When I’m older

Art by Deepak Pradhan

I sit down to carve the most intricate lines my paper had ever felt. I follow and follow the long tunnels of my imagination where I have this artistic light locked in my fist yet I run as if it’s too far from my reach.

Every time I set my eyes on a yellow leaf, cerulean sky, or a half-baked moon, I hoard all aesthetic souvenirs and dump them in my side pocket only to rush back home and draw all I can through my pounding heart.

In a world full of despair, distress, and stone faces, I wish to reach hearts through art. I wish to capture unlimited sky on a tip of my pen that sends everyone home with each word they read. I wish to tell a lonesome canvas how it can attract the attention of million eyes by letting me in. I’d be proud if I could turn a war-leftover stained glass into an essential part of an incomplete sculpture. I wish I could mix colors in the pouring rain and with every droplet touching them, igniting the power of love instead of hatred. I wish to create a fine masterpiece persuading people to live and die only when they are granted a grave. Never before that.

But when I sit down to produce such a knockout craft, I fail. It feels it’s never enough. There is always something missing. A single piece hiding in the corner, smirking at my quarter-poems and smudged outlines. Probably one day when I am older and freer like a child I will cover the world in my canvases.  

“When I am an old woman I shall let my art paint me through their mysterious strokes.”

©kanikachugh

Will talk

Will talk
When your mirror will hug the dusty fog,
when the grief will not set with the Sun.
when your moustache be grey
and crescent under the eyes darker.
When thirty trees will grow around you
and you’ll be breathless running after the grandkids.
When the golden brooch will kiss the dust more in the cupboard than on your suit.
When not being loved enough will crush your dinner-dates.
When birthdays be knife
and birthday songs the passing clouds.

We’ll talk
When you’ll be seventy.
I’d love to know
how the distance treated you.
We will talk then,
Did you live or just survived?

Paper Hearts

Not gonna lie,
I find you so unattractive.

When your mind-bending skills
of origami turn my apprehensions
into those little things that fly away.

When your plants come alive
with you in plain sight,
repaying your loyalty.

When you audaciously go
and bake the glow for the moon
after the day sucked your soul.

From collecting coins to quotes
you let your adult self color the life book
from the paintbrushes buried in your impaled back.

When you spin, knit, create
the shattered hearts or nearly
wilted flowers to either revive
or help leave/(live) them in peace.

When you write so authentically;
The way your sorrows and smiles
dance on the paper,
it made the phrase “paper hearts”
come out in the open.

When you be a generous witch
for summoning my lost soul
that parted long back and
forgot to feel anything.

What’s so (un)attractive about you?
That makes me pull from you
and long for you, all at the same time.
I am used to the ugliness
of drains, of brains,
of hidden corners, of tragic mourning.

I am scared of you.
People like you set
highest of expectations
of how a life must be lived.
And I am afraid,
Once, I would go past
all the criticisms and validations
I’d be hazardously free.
Like you!
And then I wouldn’t be able to
go back to a mediocre life.
Atleast not without you.
And they’d be no one to blame to,
not even myself because
you’d leave.
I know you will.

©kanikachugh

I write

I write.

I write because nothing else makes sense to me. I write because everything I see speaks volume to me. I sit at the edge of the world questioning every celestial being of how they keep going with years old job without any complaints.

I ask a pigeon if it can hand over some scriptures of their language and the technique of their flight with nothing holding them down.

And then my lips utter some verses; of life, of death, of excitement, of quarrels that somehow withdraws as well as connects me to this world.

I talk to a bird. How we don’t share a conversation and yet feel happy in each other’s presence. I write about my old keys, the tea I like, the kiss I shared and the time I cried for my mother.

When the light around me mellows down and the blood flowing gets cold, words wrap me around in an old comfy cardigan. A candle lit table gathers my disoriented thoughts and sweeps me away from under the cold tongue of January.

And I write. Because I don’t feel it’s just a hobby for me. It has surpassed being a passion either. It somehow has become, close to, my reason to live. I started because I wanted to survive but my subconsciousness has now accepted it as a second-nature-friend, like your mood swings, the one who would never leave you.

I don’t wish to write only about the pain. I want to write about everything. I don’t want to use writing as a coping mechanism anymore but as an instant mint that refreshes my breath and brings back the confidence that I don’t always need rainbows or unicorns to feel better. I can fix myself before turning into ashes and rising again. Because believe me, the process is draining and exhaustive. And I just want to do better than how I did yesterday. So I write, to keep me fierce, to keep me grounded.


©kanikachugh

If only…

You always used to wonder
what book I’d be reading at the moment.

And I always had one answer
‘An interesting one’

If only I could have gathered courage
to admit your company was as interesting
as any book I held.
If only I could tell that
sitting beside you,
under the shade
of our big banyan tree,
and kissing through glances
I rejoiced my existence

Then today, you wouldn’t have left to
be a big writer in the city
whom I could touch only through
the spine of his best books written.

©kanikachugh

Happy New Year 2022

My vision isn’t only in my mind but in all the things I’m surrounded by. It’s in the teacup of words I use to describe myself, it’s in the cardigan Monday wears to give Discover Weekly warm songs in my Spotify playlist, it’s in the band-aid my lump spreads over the anxieties brewing in the stomach to pacify it, it’s in the idea of saying goodbye to one piano key to peacefully move on to another and creating a gentle music for myself while remembering the past
It’s like each day, each moment I reach to my mature yet childlike self that teaches how to calm myself and be clearer in my ask from life.
And be grateful. It’s time to manifest 2022.

I am…

I am, gradually,
degree by degree,
withdrawing myself from the world.
Our raging world of explanations,
rationalizations, reasons,
the one that carries a cadaverous
existence of logic, is splitting apart.
And a nameless orb inside me is
summoning through its artistic flashes.

I am plucking the hearts of
brewing stories in me
and planting it on the
sideways of dry city lanes.
I am retrieving so many
fruits of my merry struggles
with my teeth diving into
scrumptious sweetness
that the real world is losing its edge.
Like a broken stereo being
preferred over mirrored-mono
upon finding the right channel.

I have this whole universe
of travel reveries and paper towns
being redefined in me
that I have stopped missing
the flickering gateways of stars
and moon I see from my naked eyes.

I fear
I’m becoming wildly ignorant
of what they want me
to know or to accept.
Like a child who
would happily paint
the skies green, trees black
and the tadpoles pink.

I see a self within;
with big feet, tiny head
and a disproportionate body chasing
the sweet melody of wind chimes
and a poetic plastered heart
brave enough to want
what it wants.

I’m hanging on the palm trees
and windows panes of this world
by a single thread of farewell,
like a cartoon character
dangling on a cliff
only waiting to be
swept away by strong winds.
I fear one day I’d leave
the logics of monochromes
and chromosomes the same way.

I am afraid of
NOT missing this world
but of not MISSING this world
and getting lost into aesthetic oblivion.

©kanikachugh

Pillars of Rebirth

Once upon a time in the village of Rebourn lived a grandmother with her two adorable grandchildren. The village known for its lush green landscapes, spring water outlets, lofty mountains, and heavenly waterfalls with all the varied, exotic flowers & fruits had everyone in awe. Love, peace and serenity among residents added beauty to the village. But there came a time when the land witnessed lesser rains and the drought followed. This went on for a long time.

Though it was saved from the severe famine by gradual rains but it couldn’t go back to its original green self and the vegetation and the others crops suffered. The means to earn became murkier than before so people developed some hostile methods to earn; gradually declining the inner beauty that held the village people together and thus they drifted apart.

The grandmother used to look after her two grandkids after the parents lost their lives. She used to start her day by cooking food for the kids, tending to her now-smaller farm, malnourished pets, and helping kids in their elementary studies. The kids vaguely remembered their parents now and considered their grandmother, everything.

Every week on Sunday, Grandmother used to hike to Aji mountain to get special herbs and fresh fruits for the children. One Sunday she went a bit far and realised she entered a rather denser area of forbidden woods, she only had heard stories about. She used to visit the forest as a kid with her elders and they used to tell weird but interesting stories of ‘Pillars of Re-birth’.
She felt like a kid again while roaming around, touching almost every thick bark of reachable trees in a attempt to revisit her childhood days. She recalled what her grandpa said on one of the visit.

“There are four trees that sparkle in the day as well in the night and can provide re-birth to any pure-hearted person, who is looking for it. The first orange trunk, my dear, it makes you re-live all the happy moments you ever had especially the childhood. The second blue bark tree takes away all of your physical ailments and makes you feel as energized as a full grown adult. The third, yellow one brings you peace and takes away all of your pain, grief, resentments. And the last white tree gives you a chance of re-living your life from the start. You forget everything, everyone and can choose a different life for yourself. But remember you can’t choose one out of four. It’s either all or nothing.”

Everything was so cryptic when she was small and now she was so tempted to start a new life. Suddenly she realises the Sun was about to set and her kids would be alone with a mere lantern in the hut. She rushed back to her home and hit a rock and fell to the ground, scraping her knee. She let out some cuss words and swore not to come back in the jungle.
But that night she couldn’t sleep. She kept reliving how different she felt today. How she had not be feeling at all lately!

On the next Sunday, she found herself at the same place trying to find the way to the Pillars of Rebirth, like her grandpa told her. She went into the thicker forest and finally after ungodly hours she found those elusive trees. Shining like the stack of diamonds, crowing like the biggest mushrooms, and the colors so pleasing to the eyes, it felt unreal. The reason the pillars got so illusory was because the village wasn’t as virtuous as before, yet she was able to find it.

With all the thoughts occupying her, she decided to go ahead with her decision. She went and touched the first tree. A gush of happiness passed through her and she felt ecstatic for every moment she was happy in her life. Afterwards, she touched the second tree and her body regained it’s youth, filling her with enormous energy. She forgot all the chronic knees, joints and body pain she had been enduring for years.

She moved to the third tree and hesitantly touched it, knowing this would take away the essence of her life -Pain. Loss of her husband, her parents, her own daughter made her a rock. Strong but unable to feel much. Regardless, she touched the tree and felt light as breath and not like a sigh anymore. She realised how much of a burden she had been carrying on her shoulders and an eternal mountain placed on her heart. It felt so free. She never wanted to go back to a life of burden again that didn’t seem to have an end.

She moved to the final tree but before touching she saw the day almost ended. The kids would be alone and in the dark and probably hungry. The thought of leaving them alone terrified her. She was so close touching the final tree and free of everything that was holding her down. But she started missing them and cried on her way back. While going back she passed through the previous three trees which one by one gave her back what she already had. A sack of everlasting pain, an old wobbly body and a tiny memory of her happy moments. She accepted and went back to home.

Love comes with its own share of pain. You cannot have one without the other. And no one in the world should be the judge of what the other person chooses for themselves. They know what they have been going through. It’s upto them to decide whether they
want to continue, keeping the love-pain coin in their pocket or wish to start afresh knowing they did their best and at a certain point it was needed to let go.