Confusions

And it said, it's time to take a stand. Either here or there. 

That had been my struggle since past many years. 

Many many years

I felt torn again. Torn between duties n desires.. 

That had been my struggle since many years. 

Many many years

The statement was now is the time. It's been stretched decision for long

That had been my struggle for many years 

Many many years

Coming from the confusions mouth, I had nothing to question. I was torn again. 

That had been my struggle for many years. 

Many many years

You can't chose so easily! Or can you? Wants pull you, so do your responsibilities n decisions. 

Struggle..

Many many years..

I stood there, or maybe lay in my pool of drama with that sinking feeling yet again. 
To choose. 
To let go or hold onto. 

Many many years

The beauty pulled me, the ugliness inside made me drift apart. 
Reality was hitting hard.. Dreams popping up once again

Many many years.

The beauty pulled me, the ugliness inside made me drift apart. 
Reality was hitting hard.. Dreams popping up once again

Many many years.

The funny thing was that the message came from the confusion itself. 
I couldn't argue. At all. Anymore. Now.

Struggles

Many many years

And all I wanted was the night to pass by so that once again I conveniently run away. Escapism. Yet again. 

Struggle.

Many many years

Coward? Irresponsible? Incompetent? Indecisive? Immature? Illogical? Emotional?

Haunted. Haunted. Haunted. 

Many many years

I want to sleep again. A peaceful lullaby if the confusions could sing. 
But al I heard were shrill shrieks. 

Dwindled again.

Many many years

The moon was complete making me empty. The stars shining as I lost my glow. 
The darkness inside blew me away.

Yet again lost

Many many years

Numb numb. I want to be. Dumb dumb so wish to me. The sound was killing n I drifted apart. 

Choose now as it shouted

Many many years

Kill me cz I can't bleed anymore. Maybe that's why I am so dead. Breathing for the world

Missing heart or lost the soul 

Many many years

Words are lost. From my mouth. Heart is blind. And u ask me to decide from what??

How? How? Now? Now? 

Struggles. 

Many many years

Incomplete I shall be. Always. Like this abode of my mind. Always. 

Confusions are life? 

Decide what? 

Struggles. 

Many

Many 

Years

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Hollow chested

All the curses have finally started working again
And I thought good was here to stay
But then maybe I was being to hopeful
But then maybe somewhere I knew this was bound to happen
The sharp words cutting my soul are being thrown
The unknown forces have started to pull push again
What went around is coming back
I stand here, being bruised by winds of the past.

Winds of the past, tornados of the present!

- Diary of an Oxymoron

कल्पना

धूप हूँ कभी, और कभी हूँ मैं छांव 

कभी किसी की मुसकुराहट, कभी नम नयन

कहीं बहती नदी, कहीं थमता गाँव 

जो भी कहो, हूँ तुम्हारी ही
कल्पना का अंश
- Diary of an Oxymoron

Emptiness outside, emptiness inside: The Storm of Fall 2012

Call me crazy

That's the way I want to be

This chaos of my world

Is better than the order of yours

-------

Fall of 2012 was a joy I couldn’t cherish for long. I had just received a great scholarship. Was studying in a brilliant school in the city everyone craves to live in (New York). I was finally living on my own. There was that smell of newness, the energy that a milestone brings to you. The streets, the noise all added to the craziness in head. Happy? Or so it appeared to me. Or so, I wanted it to appear.

Is it a crawling snake?

That can be seen with my eyes shut 

Or should I use a shiny rake?

To polish the loose ends of my senseless gut 

The storm in October 2012 that happened in the city of New York took a lot then just the city’s infrastructure. It left a bright dirty spot on my mind too. As Sandy, The Storm changed the course of action for the city making it moan in pain of devastation; a storm took over my life too. Before the storm, I had been overwhelmed by the new life and the daily events: meeting people, managing things totally on my own, feeling lonely, feeling excited. After the storm, I stood there, with an expressionless face and the shattering noise of being broken.

Darkness around is darkness inside


That resonates every now and then

Sooner or later one has to decide


To embrace or reject it from within

Birds have stopped chirping now


And trees stand unshaken


All I see is a raised up brow


With hoards of words waiting to be taken



I walked down the Washington Square Park to my building overly dressed in layers of clothing, trying to save myself from the cold snow. It was 4 pm, dark already and the cold air around hitting my face made me wonder how people saved themselves from the gloominess this weather brought to their lives. I recalled the time from Delhi where I had always hated the heat and craved the snow.

There I was, having what I had desperately wanted. But was I happy? Why was sadness gripping me? The aftermath of the October Storm had left a crack in my soul. November had been healing but the emptiness did not help. Diwali in Canada and Thanksgiving at New Jersey made me feel better as being around family helped. And as the month of November flashed before my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to be happy and love it all, the pain just gripped me tight. All I could hear was the silence inside. The chirping people celebrating another festive month did not come as a breath of fresh air. I was so looking forward to the New Year. Even though I hated the soulless cold air slapping my face, I tried to embrace it. I knew I deserved it. The good, and the bad!

Sudden rush brings joyful trouble


In this dark painful body of work

Eyes rubbed again to rid off the bubble

Trying to shed of the inside Berk

Creaks of the window in pain


Without wind playing a role


Glass is lost & wood is in stain

Nobody looks at the dented pole

It was a routine for me to sit beside the window in my room. The heater made me realize how humans crave for what is missing. "When its cold, we want hot, always wanting what is not". The words resonated in my mind. The irony was that somewhere that cold-hot change made me learn about my own self. My constant craving for what is missing from my life and my struggle to change when that missing piece of the puzzle is found.  The funny thing was, I enjoyed it. The numerous phone calls to home just to stay afloat failed at times. The empty room made me cry and weather outside made it hard to get out.

Pages flying in the head


Are they a figment of my imagination too

Lying on desk, sitting on bed


Asking why when the question is who

The snake crawls near


And starts growing in size


Bravely facing it without any fear


Or wear a veil and disguise



But yes, I survived! I survived strong. And people helped. Those long discussions in the kitchen with my landlady, those friends who would call from India, those city friends helping me get out of home and yes, that one new friend who came in just at the right time to help me embrace pain, helped me immerse myself in work and recover.





No sign of light, but fire within


Fear is lived to reach freedom


Don't burst the thought yet with that pin


Prematurity here would be just so dumb

I started embracing the pain, enjoying the wind slapping my numb face. Everything turned beautiful and yes, I was waiting for 2013 to come with my arms spread wide!

The darkness around is darkness inside


For fire originates in you


Convert it in light and let it reside


In words long lived, even if a few

Is it a crawling snake?

You can continue to question forever


Or puff the snake & his venom


And cherish the poison in you, in you.

Standing on the edge

The sheets smell of you
And so do my hands
I can barely take it now
Why don't you just end this up?
Leave me now, complete me!

The crevices of my wisdom box
Are tired of resonating the same words
The webs that time has knitted
Need to b cleaned
For new to b dreamt

I look around and eyes collapse
My arms tired of carrying the burden
As shoulders stoop
I cry loud
When will this trauma end?
I cry aloud

I dreamt of you like a ray of hope
Till it turned dark around
Is this is how we r to Part?
With hatred taking over love?
Every time?

I see people happy
And I look at my inverted smile
I search every nook & corner
Where is my freedom lost?
In which file? Exile?

There I was when we met
Naive as a baby's breath
Here I m years down the line
Shouting silence in mime
Painful, aye!

I love you too that can't b denied
But we can't always be one
I know my feeling I have often lied
And so I feel we are done
Happy parting?

Those teary nights I spent in despair
And those tickles we walked togethr
I sure have grown a lot arnd u
But is that enough? I ask you too?

For d world won't get my rhyme
Neither will they see us divine
But I hope u know u hv changd me
For good and bad, together
Changed me forever

I sing those abode
To a soulless being
Because to me u exist in head
I will love you till I m dead

#PhDdiaries
-Diary of an Oxymoron

भाव

शोर में सन्नाटा
कभी सुना है?
क्या कभी देखा है?
अँधेरे में उजाला
या फिर महसूस किया है कभी?
दर्द में ख़ुशी का एहसास

जिस दिन यह सब मिल जायेगा एक साथ
उस दिन सुन्न हो जायेंगे सारे भाव
सारे के सारे
भाव

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Divine

For the chirping birds sat beside
And didn't let the awful notions glide
Into this creepy mind of mine
Taking me to a place, oh so divine!

- Diary of an Oxymoron 

हौंसला ही काफी है

पंख भले ही न हों मेरे दामन में 
पर उड़ना सीख लिया है 
कौन कहता है ज़रूरी है की कोई हवा चले 
उड़ान भरने के लिए हौंसला ही काफी है

- Diary of an Oxymoron 

Darkness: Brightness

Beneath the starry sky
Darkness left the world
As brightness within arrived

- Diary of an Oxymoron

रंगीन शहर

रंगीन शहर है दिखता मुझे सफ़ेद 
और काले रंग में दिखते हैं गुलाबी रंग अनेक 

खून का नहीं, प्यार का लाल 
मज़जिद का नहीं, खेतों का हरा 
मंदिरों का पीला नहीं, सरसों का रंग
डर और शोर नहीं, खुशियों के संग

- Diary of an Oxymoron

नखलिस्तान

चिलमन नहीं यह है एक नखलिस्तान 
जहाँ सीधा क्या और उल्टा क्या है 
देखने का नज़रिया जो बदला 
नज़रों की दिशा ही बदल गई 

सोचती हूँ, नई दृष्टि है, या फिर नई कहानी
की सोच ही बदल गई है

- Diary of an Oxymoron 

मटक लटक

क्योंकि जीना मैंने सीख लिया है 
भले ही दामन में हों गम हज़ार
मटक लटक कर कर लेंगे हम 
जीवन के यह पल गुज़ार

भले पढ़ी नहीं हूँ मैं
न मैंने शहर है देखा कोई
पर खुशियों से युंह भरा है मेरा आँचल
की हस्ते हस्ते मैं हूँ रोइ

चलते है रहना,
हैना बहना?

- Diary of an Oxymoron 

Warps & Wefts: ताना बाने

इस जीवन के करघे से
हमने हर एक पहलु को है सुना
कभी हसी का ताना और कभी गम के बाने को
अपने हाथों से है बुना

उस खादी के जैसा है हर एक क्षण
जिसमें इन्द्रधनुष के सभी भर दिए हैं हमने रंग

चलती चलती यह इंसानी मशीन
किसी दिन यूंह ही रुक जाएगी
फिर नया चक्र चलेगा,
नई कहानी बुनने में आएगी

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Pains & Pleasures

The Pleasure of not knowing what is in store for you is much equal to the Pain of the Past. Both give you a hollow chest.

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Weaving Words, Weaving Wounds

I could weave each wound into a poem
But that would just mean to give them extra importance
And that would hurt my ego way too much
Way too much to bear

- Diary of an Oxymoron 

Moronic ways

I live a metaphor
And the world around me laughs
The chaos is pleasure
And the pleasure is often lost
For if it is nothing that can be caught by naked eyes,
Nothing is what I want to be
Waiting to be forgotten yet found
Waiting to hide , waiting to be free
Who cares about the moronic ways of this world,
Cz another moron I don't fancy to be
But still being looked upon by the world as nothing
Is the kind of attention enough I seek
I live a metaphor
Not realized & lived by all
June is summer; January winter
I will live my April in fall

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Explaining Menstruation need not be Awkward

It was a regular day at school and there I was doing regular things. Attending classes, chit-chatting, copying notes and yes, waiting eagerly for the day to end. Innovation was always something that my school sorely lacked in. I always felt that the teaching was delivered in a top-to-down manner and that the focus was on earning marks instead of developing capacities. As a seventh standard student, I was curious, scared, and mostly confused about my changing body and the spectrum of emotions I was dealing with. In my circle of girl-friends, we would often discuss why the boys in our school suddenly developed strange heavy tones in their voices, why our bodies had suddenly started growing in weird regions in addition to a variety of other such questions which kept popping up in conversations day in and day out. To our dismay, we never had anyone around to discuss all this with. As the days passed, our anxieties and curiosity kept on increasing with no answers in sight.

Well, so it was a regular hot day at school and it was that time of the day when all we could think about was when we would be left out of the gates that looked like prison bars to me (because I have never been a fan of school and studying). That was when someone entered the class and an announcement was made. “All the girls have to report to the basement in classroom Z,” said a teacher. While we girls wondered what had just happened, the boys I remember were curious to know why they were not a party to all of this. There we were then, almost half the population of the class, getting up and going down to the basement with clueless expressions on our faces and excitement in our minds for we had just got released from the boring Mathematics class that was taking place.

From the third floor, as we walked down slowly to the basement, many speculations about what was going to happen were made; injections, health check-ups, random gifts and such were some of them. I remember very clearly that one girl declared that we were going to be spoken about something called periods. The word was definitely not new to me. Well, school periods were something we always knew about but then she went on to explain about a new concept called ‘Menstrual Periods’. I began walking down the stairs wondering what menstruation was all about. The very first day I had heard about it was the day when several of my questions were left unanswered.

As we entered the dingy room in one corner of the lobby, I saw the room packed with girls. On one corner was a small television set and we all sat down as spectators in front of it. “A movie…ahh…not bad,” I thought to myself. The heat started getting to my head as a straight-faced lady entered the room and we were made to hush our voices down to sit and silently listen as usual.

A ten-minute long movie showing us how to use a sanitary napkin added more confusion to my ever-dramatic mind. I sat there wondering about whys and whats and whose and whens. My friend, the one who had already got her periods re-assuredly patted my back and promised to tell me all about it. For me, the idea of bleeding every month without any reason sounded crazy. “This is how it happens” was replaced by “It happens! Deal with it!”

The next moment, I saw myself walking back to the classroom with a sanitary napkin provided to us as a return gift to carry back. The ‘Angels of Menstruation’ had just informed us about ‘that time of the month’. I felt like I was thrown into a pool with a life jacket but in no way trained to know how to use it, why to use it and why indeed we needed to do so. With no training, with no reason, with no knowledge about why the changes were taking places, I found questions popping up in my head but was too scared to get the words out of my mouth.

We tried to hide it in our blazers and some hid it by folding it in our hands because we knew that the very moment we returned to the class, there would be faces looking at us with questioning eyes, curious to know what it was that made us so special that only we were invited for. It is one of the funniest yet weirdest memories of my school days to be questioned by the boys around me, with my school bag among many others being rummaged to find out what was gifted to us. We had no answers; we didn’t know how to tell the boys and indeed if we could in fact tell them anything at all.

Over the years, the memory keeps on coming and going from time to time. When I had my periods, I was unsure and scared about everything and the way in which it all took place. From that friend-who-had-it-first to sometimes the-elder-sister figure, I turned to everyone for answers but the very idea that it was supposedly dirty and that it wasn’t considered normal to talk about it made my curious brain forcefully shut down, leaving most of my questions unanswered.

My mother never encouraged me to talk about it. We were told that we were not supposed to make it obvious when it was ‘that time of the month’. We were told to hide our painful cramps and to deal with our mood swings. “Have tea, and keep quiet,” my mother would say. Well my mouth was shut but in my mind, the conditioning took place in such a way that I grew up thinking that periods were strictly not to be spoken about and that it was a shame that we had to go through it in the first place.

Years passed by and one fine day when I found myself sitting with a group of adolescent girls in a slum in Delhi with their curious eyes staring back at me, I realized how I would have looked at that time. I left myself at the disposal of those girls, ready to answer any question, any issue, anything at all. I started narrating my story and told them of how, over the years, I had gone through a phase of not knowing to knowing it all. Internet, movies, discussions, research and other avenues of information had all helped me but I knew the challenges I had faced in my struggle to reach the point where I knew that periods were not ‘dirty’, it wasn’t something we had to hide or ignore and that it was a natural process which we most certainly were blessed to go through. For me, the lack of a mentor to help me understand this process got me to realize how I could be one for many others. That is how I found myself answering absolutely anything that the girls ever wanted to know about menstruation.

We live in a society where we consider women impure during their periods. You cannot go to a temple, touch pickles or enter kitchens. We study and function in such societal structures where life processes are taught as mere subjects and not as something crucial to growing up. Sex Education is good, but the manner in which it is delivered needs to be restructured. We live in homes where even the act of throwing a sanitary napkin is to be done with a certain amount of care and secrecy. Well, if change have to take place, it has to start with us. I started with my younger sister, with many other boys and girls in my house and went on to address the dilemmas of many young minds at various other places. You have to decide where to start. Act now, or else ignorance will only result in curious brains shutting down and in creative minds clamping up.

This article was originally published at Menstrupedia blog 

From India to New York: Going Global through Fulbright

There are many aspects of what it means to be a Fulbrighter. For instance, it changes not only how people identify you, but how you see yourself and the world. The amount of exposure to different cultures and experience that Fulbright provides is immense. The feeling of being a 2012-2013 Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow from India started sinking in the day I attended the pre-departure orientation. Being chosen as a representative of my country was huge. I knew that what I that my experience researching community radio and participatory communication in the United States would be different from my previous experiences in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and I was very much looking forward to it.

When I attended the Gateway Orientation at Virginia Commonwealth University, the feeling of ‘going global’ overcame me, and I realized just how huge a responsibility being a Fulbrighter is. During the orientation, I learned much about the American Civil War and also from my fellow Fulbrighters from all over the world.

When I arrived at New York University’s (NYU’s) Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, I knew that as a Development Communication and Extension Specialist from India, NYU was going to be a great place to analyze global development, not just by studying what is happening within the field in the United States, but also by meeting with representatives from different countries. My Fulbright research focuses on community radio stations as models of participatory communication, and I intend to use my findings on American community radio stations’ financial and volunteer management when I return to India. Understanding the similarities and differences between Indian and American models will be particularly helpful in developing an in-depth analysis of global community radio stations’ best practices.

Living in New York City, with its hustle and bustle, noisy subways, and crowds, has helped me to gain a better awareness of what a worldly city is like. My first amazing New York Fulbright experience was when I attended a session on polio eradication during the United Nations General Assembly 2012. Meeting world leaders and being introduced as a Fulbrighter further underscored how huge the opportunity is for those lucky enough to receive a grant.

Another enriching Fulbright experience I had involved conducting research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Campus Radio. There, I met many student radio enthusiasts in different fields and community radio broadcasters who had been volunteering for decades. This experienced helped me to understand how deeply rooted volunteerism is in the United States and that most American Community Media Systems have been able to develop due to ongoing support from volunteers.

I have loved each and every day of my stay and research in United States. For the traveler, communicator, listener and scholar in me, this has been the best experience of my life!

This was originally published at the Fulbright Blog