Neither any glow
Nor any sparkle
Neither the dreams
I often marvel
I adorn the struggles
Against I haven’t bent
My suffering is
My ornament

#WomenAtFarmersProtest

Where thoughts are censored and rumors roar loud;
Where the facts are manufactured;
Where the world has been broken up into caste and creed;
Where every dissent is seen as contempt;
Where those we elect have the least respect for the law;
Where selfish interests fuel the fire to burn all sense and reason;
Where one needs to prove patriotism by pleasing those in power –
Into that swamp, my Gurudev, our country is sliding in slumber.

Inspired by “Let My Country Awake” by Rabindranath Tagore

In the dead of the night
I burn yet again

Trampled by the terror
I take to the pyre
To put it to rest
Your deafening silence

So no more like me
Suffer the fate and agony
Lest not my hope
Disappear in this smoke

In the dead of the night
I wish you be human again

On 14 September 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped in Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh, India, by four upper caste men. She died two weeks later in a Delhi hospital. After her death, the victim was forcibly cremated by the police without the consent of her family, a claim denied by the police.

Ask no kid ever
“Who do you want to
Grow up to be like?”
Since no sapling ever
Wished onto itself
Every leaf and every branch
In the exact shape like
The tallest tree on the pike

Straight lines
Not so straight shadows

Many thoughts
Not so many actions

Determined choices
Not so deterministic results

Fleeting love
Not so fleeting memories

Simple breaths
Not so simple life

Some memories that got lost
Some faces that stood faded
Like from the melting frost
Rises a seedling unaided
Doesn’t it all come back again,
With the smell of the first rain?

Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrɪkɔːr/) is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil.