I was nine when I first discovered you. Lying on an old dusty shelf, hidden behind your iconic hat, of my town’s library. You were smoking a pipe and I thought to myself, “Well, that’s not very nice.” Just when my eyes were about to wander off, I noticed your title ‘The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes’. Hoping your adventures would turn out like that of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, I brought you home. Thank God, I was wrong.
(My first book)
Through the eyes of Dr. Watson, I was introduced to the crimes of London during the Victorian era and that witty detective who solved them all. Every story I tried to decipher the logic behind your judgement but eventually gave up and read your explanation, biting my tongue, exclaiming, “Well, I could’ve guessed that.” After 18 such failed attempts, I finally cracked a case, your case, a murder and I couldn’t have been happier. That was the day I knew I wanted to become a detective. That was true for the most part of my childhood. Heck, some part of me still aspires to be a consulting detective.
I remember your address better than mine. I tried to mimic your observational skills in front of my friends and failed miserably. To this day whenever I sit alone in parks or cafés, I try to read other people. An oddity on their clothes, a wee scar on their face, a peculiar walk, anything to strive to follow in the footsteps of ‘The Master of Deduction’.
(When you have to write an entire post just to post this really good picture of Sherlock)
I was in Grade 7 when ‘The Adventure of The Dying Detective’ was part of my English Literature exam. How I read the story loudly and proudly in front of the entire class after giving them an insight into the type of person you were. Needless to say, I aced that test. It was after that I bought your entire collection of novels and short stories written by Sir Doyle, not the revised kid version. With a dictionary by my side, you expanded my vocabulary to such an extent that I spoke English better than my first language.
Also, you shaped my selection in guys, making me choose brains over beauty each time. But none of them could ever stand up to you. However inhumane you were written to be, you will always be my first love.
You were always lurking around in pop culture. Hundreds of adaptations and spin-offs were based on you and portrayed by some genius actors. I liked the goofiness that Robert Downey Junior brought in you. It made you more likeable as a person not the aloof being Sir Doyle intended you to be. From letters to texts, Benedict Cumberbatch showed us how long we’ve come from 1891 when you weren’t gay for Dr. Watson or saw ‘the woman’ naked. And how can we forget Hugh Laurie’s ‘House’ that was based more on Sir Doyle’s inspiration, Dr. Joseph Bell.
(The Many Faces Of Sherlock Holmes)
As my fiction books were slowly replaced by study guides and my silly dreams by comprehensible careers, you still kept finding your way back to me. Though your intellect was seductive, life got in the way. As my mind keeps overwriting your adventures with college stuff, I’m desperate to keep you alive. I have to keep you alive for the little girl who lived a dangerous life through the eccentric consulting detective on Baker’s Street.
P.S. I was Sherlocked long before it was considered to be cool.
In a world full of thrash melody, Let me be your Bohemian Rhapsody. In a world full of plastic surgeries and fake teens, Let me be your Jolene. In a world full of Gucci Gang and gold chains, Let me be your Purple Rain. In a world full of meaningless instapoetries, Let me be your Sonnet 116. In a world full of superficial compositions, Let me be your Great Expectations. In a world full of Sex and Cities, Let me be your Dead Poets Society. In a world full of risquè attire, Let me be your 50’s fit and flare. In a world full of borders and ruthless militia, Let me be your Pangea. In a world full of keyboard warriors, Let me be your Cleopatra. In a world full of false commitments, Let me be your one true endearment. In a world full of u’s and ur’s, let me be yours.
First things first, I’m extremely sorry for abandoning this space, especially because you, strangers on the Internet, listened when I had no one to talk to. A quick recap – I got into college and am now studying computer science which I’ve always wanted too. I’m currently part of two scholarship programs, one from my college and one from Google (didn’t mean to flex, but damn, it feels like a dream to even say this out loud). I got in and out of a toxic relationship with a guy that I once wrote about here. Apparently, it took a Prince Charming to enter my life and make me realize my worth so that I could finally gather the courage to break up. I’ll talk more about that toxic relationship when I no longer feel angry or sad thinking about what a sad, pathetic person he was. This, however, is the story of Prince Charming and how much my life changed in the past 6 months.
It was a cold January day when Mr. Charming stood beside me in a classroom full of nerds and said something funny. I chuckled and looked at him. I swear, at that moment, if he would’ve asked me to marry him, I would’ve. His broad smile and naive eyes. I was tongue-tied and mesmerized.
I felt kindness, a connection, a feeling that was so alien to me because, for the months following up to that, I had just been scrutinized for all my opinions, talked inappropriately to every day for 4 months and made to live in my own personal hell while suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. It was in that split second that everything became clear. My heart thawed and I thought to myself, “I will never deserve you stranger, but thank you for this moment.” A twist in the tale, that moment persisted and that smile, that connection, never broke off, only grew stronger and stronger in the past 6 months.
We just stood there, joked around, in our own little world. I couldn’t remember the last time, I was this happy. I wanted him all to myself but I made peace with the fact that I won’t ever see him again for he was too good for me.
Surprise, surprise, we ended up on the same team for a hackathon and with a geeky text on WhatsApp, our conversation began. I went through the usual waiting-for-hours-before-replying-so-as-to-not-seem-desperate. But the texts grew longer and the reply time grew shorter. From team meetings to meeting alone, I fell more and more. I’m not a believer but he made one out of me. I witnessed growth in me, both emotionally and intellectually. Every day, I became the best version of me, and every day his magical spell grew stronger.
But then the pandemic struck and our lives were put on pause. Confessing before departing seemed like a cruel thing that I didn’t want him to endure considering how his last long-distance relationship ended. Also because I didn’t think it’d be fair to him, for I had just gotten out of one.
On our last evening together, I broke the social constructs I had set for our “friendship”, lay my head on his shoulder, and stargazed as I forgot the world around me for my world was leaving soon. We both knew what the other person was thinking but couldn’t say it. The timing just wasn’t right. When I bid him goodbye, the next day, I silently whispered, “Stay”. My silence was drowned out by the engine of his Ola ride, but we both knew that this uncertainty wasn’t going away anytime soon. In the last couple of months, we’ve gotten used to the distance, compensating with texts and calls, but I still miss his hand accidentally brushing against mine.
Last night at 4:30 AM, after our movie date, I wanted to say confess my feelings, something I couldn’t deny anymore. But decided against it. He deserved a much better proposal, so I swallowed my words and backspaced everything. There’s so much I want to say to those smiling eyes but can’t because the timing isn’t right. So I’m going to write this out for the time being for my own peace of mind. Maybe you’ll find it someday. Maybe you won’t, but let this post be proof for what a wonderful man you are.
Here it goes – When I first met you, I was living a lie, was trying to fix a broken relationship with a manipulative person who couldn’t hold a 10-minute conversation without calling me pretentious, who’d shamelessly talk about other girls in front of me and I took it jokingly because hey, he couldn’t possibly be serious, right? He went against everything I stood for and I let him for I was a bystander in my own life, a despicable version of myself, an empty shell perhaps.
You taught me to love myself again from the moment you stood beside me on that cold January morning. You woke me up from the fake fairy dream that I had built in my head. And I fell for your thoughtfulness, your chivalry, your beliefs; I fell for you, harder, every passing day. You make me smile foolishly throughout the day. Every time you whisper on one of our calls, you send chills right down my spine. You’re in my head 24/7 and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I know we are miles apart, a lack of physical connection is killing me but we’ve come so far, wouldn’t you agree mister? This would have gone completely different if you would’ve been in front of me but bear with me for a second. Close your eyes and imagine us sneaking out of our hostels at 10 in the morning. You thought we were going on a walk and was visibly surprised when a Uber showed up and I beckoned you to get in. As you made your puppy dog eyes to ask me repeatedly where we were going, I held back, with all the courage I could gather, leaned in to whisper, “Patience, mister”, then pulled away.
After half an hour, you figure out that we are en route to a nearby beach town, while I joked about how I was kidnapping you. The car stops in front of a small oriental restaurant away from the main city. I hand you a bag filled with your clothes that I had sneakily got hold of from your roommate as you stared at me visibly confused. We both changed into something a bit more dressy. The next two hours were filled with conversation, stories, and good food after which I held your hand and walked along the shore.
Suddenly, I stopped and looked up at you. You are trying to read my eyes as the sand is slipping down our feet and the sound of the waves are somewhat deafening. My grip on your hand grows tighter. The sky is changing colors but at that moment, nothing mattered except you and me. I finally muster the courage to speak up.
“I know it has been just 6 months since we’ve known each other but why does it feel like forever? You are everything I could’ve ever wished for, and more. I love the fact that we’re so similar. I love the way you send these long paragraphs when you really care about something. I love the way you stood for me. I love the way you get all panicky over small things concerning me. I love the way you always support me and hold me in high regard. I love the way you look at me and call me cute. How did I ever get so lucky is beyond me. I don’t want to lose you to someone else hence I couldn’t stop myself from doing this. So, Mr. Charming, would you like to have me as your girlfriend?”
And that is how I imagined it would have went, but everything’s on hold right now. Although, I promise, you, Mr.Charming, will have this proposal the minute everything goes back to normal. Until then, I’ll keep on substituting “I like you” with other synonyms.
Can’t post a clearer picture but our last day together ❤
Amazon is burning. Apparently it has been burning for quite some time now. I came to know about it from hashtags on Twitter and Instagram because major media channels weren’t covering it and it became a huge story only after the rain forest had been burning for nearly three weeks along with the homes of the indigenous tribes and millions of animal species with no action being taken.
To give you some perspective on how grave the situation is, the smoke from these fires is visible from space. Don’t take my word for it, take NASA’s. The number of fires in Brazil have jumped nearly 85% from last year. The sky turned black in the middle of the afternoon some 3000 kilometers away from the fire.
The pivotal question here remains that why isn’t anything being done to avert this monstrosity of a disaster. The root cause of any problem in today’s world is politics. Conservative politicians who don’t have the ability to understand middle-school science, motivated by money and emotions, leading countries to doomsday. The specific person that I’m taking about here is Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
President Bolsonaro campaigned on the promise of opening Amazon to resource extraction. With powerful lobbyists in his pockets, he had rolled back on the Amazon protection laws and made it easier to clear huge sections of forests for agriculture and mining. He took office back in 2016 and since then deforestation has increased rapidly, about 245% according to the INPE. In layman terms, three football fields worth of forest is being destroyed every minute. And how did President Bolsonaro react to this data? It’s a neat little trick that pretend democracies around the world use to shatter political accountability; they categorize it as fake news in the name of nationalism.
Recently, when the G7 pledged 20 million dollars in aid to Brazil, President Bolsonaro outright rejected that, while telling the countries to mind their own business. In what can only be described as a power play, it’s fearful to think that the fate of all humanity can be decided by one single decision made by one ignorant being.
In a country where a number of top officials don’t even believe in climate change, where feelings are treated as facts, this reaction doesn’t come as a surprise. The decisions taken by 60-something year-old politicians, in a building, in one corner of the world will affect the lives of generations to come. We are the ones that will suffer the consequences of power-hungry politicians. The Amazon is critical to stabilizing the global climate and it’s importance should not be understated. It produces twenty percent of the air we breathe and the fresh water we drink. But it has endured as a pawn in the games played by avaricious humans for far too long.
“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, we will realize that one cannot eat money”.
The neglected street lamp on the right Flickers in and out all day Provides shelter to creatures of the night And strangers that went astray.
It was under this mark of green and gray That two tiny hearts skipped a beat As heaven poured on them water sprays They stood still till they were soaking wet from head to feet.
He advanced towards her like his race was run She waited patiently; eyes wide open. As soon as their paws met under the washed up sun They hopped away and my slumber was broken.
If I said that the past few days have been hectic, it would be an understatement. It was beyond of what I have ever experienced and it’s only going to get tougher from here. College is difficult.
Most people say that the first night is the hardest and they are damn well right. From scorching heat to nail-biting cold within 12 hours, the weather is the worst I’ve ever seen; the weather I’ve to endure for four years.
From crickets to centipedes, I’ve seen enough insects to last a lifetime in bathrooms and corridors, collectively making a sound so overpowering and hellish that it’ll make you evaluate all the decisions that landed you there.
With mattresses still in plastic covers and pillows with so much fluff that they rise a foot, I slept curled up like a ball on an unfamiliar territory. Moonlight creeping up from paint stained glasses and broken mosquito nets, was a heartache in disguise. Oh, how I missed home!
Finding friends in each other’s terrified faces, witnessing people walk out of their comfort zones, makes you believe that you’re not alone in this big, bad world.
We’re all back in kindergarten, walking in groups, making small talk; the nervous and shy fall making extroverts the king.
The only positive outcome is that everyone’s nice to one another, trying and trying hard to fit in rather than standing out for girls are too picky when it comes to maintaing groups. An oddball gets kicked out of WhatsApp groups and whatnot.
When you put a bunch of strangers together, you’re bound to get clashing personalities, divergent opinions and alien habits. I’m trying to be understanding as I interact with people, watching my moves, marking my words and overall, just being polite.
And worse comes to worse, if I mess up, I will rise and rise to learn for I’m fighting on unknown grounds.
Prose And Poetry 