Outside this blog

I've slowly started to step outside my comfort zone and am trying to share things outside of my blog. It's a very slow process but I'm beginning to branch out and see where my writing can take me. Below are two poems that I managed to put out there. I come home here to store them for safekeeping.
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Tamarind Rice Magazine - Volume 2, Issue 2

Poem Title - Being a Woman



I yearn to tell you a story of this world so wretched,
Of these scars you see and others deeply etched.
My empty soul is painfully perishing,
As I am imprisoned in my own being.

Listen.

I was starved for my brethren’s hunger,
And worked with a whip to my skin,
I was left to decipher words with wonder,
Education was a privilege only to male kin.

I was given hope of a new home and another life,
This is your love and future, I was told.
You will be their daughter and his lovely wife,
I believed the lie as I was treacherously sold.

“Dowry!” they screamed with ruthless mirth,
I had not brought riches alongwith me here.
I was burnt on ablazing pyre for my worth,
As I screamed silently to a deaf ear.

I was bought, I was sold, I was beaten and left.
Yet, I do not fear for my own life you see,
I have another in my womb waiting bereft,
For what this world will also leave it to be.

I sit alone in this cell, whispering to her,
“This is what you will see if you come”.
Shall I commit a sin of killing another?
Or will she tell her own story, as a victim?

Listen.

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Contest 13 - What is your Pet Superstition?
Honorable Mention
http://sharathkomarraju.com/2015/02/28/contest-13-results-and-the-winner-is/

Poem Title - The Widows Destiny

The flimsy white cloth adorns my head,
Twisting around my body like a deathly noose.
My identity is caught between the folds,
As I wear the symbol of a widow’s destiny.

The stares of sickening empathy follow me,
“Lost her husband, so young!” they say,
The sighs engulf me, drowning my sobs
Over my pitiful existence as a relict.

Warded away from prayers and gatherings,
Unlucky wisps emanate from my pores,
I define this word: inauspicious,
Yet it echoes in my ears as: unworthy.

They wiped away the red from my forehead,
But what of the red that flows in my veins?
The rhythm of my anklets have been forbidden,
But what of the beat that is heard from my heart?

I pray silently to the creator of my fate,
In my own shrine of reverence.
For I am shunned from the God’s abode,
I hover near the temple stairs, asking.

“What I have done to deserve this?”
Being punished twice in this lifetime,
His death ended my life abruptly,
While the world steals the remnants.

I hear the ‘tsk-tsk’ of other women,
“You shouldn’t be here, it’s unlucky,” they sneer,
Shooing me away as a stray dog on the road,
Unfurling their pattu sarees across my face.

They shield themselves from my impurity,
Folds of their pallu protecting their matrimony.
They wear the colors proudly like a crown,
A status in society, their blessing, their luck.

The other people on the street glance at me,
The ones in their suits and fancy cars.
They shake their heads and drive along,
Mumbling about misfortune and superstitions.

“These things will never change,” they say,
Hiding behind their tinted glass of education.
Mum against the realities on these dusty roads,
The shroud of false beliefs covering their minds.

How do I break free from these shackles?
The invisible bondage in place of my bangles.
I am forgotten without a man by my side,
To remain a ghost of his memories left behind.

Read More

Passion

Not my usual style of writing. These ones are very rare. Where I can't find the right words or grappling with something that I don't even understand myself. The thoughts are fragmented, but I write just as they pop into my mind. I just had a vision of fire in my head eating up the words as I write it. It just was all-consuming. But again, nothing more than an outlet.

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Drown me in your love. Intoxicate me until I’m in a stupor. Show it to me without words. Show it to me across this distance. Swoop me off my feet. Serenade me. Spoil me. Surprise me. Pamper me.  Carry me away in your passion. Your whirlwind of emotion. I want to be entangled. I want to get lost. I want to be blown away. I want to open my eyes, and wonder how, why. Whether it even is reality, whether it’s even possible. I want to say, This isn’t a dream. Encompass it all. Everything. Months of planning. Thoughtful gestures. More than flowers. More than heart shaped chocolate boxes. More than stuffed toys. More than a white-something. More than hours of silence.Think of me. I want to say, This is better than I can ever have imagined. Surpass my expectations. This instant. Now.
Before I can do it.
Before I can even think of it.
Before the second hand inches away from this moment on the clock.
Before the desire walks away from within me and remains but a ghost in my eyes.
Before a life-time passes away and I am left with nothing but could’ve, should’ve, would’ve.






Read More

I'm an Astronaut

No... I'm not REALLY an Astronaut, but I definitely was inspired by the space movies I've seen recently. Interstellar and Gravity. I just feel like I'm in space as well. And so, I pen down a few more words with that in mind.
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 “We are lost” I say, “In space, alone”.
We are meant to be home, not here.
Neither of us know how we came,
Nor do we know how to go back.

He has an impenetrable shield around,
Engulfing him in a plastic bubble.
No sound, no emotion travels through,
I’m wondering, can he even hear?


He is silent like a mime,
Listening, not understanding.
“Nothing” he says, expressionless
Nothing to give or take or expect.

The bodies loom around in circles,
Grazing past each other, chipping parts,
I push and pull, trying to keep them apart,
As he dodges their lines of gravity.

Here he floats along, my greatest enemy,
Who is closer to me than my soul.
He rips and tears me apart with silence,
That nobody hears anywhere.

I stay because I don’t want to leave,
I bear because I don’t want to leave,
What is worthy anyway, me or us
Or the wordless mime sitting there.

I bounce around in the darkness,
Willing myself into silence as well.
For my screams are diffused,
In the vacuum that I float in.


This place of nothingness,
Of questions with no answers,
Of doubts and emptiness,
Blind to the colors and sparkles.

Why is it here? Why am I here?
I flit, from orb to orb, knowing why,
For only a moment though,
Because it becomes darkness again.



Read More
 

About Me!

To escape from the humdrum existence people call "life", I explore the jungle of my mind. A meandering path, with thoughts as my obstacles. I put aside the smiling face of my mother, snapshots of holidays with friends, lost memories of my childhood... All in an attempt to find answers to my branching questions.

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