Month: June 2016

It’s 11:30 P.M.

It’s 11:30 P.M. And this night is perfect. The wind is just amazing. Moon is at its best and the Street lights! Oh these jewels! Roads are generally not the boasting type but even they can’t help but flaunt them off. Oh what a beautiful night it is! La belle nuit! But you know who’s ruining this  beauty? Not a who actually – A what.

I, I walking alone, I walking alone and I am a woman.

What am I doing here this late? Of course, I shouldn’t be here!  Am I nuts or what?There’s a rule woman! “Men only” – You don’t break it!

And what if I do? What  if I do? What does that make me? A catcalling material? A stalking material? A raping material?

Of course, it does.

It’s 11:30  P.M. I think I have seen you pass by before. I think I marked your presence when you honked at the empty road before. I hold your interest, I see. But is this how you try to impress people? I am sorry to tell you that it doesn’t work that way. I am quite opposite of impressed right now. I am angry. Why are you doing this? Just because I am walking alone at night? Just because I am a woman? Does that not make me a human? Does that just make me a random insignificant creature to insult? Would it have helped if I was dressed in a different way? Maybe saree? Maybe burkha? Maybe the toilet paper rolled over me like a mummy? Would you have just passed by and not done these random acts of kindness then?

It’s 11:30 P.M and I think we need to sit and talk. Don’t be shy, come on! Let me unravel the mysteries of  workings of your brain tonight. What do you want? What do you not?Do you not like us taking a casual stroll in our own locality? Do you not like us minding our own business? Do you not like us feeling safe and secure in our own city? Is it just your right not ours? What do you think, darling? Do you think it is a great act of benevolence to try to scare the shit out of people who have done nothing to bother you?

I like how you disrespect me. I like your high spirits and over confidence. I like how you judge me entirely based on my gender. Come on, man! Speak up! Honking is not a language, you do know that right?

I am resisting not shouting at you. I am resisting ignoring you.  I am resisting not to put up a fight. I don’t know kung fu after all. I don’t have a gun. I don’t know if I can defend myself but I want to speak to you. I want to pour my heart to you.  I won’t though fearing that it will all backfire. If walking is a crime for you, then you might have a hard time adjusting to me talking. What a shame! What a shame I can’t tell you how I feel! What a shame I can’t make you feel as unsafe as you make me feel. What a shame I can’t make your mother worried sick over the fact that you are going to come home late or you are travelling alone. What a shame I can’t make you text dozens of people that you have reached home once you do. What a shame I can’t make you dread this beautiful night! I see that you live here too. I see that this place is your home too. What a shame that I can’t make it a hell for you as well!

All I can do right now is to not speak. Not shout. Not react.

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

And pray that I am back at my place safe. Because if I am not, god forbid, if I am not…then how stupid will that be of me. It was 11:30 P.M at night, they will say, what was she doing that late? It was 11:30 P.M. for fuck sake, they will say, she was asking for it. Man! She was asking for it.

Posted on by saloni 0

I am so fucking jealous!

I am so jealous of your pretty face, of the perfect way you put your eyeliner, of your lipstick shade,of your ear rings and your bangles, of your body, of your amazing dressing sense. I am so jealous of your photographs on facebook, of beautiful places and beautiful people, of your bike rides, video diaries, your successful travel plans. I am so jealous, not the right kind, not as a compliment – when your plane lands in the different continents of the world, when you attend those amazing concerts of your favorite bands,when my mom speaks so highly of you, when she tells me how brilliant you are, how you have made so much of your life, how your salary is simply unimaginable, how your future is even brighter than the sun in my dull world. I am so jealous, so fucking ridiculously jealous of how talented you are, of your stories, of your films, of your blogs, of your voice, of your sense of humor, of the perfect way you speak and sing. I am so jealous when you tell me how you drowned in alcohol the other day, of your wild nights, of your wild affairs, of the way your lover looks at you, the way you hold each other’s hands, the way you have fallen in love. I am so jealous of the way you draw, the way you submerge in it, the way you breath in colours and fill life in them. I am jealous of the way you can act and the beautiful way you can dance. I am so terribly jealous when you crack that joke among my friends and everybody loses their shit laughing at it, of how you handle attention, of how you meet their gaze, of how you are wanted. I am so jealous of the loving way you eat, of the smart comments you make, of how you seem to know everything about everything, of your maturity, of how confident you seem, how amazingly you handle yourself, how insecurity doesn’t seem to be even a mile close to you. I am so jealous of the fact that you can cook, of how organized you are, of how peaceful and calm you seem all the time. I can’t help but be jealous when I think of your disciplined life, your determination to chase your dreams and your ambitions. I am so jealous of how you are brimming with traits that I will never have! I am so jealous of how you are better at using all the qualities of mine that I find in you! I am so jealous of how amazing your life seem to me.I am jealous. Honestly, I am. Your brilliant achievements, your intelligence, of everything you will do and you do and I won’t and I don’t.

But even after all this how come we are heading in the same direction? Even after all this how come you are jealous of me? When it is so apparent that your life is much better than mine, how come we are equally destitute? You know that rubs ice on my burns but what is the use if I am thrown in the same road even after I get to be you, even after I trade your tomorrows with mine. What’s the point of this jealousy then?

What’s the point?

And yet…

Posted on by saloni 0

Mountains and Valleys

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Mountains and Valleys;
As I walk across the crowded narrow roads,
Wondering if the trees are too tall
Or the leaves are too green,
Wondering about the animals and birds I have never seen
Trails, stones and grass and leaves
The red roofs and the pretty homes
The monks dressed in red and yellow
The flowers smeared in purple and white,
Snow and glacier, a blissful distant sight,
There’s music in my head
Not the usual octaves
There are dreams in the air,
Such happiness in the unheard sound waves!
Desperately, Oh so desperately!
Let me cling on to the forever of this present,
Let the time run slow
Let the past be gone
I and I, in this moment, let’s just be selfish and not care,
Let’s breath and live and love and let us just  be aware…
Of this blissful peace that we can’t take in,
Of this stunning beauty that is beyond our grasp
A pair of lens won’t capture what eyes can see
A pair of lens won’t tell what we can feel –
The smell of soil smeared on my shoes and my socks,
The tingle of beetle walking on my palm
The pain in my feet when I step over stones
My heart pounding as I walk along the ribbon beautifully spiralled across you,
And yet my ears find symphony in the distant chirping of birds,
my legs hurt, my head spins,
And I am drowning in you
In the deepest of depth, not yearning to be saved…
Good lord! God must have been a sadist!
Why  did you create us when you could create something like this?
To ruin, to destroy, to regret and to deny!
Good lord! God must have been an artist!
A sucker for appreciation, a sucker for some applause!
Knowing the grave consequences and yet creating the cause!

Milestones, along life and along the roads, filled with anticipation and reminiscence,
A cold night of death and pain and miraculous renaissance,
Let me count the stars tonight, both above and below,
Let me sit in the dark and shiver in the cold,
Let me feel the comfort of the pain in my calves and in my heart,
Let me wrap you around as a blanket tonight and weep in your arms,
My tears are of joy, don’t be concerned, if at all you are,
Let me measure the distance in millimeters tonight when finally you are no longer far.

Now you are just a series of images in my head –
Missing out the details my brain carelessly ignored
How do I personify you?
Can a person really be as beautiful as you?
How do I explain the bittersweet memories?
Now you are just a possible food for conversation,
Just a code embedded in the silicon,
Just a checked item in the list,
Just another dust in the mist.

Forgive me if you can,
If I tell you that I too have stolen some traits from you,
Ups and lows
Mountains and valleys
My thoughts and my mind
My mind and my heart
Forgive me if you can
If I tell you that I too have stolen the reason for your creation –
Colliding tectonic plates of impulses
Forgive me if you can
If I tell you that I too call myself as unpredictable as you are
I react without complex brain operations after all,
Forgive me if you can
But I dare not juxtapose your beauty on me
Who am I in front of you?
A moving dot of red and black!
Don’t mistake my camparison for conceit
How can I ever inherit your charm or murderous instincts?
Your perfections and imperfections
You are the breathing existence of an incredible irony
An oxymoron magnified
So forgive me if you can
If I don’t sound like an admirer or even  a sound critic
I wouldn’t be surprised if you call me jealous
I am not an ideal lover, never was, never will be
but that is how I love you
I can’t tell you how much
I can’t tell you since how long
but I would just like to leave this mad proposal hanging in that cool calming wind
Where the sound of my thoughts mixed in the rustle of leaves,
in the sounds of the sheeps and shepherds,
I would leave this unheard for you to hear
with tears running down my cheeks
with the words I did not speak,
with the hate filling up my head as I thought of things I shouldn’t have,
and with the way I miss you now when you are part of the past,
Hoping  that you will forgive and understand…
That I love you, always have, always will
with the first painting of my first drawing book, to now and to forever.

Posted on by saloni 5