nothing. Thanks to the person I am. Maybe I put across myself as a very boring person. Sighs apart, I don't know if I am one. The truth stares at me from the cream walls. I have never celebrated a Valentine's Day not because my ideology considers it anti national but for the simple truth that I never had one. I ask myself, So? I don't know what is biting me at the moment. Is it that today is Valentine's day or I have nobody to wish one or something else. I know, I have to w

The Gulmohars bloom When love flowers in the heart of a chaste lass, forlorn in a dream of her own. Her passion intensifies the shade of crimson red. Her innocence contrasts the near green and far blue. The pastel of colour mix reflects her dreams. Love, passion and pangs nourishes the flame! As she looks at the tree, they both sigh in a hushed tone; a love story begins. A never- ending connivance A secret bond A myth to live for ages. When the Gulmohars bloom Love has blossomed its first shower in a heart that beats in a rhythm that only she knows how to hide, and not to seek. The Gulmohars have bloomed The horizon turns red And she smiles beneath its branches.

Pic Courtesy: Sukirti Madhav As rains of hope Stream into my life, I look upon the mountains, and see them green. Near, far and scattered there in unending curves,  they spread a mat. I bounce like a ball,  carefree in and out. Swinging from one tree top to another, the monkey in me is uncontrollable. The leaves listen to me and whisper back. I m elated in heavenly euphoria. Why was I late to bask in this chilling warmth, that the mountain mist hugs me with, I know not. It washes away my doubts and aches, and leaves me pure like never before. Green and white in blessed hue fills me from my head to toe. I look above. He smiled and my world had lit up. In this dawn, I feel the bliss as his smile spreads its rays on the mountain's bosom. I realized, I was not alone; Shaded with a veil, Heaven had kissed his earth.

The smile on her face was still the same, as I had seen her on my 7 th birthday.   But the red lipstick had lost its glow and the fair skin looked a bit tanned. It was not the red glowing sun that had baked her brown as she had been indoors for more than a dozen years. It was the dust and years of negligence. I had once shared my childhood with her. The red saree with its golden spots carefully spun had given bright colours to my dreams I had woven on yarns of childhood games. She looked like a bride in her bright red saree celebrating life with golden bangles, tingling the bell of festivity. She smelt of jasmine.           Now, her beauty is a blurred reflection of the past. The bangles are broken and red saree has faded. She now smells of kerosene that I had once accidentally spilled on her. Her smile did not elicit a smile from me. But I was tempted to pick her up from my closet. There she lay for seventeen years, uncared and ignored among a disorganized collection of posse