Ye Meri Hai Kahani ✍️ 🪽

कुछ कह दिया होता? कूर्ग का टिकट करा ही लिया होता? शायद सब बेहतर होता। The “if theory” is the wisest of all for the pitch — even for skeptical humans. Time traveling has always fascinated my mind, as it does for many of us. We often wish to leap into the future or alter the past. Last July, I unexpectedly got a call from the city of Jhilmil and Barfi. I felt the emotions exactly as Satyajit Ray’ s movies make us feel, with the metaphysical boundaries of dreams and reality, reminiscent of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry. Before my rotting thoughts could steal all the joy, as they did in the movie Lootera near lakes, I tried to reassemble my gratitude while being in sujood. Literature expertise would lead to an institute talking about consultancy. Phew! I never thought God’s pitch worked like that. If 25-year-old Munazza hadn’t heard that, she wouldn’t have thought of this pun: What a joka! No wonder I’ve stopped writing. Ideas only come in dreams, in waves, often butchered...

Scribble, Scribble, Scribble, Crumbling another poem on paper  without a word, Oh! Wait, scribbling on your skin.🪟 The beautiful arc of the stretch marks—I always wish I had one. Ammi had many; she told me Nani got some after giving birth to her. I stole a man with a scribble [strech marks].  Oh! I can't stop imagining the loud crackles during heavy rain- One in his eyes that I name his cheeks a land of tears, Other outside his window of the slurs people speak for him.  Their ugly mindsets never come close  to even his bin polythene. 🗑️  The man I stole wore long sleeves to hide the stretch marks. 👔 I wore long sleeves to avoid being questioned about my favorite burnt skin, “ Hey, what kind of mark are on your neck and forearms .” 👘 I am tired of telling them  How much I love my burnt skin, As they made me a living story. Along the ocean of unbothered waves, I'm tired of his disgust for hating his stretch marks. Sometimes I carve a line or two, 🖋️...

The scenery of home during monsoon Is like putting flavours for the first time In a new dish.  Important, Confused,  An Adventure of a lifetime memory.  The plants aren't easy to look after,  Like murky dust on the windows 🪟  That wet doormat on the balcony during rain ☔  The last decor piece on the first wall hanging craft from the kindergarten. Earlier, it was the aromatic new books at school, Now, it's the cool advertisement of unpleasant crocs,  The payment slip of new job, To savour the delicious noodles.  The latest exercise at gym, And the muscles sore it brings, With loads of serotonin. The failure expressing gratitude in a new mail, And may be being selected for the interview at favourite institute. The pungent smell of the last burnt photograph, And the fresh journal diary with generous characters.  What is easy then? The running feet to grab the clothes hanging 👚 The drenched feet playfully dancing 🌊 The relief of petrichor, The...

The raindrops fulfill the space of void the scorching sun has placed☔. The weather has been a constant struggle, resonating with checking emails of geniuses places for interviews. We hope to find hope with notifications of black clouds or a bird sound through technologically advanced instruments. In the middle of struggles and laughter, two messages on the same day welcomed my flight mode. "Hey! When will you come to Lucknow? I want to meet you." The message was from a bully from 2017. Before I lose all my memories, I have to write this so that I remember the arrow-shaped scar on my left arm is left by the betrayal of my own roommates. Allah says in the Quran that a human doesn't have two hearts. It brought in the idea that either they're good or bad. The choice and responsibilities are bestowed upon them. To this day, I shiver at how the bond of sharing tea, biscuits, and lending laptops was all a sham. The screams, taunts, hurtful words seeped through my ear, entere...

I see a mirror in front of the tiny basin I flinch at my reflection; There is a man behind me  Holding my hair, gently Like a professional hairdresser,  planting a pony tail. I see a mirror in front of the green round basin, I stopped in the moment- As the pause,  While watching a movie with DVD  during the washroom break, Or At times for the freshly danced churmurey. The man played a song from Barfi Placing tiny droplet shaped toothpaste Flavoured with mint, and love. I see a mirror in front of the rectangular gold basin, The man in the reflection had a gentle smile. I fell on my knees Begging the reflection to be of one  Mine, mine alone! The man helped me to brush my teeth; "Clean the tongue, it won't budge me  Rinse the mouth,  There's nothing anxious  if water splashes all over me." Eye level with the cabinet doors,  Sitting still, I see a soap freshly wrapped With elite fragrance 🧼 I feared the swirling froth, Soaking well in my maroon...

"I'm in Delhi for this weekend. Let's catch up." The dialogue looks familiar to many family destroyers: women of a kind and men of immoral values. In July, I received a random dark pamphlet for an invitation out of regret. Readers might end up assuming my beloved's card was filled with cashews inside, but the good news is that my beloved died in the second week of January 2023, crushed under a centipede. Our bond is safe; he is in the grave while I lurch between ugly humans. The screen odor of my past values was rotten in the present then.  BEWARE! My fiction is OUR Reality, not just mine! The pamphlets punched the wall I created to feel safer at the other side. The dialogues filled my skin and bones till I was unable to breathe. We all have heard the sourness of language at some points of our living moments. It became our chronic diseases.  What tears and blood on mouth are to those with lips dipped in wine and Christian Louboutin Rouge Matte Lipstick shades? Nu...