your lines rewind time
Image © Tejas Sharma
ALL THE LIGHTS WE CAN SEE
Sohangni Roy
"I often picture myself living on a mountain top, in the most stormy country (not the coldest) in the world. Is there such a place? If there is, I shall go to it someday and turn my heart into pictures and poems."
This excerpt is from one of Kahlil Gibran's letters, dated 1st March, 1914. I have always hunted for a reason for three things in this world: how in the same world, in the same year, here was Gibran writing this, and there was the First World War about to begin; how my grandparents loved each other like they were seventeen, and how Maa finds the will to send me good-morning messages on WhatsApp at exactly nine every day with images of unknown children.......
TEST OF MEMORY
Adrika Gautam
"I look at the lamp that glows in the darkness; its glazing orange, putting the room into view. The broken wooden panels, locked and rusted cupboards adorned with fungi and trunks piled in one corner serve no purpose to the house—except perhaps as a residence for some spider friends. And hence, I still have no clue as to why I ventured here at all. After years......
Sreelakshmi Nair
A Body Fluent in the Past
Shriya R
"I don’t remember things in order.
They return sideways.
A pressure before language. A tightening before meaning. The body reacts as if it has been spoken to in a dialect the mind no longer claims fluency in. I will be fine—fine enough—until suddenly I am not, and there is no obvious reason for it. Nothing has happened. And yet something has arrived......
My City of Joy
Sampurna Chakraborty
"Enclosed within my heart is a casket embellished with beads of sacred pearls. In it sits my city bedazzled, cold enough to pierce through my heart, calling with its moribund vitality. Yet in its incandescence, there's a fleeting glory, one that lights up the pits of my life......
I miss you, I miss you not.
Chitrakshi Singh Rawat
"I came home feeling rage, again.
Unlike most times, this was different. If it were any random Tuesday, I would have shrugged it aside, thinking it was the stress, it was the loneliness, or I would have made a better excuse. But I often wondered, why, faced with inconvenience, I feel this overwhelming sense of burden in my head......
Arushi Thakur
"A candle stands still on my table. Above it on the wall, a postcard is pasted. Beside the candle, there is a heart-shaped clay bowl that I had made in a workshop, and it has paper stars. My table has two drawers, and in one of them, there is a pale-yellow diary. If you try to flip through all the pages and stop where you feel obstructed the most, you will find a handmade gift made by one of my closest friends. If you turn over a few pages forward, you will find a portrait of me, the artist of which I do not talk to anymore.....
From Roots to the Horizon
Aishwita Jacob
"I grew up on an island.
In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the sea is never far. It surrounds you quietly, firmly, as if reminding you that this is where the land ends. Tourists call it paradise. They speak of turquoise water and sunsets that melt into the horizon. For a long time, I believed life there was simple and complete......
Wash My Sins
Anubhav Kumar
"It seems like it will rain any moment now. Isn't it funny that just this morning it was so sunny, the sky so clear and beautiful. Who would have thought that it would rain? I certainly did not. Then again, I thought we would win this war. But here I am, lying among fallen soldiers, not knowing whether they are allies or foes. I have lost count of the months we have been here. I do remember our Emperor's words before we marched to this city of apparent ‘barbarians’......
A Memory: Never Experienced but Somehow Remembered
Vaishnavi Pal
"I should simply accept my fate, for this is how my life is going to be – the same loop over and over again – a soul-sucking corporate job, confined to a four-walled cubicle with its fancy windows overlooking the glamorous life of the city while the soundproof glass blocks out the contrasting cacophony. Despite the perks, the monotony of this seemingly high-profile job possesses the capacity to drain one out......