Samya's Space

     ©The National, PWB's ' Fleabag '. I feel what it is to be an adult means to be mortally wounded and hurt inside but getting on with day-to-day mundane tasks with an air of normalcy - lest they smell or detect your hurt. If that is what it is like to be an adult, then I believe, I am now a fully-fledged adult. All my personal fairy tales have fallen apart and left me disenchanted, and my self-proclaimed prophecies of grandeur have proven humiliatingly false. What is left now, but to live? And to live as if nothing has broken inside of me, as if nothing has abandoned me, deceived me, insulted me, censured me, abused me, let me down, given me false hope, and left me utterly, terribly, alone. It is a tall order, but all adults are demanded that this impossible task be done impeccably. Some fail and seek out help to stabilize their deteriorating emotional state, and some go on pretending that nothing is wrong, until it is all too much, and decide to end the pain. Either way

Don't tell me it's not like me The self-destructive ways, the abhorrence of the ordinary And the craving for all things that I cannot have Don't deny my own nature to me, it had happened before, it's in my blood and you kept it from me. It's in my blood to revolt, to be in the extremes, to be volatile, and to take my own life. Be it poison or be it a knife or be it in the dimples or the long curly mane, the inheritance from bloodline. This death wish runs in my blood You thought I'll never find out.

So how are you progressing Vidya? I have gone 2 squares up! What squares have you conquered? I got the heirs to two oldest families of the island pinned down. Excellent feat young lady!  That fine complexion must’ve surely helped, but not so bad at all for 23! And how did you to Melanie? I am stuck at the same square,  neither is my purse plump enough, nor my name long enough Oh well, Melanie you must get a move on!  The clock is ticking by. I know, the clock hands just reached 28! 28! Oh no, no, hurry up Melanie before you dry up completely! How about you abandon that square of no hope, and go down to square 15? What? To a single-story house and no car? Yes, but there must be some compromise… ( at this age ) A PHD is no good without looks and some dough, you know? Poor Melanie! Ah, it’s Anita! So tell us how are you getting along? Wonderfully well! He and I are so much in love,  we’ve scheduled our wedding at Ibiza this June! Oh, nice, so you’ve jumped

I can't remember why I gave up writing for pleasure altogether. I think it was after I realized that I could not voice the thoughts exactly as nuanced as they were in my head, when I thought of them. I would at times talk to my friend and speak with her about this irresistible premise for a short story that I entertained for sometime in my mind. I would discuss of the suitability and credibility of such a premise, and be highly encouraged by her positive feedback. But when after months and months of my usual tarrying, I did sit down and write something along those lines, it turned out to be hideously miserable; only a feeble impersonation of what I had in my mind. But what was worse, was the fact that I felt, the fault was not in my feeble powers of articulation, but in my mind itself. I felt it had run out of all creative intellect, and become numb to detailed idiosyncrasies and emotions that pervade human nature, of which I was very astutue, back when I wrote my first prop

"Pratiksha" (Waiting/Expecting) by Harivansh Rai Bachchan Whenever I think of this beautiful poem, my mind wanders off to that one evening when I had to give the oral test for my Hindi Diploma. Being my favourite poem which I knew by heart, I wanted to recite this poem as part of the test, when they would ask us to recite or sing something of our choice. I was eagerly waiting till the white-haired Indian examiner asked me to do the same, so that I can impress him with my passion for such beaitiful verses penned by Harivansh Rai Bachchan Ji. However, in the anticlimax of reality, he was at best nonchalant, staring at me coolly, while I rambled on with a horribly out of pitch recitation of these expressive words. On a lighter note, I did pass the exam, and this poem remained my favourite.  And how I got to know of the existence of this wonderful poem is not through a textbook, or a poetry compilation of the poet, but weirdly from a Kathak dance recital of Sharvar

'Because I could not stop for Death –  He kindly stopped for me – ' Emily Dickinson On the second or the third day of being in dengue hemorrhagic state, I woke up abruptly from a very uncomfortable snooze (the urine catheter and all the tubes and IV lines preventing any sort of movement). I found him sitting on the side of my bed. You must know that Death really doesn't look scary. He stroked my hair and said, "you must be tired." I indeed was, even to nod. He took my right hand with the bloody canula and asked, "how much more blood will they draw", then took my left, connected to a blood bag, slowly administering deep scarlet drops into my veins and asked, "how much more blood will they give." Everything was silent. The ECG beeped in reply, "more, more, more." He came closer to me and gently touched the blood pressure cuff that was cutting into my skin. I winced. 'Hurts, doesn't it?" he asked sympathetica