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Towns like those, where you could recall every detail of every place you had ever been; where everyone knew everyone but she never felt seen. Where like routine she drove on the same roads and on the streets; and all of it seemed intimate to her heart, whatever the eye meets. Towns like those where familiarity sat on every corner and every curve; but it made her feel like she was persistently living with an exposed nerve. Where who met whom was every evening's chatter; women bringing down women by judging a friend, a sister or a daughter. Towns like those made her feel like she was stuck in a loop; shenanigans of the same sort in the same place with the same group. Identical corners and faces all alike; boredom is an understatement it was the loneliness that was the most hurtful strike.   She desired always to move far away and change the game; a new job, or maybe even a new name. She started packing hoping to run away; determined that the promise of nostalgia would not make her sw...

Humari  sharaarat  zara  kijiye   ga  maaf, magar  churake  kahun  chand  lafzon  mien  saaf  saaf... toh  samjho  nahi  ye  koi  khayal  naya, ki  unhone  jaise  hasske  dekha  humara  dill  unka  ghulaam  ban  gaya.. Samjhao  toh  hume humari  ghustaakhi  kya. hai, vo  sikha  gaye  ki  tadpaane  ki  adaa  kya  hai... tair-e-bismil  toh  hum  qaraar  hue  hai, toh  isme  tere  roothne  ki  vajah  kya  hai? Gam-e-hayaat  se  hume  parwah nahi, iss  paagalpan ki  taa'zir  milegi  toh  bass  yahin.. Humare  lehje  mien  musalsal  uska  ziqr  bayaan  hua  karta  hai, unse  dur  kare  hume  khuda  bhi  uss  ...

Far away, in a world very unusual, with a sun that shines always crimson making everything seem golden all day. The wind tastes slightly salty and you feel it on your tongue. And the water is forever sweet because of the souls of ancestors that live in the lake that they drink from. The flowers change colours every day and the water is coloured lilac. It's a world too unfamiliar for eyes like his but it's beautiful, in its very own way. There's a boy with an emerald light in his eyes, who dreams of a world every night where flowers don't seem to change colours but wither and die, where water takes the colour of the vessel it is in, and air that almost never has any taste. What a bizarre world and the people more so. But that's not what made him go back to this very dream every night, unfailingly. It was her. Her name he did not know but in the echoes of his deepest desires, he knew what she was called but failed to bring it to his own tongue. It almost felt like it ...

Walking towards the office he's waiting for the signal to go green to cross the road. It hit him then, standing there with random strangers hoping for a slight bit of affection even if it was from someone he barely knew. At this point, for him, anyone would suffice to kill the lonely. So an inner monologue in a very familiar voice started playing in his head which went like, Looking for someone like her I scorched the earth in one single blow, left alone with my thoughts, it made me stoop real low. Maybe a pair of eyes that seemed to have the same glitter, I started chasing strangers, without a breath and without even a flicker. The girl at the newspaper stand around the corner sipped her coffee the same then there was my subway flirt who had a similar-sounding name. An office colleague who cooks a little like her, and one more who recites poems of love so I made her my whisperer. There was yet one more I spoke to in secret but a while later bit the dust, after that came another, I...

Hey there, I'm gonna ask you to do something, I'm gonna ask you to fall in love. And no, I don't mean it how you'd expect. I don't intend on patronising you for something as pure as what I'm gonna ask of you. I'm asking you to fall in love with the little things. Fall in love with how someone scribbles on the last page of their notebook because they're jotting their most private feelings down. Fall in love with how someone takes out the peas from their mashed potatoes, how someone plays with the loose threads on their shirt when they're nervous, with how someone stammers when they tell you their insecurities, how someone sketches on a random tissue paper because it's art and is worth holding on to, how someone dog-ears a page because they love that one line, with how someone mindlessly sways to slow jazz when they think no one's watching, how someone sings at the top of their voice while buttoning up the shirt to get to work, how someone hold...

Toh kuch aisa hai, ki maloom nahi tujhse roothna kaisa hai.. Tere lafzon ki ruhaaniyat zehn mien rehti hai, tujhse naraaz hona manzoor nahi mujhse aqsar ye kehti hai.. Mera sukoon kab teri inaayat ban gaya, kuch dabi dabi saansien aur mai tere ishq mien qaid reh gaya.. Kaafi dur ho gaye hum, sab kuch thoda dhundla gaya, intezaar nahi kia maine par teri awaaz ke lie khud mien hi mayassar reh gaya.. Meelon paar aur kuch arso pare, musalsal tera gun gunana mujhe iss duniya se aghwaa kare.. Mai hasste hasste teri justujoo mien doobta jau, koshish meri puri thi ki mai ye dill sambhaal lu par teri qurbat mien mai kuch bhi na soch pau.. Lekin maanga toh maine usse yahin tha ki ho jau mai tujh hi mien muqammal, akele aaya tha tujhe vapas bulane bina shiqwe, bina kisi halchal.. Dheere se tujhe bataye apne saare sirr-e-ulfat, tab jaake samajh aaya tu hamesha se hi toh mere saath tha, bina uzr aur bina kisi mazrat.. Until next time, Love, always S

  Old candles lit just as it started to rain; I heard you beg for redemption though all in vain. You prayed on your knees as you felt blind; darling, all the reasons you’d get in the world, but the magic you will always have to find. Chapters after chapters, books after books; to rid you of the hurt, to get you off tenterhooks. You keep flipping pages for a cure, trying to find an antidote; for all your sins and for all the letters she ever wrote. Caves to shield you from disgrace, mountains that keep you out of sight; screaming telling the world what you did was okay, what you did was right. So you circle the past, and go back to an age-old disease; the tragedy is within, my love, all the oceans of the world but you still won’t find any peace. Go ahead and paint back the walls with my name; break my photo from that gold frame. Sweetheart, but I'll tell you something off the shelf; the world is too small a place for a coward who’s always running away from himself.   Until next...