Silver Linings

Silver Linings

One good day , One Bad day

Arthritic steps

slowly crunching on  

Best time for silver linings

Is when you are blindfolded

Trace them through your heart

Holding its shattered pieces in place

The hand which holds your hair

When you are unloading your stomach out

And which holds your hand

When you are unloading your heart out.

The voice which might be on a virtual screen

Million miles away

An emoji in the end

 which wipes that tear away.

One good day , One bad day

A spring in my step

Steadily marching on.

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)

Little Maryam

Indian fiction seems to be in two ends of a spectrum – One covered by the fancy Salman Rushdies and Vikram Seths of the world who weave magical and complex tales encompassing an astounding breadth of narratives and on the other end we have our humble Chetan Bhagats who write simple stories for the ‘average Indian’. This is actually true for all literary worlds. There is a tendency to look down upon these simple tales , more so if they are ‘love stories’. Given India’s crowded average love stories , I wouldn’t even grudge the critics so harshly.

‘Little Maryam’ on first glance might come off as yet another love story. And believe it or not it is exactly that - but with a small difference. It is good!  Like my favourite character McSteamy aka Mark Sloan says to Mcdreamy in Grey's Anatomy  “Cliches became clichés for a reason. Because they worked. It is great isn’t it”

McSteamy Approves (y)

Simple stories written well which make you feel things are the best!

 Revealing anything about this book might come off as a spoiler. The premise is a rooted little love story between Saadiq Haider and a girl called Maryam , the twists of fate which befall them earlier and later. The official tag line reads - A second chance romance with a shocking twist. 

 However , if you are an experienced reader you can see these twists come a mile away.. but it still won’t stop you from feeling the very real emotions pouring from it and that is what I absolutely loved about this book. 

I tried narrating this story to a close friend and she just started laughing at how ludicrous it sounded. However , in Hamid Baig’s words it is all too real, intense and believable. The initial portions might seem like a stretch but the care and craft puts in helps the punch land strongly later. Even the word 'little' in 'Little Maryam' has significance,

The book is laser focused on telling the tale of Dr. Haider and Maryam so much so that it glosses over parts like say winning of a nobel prize!At the same time thanks to the well crafted initial portions there is a sense of rootedness permeating through the book (maybe stemming from the Banyan Tree which it so lovingly portrays). The emotions are authentic and feel earned . I went from frowning at it to crying over it much like the person who the story is narrated to over the plane!

And for the all the people who read this review and thought that maybe this is  coming from a typical senti romance loving girl , I swear it is not! I remember crying over only two books before

 1) Paths of Glory by Jeffery Archer and 2) Oath of Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi. 

I just feel that the earnestness of the book has rubbed off on me, to give it such a glowing recommendation. There were a few places where I would have liked a more detailed narration and some words which didn’t feel like it didn’t belong in the sentences but the fact that it made me cry like a baby makes me wanna not care about it. This is great work by a debutante who I hope will only get better from hereon.

Verdict – Give it a shot with an open mind

Stars – 4/5

Carpe the frikking diem

Seize the day

Every second , every minute

Do not let the drowsiness drown you ,

Let that moment ebb away

Before long you will be viewing it from

Mount Nostalgia

Where powerful telescopic lenses

Painfully scrutinise every moment you wasted

Till you had no more

With the ones you love.

Things you took for granted

Will be pulled away without ceremony

You will be lying on the carpet

Rubbing your head

Wondering about gravity

The day your sun burns no more

Sounds like an improbability

Beyond your levels of comprehension

But it was always right around the corner my friend

You’re just driving for the first time

Listen to this burned freak and just

Seize the day.

Scream

Taking a raincheck on one’s feelings

Is a recipe for disaster

Trying to be strong for both of us

Has only made me weaker

World’s greatest armor

Is being in disguise

Only when the chinks start to show

You will know that there is nothing brave inside

 So why don’t you pull that veil

Make me scream

Say those words and

Save me too?