Original fiction & poetry by me and my notes on writing challenges like NaNoWriMo, April A2Z, NaPoWriMo and Novelrace.
I’ve often pondered what love & romance really mean. The factory-produced stories don’t deliver the kind of intimacy I wanted. And relationships are judged by how you met, how long you stayed together, how many people liked you as a couple and million other quantifiables. My stories never fit those….
A house that is a warzone. A courtroom for custody battles. Dumping ground for other people’s pain.
Harshaman’s Stories talk about feeling the tug between two places – one that feels like home and one that is dutifully home. It took me back to my own crossroads when I was the age he is at now.
I have poems by old lovers,
not about me
not the loves,
not the poetry.
I have lived my whole life in a crowded suburb of a busy metropolis. What I make up in opportunities, I lack in inspiration. The real struggle underlying the fights for space, time & money is keeping your spirit alive. It is eroded, drop by drop, cell by cell, in…
An ode to disappointing idols, to deified affections, to desecrated loyalties,
We must find our rituals of peace. We must find them in incompletion. We must create them in unpeaceful conditions. We must if we must breathe easy, sleep easy, live easy. Mine are domestic chores. There’s something about mundane domesticity that counteracts my dramatic larger than life. It grounds my…
Iβve been in so many conversations. Iβve come back overflowing with so much. Wisps of other people clinging to me. They turn into dreams, into nightmares, into fantasies, into nagging nameless worries. Then someone says hello and they pass. I started to worry about losing myself in you, in them,…
This poem was written to the prompt ‘ΰ€ΰ€Ύΰ€°ΰ€€ ΰ€ΰ€Ύΰ€ΰ₯ΰ€― ΰ€΅ΰ€Ώΰ€§ΰ€Ύΰ€€ΰ€Ύ ΰ€ΰ₯ΰ€ͺ ΰ€Ήΰ₯’ (Bharat Bhagya Vidhata chup hain).The Indian national anthem addresses the ‘Bharat Bhagya Vidhata’ (the benefactor of India’s destiny). This prompt suggests that the benefactor is silent. Trigger warnings: My poem contains other references to the national anthem &…
πππππ§π‘ππ‘πβ‘ It feels wrong to speak of rainbows. To write about them is like trying to put a net around the breeze, to attempt to scoop up sunlight in a bowl. I have seen but a handful of rainbows and even that feels incorrect to say since I’ve never grasped…
You are made for instant love stories,for picture-perfect odes,for sweet-scented songs,for candy smiles& dimple kisses I carry a pen dipped in bloodA shiv serves a chalkas I punk upa symmetric story& make it minewith a sweaty handprint Which is why I say nomore often than hell yes!(the only yes I…
Little bits of crueltydrop off your wordslike ice shardsoff a glass of nimboopanithat still has a sliver or twoof lemon floating in itΒ And I hesitate to point it out I want to pick it out of your beingBefore you taste your own sournessBefore you have to swallowyour imperfectionsAnd before the…
This was written for the prompt Sweet | given by Girish Krishnakumar for Alphabet Sambar’s weekly themed mic room. ~O~O~O~O~O~O~ Sweet Tooth. I didn’t have one. There was no room for sweetness in my world that demanded the efficiency of kitchen logistics & transactions of nutrition. Or the speed of…
She opens her eyes always into a world of order, just thrown off by the sound of clanging cutlery or a shout from the road outside. Even the disruptions are familiar. She stretches, pushes away her blanket with the kind of precision she knows will lend itself to easy folding,…
When you kiss a friend,they leak out of the chais, cappuccinos, white wines & long island iced teas & camaraderiepast the milestones of recognitionwhere the light switch flicks on in your mind& your friendship mode self turns onand that feels like it would look uncomfortableBut it’s notand you, overarticulate you,…
These carefree whistlersgirls throwing hearts & bodies outto men who will let them falland men who will pick them uponly to throw them backI have been thrown away,thrown over, thrown backI don’t belong here The screaming thundersdripping rage & accusationsto fertile minds that will turn theminto gangrene & cancerThe storms…
I want a new fairytaleFairytales are greatI want a new fairytaleFor every single day Write me a book of fairytalesThat build a universewith bricks of paper,Where love doesnβt feel like a curseRoads of words where hope doesnβt turn into vapourBring me a fairytale I havenβt heard beforeReplenish the wonder I…
Girl, love yourself though it be hard. I know sis, I know, I’m there with you too. Though I don’t quite know how to do this right, I’m learning. And this means unlearning everything we have been taught since birth about what love means, what us means, what I means….
You tell me this is what it means to loveYou say that is love, this is lovingYou point me to poetryas a dictionary for the love languageAnd therapy terminologyto dissect this feeling These my friend,are conversations about love,Not love itself(And note, that I call you ‘friend’,not ‘my love’)Because I’ve read…
Let the waves comeLet the winds blowLet me be soaked, burnt, frozenTrampled by every manner of foe Let the shouts riseLet the voices echoLet there be slogans, insults, criesAnd words that land like blows I will melt, I will breakI will drown, I will searI will bear every wound &…
My Clubhouse room prompt for this week via fellow host Tareque Laskar was SPELLBOUND. For this I cheated (slightly) and blended two of my old posts together. It was an interesting exercise, personally than for my writing since one of the posts was written 15 years ago. I remember feeling…
GHOSTS OVER TEA – a poem
For some months now, Clubhouse has been my new social media toy. It has also been my solace, my refuge during the soul-shattering COVID-19 second wave. I’ve made friendships of a very different kind from any I’ve had before (even counting the pioneering days of chatrooms, blogs & Twitter). Hearing…
When the king falls, and he will fall Another will sit in his place And a hundred others will hold him up & plot his disgrace They will talk about the politics of bodies They will gamble these bodies The woman with five husbands Was shared property & objects have…
We have to separate the feeling from the person who inspires them. We are so literal, we use the words “my love” to describe a sentiment as well as a person. But our feelings are entirely our own, to process, to draw from for poetry, to express in our ways,…
