The Unforgettable Desire

It was December and I was in Delhi. I am always happy to see these two Ds together. Winter, blankets, too much coziness for my privileged ass. It was a different thing that as I got comfortable in bed one night, my cousin, who was in class 9, asked, Why do poems get complicated as we get older? How can there be poems without rhymes? To my complete and utter disbelief, I began talking about different types of poems, sonnets, odes, lyrics, elegies, etc. Not just type, but metre and what forms a metre. He kept asking, I kept answering, till we mutually decided it’s too much information that isn’t needed for his test the next day. I slept with pride that night. If I had been asked those questions a year ago in 2018, I might have cursed the poets and whoever gets to decide the syllabi. It is a little known fact about me that I absolutely disliked poetry for the five years that I studied literature. I could not understand what stressed and unstressed syllables were and even when I did, al...

Or, How We Accept Care Earlier this year I was out with a couple of friends from school. I met one of them a few days ago, so I knew what’s up with her. I had absolutely no idea about the other, I was meeting him for the first time since school. As we sipped our drinks, they began sharing life stories. He was confident about his life, including marriage, pretty sorted. I wondered, how can someone be so sorted? Then, I realised, he doesn’t feel the need to fight convention. I envied him, for a moment. When she fell apart talking about her life, he comforted her, reassured her, and the phrase that comes to my mind is, like a gentle man. I adored them, the care he offered, the care she needed. It was my turn to go next. All I said was, there’s nothing wrong in my life. I sipped the last of my drink, admitting, I know I have the power to make every single change I need, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. This scene of comfort returns to me every now and then. That’s how it’s suppose...