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 getting late at favourite places. Even after such punctuality I went late at the demise of my beloved⏳⚰️. He was murdered. Somebody showered him with money, brothels of lust, and show off, and then my idea of him stuck with a dagger just like lost destiny in our plans. The murder isn't the sad part, the sad part is that it is all a lie in consoling myself with my beloved being kind. 🪦
I sent him 2 letters informing him about his favourite mulberry jam I prepared for him while being diagnosed with rare diseases each year. He did not respond. I am not his shakuntala nor he is my Jamie Sullivan. Writers never glorify pain and diseases. They glorify love even if they are devoid of it by their muse. As Derrida said “ reading has to be more destructive than constructive in this sense” I feel that to be for writing, it holds the destruction of reality we live in, at least we get our story in words if not in the reality of alternate universes and clouds of thoughts. Recently after visiting the hospital, I piled my almirah with a stack of medicine and while reaching out I stumbled upon a knee injury realizing how bruised my heart has been, unlike the empty side of bed, and the longing of curtains of our home, I sat with my medical reports. It was normal, Opposite to my visible affection of holding my beloved’s face during dusk and dawn, while he cried in my bosom on my birthday, while sleeping on my thighs as I brushed his hair, he sleeps like a baby of 2 days curled like he still is inside his mother’s safe womb. Was it normal? To sleep like a baby? 🫀♥But… I don't believe souls come back after death. The doctor told me I have schizophrenia as I see known and unknown faces amongst the crowd. No! The face is just one, the emotions are stranger, unfamiliar, how do I inform the doctor that I genuinely hate this idea of seeing a familiar face that disgust me to stomach that I puke each time something synonyms comes from the strange face? A facade in architecture is better than that in human beings, how guile and ugly one is when it comes to showing true emotions. Why can't one just be? Oh! It is only true when one has to.
My stories are Roman a leaf(Novel with a key), some are fictional, most of them are real for I am more surrounded with monsters than with guardian angels, but my guardian angels are the purest of everything, a gift of rehmah(mercy) by my pyaare Allah. Their presence has kept me sane. I call them my friends, family, and students enveloped with divine light. My train of thoughts lead from grieving over the mulberry tree to gratitude for students. I jump from one thought to another without any articulation. Just like tv remotes nudge looking for the right channel. Our Campus Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta(it's okay if you pronounce it as kelketta, calcatta, or kolkatta, for there is no language for emotions) has 7 lakes. It's a joy to feel this way. Each time I pass the lake I recite or recall the poetries and work of Virginia Woolf. When I think of her, it reminds me of her death in the River Ouse in 1941, we often reduce it to an image: a brilliant woman filling her pockets with stones and walking into water. She left a few letters for her close ones, maybe to keep them sane, unlike her insanity that proposed her to death. Sometimes death seems comforting but of yourself, 2017 was the first time I thought of posting my journal to my family after jumping from the roof or just sitting under a shower during chilled Delhi weather. It is easier to talk about it now than felt, the heart broke the string of comfort since then. Pain isn't shaped in a day but takes survival to be rooted in agony without catharsis. Pain is built brick by brick and isn't destroyed by one thud, it takes time unlike Rome that was destroyed in a day. The war on land, The War in Mahabharatha, The Battle of trench, The Succession of Rome, and the war of greek and other myths have led to destruction but lessons, little do we care just like that important chapter in the credit course closed book examination.
My Mulberry tree was that to me: a memoir for life, each time it blossomed the fruits I waited for my beloved to come so I could have offered him mulberries. Years ago, he sent me mulberry flavoured candy canes, which were tough to find in India then. Four seasons have passed, the winters were bone chilling, the rainfall was teary and finally in July the wait ended. He came as the harp of my city arrived. I rushed to the orchard with my wooden bowl exactly like a madwoman on being free for the first time. The winning was like the madmen watching the sun as in Plato's cave theory. The victory blinded me like the freed prisoner staring at the sun in The Republic. Alas! I slipped and lost my balance. The orchard no longer holds the mulberry bush, it only has some earthen bowls filled with water for birds and animals passing by. It is all an illusion of my mind, from the mulberry tree to the return of my sweet warrior. 🪖🌳🐛🍃🥣
The blood from my knee and elbow formed an artistic graze and oozed out like water falling from Victoria Falls, also called Maosi-oa-Tunya(The smoke that Thunders)🩸. Oh! How grateful I am for Discovery channel for nostalgic lane of childhood dream lands, pathetically metaphorising it into my pain. I wanted to travel the world, despite hating traveling, to learn about God's geographical wonders. God sent me wonders in the form of tests and lessons, and the pain is imbibed within my words and physical health. I managed to pick up myself to reach the leaves, twigs left around for stamping memoir in my journal or amongst my favourite books, so that when beloved returns, I will offer him the fresh tea ☕ with historical presence of our story in nature 📚 🖋️ 🏞️, Little do I know whether to hide reality or the fact that my jaana was murdered by the last mistress he travelled with; for he asked her to aspire to purity. Brothels are slaughterhouses fathered by haram emotions and sustenances. Not all mortals can escape the prison of torture, but the funny part is that the authority that can change everything, they are the first visitors as it is vividly portrayed in the play The Balcony by Jane Genet. 🌄
Phew! What a cusp of panic, talking about the immorality of a world committing sin for the fear of missing out, from taking drugs to having multiple partners through cheap, bawdy websites like Tinder and Bumble. My friends call me a “collector of memories" 🤎🍂🪞because they know I have a souvenir from the third standard: a pink net fairy wing that was used in a dance, a sharpener from the fifth standard, a gifted Harry Potter name slip from the sixth standard, and a funny, anxiety quoted brooch that Bhawani and I got from Lady Irwin College during the debate, “Who was the monster: Frankenstein or the monster?"🧌🥼 In a world of pseudo charisma and intellectualism, most people think the monster is named Frankenstein. Sometimes it is good that I have no one to hang around with because of such jahiliyat; other times, it is painful to see the world being more adorned behind the facade of 30 second reels and superficial "Get Ready With Me" trends🎯. Their audience craves it, and they supply it. I am no one to judge if they feed people what they crave; the funny part is that people blame OnlyFans and not Instagram for feeding our heads with the "worms of uneasiness🦠." As Professor, Ms. Rath, was extremely right during our discussion when she said, "Well, well, well! we have an audience for all." Definitely, nobody is "unique." 📡The problem I'm putting it here as a critique of such distorted versions of reel humans is that I have seen my friends shaping distorted versions of themselves by feeding off these things. 👣
We are doomed before Doomsday! ➹
Now I understand the poetry of Ms. Sylvia better than in 2017, when my kind and genius professor, Ms. Vaishali, offered me a water bottle and informed me how the coming semester would end up with more authors like these, and that at least I had to face reality. By the end of the class, she asked me to take less of a burden from words and invites, and asked me to visit a good bookstore or watch a movie. Unfortunately, that was the year of The Shape of Water, Coco, Blade Runner 2049, and Baahubali; I ended up watching Tiger Zinda Hai at the PG after cleaning my room. Worth it!
It is a simple description of how I would talk if you were my friend. That’s how I talk, as if it’s your last train to reach Hogwarts, as in a stream of consciousness. Alas! Not in the stream. Recently, the campus lakes have been surrounded only by loneliness, scorching hearts, and fallen leaves. They are welcoming spring(I started writing this at winter's end but now the summer has arrived), while I welcome the thought of being completely immersed in Lakes (currently, only metaphorically). 🚣<🏊🏻♀️
After a few swimming classes since January 2026, my reflexes no longer shake like a puddle to stay above the water to breathe; if I sink in, I will push off the bottom with my feet and use my arms and legs to swim upwards, trusting my destiny and reflexes. Death isn't easy, but it's free; it will come on time, just like a retirement date fixed on the day of joining. 🌊
Recently, I had a talk with a brilliant student, Vivian, about the ocean, and the whole idea of the love for swimming came up. For me, it is death; for him, it is life. How God made completely different humans with insane differences for a wonderful element of nature! All I thought was how water ends up scratching you like a thin electrical wire, so death must be eerie yet easy, it might erase the regret and guilt my body holds. For him, it was peace and happiness. “Water makes me calm and I forget the world,” he said, informing me about swimming pool basics without letting me decipher the swimming pool sections on my own. That's how one should always talk, learn, and accept, without letting others feel down like that random person in front of the cafeteria, “Who doesn't know how to swim?”
What a joy to not have friends who talk with labels only, while their hearts are stuck with a thread of lust, jealousy, gluttony, pretentious smiles, and ostentatiousness. One needs to flex kindness and not brands, but they will term it as “we are social animals,” except for the animalistic behaviour they commit behind closed doors. Who am I to teach the world? Of course, I possess an important position in this universe, like all of us. The thread of memories is always attached, exactly like a pearl necklace, attached well.
Allah declares in the Quran that humankind was created anxious, fretful in difficulty and miserly in ease; The Yajurveda hails the mind as humanity's ultimate tool for knowledge and action, yet the Ṛgveda tells a cautionary tale: we foolishly destroy this very power through wild drunkenness on Somarasa or by letting our thoughts wander helplessly into material distractions. But Mankind will definitely fight for a delicious barf gola flavour, or the colour of the kite instead of discussing and finding a solution for hunger, poverty, and classicists “the poor smells” slurs.
Oh! I was talking about our collective suffering. I hit the tombstone instead of the escape button, which made me realise: crimson red on metallic rose gold looks appealing. Pain is appealing until it gives wings to our words, which will then be consumed by fellow sufferers. A poet is never a liar, for they always find their audience, and so do murderers, for people enjoy serial killer documentaries more than the beautiful coral reefs of Australia. 🪸
Alas!
Phew!
Glad! Hurrah!
YAHOOOOO!🪩🩰
Morality isn't grey. I will make a list to keep my mind sane, unlike the list from my dead beloved who portrayed me as his mistress (that’s 'yukky' in Gen Z, shameful in Millennials, and death in Boomers):
1. TRUTH is beautiful, simple, yet difficult to face; but it will let you sleep at night. It brings calm.🌷
2. A LIE is treacherous and ugly; it makes you hide in places like brothels, or worse, among 'the four people' (chaar log), for liars are scared of being disrespected by society. After all, they maintain a facade of innocence. Lies bring sleeplessness due to heavy guilt. My ammi will definately laugh at this line for it is I who never sleeps, because I am a professional liar, maybe, maybe not! But I'm drenched in sins, and that hurts.
3. LUST is easy, like feeling a thick breeze in a storm. For example: Tinder, Bumble, 'friendly' office hugs, hand placements, 'just a friend,' open relationships, worshipping brothels, OnlyFans, online locker rooms, cuckoldry, 'Netflix and chill,' 'we were drunk,' and basic lies…. One can add many. Lust begins with simple steps like, “What’s the worst that could happen? YOLO!!!” and leads to the insane obsession of staring at ceiling fans or thick bushes, and sometimes the deed even involves an animal. I shiver while writing it; they shiver when the cat is out of the bag. (Fourth wall: Not a good place to add this metaphor, for my cat just tapped the delete key because I ignored her for a long time).
4. LOVE! The emotion that keeps the universe intact. From one source, it collectively connects crude humans and makes them truly 'human,' making it everyone's favourite, except perhaps for poets who lost their beloved, though maybe that loss keeps the love intact. How would I know? For why would I become a writer if my lover were alive? All these emotions and thoughts would have covered his heart, for he surely would have calmed me. Love brings ease and peace. Look how calm we all feel after crying to our Forever Living, Al Wadood, Allah. In simple language: Love is simple, so beware if it makes you feel like swimming in a lake full of duckweed or setting up a mosquito net from the 90s. ⚡
…
…
Emotions are too numerous to be counted in detail, and a PhD in this subject isn't my dream; hence, I'm leaving it all to the readers’ subconscious thoughts. This way, we can all consider what 'black and white' emotions are at the forefront, rather than justifying the wrong as 'grey' just to sound poetic. 'THIS IS NOT COOL!' Yes, I wrote that while the neighbors' TV screamed dialogue from that well-curated, classist fantasy, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
No one can understand the pain one hides in the heart, especially during the times when they are calling for help. And then they stop; their tears are soaked into the pillow and curtains. The bedsheets smell of new detergent each week, for they decide to change everything to make life feel newer and different. Moving on from the death of a loved one is as difficult as making tea with fresh leaves brought from tea estates: we never understand the correct amount. I think nothing is linear in life except our graph of suffering. 📊
“Healing isn't linear; birth and death are,” the dialogue my fiancé spoke while preparing a smoothie and tying a golden balloon with a rustic pink ribbon will never be part of my journal. He brought twenty six diaries from twenty six countries this February. He has been collecting them from his bureaucratic tours along with leaves of different kinds. I am afraid he will stop after 202 diaries because everything has an end. 🎊🎈
“You are absolutely right, my Muzz.”
He gave a bright smile, making sure I at least pretended to smile for the effort he made, both with the decoration of my room and the pruning of the mulberry tree I had mentioned.
“I am glad everything has an end,” I said.
“When did you start reading those cliché romantic genres? I thought you would never get out of your war literature, comparing it with your data interpretation.”
“Your books hold handwritten annotations, Miss; there is no other way to understand you better.”
Ew! I dislike the cheesy, sugarcoated world. The story sounds like an interpretation of a Wattpad world; instead, I lived it without truly living it. Depression knows how to devour your favourite moments. They say it's all a lie; you had better not go about being elated. The birthday was special, without cake and all those buttery lies in words. 💌
My phone screen blinked with a familiar number, causing a disturbance in my sanity: what a huge hassle for nothing⏳. Definitely, Healing isn't linear, nor is kindness, nor the torture of wrongdoers. A scene of happiness failed with the collapse of the person while shifting from the happiest celebration space to the hospital wing. We don't die once; we die every day because of rude behaviour, unkind actions, and unnecessary annoyance. Little do the murderers know, for all they hold within themselves is themselves,” ahem as ahankar meaning I, “the self, or divine consciousness (impersonal)*. People only destroy others when they're already destroyed inside, they dislike polished and safe spaces. I pity them, for they will never find themselves(inner peace) and will only lick the ashes of others' curses, just like the fragments of semen they collect.
“Will you come with us to the lake view hostel bridge?’’ Anukta gave me her hands. 🖼️
The question brought me back and not the pen being empty of ink. Ammi has suggested that I should write in the diary because I have already lost my favourite drafts of stories and poetry in the binary world. I always wish some human connections were exactly like that, to be forgotten or erased unknowingly just like in the 1010101 world.
“I will come after finishing this final list, I have to prepare some presentations, and reading list for the students in the upcoming week,”
“Tum aur tunmhare bachche, Gandhari.” Swastik laughed while Prachi stared at him knowing well this wasn't the right time to make a joke.⛱️
There are millions of instances in a day where we cannot correlate for one moment altogether. Differences are happening in a linear yet unfamiliar way. This in simple world can be summed up to stream of consciousness for I grieve for my mulberry tree more than the loss of deceased friend for one could have been saved, from rushing to see the fishes being grateful for seven lakes to being submerged in it completely while swimming had wonderful moves to make Lakes undieable*(created a word to remove the notion of pretentious language and as a writer I can…), from 26th year celebration to prescription for five injections in a month: all happened in a day.
What a terrific tragedy life is!🪺 We live millions of grateful moments in a day, but our consciousness reflects only on the most brutal parts of our memories, the ones that stink yet persist like a metal with the highest melting point. Trauma strikes at our strongest emotion, vulnerability, and sometimes shapes it into strength, but more often into a longing for death. Nobody deserves to be strong after all the sacrifices they have made; all they want is calmness in their heart, and for the faith their heart holds to be justified. Most of the time, separating the mind from the red and black forest of memories that have turned into bloodshed, one only wants to lie in the ghar ka aangan, in nostalgic reminiscence, with patches of fruity black red beneath themulberry tree. The Mulberry tree that heard the stories in non-linear frames.🌱🪴🌳🪟
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