How lucky are you

How lucky are you
To have tasted the nectar of love
From the moist corners
of your lover's dripping affection;
To sit peacefully in their shadow
Being the only subject
of their unswerving attention;
To create absolute silence
unknowingly; the noise you hear
of two bodies breathing in unison;
To feel time stand still
while witnessing that smile, a symbol
of undying love and passion!

How lucky are you
To just have someone with whom
you can talk sans fear
of being judged, of misinterpretation;
To be secure, and
never cower behind the phobia 
of being alone, of desertion;
To hold a hand, which
gives you strength in moments
Of self-loathing, misery, depression;
To look into a pair of shimmery eyes
and an unhindered, unscathed view
of love, the purest human emotion!

~ Saurav Goyal

The Last Erudition

Samira could feel her heart racing. Her throat dried up and attempts to swallow her own spit felt like she was trying to gulp down thorns. Her head felt light and dizzy. She looked at her right hand shaking violently as she grabbed the low iron rail fence. She took a moment to calm her nerves and took three deep breaths. As she extended her left hand and grabbed the rail, her head started throbbing; as if the body was trying to send all the blood to the brain so it functions more efficiently and thinks correctly. Her body seemed to be losing all energy and she had to put in a lot of effort just to lift her right leg over the railing.

Now she had one foot on the edge of the terrace of the 23 storeyed building, and the second one on the other side of the iron fence. Her sweaty palms were holding on to the railing with every iota of strength left in her body. This was not the right time to doubt the decisions she had vowed to undertake, she reminded herself as she sat down on the wobbly iron fence. Cautiously and slowly, she lifted her left hand and took out the neatly folded piece of paper from the back-pocket of her jeans. She held the letter from its edges as she did not want the sweat of her palm to smudge the ink. “What if the fall makes my butts bleed and the letter becomes illegible?” she thought to herself and dismissed the bizarre idea of blood spurting from her bottoms like a fountain. 

“This is going to be the last memory which I will share with the world. These words, strung together, are going to be my eulogy. This is what I will be remembered for.” she said to herself fighting back tears as she started reading her last ode to the world.

Hi (one last time),

I am aware that I will be called immature, weak, stubborn and careless after this final act I do, especially by you, pop. But this is the last disappointment I will be giving you, I promise. I want to state it clearly right at the very onset of this last letter I am leaving behind that I do not hold any person responsible for what I am going to do. This decision is mine and mine alone. It is not because of any kind of physical or emotional threat from any person.

If you were to ask me the reason behind this decision, it is not one but many small things that have snowballed into creating an avalanche of emotional turbulence in my life. I am treated like a caged bird, the cage being my home. There is no lack of love, no domestic violence against me; I am loved and cared for just like a domesticated pet, I am to do what I am told without having my own say in things. I have lived whole of 26 years of my life doing exactly what Pop wanted me to do. Right from choosing which subject I would study to which kind of clothes I would wear, even at home!

Being a girl, I always thought it would be easier for my mother to understand the kind of problems I was facing; the curb on free thinking, the high expectations in both academic and social fields simultaneously and the curfew timings from pre-evening just to name a few. But expecting Mom to interfere in these matters was pure stupidity on my part. She had faced the same problems when she was growing up in her ancestral house in the small town in Madhya Pradesh but she was blind to see my struggles and fight. But the problem is that the life of the generation before us is filled with hypocrisy, starting right from women’s rights to right to individuality.

However, I do feel that I myself am to be blamed for this discriminatory treatment. My parents were always harbouring such a mindset and I was just too meek to stand against it as I was growing up. I agreed to and did whatever they wished from me without questioning them or telling them how it made me feel. I never stood up for my beliefs, my thoughts, my decisions, which in turn made them think that I was happy and content with the life THEY had chosen for me. But after college, when I started working and met so many different people from all spheres, my life started to feel like a train-wreck. These people were bustling with confidence. They were independent and strong individuals, who had developed their own thought-process and took their own decisions after weighing what was right, wrong and best for them. I have never been able to do this. When I started to demand more from my parents, when I started demanding for my own individuality, they were taken aback. For 24 years of their lives they had moulded me to form a perfect little girl who would do as told, was educated, had a good job and would probably be married in a respectable family. When I tried to argue with them, they felt I am defying their order and going against their authority. The hypocrisy is so deep rooted in their psyche that they develop a feeling of denial towards it; denial to accept that this behaviour might be hampering my way of living and my mental state. This denial is now leading to them alienating me. I am virtually a stranger living in the house of my father. 

I am growing tired of the battle I am fighting daily to keep a happy face while staring at the blank faces of my parents. Then go to my office and continuously think about not going back home and taking the first train out of this damned city, and deciding against it. I feel claustrophobic even when I am out in the open. In the middle of this entire conundrum going on in my head, it is almost impossible to focus on any real things. This is leading to a fall in standard of my office work, my relationships and my happiness. If there is one thing I have always tried to stay away from –it is mediocrity; and mediocre is exactly what I have been feeling nowadays. I am not ending my life today; I am ending the mediocre woman’s life that has been staying in my head and body for the last couple of months. Do not hate me for what I have become and done. Please remember me for who I was when I was still your Simmu!

With immense love, regret, anger, angst, shame, humility and respect,

Signing off

She wiped the stream of tears that were flowing uncontrollably. She folded the paper neatly and stood up, still holding the iron rail with her right hand. She kept the letter in her back pocket and lifted her left leg over the railing. Now both her legs were a few inches from the perimeter of the building. She took a peek at the ground below her, the parking lot was empty with just a few cars scattered around, none too close to where she would fall. Being a weekday and school hours, there were no kids playing in the compound. 

Samira could feel her heart jumping in her chest, almost ready to break the ribcage and burst out. Another moment of delay would have definitely led to weakness. She took a few inches further towards the edge with her knees wobbling and a very strong urge to vomit rising from the pit of her stomach. She looked up at the creator whom she was heading to meet. She should have simply taken the train to another city.

THUD!!

Children's Day!!

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये..

नन्हे हाथों से ढाबों पर चाय बनवाये,

छोटे बच्चों से घर के काम कराये,

पटाखों के कारखानो में बारूद पकड़ाए,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

क्यों ना एक नक्सलवादी बनाये,

खिलोनो के जगह इसे बन्दूक थमाए,

उसके दिमाग से सही-गलत का फर्क मिटाये,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

सड़कों पर इनसे भीख मंगवाए,

मिठाई के बदले तम्बाकू दिलाये,

एक चौरस्ते को इनका घर बनाये,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

मासूमियत का पूरा फायदा उठाये,

भीड़ वाले इलाकों में इन्हें छुआ जाये,

शोषण करके अपनी मर्दानगी दिखाए,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

क्यों ना किसी गरीब माँ बाप से इन्हें ख़रीदा जाये,

दूर कहीं विदेश में इन्हें बेचा जाये,

अपना ज़मीर और इनका भविष्य तबाह किया जाये,

आओ धूम धाम से आज बाल दिवस मनाया जाये।।

~सौरव गोयल

To, Political Party in Power

Dear Politician,

It brings me great pleasure in thanking you for the recent myriad of bans that you have been imposing on the people who thought it was a great idea to vote for you and bring you to power. Every government should give utmost importance to such moral policing because the citizens are never matured enough to know what is right or wrong for them; even though the constitution of our country, for some odd reason, thinks that they are matured enough to vote. Keeping a check on issues like what the countrymen are eating, watching, talking about or thinking about are clearly the things which contribute to growth and development. Developed countries are not where they are today because its governments gave the citizens freedom to dream and live as they wish. It is countries which thought “religious laws are the best, bro” which are doing so much better today. 

This shows the level of dedication you are putting in the promises you made, like making this country digital, cleaning up the streets and rivers, educating every child, saving girls. There is probably no better way to ensure that no woman is misbehaved-with than by banning beef! Because cow is our mother; mother is a woman; and by banning consumption of cows people will automatically start respecting cows and hence respecting women. Your genius is unparalleled, dear sirs! 

The job you are doing to make sure the minority groups do not feel left out is also commendable. A meat seller going home without money or food for his family for days should never stop a group of vegetarians from feeling hurt if meat is sold during their holy fast. As an educated and secular society we should be more sympathetic towards that dying animal, not the human who will die of hunger because of the ban. 

Let me take this opportunity to say that as a voter and a responsible citizen I will always be by your side because from here on, only better days can come, as you had promised!

Thanking You

A Bhakt

Non-Independent India

12th August, 2015: The struggle towards the freedom of India’s independence is finally picking up its pace. The era of British Raj looks to have entered its climax. The frequent uprisings in every part of the country seem to have taken the Royalty by surprise. Late last night the Viceroy and Governor-General of India tweeted through his office handle “@Viceroyalty_IN: This preposterous and dastardly act of trolling the tax officers will be severely dealt with!!” 

Some would say that this was to be expected after the recent debacles by the government in its policy making. In an act of appeasing certain sections of people in some states where the uprisings were becoming frequent and violent, the government had banned the sale and consumption of beef. The crimes against women have shot up in every part of the country because of the nonchalant attitude of the White heads-of-police. In a cunning majority-group pleasing tactic they have successfully banned all the websites with adult content. Not to mention the steep rise in racist attacks; the Facebook page of the East Indian Railway Company reads “First-Class prohibits the entry of dogs and Indians”. 

In this environment of hate and tension, there are certain revolutionaries who are flaring up the freedom movement. Mr. M. K. Gandhi, Lawyer and ‘Twitter-Celeb’, through his online petitions and social-media activism is creating ruffles in the Queen’s feathers. His #NonCooperation was trending on top in India and 3rd worldwide last week. This week he has been urging all his followers to unfollow and unsubscribe all British handles and channels respectively and then tweet about it using #Satyagraha. Mr. S. C. Bose with his military and intelligence background has been allegedly forming a secret army to start an uprising in order to topple the local governments. He has amassed a great number of followers in the name of Mr. Azad, Mr. Singh, Mr. Thapar, Mr. Rajguru and Mr. Rai etc. 

The British authorities are pretty dazed with the sudden threat; hence as a knee-jerk reaction, they have decided to send Indian troops to Libya and Syria, in their war against the ISIS. The authorities have also passed a lot of legislations such as 66A of the Information Technology Act which makes ‘offensive statements’ punishable. The commanding officer in Champaner, Gujarat, had issued high tax (on land) and has surprisingly challenged the villagers to play a match of cricket to decide the future to the taxes in the province. Our team is being captained by Sachin Tendulkar and has a number of good fast bowlers in the likes of Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar. The match is scheduled to be played in the first week of December. 

The near future will show whether the Indian freedom fighters will be able to create history and achieve independence. It will also be interesting to see how Jinnah’s separatist ideas lead to a change in the approach towards the Quit India Movement by Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru. Let us just hope that tomorrow’s India wakes up to a democratic and just future.