DIGITAL VANDALISM

I am but painted plastic With reminiscence of a smile. My porcelain cheeks crack, as my eyes stare at the aisle. I am dressed up in jeans, Sometimes in a frock; All the jazz up, For a crowd to gawk. I'm up for display And my dress is for sale I am silent and stationary Mostly slender and frail  And when the storeman  lifts me up to put me next to the door, the people all stop to appreciate the decor They stare, They see,  how Death Becomes Me There's one more mannequin Maybe, my next of kin? We do have some things in common; Mostly the scratches on our chin Sometimes I'm at the storefront,  but mostly at the back You stop and admire  My attires with their tags I collect DUST like rivers collect stones I feed on these dust particles To make up for my lack of bones Pardon me if you're in a quandary I can't help with your clothes It's a worker with a rulebook who helps me with my chores OOTD? no I'm good I'll wear this for a week 

On day one, I ripped apart a packet of durum wheat penne pasta to cook with some white mushroom sauce. It's an easy recipe; easier if you have boiled pasta handy, which I did not. So I took a pan, added the beautiful penne pipes and ushered it into the waterfall of hot tap water. I added some salt with the teaspoon and well, took out another spoon to add precisely 2 spoons of oil. Swirled the whole thing once with a large spoon (spatula?). While my pasta was boiling, I took upon the depressing ordeal of cutting onions. Onions are like childhood trauma, you grow up and think you'd finally be over it because you are no longer a sissy child but then you smell your fingers and they reek of this pungent odour. I cut the onions and wash my hands, twice. I also got some (read, six large cloves) of garlic and some mushrooms, obviously. It's in the title of the story. You don't play Macbeth, without Macbeth.  Now, I don't want to go all Victor Hugo because that would make my...

As far as I can remember, the only person I ever saw was not a person at all. It was an orange goop with a translucent body. I had many questions when I first met this non-person person. I assume you might have had a few too, but they don’t get resolved—no matter how much time passes. I thought all I needed was a search engine. I could type in the questions, and I’d have a database of answers. Yeah, none of that is real. There is no search engine. Not even a regular engine. Maybe that’s why I have to walk everywhere on foot. Which reminds me—there’s no footwear either. That’s bizarre. No shoes. No slippers. Not even that monstrosity perpetuated by the leg-cover called Crocs. "Hey, Candy! Are you spinning out again?" Yeah. I was. Though I believe it was a pretty linear direction of thoughts—as far as thoughts go. They live in this large forest with enormous coniferous trees. I used to think I was the tallest entity in the entire thought bubble. But then I saw those trees ...

 I leaned back from my chair to have a better look at my sister who sat on a bean bag, a few feet away from my desk. “Hey Devora!” I shouted towards her, cupping my hands in vain. “Shut up, Sharlay” she replied, without offering a glance-worth attention to my greeting. “So, you are still playing, right?” I asked. She was busy fiddling with a pea popped from its cover. I assumed she absentmindedly picked it up from the vegetable basket which Mom kept by her side.  Eat your carrots , Daisy, she had said. A typical day in our life together. Boring and fun, simultaneously.  “How about Devora and Sharlay have a sword fight today? Can Devora beat this fierce ruby studded sword?” I spoke, while I braggingly swayed a jelly-red carrot towards her. Daisy was quick in her actions-she grabbed my ruby sword a.k.a. carrot in her fist and analysed it for its imperfections. For a second, I believed that she did have extensive knowledge of edible weapons and ammunitions. Then, she handed...

Temperature is relative. The hot gusts of wind berating the grass are life-threatening to pines and conifers. It's the time of year when one prefers staying inside the house to coming out and greeting the sky. The sun shines like an omnipresent sink of energy and source of sweat. It wouldn't be on my bucket list to spend the days of my life getting tanned under the Delhi sun, but I like the feeling of burning its leaves.  When I look up at the sky, I can challenge the yellow (almost white) ball of fire to have a duel with me. It's an intense challenge to see who can last longer, which we both lose at the sight of the moon. I retire to my tiny room that I share with my roommate, and I think we all have a good idea of what happens to the sun. The routine is monotonous, yet every other morning we are back to our shenanigans, which might seem more pathetic on my part as I have more say in the matter than my competitor.                  ...

Every day is the same We start the day in the morning and end it by night There’s too much sun in the noon Not so much at twilight And we have given these names Like seconds, minutes, hours and days As if we have tamed the time And learnt its ways  Because you see, time is infinite But we can’t understand things beyond a limit So we clubbed Sixty tick-tocks together And called them a minute Then those minutes combined in a similar fashion And a new word was announced Which nobody knew how to pronounce It sounded like letter r, And it belonged to us So we called it an ‘hour’  Now in this whole business of making time run We wanted to involve earth, moon and sun And i know it might seem like an anomaly But nothing enraptures public like space and astronomy So we said, if axis is a stand And the earth is a cake Then for one spin, a day is  the numbers of hours it will take But you see, a single day was lonely So we gave it a family We said, when seven of these days are toget...

The cause is more relevant than the act. The story is more intriguing than the conclusion. When confronted by a choice of entertainment versus rationality, we often choose to slide with the former. I recall reading the stories of Panchtantra, Akbar Birbal, Tenali Rama, and Vikram Betal with much fascination as a child. Several of these tales revolved around solving crimes, punishing the culprit, and providing justice to the innocent. Often reminding us that in an ideal kingdom, the scales of justice are always kept in balance. Fast forward to contemporary times, and the crime rates are much higher than anyone in these stories could have ever contemplated. The issues of public inconvenience today aren’t merely one farmer taking the land of another or a potter trying to dupe a customer through a fake pot, we have an assortment of ideas conquering the minds of the bourgeoisie. We do not view crime through the black-and-white filters that our ancestors so eagerly used.  We are gullible...