Writing a wrong

For the PU prompt ‘ to write about a time when we realized we were wrong about something, and what we did after the realization hit us.’

I thought I was making the right choice

At that time

You ticked all the boxes 

on paper 

Soon 

I was boxed into a corner 

Crushed by your corny love 

Heck I wasn’t even horny no more.

I decided to sleepwalk through life

If I opened my eyes truly

We both knew 

This would be already over 

You lovingly blindfolded me 

I loathingly cuckolded you. 

I woke up one day 

And decided to live the truth 

Consequences be damned 

I still remember your cries

As I sunk into my sofa 

We were away by so far

Yes

I never deserved this 

Kind of love 

But you said 

I’m incapable of love

Called me a robot 

The only time you spoke your mind 

Was when I was leaving you behind. 

I bleed too.

I’m thriving now

Hope you are too 

Standing tall

 

At the cusp of my downfall

I stand tall

Loyalty only has gotten me so far

to this toxic devious stick

performing its gleeful shtick

I laugh at my own demise

Isn’t this the whole premise?

I got my life force sucked out of me

One evil kiss at a time

Sugar diabetes lung incapacity what not

My vestiges still flutter

Just pour on the butter

Let me roll in the gluttonous gutter.

 

P for Pain

 

            P for Pain

 

                                           

P  is for pain,

is also for pleasure.

 

That drop of blood

Which is supposed to torment me

Actually excites me

excruciatingly enough

P is actually for perspective

What pain is for a masochist.

 

Pain is the paint

I brush my body (heart) with

So that I don’t have to

Process my pertinent emotions.

 

Pain is the feeling I embrace

The bruise which I keep on picking

A gift which keeps on giving.

 

The obvious physical pain of

Broken bones

The odious psychological pain of

Broken homes

I embrace it after all

only because 

 I don’t know how to exist

 as a person

Without pain

 at all.

Sishya

 

When I was a kid I remember reading this famous mahabharatha story on Karna and parasurama. Karna a Kshatriya lies to Parasurama that he is a bhramin to get trained in archery and stuff. Parasurama is very pleased with him. One day when parasurama was like napping in Karna’s lap, a scorpion bites through karna and he doesn’t flinch ( not wanting to disturb his mentor’s beauty sleep ) His hotheaded mentor wakes up due to the blood trickling down on him and instead of being touched by his pupil’s devotion realizes that his disciple can’t be a weak bhramin and must be a strong Kshatriya to withstand such pain. And curses karna. That’s the end of the story. You heard me right. You can read a more proper version of this story here.

Firstly, how flawed and cool is mahabharatha lol love it infinitely more than the boring Ramayana ( Don’t come at me haters)

Secondly, this story is pretty dark, I’m glad I didn’t understand the overtly casteist nature of this story when I was young.

What I am focusing on today and what has been running in my head is the fundamentally toxic guru-sishya bond which is so revered in our country and which is so firmly embedded in our mind that even acts of cutting your thumb (ekalavya I’m looking at you) , withstanding scorpion bites may not be sufficient to gain your ‘guru’s’  appreciation. And you just need to keep trying harder. Anything remotely resembling labour law is seen as a favour done to you. Having no work life balance is glorified. Even the good ones act like they’re performing charity. I remember an  office where my friend worked Monday to Sundays at – they used to say how lucky he was that he was even getting paid. I am not just talking out of personal experience. Sadly, I see workplace exploitation and burnout in all fields including but not limited to medicine,engineering,C.As, architects….basically my whole friend list is one unhappy overworked mess and no one seems to acknowledge that the system is rigged. They just blame the individual as whiny or a ‘millenial’  *sigh*

(359 words)

 

All that angst

 

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Mood - I don't wanna be by Gavin DeGraw

I studied the Geography of the room I lived in,

Every crevice and corner

Couldn’t comfort me enough.

I kept wanting more

How much is really enough?

How big do you want your cage to be?

Animal size?

Room size?

Street Size?

Earth Size?

WE will always feel imprisoned,

if that is what we truly want to be.

We will always wish to be a bird

Only to be greeted with its turd.  

We are bound by certain chains

Which makes us human,

Why not wear it as the jewel

It possibly is

Rather than choke ourselves

With all that angst?

By 

Samyuktha Semi Jayaprakash

Be the Bee

 

 

She was lil miss

Buzz the bumblebee

She wasn’t going to just

 let her honey

 be.

 

Fierce and protective

Her words truly stung

Only the sinister selective/

Callous collective.

 

Yet the rumors really hung

Floating around the honeycomb

“Queen Bee coming through”

 

However

 She was lil miss

Buzz the bumblebee

And she was going to

Let her haters Be.

 

Mellifluous mornings

Tend to drown out the

Superfluous mournings.

 

Keep being busy

As you can be

Always be you

For you are a bee

 

Forget the fools

You

Don’t need to fix them.

 

She is lil miss

Worker bee

The pollen is where

The honey will be

And the honey is where

Her heart will always be.

 

So take the hint,

My friend

Without the likes of her

The world will go extinct.

So take the hint

And let her buzz free

And her sting be.

 

 

 

 

You Too

I too didn’t

 wanna  get raped

Stalked hunted preyed on

And

Live in a social structure

Where I could do no wrong.

I too wanted to report him

And make him pay

For all the layers

He stripped off me

And made me a sexual object

Only worthy of being attained

I too want to come out clean

After I burn down this building

Of patriarchy and misogyny

Where his silence is valued more than my voice

And my silence is enough to prove his male noise.

I too

I really do

But will you pay my bills

And help me when I’m on pills?

Why will I ask you for justice

When you shame me for asking too late

Truth is

You don’t want me to voice out

And change this system

Where it works just fine for you

How is my accusation worse than his actions?

Because now you have to do something about it now?

So I’m sorry

If it is going to affect your privileged little life

But I am going to climb to the roof of your building

Take my biggest fricking megaphone

And shout YOU TOO*

*you silent enabler of patriarchy

I hope you can hear now*

Happy sunday!

So Sundays are the best  since it gives us the much needed time to be our lazy potato-selves. And on what other day can I throw my random-est thoughts at you guys without shaping them professionally?

What I am going to do is casually throw some ideas at y’all and if it is worthy of discussion we can make a full fledged post.

1)     

    Surveillance is BAD. Then why track our Swiggy* guys?  All of us hate it when our school installed surveillance cameras in the corridors or when they were introduced them in our workplaces. It is not a good feeling to have the Big Brother watching you , even if it is just a fat security guard bhaiya** who is never going to look at you. I’m sure you will have the same reaction if your employer attaches a GPS tracker on you.  While it certainly gives a sense of comfort to know where your food parcel is every minute of the day , isn’t it invading the delivery guy’s workplace privacy to track him every second? If they give a timeframe of 30 minutes and deliver it within that span , does it matter if he stopped for Chai^ in between? In fact , swiggy doesn’t give time based guarantee because we can see when their delivery guys are stuck in traffic. Isn’t it better to not know and demand free food? Food for thought. See what I did there?

*Indian based food app delivery service **brother ^Tea <3

2)    

  Isn’t alarming and annoying that advertisements load quicker than any video? It means they are giving us crappy service when they can do better. Always hate that when that happens. The guy who makes food in our hostel mess used to make awesome Sunday lunches and be crappy rest of the week. The reason he gave was “ You will appreciate my good work when you taste bad food , if I give you good food throughout the week , you will not appreciate my food so much” Underwhelm to Overwhelm is a very important mantra folks. In fact Conversations with God , the much acclaimed book basically keeps repeating this throughout by saying how you know God only when you know Evil. Glad to know that the world runs on such lofty ideals.

3)   

Do online debates ever solve anything? Every one is just trying to look smart , witty and sling mud at each other. Instead of having constructive discussions people correct each other’s grammar and call each other bhakts and presstitutes and feminazis and libtards. No one ever comes around to another’s point of view nor to they even concede a single error when it is blatantly obvious they are wrong. This is why there needs to be rule and orders to discussions. And Arnab Goswami. Just Kidding. But we do need mediators.

4)      Love trumps hate?

5)      Does anyone else google their dreams? Today I had a giant ant bite in my dream , I hope it is something not life altering. If you do interpret your dreams online try non Freudian ones. Else save yourself a search – it is definitely something sexual or traumatic from your childhood.

On that creepy note , I decide to leave you all.

Actually , google your dreams. It’s pretty fun.

Happy Sunday!

Divided we fall

Hi there. So it has taken me longer than usual to get the blog rolling this year. Starting the year with an old unpublished poem which fits the theme of unity :) Would absolutely love all feedback! So comment away.

A conjoined twin trying to escape another

Grunting in exertion and effort

As his flesh binds him to another

But not his spirit

A group of people deciding

What is best for themselves

And propagandising it as

What is best for those who they represent

And changing the contours of history

And geographical boundaries

By coercion and threat.

A group of disadvantaged people

Who are sick of the current system

And want to create their own system

To grow sick of.

The prince who abandoned his title

Subjects , wife and children

In the name of enlightenment.

Are all seceding. 

Physically

Politically and

Morally

But is anyone really succeeding? 

Written for Poet united's midweek motif  'unity'. 

The monster

When you were a kid

You would search for me

under your bed

the same monster

is now lurking inside your head.

Count to 10

Shut your eyes tightly to no avail

I will grow my gospel

In the darkest zones of your soul

Self doubt , green eyedness and low self esteem

Are only some of the seeds I sow

Their progenies will never really let you grow

Poor you ,

think sleep is a sweet escape

You forget each time that

nightmares are my favourite landscape.

I am the evil landlord

That vanquished your brain

When did you become the benami

Against your own benefit?

My name is pessimism

Do you even remember yours? 

So Imaginary Garden with Real Toads had this topic which really piqued my interest , the real fear which lurks in the night, So this is my contribution towards the same topic.

Hoping

Hope springs eternal they say

Only for those who bloom with sunshine

It didn’t

Give me a rope already

To hang ‘out’ with.

How can

Snaps and flashes of happy

Really compensate for this life

Which is so crappy?

Tell me really

I am trying so hard

To things not to get under my skin

Maybe a dark soul I am

For nefarious I feel

A true villain I am.

Insatiated with my genesis and growth &

Too proud to acknowledge my misery

I still give it company

I don’t want to give into this darkness

Where I seem to navigate seamlessly

When I see a happy person

I wanna dent their teeth and

Wipe that elusive smile off it

Thinking that I grit mine

And flash a fake smile and move

So what is the end you may ask?

To fit in by killing my self or

To stand out by killing myself?

Maybe it is to simply wait for a tomorrow

And hope that hope springs from within 

The Predator & The Prey

So the midweek motif in Poets United was ' predator and the prey' and I couldn't ask for a more perfect opportunity to write about this .It is more prosey than poemy but i just wrote what came to my mind. Leave your honest feedback below or I will go mad that nobody cared. Putting myself out there.

credits - Times of india

I always never liked him

The guy who rode me in his auto to school.

He acted like he was my boss

Bullying and puncturing my soul.

Made me sit in the worst positions

In his overcrowded rickshaw,

On the handrest, above his seat,

Even had to share his front seat.

My parents never believed me

As I had a penchant for fabricating honestly amazing lies.

He used to hurl abuses at me,

Unnecessarily delay taking me home,

He even drank on duty.

No one ever believed me.

Then one day he started asking me for ten bucks

And pestered me incessantly

Till I gave him some.

This became a habit.

I gave up complaining to my parents altogether.

He used to make fun of me in front of others

But I wasn’t a silent victim

I learnt bad words to combat his verbal diarrhoea

I acted like I didn’t care

Got used to his bad treatment to an extent that he got bored.

He wasn’t all evil either.

He told me about his son in law who had cancer.

I saw him giving free lifts to the poor

( delaying me furthermore)

Buying tea and biscuits to the old and needy

With whatever he had.

He told me about his affair ,

About his wife.

About his life.

He treated me like an adult ,

Alarm bells should have rung then.

He started speaking to me about sex ,

I was 13 then ,

It intrigued me

But I tried blocking it out.

I always pretended to read a book.

Then one fine day ,

The predator decided to hunt its prey.

But the prey was agile like a deer

And cried out like a hyena ,

The predator was old , tired and certainly drunk

And got scared by the fragile looking one causing so much

Noise.

So it decided to act like it was all a mistake.

The prey told her parents and her parents

Finally listened this time.  

Apparently many preys don’t speak out

And become silent victims.

Parents were proud of their prey

And the prey decided to not be one

And decided to act brave.

It worked.

People believed I was strong

I believed I was

I eventually felt strong

And became so.

But those memories still hit me when I’m weak.

If only they had listened quickly.
If only I had told them earlier 
If only

Beginner's Guide to Virtual Stalking

 Unfortunately, a lot of people know this already. However , they confuse it with 'love' and 'romance'. In the light of  recent murders and suicides involving the social media, I feel compelled to volunteer my opinion, Reading is completely at your discretion. 

" Reading is completely at your discretion. " Stalkers don't understand the meaning of this line. 'Discretion' has no place in their dictionary. Or does 'consent'. 

So steps to become a stalker. 

1) Create an anonymous profile with a celebrity's / baby's picture on it to show off your innocence/ attractiveness. Mostly , it doesn't produce the desired effect though. It looks very shady , like the person is trying to not reveal their original identity and that never leads to meaningful relationships.

Vijay anna is famous

Ok , this works.

2) Add as many profiles of opposite gender as possible. When you send a 100 requests at least 10 get accepted and voila! suddenly you have 10 mutual friends with the next 'friend' you are adding , misleading them to think they somehow know you or that you are somehow not a danger.

No gain

3) Start chatting with the 'friends'. This is the most fun part. Some guys start with the 'thank you for the accept' and ' your dp looks very nice' routine which quickly evolves into 'give me your number'.

 Opposite genders ( who am i kidding? GIRLS) , Please NEVER give your number. Once you give your number , you can't avoid round the clock nuisance , your location , privacy everything gets forsaken. Other guys for reasons unknown to mankind , keep sending 'hi' , sometimes 5 times a day and never go past 'sup?'  ' what did you do?' and never volunteer information about themselves and still think they are not creepy.

Took it from google

4) Then we come to the tipping point. As a stalker ( yes , going back to original mode) , it gets plenty frustrating when a girl doesn't reply to your heartfelt ( yet having no substance) messages or doesn't give you her number, That bitch! So you either call her names , abuse her for adding you in the first place , if she had given you personal info threaten to use it against her and the best of all , threaten to throw acid on her.

Hell hath no Fury

5) If you're an actual jerk  hurt lover, you carry out your threats.

Being a Facebook member for more than 7 years , all of what I typed has been endured by me except the 5th point. One guy actually threatened to throw acid on my face cz I dared to not give him my number. Can't reveal the chat because I blocked and reported and him and I have fantasy that he miraculously vanished from existence.

'Never add people you don't know' - is an often given advice and can be understood only the hard way. I am not saying all guys are stalkers. In fact , I have a lot of friends who I got to know through social media who are nice people. But there is a high risk of a lot of these types of people also when you add every person who sends you a request, 

• Add a person who you sure atleast 50 mutual friends with 
• Ask a close mutual friend about them just before adding them, No harm done, 
• Add people who share a common interest with you like blogging , cinema etc. 

As for the 'stalkers' reading this. I know most of you aren't even intending to be stalkers and come off as ones because you don't know how to express yourselves. How about having an original profile , having genuine conversation and respecting the girl's wishes for once? You will have a better success rate . Trust me. 

P.S - If a girl is clearly not interested in getting to know you , leave her alone. You deserve better. Respect yourself.

Disclaimer - All pics taken from the net. I didn't take or create anything. Merely for aesthetic value.

Feminazi?

www.ananasa.com image taken from

5 things I want from India as a woman living here.

1)      Stop getting raped. Like immediately please.

2)      To be able to buy a smoke without having to address the shopkeeper’s eyeballs which are way outside his sockets. And to be able to smoke it, like the million guys puffing right next to me. * Not endorsing smoking as a habit in any way. It is a deadly menace. But if men can read disclaimers, why can’t we? *

3)      To be able to enter TASMAC / liquor shops without any insinuations about my character thrown at me.

4)      To be able to stand in the road and speak to my male friend without a police officer shooing us away because it is the ‘night’ time. We can control ourselves and it is clearly none of his problem either ways. And wear whatever makes me comfortable.

5)      For people to realize that doing 2 , 3 ,4 is in NO ways related to 1.

I have been observing social media posts for a while now. While there seemed to be a consensus ‘innocent’ girls should never be raped , there seems to be an ambiguous grey area when it came to the ‘liberal feminazis’ who are asking for it. Let me tell you this , NO ONE is asking for it and wanted to write a blunt and unpretentious post which puts my views as clearly as possible on this topic.

And for once , I don’t want to debate. I don’t want to argue with someone on whether the behaviour of a victim was the cause of a rape or whether a girl ‘can’ smoke or drink like a guy.

THESE ARE FUNDAMENTALS WHICH I THOUGHT GOT COVERED IN THE ERA OF DRAFTING THE CONSTITUTION. IT FEELS LIKE TRYING TO TALK ABOUT SLAVERY.

But again that’s the sad state of affairs. Only times I regret democracy is when we have groups who can espouse such B.S under the garb of right to speech. But again , Benevolent Dictators are a very rare species.

For the last time , 

• A girl who has boy  "bad" habits is not a 'bad girl' 
• It is not cool to use NAZI on concepts you don't understand . Mass genocide shouldn't be easily made equatable to mundane activities
• NO ONE ( see how I'm gender neutral here) should be raped and there is no 'excuse' for rape ( certainly no your rapist son's promising swimming career) 

* when you think some things are basic like A , B , C and you realise most of the populace is dyslexic or just too stubborn to learn* 

8

Hi readers! Thanks for sticking around even when I don't write for months. I was having a writer's block of sorts and generally a rough phase in my life. The poem I'm publishing below is a very personal one and took a great deal of bravery from my side to be even posted. Many friends dissuaded me from sharing this particular chapter of my life. I have written on what it is like, to feel like a failure even when you know that you aren't one. It might seem like a small problem to most of you but I assure you that it has taken its toll on my life. However , I've recovered enough to talk about it now and share it with others , for I know that I'm not alone and want others to not feel alone too. This post does not intend to be negative , it just captures one of the darker phases of my life. There is always light at the end of the tunnel , I just chose to project the darkness this time. Thank you. 

People who get 98 start behaving like a 98

The poor ones who get an 8

Can’t help but feel like one.

Especially when you shower them with

Your 98 tonnes of optimism

It is not you , it is not them

It is the 8

Not the end of the world

But an 8.

Supposedly a learning curve

But unfortunately

Mostly a slippery slope

A direct downward spiral

Into the invisible abyss

Of mass mediocrity .

Which they have been trying to avoid ,

Even when they were at their

Personal Everest of fame.

What can you really do?

When your personal brilliance

Gets scraped off your skin

With the harsh gravel

That is your education system.

Don’t worry about your results.

Just give your best every time

Even if you fail almost every time

For faults that you never made.

Don’t worry , Don’t feel , Don’t care

Just play fruit ninja

And believe that it is not your fault

That you failed.

Keep playing fruit ninja ,

Knowing you did nothing to deserve that 8 .

Keep playing till you break all levels

Till you start doubting the veracity of your claims

Till you start doubting the obvious.

You know you did nothing wrong.

But where is the proof?

Who feels like shit?

Not that you know how shit really feels like

But you get the gist.

Who feels depressed all the time ,

Not able to cope with a seemingly

Erroneous failure ,

You or university or god?

Till the day of hopefully inevitable rectification

Who has to squirm every time they hear an 8?

The number you once loved

Because it was so easy to draw

Till you found out 2 O’s wasn’t the way anyways.

The number which you mastered

To apply for license .

The number you cannot help but hate irrationally.

Now.

If what happened was so irrational

As everyone makes it out to be,

Why can’t we have our own irrational outburst to it?

Functioning after a failure is tough

Even for the best of us.

It is like learning to walk

With broken legs

Which aren’t set properly.

Extending the stick called sensitivity

Is more than welcome.

It might be not as grave as it sounds

But it certainly feels that way.

Outpouring of grief on virtual paper

Might never solve anything ,

But what else can one do really?

No one can control anything.

Except the person who gives me

Marks it seems. 

Samyuktha Semi Jayaprakash 

Puppy love

I’ve been fooling around for way to long now. Ideas for a blogpost have been pouring from my brain ever since it realized the sheer magnitude of boredom I have to suffer during lectures xP So, time for a post served up straight from my heart <3

I miss my dog .

It is funny because just about a year back – I didn’t own a dog.

And I used to hate dogs . Okay hate is a strong word – I couldn’t tolerate dogs – I found them very needy.

Then something changed.

The dog in the basket apparently grew up :')

My brother , who emanates doggie love ever since he has been born , came home carrying a heavy basket. Attracted immediately, I demanded to know what was contained in that basket. And to my surprise it was the cutest puppy which was just a few days old :’) and thankfully it wasn’t gonna stay in our place for long. It was to be adopted by my cousin much to my brother’s dismay.  His lifelong thirst for doggie love wasn’t going to be quenched just yet.  And mine was just about to begin!

poser

One fine day during the summery month of June ( okay all the months are summery in chennai -_- :P ) I heard a bark from MY backyard. What was a dog doing in our backyard? :O Okay , maybe I am overreacting here. Our house being a million years old , attracted all species of insects and animals , stray cats purposefully strutting about the hallway wasn’t very uncommon . Still! Stray dogs barking from the backyard simply took it to a whole new level.

Initially everybody at home ( sans my brother) treated the dog ( which would inevitably be named laika ) with disdain and it was quite obvious that we would chase it out soon. Yaja (bro) didn’t even demand for a dog because he knew the answer to that futile question already , “ How can you take care of a dog , when you cannot take care of yourself in the first place?”. However Laika proved to be a beacon of perseverance , clawing and digging her way back to our backyard and after a point we simply gave up chasing her.  Reluctantly she was enlisted into our mad family .

I must describe her here. Not beautiful in the quintessential way , Laika is ravishingly eyecatching with her inhuman energy and innate naughtiness, which is very contagious . A total ragamuffin – she looked like a little sheep when she joined us. Black spots merge with her white coat seamlessly and she had very silky hair for a stray . She is the first love of my life.

My baby

During the early days , I was very hesitant to make any contact with her. My toleration level permitted me to just about share a room with her. However Laikoos has a natural gift of winning over people she really wants to win over. With her insistent love and boyish charm , she slowly entered seeped into the rock which was my heart . Times I have spent with her since are pure magic and now I can only relive them as memories. Thankyou college L

Owning a pet IMO, fundamentally alters you as a person. Read Dean Koontz’s ‘ A big little life’ , a story of his dog trixie and the various meanings he attaches to her and the role she plays in his life. All that unconditional love makes you feel rightly undeserving and surely irks you enough to strive for improvement. Life becomes a little bit rosier, much more cheerful and optimistic when a dog is in love with you.  The faith they show in you sometimes restores your faith in humanity.

Okay enough philosophy.

Getting a bit more specific , I read this article on Pune mirror which set my thoughts in motion. It was about the increasingly violent behavior of stray dogs in Pune and how they are disturbing the lives of civilians and even killing rare species for their meals. So , the paper feels that dog catchers are right in ‘catching and putting an end to the dog menace’ .

I definitely agree that Rabies is a scary disease but animal cruelty is an uglier one.

The dogs should definitely be vaccinated for their and our own good. But dogs don’t bite for no reason . Yes , there are some mad dogs like there are a few mad human beings loitering  this world. Provocation is a 2 way street. Dogs don’t generally enjoy biting humans for fun – it is usually the other way around . We like torturing them by throwing stones and even imitating them . This attitude must be changed . Children from a ripe age must be taught that dogs and other animals deserve the same treatment as the so called ‘superior’ humans.

Okay getting preachy again. All I wanna say is that people should stop this blind paranoia of hating animals , without even attempting to love. For love is always more natural than hate and if we believe otherwise we are fundamentally flawed in nature .

P.S – Have a pet.

P.S . S – I am turning a complete vegetarian after this post. 

Photo credits - Yajur Jayaprakash

Yours

Semi