This city is a riot.

This city is a riot,

a riot of different
tints and tones,

it is full of monsters

and men,

of the chivalrous and the

boorish,

of women with wings clipped

to their backs,

the rich and the poor,

the kind and the cruel,

the young and the old

stand tall at the sunrise and

crumble after sunset,

never are the streets sombre,

look around,

you're flanked by glares and

laughter gaping you,

cups of tea are passed around

the tables

while an outlier sips on his

coffee,

saunter in wonder,

the cadence of different prayers

envelops you as

several religions coexist with

grace,

let me tell you how

biryani is one of them,

there's constant rush and

fragments of calm,

tell me what’s this city if

not a

beautiful riot?

My book ‘Warm Delinquencies’ is available on Amazon for worldwide shipping. You can order it here: http://bit.ly/2gnn6j9.

Woman, You Are Not Safe!

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”
– Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

She loved the desolate streets.

She believed her thoughts thrived while walking through the isolated, stark dark streets.

Today was different. She was ecstatic. She sold her first story.

“I sold my first story, I sold my first story, I sold my first story,” she repeated these lines to herself, grinning widely from one ear to another. What would delight a writer more than that?

Being delusional was one of her occupational hazards, because she totally assumed she was safe to go home. Alone!

As she walked in those streets, she realized that someone was following her, because she could hear footsteps behind her. Vaguely, but certainly!

What she did not realize was that he would try to harm her. She also did not realize she would use her pepper spray on him. Practically, it was lying around in her bag since two years, but she never had to use it anyone. Following that incident, she did not realize she would entirely abandon the desolate streets she once loved, look at the men around her in suspicion though they meant no absolute harm. She was safe, but she could not get that incident out of her head.

No surprises there, she did not stay in that quagmire for longer than she intended to. She let go of it, because it was not even worth a thought, if you know what I mean?

This is my story. This is your story. Oh wait, this is the story of your best friend too. I am sure her sister too has a similar story. In a  nutshell, this is the story of every woman I meet, and I cannot even put it in numbers on how many such stories I hear time and again.

“WOMAN! You are not safe,” my family utters every time I decide to go out.

Maybe they are right. Maybe they know if anything ever happens to me, all I would get is a candle march.

I will get nothing else. Zilch. Nada.

However, that would not stop me from doing what I got to do. Actually, it shouldn’t.

This is my two cents to every woman out there:

You are not safe.

If you are assuming you are a sleeping beauty, or some damsel in distress who will be rescued by a man, you are mistaken.

If you are secretly hoping the government would come to your help, you are totally hallucinating.

If you are imagining the women who see you going through the mess come to deal with your mess, you are demented.

They will be sorry, but that is all they will do.

Instead, let us accept that you are not safe. Because that is what makes our lives simpler!

Carry two cans of pepper spray cans if you must, but do not go anywhere without it. Keep your phones charged all the time. Let people know where you are.

Download SOS-Stay Safe application to your smartphone. And if you think your parents are stopping you from having fun, let me tell you this - You are not safe!

No matter where you are, do not get worked up. You will need to deal with the situation all by yourself. Your love for yourself must protect you even during the most awful situations because only you can take care of yourself.

Just to get things straight, let me repeat it again for you. You are not safe because you live in a country where people worship Goddesses yet prey on the same fraternity. You are not safe because more than half the population actually consider you as an object of pleasure. You are not safe because the law of your country seems to work against your best interests. Not intentionally, however, not unintentionally either.

But you know you are entitled to be safe. 

Because you deserve more than just a godforsaken candle march.

Something About My City!

Perhaps I have built my memories like landmarks all around the city.

To talk about Hyderabad and its countless issues, I have always taken them seriously at several phases of my life.

From “I want to move to Bangalore” to “I want to study in Calcutta” to “I would settle down in Vizag”, this city has seen it all.

This city makes me erratic. It makes me want to yell at people. It makes me want to knock some sense into the auto drivers. This city and its traffic makes me sigh louder than ever. This city makes me restless, it gives me sleepless nights. But, it does not stop right there.

It makes me run away from it. For all intents and purposes.

I have always believed that I hated Hyderabad, but the joy I experienced when I looked at the city lights looming playfully over Hussain Sagar after a trip to Vizag, I have totally realized how much I loved this city. More than anything else. The unsettling feeling at the pit of my stomach every time I travel to a different city is not beyond my comprehension anymore.

Last Saturday, as I was going home from work, while listening to Ilayaraja’s music, I realized I cannot do without Hyderabad. This city is imperfect in all its dimensions, but it is beautiful. You know, just the way some broken things hold a mysteriously beautiful aura?

Yes, that!

This city proves that it is worth all the sleepless nights. It flaunts its old world charm and its contemporary style with a panache. This city bears its mad rush and agonizingly dark nights with a delight. 

This city does not care what I do, it pushes me towards meeting better people every time; it makes me believe that pretty things come in tiny packages.

And much to my chagrin, this city ended up being my favourite over all the places I have ever lived in. It has applauded my first success, and berated my first step of arrogance. It has embraced my first failure by hushing me into tranquillity. It has seen my first love, my first heartbreak, and many of my firsts, that simply went unnoticed. It has made me experience seething love and fleeting jealousy. It has drowned me with solitude and words. 

As I wake up to my morning coffee with yet another round of Venkateswara Suprabhatam playing at home, I know this city has engulfed me with a sense of belonging.

It makes me feel like I am home. Even when I am lost.

***

Picture Courtesy: Sugumar Solomon

Home: A Short Story

As the plane took off, I kept staring down at the country I was leaving behind. Momentarily or forever.

"I am going home," I murmured in disbelief. How long has it been? A good fifteen years?

Home. India. Home. Hyderabad.

The very thought of home made me wince. It brought back all the unpleasant memories of my childhood, the awful moments spent anticipating the worst to come, evenings spent aimlessly along the Necklace road, the lonely youth, and all the days spent with books and copious amounts of coffee.

I found home in a continent far away from home. I found home in a place called Pasadena which was familiar only on a map fifteen years ago. I found family in a place I never thought I would end up in. The unforeseen circumstances life puts us in.

On a rather sunny day, when I was taking a stroll back from a friend's place, I received a call from my cousin bearing the news of my father's death. I was to go back to Hyderabad, he said. I am the only son, he convinced. And, I am the final fragment of the family that was left, he warned.

I sit back and think of all the dreadful moments I have spent with my father. I cannot forget the fact that he loathed my mother all her life - harassing and abusing her, making her life a hell to live in. I was no exception to the terrible treatment. I received my share. Everyday. Every evening. I recollect all the moments I spent envying my friends who had fathers who went cycling and made paper boats along with them, read stories to them in the night, and had dinners with them. I was deprived of the tiniest joys and festivities. 

I loved my mother dearly. I recollect the days she would come to pick me up from school, wearing a cotton saree with vermillion on her forehead. As we walked from the school to home, her bangles emanated a joyous jingle. It was that sound that I missed the past fifteen years, the jingle that used to tiptoe into my room to check if I was asleep well in the nights, the jingle that surrounded me as she cleaned my room, fed me, and giggled with me.

I fish out my wallet and look at her picture. My mother. I murmur, fondly. 

As a reclusive teenager, I felt lost when my mother died. The pain was excruciating. My mother was the only person who understood me and stood by my side in the whole wide world, and I saw her burn and reduce into ashes in front of my eyes. I still remember the way my father behaved on that day and my abhorrence for him increased to a whole new level and that was the moment I realized I had to leave India and look out for myself.

A new country. Different people. Cultural difference. Demanding course structures. And the pain of losing my mother.

The past fifteen years passed on as quickly as a whirlwind without a thought of my father. I have studied, travelled, met interesting people, travelled a little more, fell in love, got my heart broken, got on with my life, and made decent amount of money. My house is a mantel of memories that brought me an immense amount of joy yet there was something that gave me restless nights.

Was it the forgotten bond with my father? Or the home that I left behind more than a decade ago? Was it the responsibility that I left behind selfishly? I never figured it out all these years, but may be, it was the guilt of leaving my father - a punishment that was too severe.

I have maintained no forms of communication with him, and I wondered how he led the final stages of his life. Surely, the surly old man would have reformed! He would have repented for all the mistakes he has done. I will learn everything about the last fifteen years tomorrow. I will make up for all the time. I said it to myself, more or less out of guilt.

But as I lean back trying to get some sleep, I knew there will always be a part of me that will hate my father. 

Confessions of A Writer

Originally written for Metropolis Hyderabad Magazine under the section of confession box and it is here! I have written this article along with another blogger, Sugumar and you can see his blog here: The World Around Me!

Click on Metropolis and explore the site. :D

I am a writer and I live by my pen. In my fraternity, there are my fellow friends who work in the morning and write by evening. A very tedious job, I tell you. As a writer, I have faced my problems but I derive joy from writing. I write when I am happy, I write when I am sad, I write when I am bored, I write when I am stressed out. Writing is the only way I can escape from my daily chores. Not that I am bunking them, but I need to write. At least, a thousand words a day. But I have my own plights too. Yes, I have some confessions. While I cannot pour out the gory ones, I can definitely tell the common ones.

After I took writing seriously, I mean very seriously, I have turned into a grave person. My friends complain that I do not have much time for them, which is quite not true. I do have time, but it is just that…..Anyway, the first confession is I do not like it when people contact me and ask me to write for them for free. I mean, I do have expenses, right? Any writer would feel the same. We have bills to pay, we have things to buy, we are taking time and writing and of course, it is not a social service. Like Joker in Batman said ‘If you are good at something, never do it for free’, and I believe every word that he says. With so many writers getting their books published, the writers have lost their cult-like following. Isn’t it? I do not see a single writer who has a magnificent following after Chetan Bhagat.

And then, there are people who think writers are unemployed. It is so in-appropriate. What about the writers who live by pen? Jane Austen did; did we regard her as unemployed? No, we did not. There are many such brilliant writers. And you know what the toughest part is? It is the naming of characters. The story gets completed in ten minutes but the naming part takes ages. Writing and the time limits are bitter enemies. But what can we do? They go hand-in-hand and deadlines are to be met. It is highly impossible to convince ourselves that we cannot be Jeffrey Archer in a single book. The things we write might be good, and readers might go gaga over it, but we are never satisfied with what we write. We always find it clichéd. How typical!

“I have gone overboard to promote myself on social media, being a first time author. It has made people come back and question my sense of modesty, but in an age where the publishing industry is at the boom I have no qualms of making the most out of social media”, confesses Sagarika Chakraborty, a famous writer and the author of ‘A calendar too crowded’. And I agree with her. Any good product reaches the market only with good promotion. Similarly, even writers need to promote their books. One cannot expect a book to be a massive hit by just putting it in the shelves of a book-store.

“Basically, writing is something that has kept me from the gloomiest moments in my life. It's nice to know that many envy the way you write and your work is being praised. But, writing is something only few adore, and only few bother to read.

Working against the deadlines, slogging off late in the night, typing stuff, writing doesn't seem that wonderful at those times”, confesses another writer, Aditya Kasibhatla.

So yes, we all have our major and minor glitches, complications, confessions and we, writers, pen them down, make fun out of it and laugh at our own expense. That is us!

-Sunaina and Sugumar

Pitter-Patter!

"You know your day is going to be awesome when you wake up to the sound rain-drops hitting your window pane."
Ah! Such bliss, if you ask me.

I slept in the afternoon with this thought "I need to update my blog in the evening" in my mind. And yippee, I wake up to see the beautiful rain out of my window and oops, not so beautiful rain drenching my jeans in the balcony. :-|
My mom asked me if I wanted coffee and of course I wanted it. (Duh! Is that even a question to be asked? I would love to have coffee all the time. When I say all the time, I really do mean it.)

My sister too wanted to have coffee and since, she is a tenth grader, she considered herself too young to have coffee and made cold coffee for herself. Well, I don't see a point here. I mean, coffee is coffee, right? Hot or cold, it is coffee. :-D

I have been wanting to do a picture post since two weeks and couldn't write anything. Thank you, The Royal Laziness!
But hey, I have so many pictures on rain. Why not write a post on rain? And this thought dragged me from the balcony to my bedroom and here we go, the pictures. *Excited!*

This is the first picture that I have clicked at Inorbit Mall, Hyderabad and this is my all time favourite.

My friend Asisha's palm. :-D

This picture has been clicked in Chandanagar, Hyderabad.

Yet another rainy day picture clicked last year. The following picture was clicked on the same day.

This has been clicked on the same day. :-)

This picture has been taken on my way to the college. Last year, again!

This is one of my favourite pictures and please ignore the clarity. My Corby has clicked more than 3000 pictures in the past one and half year and still is managing to click some wonderful pictures.

And this is it. I am done and going back to enjoy the rain

Hyderabad!

It has been thirteen days since I have updated my blog and hell, it took me almost ten days to realize that writing a blog post on my most favourite thingy is the best thing to do. Yes, another picture post! And this time, I am updating a post on pictures of various places in Hyderabad.

Warning: Please do not expect pictures of Charminar as I haven't been to that place since I was in fifth grade. :-D

Okay anyway, the first picture is

The first thing that comes to our mind when anyone says Hyderabad is "The Hyderabadi Biriyani" and Paradise is all about yummy biriyani. I don't know if Charminar signifies Hyderabad or not but Paradise sure does.

This picture was taken in Durgam Cheruv.

Oh yes, the famous Buddha idol and ignore the clarity, my mobile couldn't do anything better. :-)

This picture was taken on one of the most hilarious days of my life. Apala and Asisha, remember?
Place: SR Nagar

I clicked this picture somewhere near Madinaguda, Hyderabad. And I love this picture. :-D
Whaaaaat? I can't love my own pictures?

The above and the below pictures were clicked at Safilguda Lake Park.

How much I love shopping and how much I adore Inorbit Mall. The following picture is a view of Inorbit Mall and iLabs(I guess) from Durgam Cheruv.

This picture was taken in December 2010.
Place: Pragati Nagar, Kukatpally.
I miss those days of trekking and fun! :-D

And with this, I come to an end of the post. I will probably come up with another post on pictures of Hyderabad after my photography excursions. :-)