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)

 

Silver Linings Playbook

By Samyuktha J

Once upon a time

she did give a damn.

She reacted to every crime

On every page of that depressing newspaper.

The creases on that paper

Started residing on her forehead &

 the corners of her mouth

Her smiles few and far between

Had the air of melancholy

Of a loss felt before it was born.

She grew apart from her people

Better than to fall apart she would say.

Then one day I saw her at Joe’s and shocked to hear her sing

Once upon a time

I did give a damn.

Now I would rather dine on my dime

And definitely some more wine.

Life is too short and my dog’s life shorter

Can’t waste any on things that I cannot change

And definitely not on things designed to make me cringe

Salut and Bon Apetit!

My inquisitive eyes were question enough

She smiled a benign smile

Her eyes crinkled with joy.

“One Sunday morning

I was reading the paper in no man’s land

I didn’t feel the heat nor the beauty of what was around me

Nor did I feel my loneliness or the danger surrounding me

I was feeling older than my age and carrying the burden of the world

When I suddenly looked out of the paper

And saw a wolf in front of me.

Peaceful and wise staring at me

I found beauty in the beast

And possibilities of violence

If I moved too much.

Then I Realized the whole point of my life

Was to look at him ,

look at what was around me

And not darned piece of paper!

I tore it to pieces and was searching for a dustbin in that wasteland

And when I turned back he wasn’t there anymore

But atleast I was."

I smiled. 

 I know she did give a damn

but this time

To what really mattered

To what was in front of her

Life~

Written for the sunday muse

Golden Brown

All the gloss , glitter and glue

Cannot photoshop the sheer phobia

Lurking right beneath her skin

Forming a palpable layer,

They attack her

Only when no one is watching.

She seems so bold

But is actually quite brittle

Her quiet melancholy

Muddled by her extensive cacophony.

She is indeed a prisoner of her own device

Trapped in bravado

She just wants to cry.

Yet when her man is watching

She cannot let him see

If the truth is really exposed

Won’t he just flee?

Better to break it off

And be the bitch

Than take it off

And be his bitch.

Of course it is all very problematic

But who are we to judge?

We all mask our frail insecurities

 marinate them with worry &

deep fry it till it becomes golden brown.

Others

Living on the mandate of others

Is basically Life imprisonment

Yet we all bear through it

All Smiles through a gritted teeth.

A rite of passage of course

To come unscathed through the other side

Full of sudden wisdom and cryptic cynicism

Silently afraid to cut these choking umbilical chords

Nourishment and community and all

Convincing ourselves this is what it is

To Be Human,

Taking the place of the Others

Who won and lost

Losing our wonder

And wondering what we lost-

The essence of being ourselves

The hyenas feed on our soul

Only when it is exposed

Keep it intact tightly within you

Guard it like a watchdog

Fundamental rights and all.

Worship it like a temple and

Pray you don’t lose yourself

For the call of others

Whatever may be the cost.

Nesting

Hi guys! I am finally done with my five year law course. While academically it is a big relief , personally it is taking time to readjust from one home to another. So I start this new innings with a supposed to be simple poem about the same. More inventive stuff for later.

What is the word Bittersweet supposed to even mean?

When you like Bitter more than sweet

I ain’t no Ayn Rand but

I do know when things get out of hand.

The streets of joyous past invite me in my sleep

It is all too real now

Once it isn’t tangible anymore.

I run and run inevitably into the white light

Only to wake up sweating underneath the not so noisy fan

All the pent up teardrops

Have made me moist from inside.

Even removing the corn from my foot

Feels like saying bye to an old friend.

It isn’t all doom and gloom

There is hope in the horizons still

Life just got a whole lot more interesting

I could be anything I want

Yet I can’t

It is the whole balancing act

That adulting is all about

I feel like Peter Parker with his superpowers

Fighting the infinity war

Hope I don’t disintegrate into thin air!

The new has become old and the old new

There is no such thing as status quo

Just a new list of never ending woes.

I twirl my hair more

To tangle it like my feels

And make decisions myself

Without sharing it immediately to my friends..

Feels wrong yet right?

An Exciting time to be alive!

Am I right?!

( I have used more rhyming words to incorporate my pre college style and ?! to show my state of mind. This is Part 1 Of my poem series on Adulting)

Sense of an Ending

Once I was the new girl

quietly inhabiting my corner 

Inhibitions galore 

Tongues tied with awkwardness 

wrapping me up, producing no comfort. 

It took a fair amount of time,

some nice humans and 

a good deal of ass kicking and coffee smelling 

to be me in front of them. 

Then school got over and college got me

starting all over again. 

College took a fair bit longer 

with relocation , Hindi and whatnot

I had resigned myself to my fate 

of becoming the crazy cat lady or

the pigeon lady from Home alone. 

All it took was one kind human 

to introduce me to her friends 

With them I could finally 

Stand in the sun. 

A big family of friends we became 

a noisy bunch , food bonded us 

to extraordinary measures

We ate more than we spoke

maybe the only reason restaurants

didn't kick us out! 

We handled failures and successes 

makeovers and breakdowns 

with much elan 

and stuck with each other through it all. 

Intimidating other individuals with our 

sheer numbers

we had a ball! 

Now the days are vanishing rapidly 

and the sun might set on us after all. 

The time to restart is looming around the corner 

I  wish this time that 

I can put them in my pockets 

and carry them wherever I want! 

What is the up

Hi guys. I have been trying to write a poem for the last half hour and have ended up deleting innumerable drafts already. That side of my brain hasn’t really been put to work in a good while and let’s give it some time to catch up.

So what are you all up to?

What Is the up

I am currently interning at a Tax law firm and I have to admit I am struggling with all the technicalities. But I believe learning is a long arduous and painful process and one day like the karate kid or Akshay Kumar from Chandni Chowk to China , I’ll be all ready and pro to face the world… or at least get a job.

Ponderings

I am back in Chennai for this month and I have to admit that it is very weird to be back in a place with only the skeletons of my past remaining… the souls have moved on to their respective futures and careers of course. Ah the other side of the brain is finally starting to flow guys!

It is so scary to think of the future and where I’ll be in a year. Out of college and with a job hopefully but where? Here where it all begun once and waiting to begin again? Or there? Or someplace which my brain hasn’t even processed yet?

It doesn’t help that the helpful elders keep throwing in innuendos about marriage! Like that is even in the horizon. I know that the voices will only keep getting louder and my poor grandmom is in for a rude shock when she finds out that it is not even in the outside of the picture haha.  

Latest Read

So I have been reading Patriot Games the book ( yes which became a movie with Harrison Ford in it) The book takes it own sweet time to come to the point and spells out too many procedures to be any fun. Worst is the casual sexism and racism which is just impossible to digest in today’s context. It was quite amusing and ironical to read about an America which didn’t fear terrorism and the philosophies which shaped the pre 9/11 era.

Latest movie

I watched the Hell and the High water yesterday and was really impressed by it. Jeff Bridges , Chris Pine and Ben foster star in the movie and the screenplay really does a good job of fleshing out their characters. So much so that even though you don’t agree with their actions you can still understand their motivations for the same. The move deals with Armed Robbery in a refreshingly honest way. Also , I think Chris Pine wins the Chris war with this one.

 Latest Show

I watch like zillion shows at the same time. Still I would recommend the Aussie show ‘800 words’ , It is a perfect replacement for Packed to the Rafters. It is about George Turner a recent widower who uproots his two teenage kids from Sydney to a small town in New Zealand called Weld. Doesn’t sound like much but the show has created a beautiful fictious land called Weld with a wide battery of characters who are all authentic. Each episode manages to be fresh and strongly thematic and I insist that you give it a watch.

So what is the up with you people? C’mon you have to warrant this earnest personal post with a comment atleast! Let’s build a tiny community J

Shhh

Nothing good comes after 3 AM

The monsters are waiting just around that corner

I am losing already.

Great confusion over life goals

Nothing comes easily

The landscape where I once seamlessly stepped into

Now not really.

Hush! You are no more a little baby

A sad and helpless insomniac

Penning thoughts for solace in sleep

If only words can make you drowsy

Maybe I should do a push up

Or simply shut up my burning eyes

What about this constantly humming brain?

Maybe symptom of an everlasting pain

Make this stop please I beg

You can if you want to, says a voice from within

But isn’t that a case with everything?

The question of how might beat the question of when

And the collateral might defeat the win.

Shhh.  

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.

A dollop of darkness and a drop of sunshine.

It has been a long while my friends since I wrote anything in this space. Never has an injury to my right hand (which I have had one too many of ) affected me as much as now. I am impressed with the hunger I feel to write.

I used to be called callous, insensitive

Was never happier.

The minute I started to give a damn

The tragedy started.

The tragedy called life

Where people you used to love

Became completely different persons

So much so that

You think you wanted a disclaimer

That things could go horribly wrong!

But maybe this is the disclaimer

For the next time.

Writing all this, I look in the mirror

And see a completely different person

Than the years before.

Role reversals

Shape shifting

By the tendrils of time.

I want to be who I was

And also who I am.

A dollop of darkness and a drop of sunshine.

Aloof and caring at the same time.

How to achieve all this

When I can’t even tie my shoe laces on? 

And to my poets united friends. The post came before the motif. So the explanation maybe a bit contrived. So my take is that this piece is an appreciation of the effect of time upon our lives. 

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.

Imagine Mountains

What do mountains mean to me?

Eons back! 

At my lowest they are insurmountable challenges that I look up at , with more awestruck worry than inspired determination. Being a fretful diva , I tend to feel that these imaginary mountains are firmly embedded on my tired shoulders.

I hate their stupid hairpin bends , which give my already motion sick tummies a valid reason to unburden themselves. I have a distinct memory of myself , a 7 year old shutting my eyes very tightly whilst hugging my dad’s lap as the auto went up the mountain. Like the tightness and resultant blindness has anything to do with my body’s capacity to deal with the stress of travel!

Oh how I hate the mountains.

Then I climbed a hill. By myself – 2 years back? Symbolism and travelling aside , they do have a plus. They have peaks!

The exhilaration you get when you reach the top , the air feeling fresher than it was a couple of feets ago.

The panaroma! Everything looks small from the top. It gives you perspective , humility – which I lack in abundance.

If you can feel that up a hill , you can definitely feel it up a mountain right?

I don't know why I trekked but I am glad I did. 

But Mountain is also the dude from Game of thrones who killed Oberyn Martell!

So maybe I have mixed feelings about mountains.

I scaled a huge mental mountain today. Scaled one without giving up , a bit battered and bruised and I am definitely feeling the high xD but what happens after this? Climbing down can be slippery , definitely if you’re taking the surfboard called fun down it. Imageries aside, being a beach person I wanted to thank all the mountain people who helped me in this climb. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it but it was an adventure nonetheless. Thank you.

Hope you all enjoy the high too. Think about that if you’re climbing a steep path yourself.

Okay I will stop.

Bye!  

So what do mountains mean to you?