Ye Meri Hai Kahani ✍️ 🪽

Walking by the lake, I’m struck by the ducks gliding effortlessly across the water 🦆. It’s a beautiful sight. But then, sadness creeps in, like dark clouds gathering above. I remember the mulberry tree we had to cut down, it felt like losing a piece of home. 🪵 🏡  Yet, as I watch the students laughing nearby living a life with innocence in heart, I’m reminded of hope👩🏻‍💻📓✍🏻💡. Their joy contrasts sharply with my heaviness. What is hope, I wonder, when everything else feels so burdensome? :') Cutting down the mulberry bush in the orchard wasn't the plan for the year 2025. Abbu informed me this news of separation months later because of knowing my longing for things. I find comfort in the mundane things,from new baby grass to colourful dupatta flowing in the wind as if it's dancing with nature, most probably running from the snatching away of monkeys in our hometown. I dislike the monkeys 🐒 tearing the drying clothes, just like I dislike the idea of gettin...

Scene I   Lights Camera Pen☀️  How lonely and lovely at the same time, To live in a castle of own, How strange and fluffy  The winds from roof Where rain keeps showering  Like dancing along. I keep singing poems While doing the laundary  And hanging the clothes to go dry Some lose their charms Some crankles, some run  Some turn out from black to greyyyyyyyy! I tip toe the work I Like it's an art! It's always always better to do work this way. It's easy, and lovely  And as Mary⁵ and Bert⁶ says,  "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."¹ The people around notice nothing unusual as they're part of their own musicals. The kids love splashing in lakes, the women complete their everyday chores sharing emotions like an art, men walk around with an umbrella so dark making sure they hide their emotions, strangers both men and women whistle along (some hidden, most vague), cats own the roads and walk like Hadid sisters on Victoria's last ramp walk, lea...

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...