Pens and Pages

There's a thing about firsts. Your first friend at school, your first job, your first kiss, your first relationship, your first heartbreak, every first matters in life, except when it comes to writing. I was some 6 years old when I wrote my first script for a movie and submitted it to Dad, asking him to make a movie out of it (Dad was working on an Assamese film at that time), only to be utterly dejected to find out I was just a child with a far-from-perfect film script demanding that it be produced. I was upset for days and forgot about it soon until I wrote my next short-story at the age of 7 and gifted it to him, in the hope that he would get the hint that I wanted a film out of this one too. None of the works ever got converted to movies (well, of course), but I learned over time that our first work of writing, no matter how special they are to us, would always be horribly imperfect. My first poem was fine though. It was an assignment for the class to write a poem in Hindi wher...

People I usually meet in person first, often come back to me with this statement later – Oh, I didn’t know you write. Some acquaintances have often declared that I don’t look like someone who would write. I don’t ponder upon such words much but I am slightly bothered by the one I heard last week – “Why did you stop writing?” I was taken aback. I never stopped writing. Who said I had? So I went back and looked at the source she was referring to- My blog. The last date said October 2017. It’s indeed been 5 months; maybe I did stop writing after all. The last time I wrote something I was in Rourkela, a peaceful city in Western Odisha where life was as slow as it could get. I moved to the capital, Bhubaneswar in late November where every morning I would wake up late but still manage to write a short poem while rushing on my way to work. Within two months I found myself loaded with responsibilities that made my shoulders bend. I would wake up as early as 6 in the morning, I would...

Write like no one’s reading . The thought came to me on a train journey I hadn’t expected much from. It was always about taking a nap and snoring the distance away for me, avoiding eating anything from the mobile vendors selling dubious tea and untrustworthy coffee. I’d forcefully close my eyes, plug in my earphones, till the point a part of my brain would give up and turn itself off. It’s different this time- I find myself on a comfortable seat, near the window, with enough leg room to keep both my bags and still not feel suffocated. I couldn’t sleep so I read; I couldn’t read any more so I drifted away in my thoughts- a practice I had left years ago. Like encountering an old friend on a strange road that somehow feels familiar when you see the friend smile, my thoughts embrace me back. I allow myself the freedom to let them fly away as far as they wish to. I allow myself to steal my waking time to do nothing, instead of occupying myself with thoughtless texting or data anal...

My car moved when I typed 1 It stopped at each 0 I type 1 and the lights were on, At every 0, it was dark again... I look away from the perfect screen Through a glass window covered with dirt, And I see beyond the translucence A dimly lit house on the hillside, A broken door left ajar, A worn out roof that'd still let A few raindrops seep in, A man limping his way home the way he would have run if he could. I see the imperfections  Of the enormous tree Under which a child could still be drenched- One drop at a time. I see a half-torn ten dollar bill, Lying near some worm-ridden mangoes The owner of the tree couldn't pluck on time, Useless as both could be, the way A writer would think away his time, Without words to put on the paper. I come home late at night Another day of programming  LEDS and wheels of the tiny robot car, Coding 1 or 0, I kill my day, Only to find my night dimly lit Like the house on the ...

My favorite color is the shade of your cheeks wet with drops from the salty sea of your eyes when you are guilty of making an innocent mistake like writing "writed" for "wrote" doubting if you can still write a good quote, calling yourself not a writer even when the pages of your diary are filled with a million notes, even when you die everyday but wake up to write for a theme called Hope.