My paintings

'How to paint a picture 
without the object in-front of you?'
I wondered as a kid
I thought that vase with bougainvillea
can be put on paper. 
More effectively than
the tragedy which I was facing. 
I was just nine. 
A vase made more sense 
than the stars in starry night
which represented havoc
Or the fact, 
that it was painted in a mental asylum. 
So the pain I was enduring made no sense to me
Does pain ever make sense?
If we could reason with pain,
pay it a penny or two
to alleviate it,
it could be easier for that nine year old child.


She was touched at places 
she didn’t, know exist in her body. 
You see, she learnt a lesson 
In human anatomy so differently 
So harshly
So painfully
So wrongly
that it shredded her apart. 
She believed her body to 
be a vase
the one which can be drawn by anyone. 
She didn't know that question she asked 
will soon have an answer. 

That's the tragedy with innocent questions
You don't want an answer,
especially through an experience. 
Tragedy she suffered at nine, 
The one she understood few years later
made her numb. 
This numbness was drawn into canvas,
by combination of exquisite colours
which were not the colour of vase. 
Vase here stands for a normal childhood. 
Her mother wondered what inspired her.
Only if she understood the
art enough to ask.
She was screaming all this time. 
Her pain taught her to visualise things that never existed. 
Her pain was the biggest teacher
and her paintings were the loudest confession.
Alas! 
No one understood.

Fictitious Land

I am a seafarer,
travelling in a huge ship.
I am exhausted.
The sight of land seems 
very distant to me.
But it's not what troubles me the most... 
The time plays cruel games.
It works like melted clocks
of Dali's persistence of memory.
The clocks are melted,
and the sea bugs are consuming them.

I see a land.
Oh! It is a fictitious shore.
I don't know, 
how many fictitious shore 
I have to cross
before touching ground.
I want to see sea waves 
washing the shore.
I want to reach home.
Travelling enthralls me
but I catch sea sickness soon...


These islands are magical work of slant of light.
Magic dissipates into thin air
Just like we all do.
Maybe we all are living on fictitious lands.
Our foundation shifts.
Some characterstics of our core are always transient.

I sailed on...
I was the captain of ship.
However slowly I developed other profound talents
Lonliness drives you into poetry.
Poetry is a magical and spurious work of syllables.
In this rhyme, nothing is real.
Words are transient.
They too fritter away. 
Debilitated.
Exhausted.
Enervated.
I reach the real shore
Now there is sand all around me
And fictitious water is infront of me...

Mental Health matters

Some circumstances lead to inevitable reactions. Reactions pile up and we land up in a situation which is incomprehensible for us. Sometimes it is not the fault of circumstances but brain's chemistry. 
I am talking about mental health in a very casual manner. 
What makes a person depressed or what causes OCD, Schizophrenia and all other diseases with huge names can never be explained in layman terms. How to cure them is a bigger challenge, that is why maybe we don't talk about it. 
Then we watch a standup like Nannette or a movie like Perks of being a wallflower which appeals to our emotional side and we start posting things for a while and then we are silent. No I am not saying to share ' mental health is important' posts everyday. However, all I ask for is a proper conversation and understanding which lacks, especially in South Asia, especially in India. 
I am not going to quote statistics but if you search Clinical Depression on google it says that one out of five is affected. Yet, I rarely see people talking about it. And those who talk are misusing the term- 'Oh, I am so depressed no holidays this semester'. 

So why is it vital to talk about mental health even though we cannot understand it? 
I am suffering with severe depression along with bipolar (2) disorder. Sometimes I am so numb that I myself cannot comprehend my own pain. Somedays I am so out of words that I need my loved ones to fill in me with their own. When I was diagnosed my parents were in denial. They thought it is my vertigo to be blamed for panic attacks, my friends were like I am too young to go through this. And other people? Who saw my confused and sad expression always judged me. 
I felt like I was trapped. I used to read some mainstream articles on mental health like this one and gauge where I am going. One day my relatives came to know and they suspected that it might be because of a relationship. 
So we live in a society where jests, humour and sarcasm is honoured and a serious talk which may cause us to think is disregarded. 
Coming back to question, it is important to talk about mental health because unlike physical health it locks you inside an imaginary room. You are locked with all the demons and please understand no one can defeat them my their own. You need weapons and guidance. 
Medicines and external support do that work. 
I have faced pill shaming where people ask me what anti depressant do and it all depends on me.
I have been asked by my best friend to stop talking about it as people will start stereotyping me as a 'depressed human'. 
I hate how we assume that a person going through depression is spreading sadness and I hate how self-help books quote that we need to be happy to attract good energy and spread positive vibes. Believe me it is bullshit. There is no button inside head to switch off thoughts. When someone is clinically depressed often there is no control over thoughts because it is lack of serotonin and other harmones which are responsible for controlling negative thoughts.
For once I want people to stop, okay lets not talk about this if you have to ask annoying questions and use your insensitive tongue.

Yellow Lights

Yellow walls today are lit up with yellow fairy lights. Everything is blurry when these lights are illuminating the room . In this faint light you look beautiful.
As we dance slowly to rhythm of Frank Sinatra I look into your eyes. 
I cannot distinguish if they are black or brown but they do have a glint of yellow glare in them. 
Your feet become my pedestal. I step up on them to kiss you. Slowly our lips melt together and the lights flicker as if celebrating the moment. 
The lights go out and your image goes too. 
I remember the same night again and again. 
I decorate my room daily to relive this moment with the T-shirt you gifted me before you left me for someone else

Dermatillomania

This is an illness which lies in Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum. The affected has a tendency to pluck skin and pull his hair until they come out. 
I wrote a poem on my condition-
My body is a battleground
And I a scavenger
I gauge my skin 
With hawk's eye
I scan it for imperfections-
Scars,
Freckles,
Pimples,
Pockmarks,
And then I prey.
Usually after a long warm bath
When my skin is moist
So it can easily be attacked on
I stand naked
Tick tock runs my brain
'Knock Knock' says anxiety
I don't like my lips
I slowly bite them
Not with lust
But to chew the upper skin
I don't like the taste
Prolly I don't even register it
It's an obsession
I circle my freckles slowly.
and pick them with my nails
Battlefield smells of blood now
Anxiety has attacked again
It never wants truce
It gains sadistic pleasure 
Out of sight of vultures picking skin of dead.
I comb my hair
But I know they won't remain at place
'Thump Thump'
Anxiety breaks the door
I start pulling my hair
It happens unknowingly
My hands are in control of my obsession
This compulsion is scary
Scarier are my nails
The adjoining skin is damaged.
So when the condiments of food touch it
Salt is rubbed on wounds
It hurts
It happens all at once
What is scariest?
That those vultures are commanded by me

How you name the stars?

Twinkling high,
These charismatic bodies make me awe
We see them how they were light years ago...
We see their past,
and visualise it as their present.
They resemble human race so much.
So we name them after our lost ones
The ones in past...
Whom we long to be with us in present

However I will name North Star
On our lost forgotten love
Which eroded because of fugacious circumstances....
Feelings are just like people
They come with a faint cry
And live us in oblivion
To respire in deadly silent funeral...
whose pyre is visible to us till eternity
Even if extinguished

2+2=4

'You are not Kurt Cobain's suicide letter
You are his favourite composition
You are not fading away slowly 
as he wrote in last paragraphs
It's better to burn out than fade away
You are Nirvana'

I wrote these lines before
Commencing my new diary
Dear Diary, it's so queer-
the way I console myself.
I have to meet people in this world
And yet the strangest will always remain me.

I call myself the Frida Kahlo 
From her self portrait with cropped hair
I will cut short my hair,
if my lover falls in love with it.
I fell in love with the Mexican artist since I fell in love with myself.
Art is her redemption.
Poetry is mine. 
And if poetry redeems me,
I have to make a promise.
An oath to give it back to her 
What you can say-my life. 


Since a child I learn to fight with Thought Police. 
I screamed two plus two is four
And it echoed till the whole world listened.
My poetry is written with blood
Blood flowing in my womb
Ready to give birth to a new movement
Strong.
Dark.
Resilient. 
Outrageous.
And you see they will be read aloud in temples
For thought police cannot deny my entry to anywhere.

Therapist and me

What my therapist told me today-

The world will tell you a thousand things not to be but not what to be. The thing which eats you from inside is self pity. You did not choose to be emotional. It's the way you are. Wear it like an armour
When I came back I penned down this-

What does my therapist do?
listen to my twisted tales,
disrobe me,
and then,
locks me in this world naked.
In this cruel and cold world,
world which is too real.
No, no.
Give me my robe back,
let me live in my imagination,
where I pen down an elegy,
for my mother's death ceremony.
Meanwhile she examines my robe,
She calls me an extremist,
So I am,
I sit at nook of my room,
my eyes roll all across the cell,
I feel the wind from window
And I wonder about all possibilities 
If I jump from window,
will wind save me?
or it just is an element of atmosphere
with no metaphoric meaning.
I pity my therapist now.
She feeds me love,
and I vomit self-respect
She attempts to disrobe me
but I have other robes too
You see,
My mind is a bottomless pit,
I have a million things left unsaid.
She is dealing with a stubborn heart,
lost in quest to discover herself.
She is dealing with a hurricane,
who wears an innocent face.

Blue Nude

Today I picked up my pen 
and wondered about all possible things
That deserve to be written down-
Like a haiku
on chamomile tea I love,
and a tribute 
to my favourite Beatles song.
However all this sounds mundane.
I feel flushed and warm.
I am so stupidly happy.
So instead of writing about
crisis in Catalonia
or how Gustave Eiffel sketched the mammoth beauty of Paris' skyline.
I write about you.
I do this every-time.
However, this is different.
Serotonin rushes in my pen.
I choose to scribble about that lazy Friday.
When 3'o clock in afternoon 
I sat cozily on your lap.
With your hands meandering on my back
And we kissing slowly at once.
Your hands were as articulate with me
as Picasso's with his brushes.
You kissed my lips
with your watercolour lips.
and now I am a canvas splattered
with scarlet red colour.
Slowly, the colour moist the canvas leaving
an indelible impression.

This is Expressionism.
And you? Pablo Picasso
I am your Blue Nude
Slowly the dusk approaches
And as the sky transits from a lighter shade 
Of blue to dark one
So the canvas is painted
With passion and thoughtfulness
Suddenly you stop.
The palette is empty.
You get up.
The era of Expressionism is over.
Picasso is dead.
The canvas is dry.
In the process of creating,
you created your own self.
You get up.
and you leave the brushes.
Maybe to move on to next project?
Or to be immersed in it forever.
The canvas is unaware of it
Without your touch, canvas
Is incognizant of your intentions
Whatever they maybe,
This canvas and painting and the painter is my writing prompt.