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Showing posts from March, 2020

Growing Personal Sphere and Online Communities

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A public sphere is a well-structured process which creates the public opinion as a synthesis of individual thoughts acting for the common interest. The concept was given by Jurgen Habermas who defined it as "society engaged in critical public debate". Since the public sphere has gone through many changes over the years, now there is a growth in the  Personal sphere  where people, instead of interacting with society are more self-involved. A personal sphere is one where one can truly express themselves. Individuals use it to have a secure space where he or she can present themselves however they want and social media through its virtual reality has made it a lot easier. It has given rise to individualism where people can be their true selves or whatever self they wish to portray on the social media network since they consider it their personal sphere. They seek only the knowledge they want. This can be seen in the form of personalized feeds on social media networ

Letter: If I leave you, you'll kill yourself.

I've hated the person I was years ago but turns out I've still been hating myself for being that person and it's so wrong because all that WAS me and this is also me so there's no point in hating. But I think you're doing the same thing with yourself for whatever reason. The way things ended in your relationship, you hated your past self for it but you've been hating ur present self too. And this isn't right because it makes you so fragile and vulnerable and you're stronger than that. It makes you a people pleaser and you shouldn't be. I don't think you are like this way with other people but you are definitely like this with me. And I DON'T feel good about that. Maybe it's because you see HER when you talk to me or maybe you just see yourself. But I have evolved from the phase you're going through. I still have some shortcomings that I'm trying to work on but I don't make myself dependent on just ONE another person anymore

Fighting with myself

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When that bubble of happiness bursts, you'll see the sprinkles spread miles wide. It is like the hollowness inside you starts to expand and slowly you are crumbling from the inside. Who can help you when your enemy is yourself? The hardest battle to fight is the one where the world can't see the fight. It happens with you, within you and there's no surrender. First, the physical exterior starts to break off. The thing that made you feel strong, always, is now working against you. You see your defences weakening. Without your body, your mind starts giving up and you lose before it had even begun. All the walls you create, the barriers to your head, the pillars supporting every thought you've ever had, the place that hides behind lock and key and the monsters lurking behind it, they come out to play. To taunt you and tease you, to see you fall as they appease you. No struggle, no thrashing, it goes swiftly in denial. All the work you did to make you wh

Mera Naseeb| Part 1, Scene 2 It's your turn

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Mai akela masjid ke bahar khada use dekh rha tha. Uska chehra uske aaj ki kahani mujhe ab kyu nhi suna rha tha? Itna kya badal gya inn salon mei ki wo aaj, mere saamne ek bachi ko mere hi lafzon mei allah ke baare mei wo bta rhi thi jo kabhi mai use btaya krta tha aur wo manne se katrati thi. (Alone I stood outside the mosque looking at her. Why wasn't her face telling the story of her life anymore? What had changed over the years that today she was repeating my words in front of that kid, telling her about Allah when she herself used to refuse to believe it?) “Kitni gamzada hai na begum humari?” (Isn't my darling melancholic?) Maine dekha toh mere sath ek aadmi bhi ussi chehre ko dekh rha tha pr alag nazariye se. (When I looked, a man standing next to me was looking at the same face, but with a different perspective.) “aapki begum hain?” humne poocha.  ("Your darling?" I asked) “Meri khushkismati aur uski badkismati se.”  (Because of my fortune an

World Poetry Day: Well-behaved women never made history

I can imagine Virgina, With her pocket full of stones, Still trying to convince Sylvia The oven was meant for baking scones And Amy Winehouse sitting back With a glass filled with cognac Taking fashion advice from Marilyn While the wallpaper stares at Perkins And Parker tries again to slit her wrist And yet amidst these literary heroines And giants of the past There’s this terrible agony I wonder where it comes from? Was it passed down from the first taunt ‘This ain’t how girls behave?’ Control and endure and don’t try To make a name. Akhmatova begging for her son’s life I can picture it so clear. Rowling accused of being a witch Arundhati surrounded by sneers. What is it that makes people so contemptuous Of their life? That made Miao-Chin leave the pen And pick up a knife? On the occasion of World Poetry Day, my tribute to history's most impactful females and how they suffered.  

Song# 6 I just don't like that Anymore

Out of the thousand words I misspoke, And a couple hearts it broke, I could fill up the pages of a novel Where does it end and who picks up the shovel? My hands and eyes are growing sore. I just don't like that anymore. There's no going back to before. Why should it matter anymore? From the ten and twenty conflicts, I learned so many new tricks, To weave some better words. But they'll never be heard. For there are so many waves on the shore I just don't like that anymore. This emptiness makes it more Hard to be okay anymore. With every empty silence And little thoughts of violence I draw an unfair portrait The lines are never drawn straight. There's a lock now on every door I just don't like that anymore. And the misery in my core, It won't go away anymore. Now here's a song that I wrote But I don't like it anymore And there are words I can't control But I don't fight them anymore.

Song #5 Five Songs and Heartache

For all your love and kind words That I never could reciprocate All I give Is five songs and heartache Two weirdass poems, With ink bleeding on my skin You gave me all of yourself I couldn't even let you in For all you gave, I took and took Yet when it's your soul at stake I drink And I give you five songs and heartache The shades of my pencil Draw things in abstract So when you look at the canvas It ain't your face that looks back The person you believe in Exists but I'm not in state To ever love So take my songs and heartache. When I dream while awake These feelings hit me I never told you about them Because they don't belong to me And all the words that I wrote Made me tired and now it's late So before i forget I write the final song with more heartache

Story # 1 The Hunt Begins

The Hunt begins. Don’t dwell on the past or what is yet to be. “What utter Bullshit,” thought Anna. Every self-help book she had read had the same old philosophy. Try to forget what happened; embrace the present and who knows what light the future will bring. If only it was that easy. Fifteen, that was her count till today. No, not her age. It was the number of people she had killed and the tattooed birds on her back represented them. The blue jay was the recent addition. She had just gotten in yesterday. It was thrilling to remember how she had almost been caught this time. She had been following this man for days now, and she could say with confidence that she knew him better than he knew himself. Gabriel, height 6’2, age 30, an alcoholic, a private detective, number of suicide attempts: Four. Every Saturday he would go to this support group, talk about his dead wife, of how he didn’t want to live anymore because she was gone and Anna would just sit there, listening, observin

Speak now, or remain silent forever

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When they taught me I could no longer speak, I started screaming like it was the end of the world and my silence would cause it. As my voice and my will shook, the hands extended themselves, placing cold fingertips on my throat to choke me but the strength it took to just keep standing overtook me and hope, I would always say, was a bitch but in that utter helpless moment, I decided that so was I. My hands have been tied by those trying to find a better use of it but my writings bled through the zip tie flowing poetry all over their cold hard floors. My legs buckle under the pressure of a lonely room with nothing but 200 books to keep me sane for a week but Sundays have never been my favourite and the more I read and inhaled the words too strong for me to understand, the weaker I became at the hands of those who wrote it. So, I took off the pages of a novel and swallowed them whole until I puked literature and characters drowned like dreams in my eyes. I AM a marvellous critic

Mera Naseeb| Part 1, Scene 1 Why do you pray?

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Masjid ke bahar hijab mei ek pehchana hua chehra mila toh awaaz lagayi aur wo naam jo ab salon se zehen mei bhi nhi aaya tha, aaj labon pe tha. (Outside the mosque when I saw a familiar face wearing a Hijaab, I called out and that name which hadn't crossed my mind in ages was now on my lips) “Sangeeta” Uske labon se mera naam ek dua kit rah nikla, ek dum pak aur azaad. Par na toh wo shakl ab jaani pehchani thi, na hi naam. Mud kr dekha toh mera kal mere aaj se takraye khada tha. Usne mere chehre ki traf dekha aur pehli nazar meri ankhon se pehle mere hijab pr pdi. (My name rolled off his lips like a prayer, pious and free. But neither that face, nor that name was known to me now. When I turned, I saw that my past had come clashing with my present. He looked at my face and before meeting my eyes, his gaze fell on my Hijaab)  “Naam ab wo nhi,” keh ke maine bhi halka sa muskura diya ki use yeh na lage koi shikayat aaj bhi baaki hai. (After saying "My name is not

Mera Kashmir: Scene 1, Part 1

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Man 1: Jo Jawab aap dhund rahey ho, uski talash mei aapko bas sawal milenge. Yeh Kashmir hai, yahan logon se zyada awazein dafn hai (The answers you are seeking will only lead you to more questions, This is Kashmir, cemetery of voices more than people) Father: Aisa konsa jawab mang liya maine? Mai toh bas apni beti hayat ko dhund raha hu. (Which answer have I demanded? I am just searching for my daughter Hayat (life)." Man 1: Hayat ka naam-o-nishan nhi jahan Yeh Kashmir hai, yahan bas kaza hi kaza Wo rha raasta, jo yahan se guzarta hai Hayat ka pata ussi raste par milta hai (Where traces of life don't exist This is Kashmir, where there is only death That is the way which goes out of here That is the way where way of life is found)