THY SOLITARY WRITER

  It was raining heavily that evening. He rushed out of the restaurant holding his diary inside his trench-coat, tightly clenched to his chest. The diary, his personal diary, has been more than a bunch of bound papers for him. It has been his sole companion all these years; asking about his day and listening to his words patiently with no judgment at all.  He took shelter under a tree and waved his hand to a cab while still holding the dairy with the other hand.  He got inside the cab and took out the dairy as soon as he got seated. He opened to the page where he left off. A drop had managed to seep through the guards into today’s freshly written account. He wiped the page with his palm which in turn smeared a word out of the last sentence.  "not" He read the newly formed sentence. "I can handle it." He shifted his gaze to the drops collected on the cab’s window, getting heavy and rolling down the surface, then he looked back at his diary. There was a smile on

 It’s morning already and I can hear my heart pounding against my eardrums. Is it normal? I don’t know, I won’t ever know either because that would require me to let another soul know what am I going through and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon. I feel this weird thing in my chest like someone is scraping away flesh using a grater and like there is no one point where it hurts, it does not even hurt in the first place. It just feels hollow and empty and fucking weird. I do not know if it is my poor vocabulary or they have not put enough words out there to describe what I feel inside me. I want this to fucking stop. Take deep breaths they say. Do this do that. Meditate and shit but those things are mostly said by people who are already fine and not feeling fucked up inside like I do. I have been drinking water since yesterday. Lots of water. Relatively lots of water. I don’t drink much water otherwise. A glass in a day maybe. Just hoping the water cleanses me and wash down whatever

For the longest time, I have had this feeling, this feeling of your soul crumbling from within, something emptying you, sipping away the life, the energy the peace, and feel this unexplainable hollowness from within which leaves you more helpless by every passing movement. I have been feeling this even before the time I knew it has a name to it. The feeling is not new as such, it is just the acknowledgment and the gravity we have given to this which has changed over the past some years.  The palpitations, beating of hard and excessive sweating you must have faced before something you were afraid of. Some might have told you you were being a coward or fattu. I have heard elders putting the same feeling as " ji ghabrana"  or " praan kablana".  For the longest time I have only heard this word as something you go through or feel and not remotely something you might have or suffer from which if I think about it disassociates the feeling from the person and dilutes the

Hello ex-lover, I understand you are having a hard time moving on, your late-night drunk notifications say it all. But, my heart is all empty for you now, just like my cart. I understand there was a time I were  adrak  to your  chai  but I think it is now time to say bye-bye. I will surely miss the moments we had together. Those late-night scrolls, those lovely dinner dates and  tumhara Shabri waala pyaar; mujhe khana khilane se pehle try karna. Those Netflix and chill sessions and  those stress eating sessions. You always knew my food mood and never forgot to ask " mere baby ne thana thaya " with your numerous notifications. I cannot help but admit all of that was as cheesy as your cheese-burst pizza. But,  in lockdown, when we were apart, I saw the things as they were. Ours was just a toxic relationship. Your 'deals' were never "just for me". You were never "exclusively" mine, you were always just after my money(CGST+GST+Delivery charge). Such a

Hey you ...yeah you....are you scared of the thoughts you get right before you go to sleep ??. ...When you put aside your phone to sleep...slide everything aside ...close your eyes...when you face the darkness ..those thoughts .....yeah we may have   talked and yeah you told me you had a great day ...and yes you have told me about that colleague you abhor and how that one time you got thrown out of a bar at midnight...and of course by now I know you prefer whiskey over beer...but what I wanna know is what you see when you don't wanna see anything ...what is that keeps you awake on the lonely nights...what is that you try to outrun...being a part of this hassle ...running this vicious cycle....dancing to this humdrum of chaos ...I wanna know what knocks your doors when you have put on the latch to rest.... frankly its all that matters to me ...because its all what it takes me to know you ...yeah I know you put up a good a show ...and yeah you keep up with everything wit

Prologue -  There are some incidents in your life which give you a good laugh every time you remember them. This is one of such incidents. One time I and my dad were running errands and on the way home he entered a pharmacy. I was glued on my phone scrolling feeds so I chose to remain near the entrance while he gets whatever he wanted. Dad - “Bhai, ek I-pill dena    Translation - Give an I-pill please I had a mind freeze moment then and there. Hundreds of thoughts started pouring in my mind and it became a supercomputer trying to figure out why my 56 year old dad needed an I-pill. For all of you who do not know what an I-pill is, its an emergency contraceptive pill. I started regretting my decision to accompany him that day and I could totally see the pharmacist judging him secretly. Amidst all this I was cursing Big-Bang for my existence and wondering why did the earth not end in 2012. The pharmacist gave a give glance towards me and I pretended as if I do not ev