Glass Half Untouched

"Yaar, matlab main kar sakti hu but mere se ab ho nahi payega" This was the first thing I heard as soon as Shreya opened the door. She was in the middle of a conversation with someone and almost immediately my eyes went to the phone in her hand. She was on a call with someone and she had put it on speaker. As soon as the sentence was said, there was a pause. It was like everyone in the picture was mulling over the sentence. I was trying to guess who was on the other side of the call and what were they giving up. Shreya's eyes had teared up and a small smile was forming on her face. I wasn't expecting this reaction. I was immediately intrigued. Considering the silence on the other side of the call, there were some afterthoughts there too. As the pause stretched, I started feeling like I was interrupting something personal and important. Shreya must have thought the same because she quickly removed the speaker mode, opened the door, motioned me to take a seat. 2 minutes...

  (Paddy, Mokka, Tappy, Silva were huddled around the table, making some sort of to-do list, talking to each other in serious whispers. Paddy’s mother enters the room and looking at the scene, amused, she can’t help but ask-) Mom - Hi everyone, what are you guys doing? Paddy - We are doing an assignment for our class. Mom - Okay? (prompting Paddy to continue) Paddy - ? (Paddy just frowns at her) Mom – What is the assignment about? Which class? Paddy – Mommmm (Paddy whines). Can we do this later? We are really busy right now? Mom - …… (standing there with a mom pose) Paddy – ugh…alright. It’s for our class of ‘community organization and planning’. Mom (mumbling) – Leaders of our country are failing at it and they expect the 12-year-olds to do community planning. Paddy – what? Mom – Nothing. So, tell me about this assignment. Paddy – We have to find a problem in our society and find a solution. Mom – Okay? Paddy - ? Mom – go on. Continue. After staring...

I live in a well, a dumping well, like the dumping grounds you have. And I can tell for a fact that I saw it coming. Let me start at the beginning. Our well was gigantic, with no definite ends. Well, we definitely knew it opens at the top. Because things used to fall from there.  We never saw the top with our own eyes. But we knew it existed because we saw the things fall. Unused, broken, discolored, disfigured things. There were books, pages, letters, flowers, leaves, and whatnot. Along with flora, there was fauna. There were also beings, souls, tears, emotions, memories, and thoughts. We have seen it all, over the years, from the ugliest to the most beautiful journeys of the fallen. There was a spiral passage inside the well to go up and down. Our houses were just behind the spiral passages along the walls. We had neighbors on both the sides. To go anywhere, we used to walk along the passage but we never walked the longer distances until it was absolutely necessary. If needed, we...

  “Maa… Maaaa! I am making tea. Will you have some now or later?” Maa sometimes shared a cup of tea with me in the late afternoon. I shouted this question while already holding a vessel under the tap. There was no response. The vessel was filling fast.  "Maaa" "..." "Maaaaa" "..." "Mummyyyy" "..." I reluctantly shut the tap and left the vessel on the countertop to see what my mother was doing. It was unlike of her to sleep at this hour and especially such a deep sleep which didn't get disturbed with my first call. I went to look for her and checked the washroom first. Perhaps, she was not able to answer because she was inside. She didn't like answering her name calls while she was in the washroom. Apparently, the ‘whole building’ need not know that she was in the washroom! Not finding her in the washroom, with peaked interest, I went to her room and there she was!. In a corner, with her back towards...

  This article is neither about the god nor about the literal meaning of the god complex. The god complex that I want to talk about today can be understood through the concept of the pedestal (the base or support on which a statue, obelisk, or column is mounted, as per Oxford Languages) on which the god is kept.  Pedestal What I have observed so far about the relationship between the god and a devotee is that it consists of majorly two components – offering your faith and seeking power or strength from the god or from the faith that you offer to god. You can offer your faith or seek strength in whatever shape or form, of course. One cannot deny the power dynamic there. Two distinct levels where the god always stands tall. And funnily, even though the question often arises - whether the god exists, nobody, for a second, questions the existence of the pedestal on which the god exists. This pedestal is built with our faith and expectations. And you know what I am talking ...

I am standing in the middle of the street in water. Not a puddle of water. Seemingly unending spread of water covering the land as far as I can see. It is moving. It is rising. I don't know where it came from. I don't think it was there a moment ago. Or was it? I can't be sure. Everything looks grim and gray. Not the black and white gray but gray of uncertainty and chaos.  Everything is out of order. People are running in all directions. Seemingly trying to save themselves. And I wonder if this is how the end looks like.  It is barely drizzling now but every droplet comes with a promise. It comes even if it knows it isn't welcome. There is already plenty of it; on our streets, in our homes, in our eyes. There is nothing we call ours that could welcome these droplets. Yet the droplets come with an unwelcome insistence to take over and I feel numb all over. I know I have to join the chaos around me soon. I will have to run in some direction to get somewhere where I will f...