words . unclasp. emotions

He was a story walking with a cat on his shoulder. I happened to notice him as I wandered, after comforting myself with a bowl of hot Asian food on a day when a mental breakdown was building up within; like Jenga blocks in my chest, about to crash with a thudd any moment. I watched that cat be comfortable, seated on his shoulder; moving back and forth, looking all around but having a grip at her feet I was really fascinated.  I walked on the same street as I planned earlier, six to seven steps behind him, and just strolled in awe of the understanding this human and cat had built. He wore a dark grey sweatshirt, full sleeved with a turquoise string looped around his thumb. This flat, tightly threaded string went all the way up tied to his cat's furry neck. The cat was dark grey and white, matching quite a lot to her owner's outfit. They looked like best friends and he, her safe keeper. I tried taking a picture from the back, but was falling behind because of his speed. I droppe...

I am in a daze.  I've woken up thrice today from a deep sleep as if I slept through three midnights in a day. Once on the bus, when it reached Bangalore a few minutes after sunrise. Once to get ready and go to a friend's place for a ritual, a Hindu occasion. Once, right now. As the day discusses dusk with the moon, over coffee. Woke up to a dark room with some sounds of children playing on the floor above. And it was a defined repetitive sound that could make anyone morph annoyance into an expression, plastered to their face. And all this while, through the sleeping and waking up and sleeping again, my brain has been trying to find the perfect beginning of the piece you are reading right now. And I haven't found any. I just have a stack of postcards in my mind, as if it is scattered out of a memory box on a lazy Sunday, at a cleaning hour. And each one feels like a little girl's dream, a girl who dreamt it in foreign ways. Postcard 1 The sea shore Three friends sitting ...

It was three minutes to seven PM, I sat there, on the floor with my legs crossed. A human beside, someone who probably hates me or meets my gaze with an air of indifference on other days. We sat there, right at the centre, with the Mysore Palace standing like a kingdom that would come to life in a few blinks, in three minutes. The Palace radiated history and strength in reds and a colour of grandeur. Lights are something that makes my soul feel intense warmth, it fills me with hope and goodness in any room and consequence. And to be sitting there, with a thousand other beings, a few crossed legged, a few standing, a few scattered and a few gathered, It felt surreal. To anticipate as a tribe, strangers coming together to witness some magic that would appear in one moment of shared dusk-time. I closed my eyes, and a deep breath allowed itself into my lungs. The sky sizzled with blue hour and the glow of a setting sun. That deep breath made me feel something, I had paused the moment. The ...