DIGITAL VANDALISM

 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...

Do I have to be in the limelight to shine? Do I need a microphone to speak? I look back in time  And take a road trip down my memories Some bollywood party song is in playing on a speaker Remember that 2000s era that we miss? Yeah, we are singing chorus You are dancing like no one’s watching And i I can barely move my feet You are angry at me  For tagging you along on my road trip You say you don’t like it one bit I ignore you because i know you’re just hungry We stop at some roadside dhaba for dinner You say it’s the best food you’ve ever had We wish we could do it everyday Together? oh we never said that I am driving slowly As we pass the tunnel of misunderstandings It has been long since we last spoke I try to ask you how you’ve been, but my voice croaks I wish you could just read my mind I would let you absorb the eternal ramblings of my daily life Like we are in some sci fi movie Pretending to be superheroes  I wish you called me once in a while My urge to write to y...

We are two detectives  on two ends of two telephones talking in verbal codes and sometimes in Morse Do you get it? Tip tap tippy tap a word of mine could save your world and I deliberately avoid  saying that word so that you can continue to rely on me we stay in this void that telephone line has created for us of electrical signals and discrete-time    you hate my incompliance  we are stuck by the cords since you struck the chords i blinded you with science I guess you still want to see the world but I like it better when you are blind, deaf and cannot speak Do you get it? Tip tap tippy tap a word of mine could save your world and I deliberately avoid  saying that word so that you can continue to rely on me

here I sit on a wooden chair inviting the birds of felony to scratch my skin and choose my nerves as the building block of their domicile here I stand alone on street staring at a dead twig menacingly the tree it left now soul bereft I pick it up and twist it in my knee here I walk with a girl under an umbrella beneath the roof she called me to join in her facade now I accompany the  drizzle in her heart