Night sheds to day. Then sheds to morning again. No November can nod at incoming rain.  That is just a lot of clouds clashing on who will reach earth first. Rooting beneath is a butterfly, feeding on great marigolds. There is so much dance.                                 We forget footsteps of air in sky. The wind freely associates a memory to November. When fire dances on traffic signals and I see wait. November’s NoAmber collection adds one more memory: dissolves biscuits and sips her tea. There is casualness in the way we approach weather. A street bathes in wind, and that of all – has just stopped the sea from flying away. (Inspired from Kaveh Akbar's poem My Kingdom for a Murmur of  Fanfare)

This essay talks about the world of books and the actors who populate this world before the book reaches the hands of its reader. Mandi House metro station is located at a convenient place for the art lovers of New Delhi. Inside the metro station, hoardings can tell you about various art events at Indian Habitat Centre, National School of Drama, Lalit Kala Akademi, FICCI. Outside the metro station, with all the larger banners and billboards, you can get to know about various theatre and dance shows. Sahitya Akademi Library, Delhi Public Library, Oxford Bookstore, Goethe Institute, are at walking distance from this station. At regular hours, you can find people paying Rs. 5 for chai, sipping conversation in between and eating crack jack biscuits. There are also makeshift shops where you can buy chips, namkeen, sweet potato, chaat, handkerchiefs, socks, earphones, mobile covers, etc. The Jamun trees that line the Copernicus road provide enough shade during the worst summer days and...

Sometimes the most amount of love we can give to someone Sounds like saying that the building is not building, it looks like a transformer . “You are not you”. He says if stones spoke, they would have so much to say. The girls in the background, in the playground, scored a point. A shuttle fell. The shuttle rose. Their Badminton hit a flying object. He reminds, “look we hid here. We used to be scared of plants.” “But look how small this place is now!” The largest place in the universe is the corner in the building That would let us go. We talked about sizes and shapes and shadows. He says while counting all the houses that happened “sometimes if I believed in magic I would reimagine Everything”.                 “you mean you don’t now?” This time, the other team of girls cheered. The boys raced and timed each other. So what’s up? is the answer that buildings invent...

When you say, You have got to be funny, that's when You actually start becoming funny. I mean the moment you say something is funny, it becomes funny. I mean funny itself is not a funny word. I mean confidence comes in funny ways. Like the time when mum thought I was throwing tantrum. But really, I was only throwing food around. My mother laughs at this now. But at that time, she stopped the cassette that played ‘ mai nikla o gaddi leke’ And listened to Jagjit Singh For the whole time I collected my tantrum. We ran 11 houses to get to the building where we are now And it will be really funny if you believed that 11 Were the only houses we shifted away from. The funny thing with houses is they do not shift. People do. And yet people say - We are moving houses. We were all watching Jagjit Singh on television, when mum said that her sadness level is not Jagjit Singh vala level and asked me to change the channel. She was the one holdi...

There is an AFC gate that one needs to find; there is a card or token that one needs to fumble for; there is wide space that looks inviting for a lesson in skating; there is a recharge machine that sits vacant most days; there is a chipped wall housing Delhi Metro poster girl that one acknowledges; there is an escalator that one takes; there is a five-step staircase that one waits on; there is a short walk– it is then, that one, really exits a Metro Station. My first metro visits are visits to the exits. It is only then, that I know, I have visited a new metro station. All metro exits are similar but once you reach a wrong exit gate, not the one you usually take, you kind of know how similar is a word which means different. As soon as you exit AFC gate, you might even start seeing signs of it. At Central Secretariat, this different terrain begins to show itself by how there is no recharge machine near Gate 4, or how the surveillance staff is lesser in number here; or how the wom...

1:50 p.m.The sky above the rickshaws looked clear. The road from the back gate of  AUD  to Kashmere Gate Metro Station is one of those roads where you can see people walking in the middle of the road, carefree. This road is also where rickshaws ride on the sides. A large section of the road is taken up by parked cars of the shopkeepers (and builders) in this area. Like a great day, this day also started by noticing how high the sun stood and its brilliant heat. The class of Literary Journalism was taking a field trip and Delhi Metro was the field. The students stood at Gate no. 7 and little did they know that escalators were going to remind them of inertia that day. We were standing at the station’s entrance gate, near the entrance of ISBT bus terminal, a lot nearer to public toilets, beside a  paan peek  stained wall, under the hoarding which proclaimed Kejriwal’s mission and a mostly clean outside. It is this vivid and varied outside that makes me marve...

The thunder said, “this trip will take a lifetime what are we going to do till then? just skip around? ask for homes? but from whom?”  Homes have for long been seen  as blues and whites. The last people on earth  were also the last people aiming at zero-word count,  but not quite achieving  the meaning of few words  and more sounds. The World was talked about every day. Every 8 minutes light is followed by another  & soon the THUNDER gets unseen, skipped, in the readings of light getting followed up. It still haunted Thunder  what will follow after the skipping gets noticed. When the thunder skips it takes sky for a surprise. . . . When the sky searches for a home, it only finds a sky.  Windows occasionally frame clouds – shifting in slowness, weaving white for every colour  that misses home, waving & thinking that Clouds Are Doubts! As we catch rain ...

Last year it was raining when I remembered about you. This year too it was raining when I thought about you. I think it is only a coincidence.  Dear September 1 whatever year, hope these words find you in magic.   I am, am here. It has been brought to my notice that I miss you. Time is a great construct you have created. In fact, you would laugh at this, but calendar only did that thing – what is that you call – yea reminded- calendar reminded me today. I just wanted to write to you and assure that I did not even for a bit run away from that feeling and quickly addressed the hippogriff in the room. Well, I don’t think you can take care of the missing part because it is not you that caused it. Hope things are as good there as I have imagined them to be.   Dear school, you go to September 1 today and its really something! While traveling to my favourite place yesterday, I overheard conversations of how students still miss school and miss more of the friendships t...