The Unforgettable Desire

The first novel that I read was Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ the Call Centre . The first novel series that I read was Stephenie Meyer's  Twilight Saga . After that, I mostly read Nicholas Sparks and disliked Erich Segal. I read Ann Brashares’ Sisterhood series, Sarah Dessen’s The Truth About Forever , and Cecelia Ahern's books that made my teenage easy to bear. Harry Potter books happened to me only because I did not understand what happened in the movie - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince . I had read Harry Potter and the   Philosopher’s Stone as a kid. It was an utter pain to read such a thick book with tiny alphabets back then. Eventually, I was embarrassed of the books that marked the beginning of my reading habit. I was embarrassed only because people saw those books in a derogatory light. After a few years of public comments on my book choices, I did begin to ask people if they had read those books. The answer usually was, no. It was then that I stood up for ...

“I do not want to talk to people, even though a samajik keeda inside my system fills me with guilt for my lack of civility. I am drowned by the forced need to message at times, but then, I do not text simply because I feel that the talk will lead to no productivity. It hasn't in all these years.” Image source: Personal chats for public use. One fine night I sent a message to a couple of my friends asking them, “what is it called when you know you have to do certain things and you cannot make time for it because you are doing other things?” They said, “Life” and “Priorities.” Each word made sense to the situation in its own way. My every day life has changed in last nine months (no, not child birth), in a good way irrespective of what people have to say. I fancy describing my current state of being as “twenty three and 'adult'ing” because I felt some time back that twenty three is the age when you begin to feel like an ‘adult’, by my definition ‘responsible’ (Of c...

One day in my M.A. classroom, a professor was teaching Emily Dickinson’s “She Sweeped with Many-Colored Brooms”, and I was scribbling a poem of my own in the last page of my notebook. I stared up, not looking at anything in particular, unaware that my gaze was in direct contact with that of the professor. He asked me, “Do you sweep at home?” “Yes”, I replied. “Girls usually sweep”, was his response. Unable to control the rising adrenaline and noradrenaline within me, I replied without being asked, “I sweep because I live alone, I cannot afford a maid (irrespective of my issues with cheap labour), and I like a clean room. I don’t think it has got anything to do with me being a girl. I am sure, any responsible human would do so.” I do not remember what happened next as my response was ignored. I went back to writing my poem. Do you realise what happened in those few minutes? My developing sense of responsibility was overshadowed by my social sex, my gender, and its role in this societ...

Even though I long for changes, I am not very good at adapting to them. When I woke up this morning with my usual irate mood, I chose to listen to the songs of the theatre society of my former college. As the songs soothed my mind, I got a sinking realization that nobody around me is going to call me Cadbury here in Hyderabad. Happiness is… being called Cadbury. Sadness is… not having the people around who called me so.

When you do not have anyone’s consent for a physical relationship and still go on with it, it’s a rape. But what do you say it when you have the consent and yet you’re called a rapist. With the frequent news of rapes that are happening every hour in this country, can we believe in a man who has been falsely accused of being a rapist? Who do we choose to believe? Who becomes the victim here? The man or the woman?

Did the title to this post seem problematic to you? If not, then think again. It had hardly been a month in Delhi and my friends from school started calling me Dilli-wali. Unaware whether it was a compliment or a comment, I ignored it and tried to fight the depression I was going through in the first month of my college because I couldn’t accept the people I met. I barely knew anyone. I was homesick. And people at home, Odisha, called me Dilli-wali. The Delhites called me south Indian. And there I was lying in the bed of my tiny rented room, sharing it with two strangers who were quite contrary to me in nature, thinking about the tags that I have been given. With my under graduate days coming to an end, I am proud to say that I survived three years in Delhi. Not that it’s a bad city to be in, but it gets quite chaotic in one’s head when one comes from a small town. But then, when is the human mind at peace? In these three years I have wondered more than often, have I changed ...

When you have been in continuous physical pain for 6 months, watched House MD and related to every bit about pain that’s mentioned in it, thought about the meaninglessness and absurdity of your life and lost every hope to be happy again in such a world, then you definitely have stepped into the world of Pessimism. Given my history of blogging, people find me quite optimistic. My cancer and how I fought it had been my basic topic for years, making me seem brave. But well I am not as brave as they thought. I broke down the very moment when I couldn’t take the pain anymore and my optimism lost its way through that pain. So there I was, spending most of the day in my bed, trying to stay away from people as much as possible, avoiding calls and texts from friends. This friend that I am going to write about, he found me in 2011. The journey from being strangers to closest of friends was a short one, with lots of emotional ups and downs. We shared the common interest of writing and o...

In my first year, I was shocked by the attitude of the people in the ‘city of my dreams’. In my second year, I was shattered as my beautiful childhood seemed no more than a big lie. In my third year, I was devastated failing to accept the meaninglessness of life and the sorry state of the country I live in. If I am asked someday about my graduation, then I would speak the aforementioned lines to define it. These lines do not provide the beauty that Literature is assigned with; the beauty that can be seen and appreciated even by the non-literati. But here I am whining about the life literature gave me. More than often I have said to my friends that literature has the ability to ruin one’s life no matter how much s/he romanticizes it; the life in which one is happy obsessing about the self in the tiny bubble that s/he thinks to be the entire world. But am I really upset about it? After the result of my board examination was out, I went to my Dad and said that I wanted to pursu...

How many people have lectured you to shut your laptop/smart phone for a while and go out and have fun? How many videos have you seen in last couple of years showing what we lose when we indulge ourselves in the virtual world? How many times have you felt that your childhood was awesome when you played hide and seek instead of Candy Crush or Subway Surfer or Flappy Birds? How many times did you see your siblings play FIFA ’14 and wonder that they won’t know how it feels to play in the dirt? How many acquaintances/so-called friends have asked you that why internet is so important? Why can’t you just go out and hang out with people? I am sure that the people of my age group have certainly come across these questions so many times that like me they do not bother to keep the count. I am an active person in the social networking sites. In my real life, I am tagged as a strictly boring person who wouldn’t get out of her virtual world. Yes, I am one of those who lives two different lives...

Theatre! A childhood dream come true? An escape from misery? A must-do in college/Delhi University? Personality development? The only opportunity of an outstation trip? Passion? Love? Life? Wikepedia defines theatre as a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. Technically, the definition says it all. But when seen from my point of view, it says nothing. Having joined the theatre society HASRATEIN of Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University, around 1.5 years ago, my definition of theatre has changed from a childhood dream to being my life. When I entered theatre for the first time, all I expected were scripts and actions. Now I know what a mind boggling job it is to make a play. From the moment an idea hits one’s brain till it reaches the final stage of being performed in front of an audience is a journey with ups and downs, hard work and dedication, team work and...

In my one year stay as a paying guest, there hadn’t been a month when I did not say that I was broke. My roommate and I joked about how we spent most of our pocket money in the first half of the month and then spent it as less as possible because we always ran out of it. She was the one who believed in saving some part of the money every month and I was the one who believed in ‘spending everything here and now.’ Those days were fun and I never actually ran out of all the money! Even if I had just 10 bucks in my wallet I knew I could get 1000 bucks or more out from the next ATM on my way. And then a couple of days back, I lost my wallet! That, my friend, you call the moment of really being broke. That day one of my classmates lost her wallet in the bus, a week before that my ex-roommate lost her wallet too. So I thought that I should be extra careful while travelling in buses or maybe I will be the next person without her wallet. Guess what! Being extra careful actually made my wa...

I seem to have a habit of getting to the extremity of my emotional self by missing people whom, with the course of time, I have come to like more than I thought I liked and then write a blog post. [;-) :-P] I hated the people of Delhi so badly during the initial months of my stay there, reasons were many! I kept wondering, why of all places I always wanted to be in Delhi? Was it because my paternal family has been residing there for decades now or was it because I couldn’t resist being somewhere else given the fact that my brother landed up in Delhi? Questions were many with a simple answer- It was just the curious mind of a little girl who visited her grandparents every summer in Delhi but never actually got to see and explore the city! Now having spent almost a year in Delhi, people at my hometown ask me how I like the place. And I find it hard to answer. Like I said I hated being in Delhi in the beginning and now I am longing to go back to that place. I say to them, after a ce...

Eight months ago- "I am neither getting into a medical college nor am I going to drop a year for its preparation! I did not study in last 2years, so, what makes you think I will open the biology book again after all these months. I think I would be doing English Honors now." Friend No. 1 - "You're interested in reading and writing so English seems good for you but no matter what it is, thinking of changing the stream from Science to Arts is such a shameful thought. I mean if you do so, what was the profit of reading PCB? I can't think of it.  Log kya kahenge?" Friend No. 2- " Oye majak hai kya?  You read biology for 2years and now you are talking of English? What the hell are you thinking?" Friend No. 3- "What? English? HAHAHA. You're opting for medical, isn't it? English? HAHAHA " Friend No. 4- "What are you going to do after graduation then? Be a teacher? LOL" Relatives- "You're our only ...

"What's your name?" "Akankshya" "What's your caste?" "I'm sorry?" "You eat idli sambhar every day?" "No, why should i?" "You're a South Indian na?" "No, I am not." "Oh..ok, which state are you from then?" "Orissa" "It's in South." "No, it's not among the South Indian states!" "Ok" Jagriti Vihar(MCL, Sambalpur), a place where I have spent around 16 years of my life before coming to Delhi. In that place I have seen people from most of the regions, religions, caste and creed. I have seen the fairest of a face to the darkest. I have celebrated all kinds of festivals from Lohri to Teej to Pongal which we, as Odia people do not actually celebrate. The only reason why we did so was because we were in Jagriti Vihar. As far as I know, every child who has been in JV never wants to leave the place. When someone became my f...