My heartbeat echoes from my empty chest,
I’m afraid everyone will be able to hear it.
So I lean forward and let my shoulders cave in,
but it just gives my heart more room to echo in.
She has a stubborn daughter, my chest.
Thirst, they call her.
At each echo she cries harder
she won’t stop until I give her what she wants
And she wants you.
But you are a thousand miles away
I am on my chair by the window, wrapped in my blanket
I could be a painting, if only I had a mug of coffee on my lap
Instead of the laptop.
But however beautiful the sunset be and however many times I glance at it,
My fingers don’t stop tapping on the alphabets.
It sounds like heartbeats typing out a story.
Furiously. Thud, thud, thud.
I lose count of the heartbeats that pass,
Heartbeats that want to capture the passing sunset through my eyes.
But I am relentless.
I have a deadline to submit, this is going to bring me money.
I am half a year ahead now.
I spent the money that evening paid me.
The regret I was paid, though, crawled back up.
Stayed there till I heard it.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sun sets everyday.
Yet, my loss hurt.
My little sunshine breather.
I watch you pick up the baby powder with both hands and spill it on your grandma’s dressing table.
You tilt backwards because of the weight as you carry the bottle to the bed.
Another addition to your fresh list of victories against gravity.
Your tiny fingers get coated in fairy dust as you smear the powder all over the table, squealing “Rainbow!” “Rainbow!” “Rainbow!”
Baby, I believe you.
I see the colours spill off the dressing table and fly across the room to wherever you look.
Colours that dwell in your big wide eyes.
Thank you for showing me magic yet again, my sweet.
Your scent lingers on my breath
Lightly, like the memory it is.
My mind is just a pocket
But you think of it as an hourglass
Filling it with time, grain by grain
Either ways, they stick in there like sand.
Here is your hourglass then,
Swinging up and down as I wait
Each grain telling a different story
Of the same day
The stars collapse into themselves
Dotting the universe with black holes.
Do not look upon the ball of fire in our hearts with dread, my love.
It is not a star.
It is madness, swirling.
Dust clouds of ordinary that we shed
Expand infinitely, changing forms.
The theory of singularity held us on its shoulders
As we went down the path of collapse
Except only in reverse, rebels that we are.
We sped into an explosion.
My darling, listen to how your heart beats with mine.
It is the only remnant sound from that big bang.
And believe it or not, it is a billion lifetimes old.
Grahmeen Shramik Prathisthan(GSP) is an NGO for the blind. It houses 72 blind persons in its one hectare campus, where they are trained in handloom weaving and later employed within the NGO. They are paid in agreement to fair trade standards. About five years back the NGO also started a certified course for the blind in acupressure massages.
The visually impaired persons living here are proud, independent, and most importantly, happy. What they are not, is safe. I’m talking about physical security. GSP has not been able to afford a concrete compound for its land. The threats faced by the residents inside range from nuisances of stray animals, drunken people, outsiders entering the campus to defecate in the open, to theft of property and any unpredictable misdoings.
It’s not often that visually impaired persons in third world countries get a chance to be independent and live their lives with dignity. The least we can do is give them the security they deserve.
They need Rs.1,000,000 to build an eight feet high compound around the land. Which means that if 10,000 people donate Rs. 100 per head (less than $2) , these blind persons will be protected for several years to come! Is 10,000 a lot of people? I think not. Cat videos get over a million hits an hour and let’s admit it, they take up enough time from your work hour to cost you Rs. 100 per head.
Let’s spread the word and get them their 10,000 builders in spirit. We have two months. Here is the link to the crowdfunding campaign where you can find more details about the project. Our time starts now! Reblog, share, go bonkers. Donors welcome internationally.
NGO Details
GSP Campus – At post Budhoda Ta Ausa
Dist Latur, Maharashtra – India -413520
Voice – 91-9422663733 Ph. 02383-236611
Website :www.gspindia.org.in
Faceook:www.facebook.com/GSPlatur
Twitter :@GSPlatur
Be nice, even if you cannot afford it
Be nicer when you can.
Hold your trust on the palm of your hand.
It will be crushed, yes.
But do not hesitate to hold it out again.
Not all people are the same.
Everybody has been wronged at some point in their life.
Some are made of the times they were wronged.
Do not be one of them.
Your heart may be the size of your fist,
But soon you will learn
That there is no amount of love you cannot fit inside it.
Shower your smiles generously and mean them.
Smile at those who deserve it and those who don’t
Smile when the world is shattering into pieces around you
Your heart breaking smile can mend broken souls, including your own.
Grieve as much as is due, but not an ounce more.
Be kind to yourself.
Never let the fear of ‘what if’ eclipse the ‘why not’
And most of all, remember that the purpose of life is basically to have fun.
Newspaper headlines:
“Seven year old boy sodomized and set on fire.”
“Woman stabbed multiple times by an estranged lover.”
“Delhi road rage: Man killed as children watch.”
“Beef ban just the beginning, State tells HC, may extend it.”
As a child, I had asked my mother how garbage sorters work in the dumping ground.
Does the stink not affect them?
She said that they’ve worked there for so long, they don’t smell it anymore.
Their noses are insensitive to garbage.
Maybe it goes the same way for us.
Rotten rape cases, stinky violence cases, old abuse cases
All go unnoticed even when they are right under our noses.
Insensitive noses, these.
Why would you blame us, then, for tweeting about a hit and run case only when it involves an actor?
For reading ‘sodomized’ and registering it as a new word for rape and moving on to the next headline?
For sidelining the aforementioned headlines, except the last one because hey, this one affects us all directly. Smells new.
A rape case will not lead to candlelight marches unless it’s a gruesome rape.
A story of abuse will not make it to anyone’s Facebook status unless it’s of a yesteryear celebrity.
That ‘man killed in front of kids’ story would get not get attention, unless it happened outside Delhi.
Delhi is, as we say, like that only.
There will be no protests and morchas demanding sentence to death for the abusers of that little seven year old child, and that, I cannot fathom why.
I do not know what ‘unless’ clause goes with it, but I fear it is ‘unless the boy is dead’.
35% burns are not worthy enough of our social media space.
Go ahead. Rub your nose.
Two words that fall on your ears and roll off, never really seeping in.
Shunned, abandoned, and yet half of the people in my country have them tucked into the insides of their being.
This one is for them.
When you can’t shrug off a parasite, you begin to nurture it.
Do not nurture guilt.
When he took you down to the car and said that this was a game only meant for the two of you, you were too young to know it wasn’t.
When she toyed with you and asked if you could keep a secret, you were eager to show that you could be trusted.
The affection you felt because they made you feel special rots inside your stomach.
But your only fault is believing that it was your fault.
Your arms will never be too small to hug and forgive
Wrap them around yourself.
The monster you thought you’ve locked into the closet all these years wasn’t yours to hide.
It’s alive. The monster lives inside them.
Every time they look you in the eye and talk like nothing ever happened,
It peels off the shiver down your spine and feeds on the goosebumps on your skin.
Stop nurturing that monster. You are stronger than it is.
Slay it before it takes on another child.
Let them know that you remember.
And that getting away with it
Won’t be an option this time.
It was raining inconsolably. She lit a couple of candles on the table and he brought out the whiskey glasses. The electricity had gone out, but there was still some ice left in the freezer waiting to melt. The candlelight made her look mesmerising. She caught him staring and smiled at him slightly.
He poured her a drink, now on autopilot. The first time she mixed orange juice with rum, he wanted to gag. He had always been a beer man, and she hated beer. It was quite strange that two strikingly different individuals could get along so well. On their first date, he told her she looked like a goat, to which she laughed and retorted instantly, saying, “Well at-least I don’t have a beard!” He knew in his gut right then that she was the one. On the completion of their first ‘dating’ year, they met late afternoon and flew kites from the balcony of the pathetic excuse of an apartment he lived in. She was magic. He never felt good enough for her. But he loved her. She loved travelling and he preferred not moving off the sofa. He wanted to live in a high-rise apartment; she wanted to live in a shack by the sea. He had planned his life year to year, sure he would retire at 40 with a heavy bank balance. She wanted to be a waitress in France for a year, and an English teacher in Haiti the next. They knew this had to end. A decision had been made anonymously. Dreams one has in life are too dear to compromise on, even for someone you love. They were both free souls, their love would let neither trap the other. It had to end.
But that could wait. Right now, she looked beautiful. And he was about to ask her for a dance.
Mumbai Snoopies 