Day 300/366

You known that familiar smell of old pages full of meaningful words, in a language known to you or unknown? What's charming about it is that it just does't change - it only gets better with time. Revisiting an old CD or cassette or vinyls, for that matter, have that very effect.

Books and music are one in the same thing, aren't they? You know that dreamy state of mind a good read puts you in? So does music. And vice versa, if you were to only word that sentence differently.

It's a bit like poetry, actually. There's music and beauty in the words, even if the meaning doesn't get conveyed to the reader as the writer intended. Take Pablo Neruda, for instance. His words sing to you, even if they happen to be about the Spanish Inquisition. Now take Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall or Barna Howard's Promise I Won't Laugh. Their music is pure poetry.

There's no right or wrong review or feedback or perception. It is what it is, to you or to me. Maybe there was no intent in the first place and it was just a release of thoughts of the mind, with no direction to go. Who knows? Maybe even the creator of a masterpiece will never figure out what exactly it was that drove him/her to make it.

Can't you feel the emotions in certain songs, be it a Chopin composition or that one line in your favorite Beatles song that changed your life completely? There's a reason why people value quotes by famous dead guys (or alive) and lyrics to a similar degree. No?

Also, I made it to Day 300, bitches! *takes a bow for the thousands of figments of my imagination who read this*

Day 224/366

The written word would thrill her still

But the lust for it had gone

To read a novel or book of poetry-

Become too tedious a task.

In her twisted little head,

Was no dearth of fairy tales

But the grown up in her said “No”

Am I literature-dead?

She would ask herself

Without getting a satisfactory reply.

She would dream of new places constantly-

Of travelogues and stranger’s tales,

Of Neruda’s love and postmen,

Of palaces and queens.

When reality would took its ugly form,

And no time was there to read.

She killed herself by letting go

Until she was brain-dead.

Day 215/366

Did you know the Japanese man?

He died of too much jalapeno.

Must you live in hot, hot sand

While the snow melts away?

Why can’t the weather remain this way?

How do I control the winds?

Did Helen Hunt in Twister die?

Did the film make you mentally a man?

Why should I shut up if you ask me to?

Does the sky always look this blue?

Stand by me and drink Spanish tea

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

Experimenting with words,

In no particular direction

Thoughts flow continuous

Without a full stop or a comma

Day 204/366

"We walked down the lane in the storm. Stormtroopers of our own right. Occasionally, a tree or a street dog would have to be dodged. But it was the kind of fun I'd been missing in life.

She paused on our way out of the house and looked back for a moment. Somewhere, we knew the journey ahead would be too long to make it back home. But another home would be found one day. A cave, a garden, a lost valley in the mountains. We knew we were meant to be vagabonds since the second our eyes met. I miss that free spirited lover of mine."

Grandfather stopped writing today. He left me his diary with hundreds of yellows pages of adventure and love and the life he led or would have liked to lead.

I'll always wonder if there was more to tell - stories 'not worth writing down' according to him; words I would have cherished more than he could imagine. It's hard to accept that he's lost his mind.

What a delicate thing the body is! One day you're the holder of knowledge, speak unspoken languages and find poetry in everything. The next, you're as good as dead to the world.

Day 91/366

It feels weird to say goodbye to being 20. I've loved the last 12 months: there has been an increased, fantastic sense of freedom and responsibility, I've had very interesting interactions with certain people, and NH7 Weekender happened to me. Plus, I interned with Deccan Herald where I got 49 articles published in a span of 6 weeks. Also, I got featured in New Indian Express' special education supplement for being an 'author and editor at 20.' It felt bloody good, to be honest. It's been a year of exploring myself and figuring out things in life. And the one constant thing throughout it was the fact that there were words everywhere. My passion for music and more specifically, the growing live music scene in India got an impetus because I started actively writing about it; Grey Oak Publishers' Urban Shots let me write a story each in 2 more books as well as a foreword; I worked hard in 2 internships with renowned English dailies in the country; last but not the least, I started this blog and I am just so delighted that I have not defaulted (yet...) I turn 21 tomorrow and I've no clue what the world has in store for me. But as of now, I can't wait to find out. 

Day 1/366

I've decided to stop letting myself believe that I am capable of having a writer's block every few weeks. So, as an attempt to get more regular at writing and understand my writing style a little better, I am attempting this 366 day project. One blog post a day come what may. Prose, poetry or a photograph I clicked on that day (The third option because I feel like a shutterbug on some days).

I'm just going to kick start this project without any further thought. Here goes nothing:

To try and write the world's best poem

Would be the hardest thing to do.

But the challenge-loving side of me

Just took that on without a clue.

Without a thought or direction, I write these words

With only intent on my side.

But favoring me as it ought to be doing,

Isn't really the game plan of my mind.

No brilliant word play,

No vivid imagery,

No memory comes into sight.

As I type this pointless rhyme,

All I hear are silent sighs.