GloPoWriMo 2019: 8/30

Today’s prompt asks me to incorporate a commonly used phrase relating to a profession in my poem.

Legal-ish 

Your Honour,
Legalese is not difficult,
It’s inaccessible.
And yes the Law was supposed to be for the common man,
But so was Medicine and Healthcare,
Yet no Uncle complains when he reads the shabby handwriting an
M.B.B.S. passes onto him after a check-up
Where he understands where he little.

Forget that Your Honour,
He doesn’t complain when the Pharmacist insists
That the substitute he offers is the
Perfect substitute to the drug the Doctor prescribed.
But here
That same Uncle,
He claims I steal his money and prolong his cases
Because every time we go to Court he sees another
Date slapped on his face.

Your Honour,
Please tell him I can’t do anything about that.
Or slap him with a fine.
Or worse, give him another date,
The look on his face will be divine.

 

2019: Ninety-Seven

RCB lost again,
Today is Sunday,
The weekend was meant to be longer,
But tomorrow is Monday.

This is my weekend in four sentences.

First, I cannot believe RCB lost again. I will support this team unwaveringly, but they’re making it very difficult to be loved at this moment. I don’t even know what is going wrong. Some fortunes must change, a match must be won. At this point, I’m worried this is going to be like the first season of IPL. My roommate chuckled and said that the team’s results crashed the way Mallya’s fortunes did. I did not laugh.

I bought my first ice-cream of summer today – a nice Vadilal chocolate cone. The pleasure of chocolate cones in general, I believe, is underrated. Aside from the deliciousness of the ice-cream itself, there are surprises in every bite of the cone. Especially the cute cone tip at the end, which has a nice little coating of chocolate. Eating this ice-cream is an artform. Find me one person who can eat this chocolate cone without leaving any marks of gluttony on their hand, and I will buy you your own chocolate ice-cream.

Wow.

What a delicious. Made my entire weekend.

GloPoWriMo 2019: 7/30

Today’s prompt challenges me to write a poem of gifts and joy. The prompt asks me some very difficult questions. Like “What would you give yourself, if you could give yourself anything?” This is particularly notorious because it’s very difficult for me to instantaneously name what one gift I want. As a result, this poem concentrates specifically on something I want right now.

Truth 

At this present moment
It’s getting tougher and tougher to believe the things I read
The things I see – they contradict what I hear
And what I hear is distorted by what my friends hear
This chaotic cacophony  means
As society, we hold hands,
Stand in a circle,
And scream
“Ignorance”
Into the fire in the middle.

There is no left,
No right,
No neutral,
There is just bias
And noise.

I have nothing to believe in,
Nobody to trust.
I’ve grown up on truth,
But I’m maturing on lies.

So if I can ask for one thing,
And give to myself a superpower,
It would be the ability to find the truth,
Share it proudly,
Display it as a symbol of light,
Because there’s darkness everywhere,
No end in sight.

2019: Ninety-Six

Sometimes lazy Saturdays are all you need to keep your drive going. I’ve got a mountain of work and several things to do before Monday. All things I know are achievable in a 5-hour time-frame. So I have the option of procrastinating till Sunday afternoon-evening, and then beginning to hack at it. Which I’ve gloriously taken. I plan to sit, read, make playlists on Spotify, watch some stuff on Netflix, and genuinely just take some time off for myself before the week begins again.

I’m missing high school right now. Specifically the fact that I used to binge-watch shows on my laptop at home on my beanbag with my AC on. That’s probably the most “first-world” problem, but it’s honestly a feeling of comfort I associate with summers in Bangalore a lot. All of this was supposed to be when I was studying – but I used to genuinely have a whale of a time doing this when I wasn’t solving past papers.

I miss discussing prep with my friends. We had this site called xtremePapers we used to all use, and when any of us got stuck, there used to be a photo on our group. All of us used to attempt solving it before seeing the mark scheme and figuring out what the right method and correct answer was. It was honestly reverse-engineering at it’s finest.

I miss loafing around on the piano, being pushed out of the house by my mum, playing basketball with friends – and being very average at it. Buying ice-cream at Namdhari’s.

But while I miss that, I’m well aware of the fact that I’m living in the present – laying on my bed, wearing the comfiest cotton shorts, and typing this piece on my blog.

GloPoWriMo 2019: 6/30

Today’s prompt asks me to write about the “if’s”

Opinions 

My only desire is to be able to have conversations
With people who don’t share the same opinions as I do
Without them attempting to attack my ideology, my approach
Without the emotion
Without the lies
Just, plain conversation
No anger – just an exchange of information
An understanding of how ideologies practically function
An agreement on disagreement
No violence, no resentment.
I wonder if this will ever be possible
When our country battles with words, more than swords,
And prefixes, and suffixes are shrouded with subliminal messaging
Meant to attack, rather than inform.
One day I’m hopeful of engagement rather than brute disagreement
For it is in ignorance that darkness lies
And it appears that our world is in great need of light.

2019: Ninety-Five

As an update, everybody needs to know I managed to eliminate that stupid adware/malware I had accidentally installed onto my system. I spent three hours trying to get rid of it. Nonsense. It embedded itself deep into my system drives and I had to do all sorts of stuff with Command Prompt to get it out of the laptop. I hope that never happens again. Will this prevent me from downloading things onto my laptop? I think not. Will I try to be more responsible? Maybe. Only time will tell, really.

I spent a lot of time thinking about things today. Over the course of one hour, I found good music I was vibing to, a nice article I was reading – and several thoughts were panning around in my head – largely concerning my current position on things. It felt like an appraisal of sorts. I arrived at certain conclusions.

Do I like sauce? The answer is still no. However, I love Tabasco, and I really enjoy Nando’s Peri-Peri Sauce.

What would I eat for breakfast, if I could eat only one thing everyday? A nice mushroom,bell-pepper,cheese omelette, made with 3 eggs, and served with 3 slices of buttered toast. Alongwith a glass of cold chocolate milk, or orange juice. Lies. Dosa.

If I could change one thing about my room right now, what would that be? Air-conditioner.

You get the gist of things my brain was doing.

At which point I opened up ESPNCricinfo and saw that Royal Challengers Bangalore, a team I support in the Indian Premier League had ended up with a total of 205, with both of our best batsman firing on all cylinders. I was pretty sure we had this game in the bag, especially after a 0-4 start to the season. And more than anything else, as an Indian cricket team supporter, I really needed RCB to win so that Kohli would get confidence in his captaincy before the World Cup. There’s more at stake than this nonsense competition.

BUT OF COURSE WE LOST.

IDIOTS.

Why did I open the ESPNCricinfo page? I should’ve just stayed away from it. But NO! I was curious. I had to know how my team was doing!

UGHHHH.

One match bro.

That too after Bengaluru FC killed in the Indian Super League.

Why is being a fan so difficult?

GloPoWriMo 2019: 5/30

Today’s prompt asks me to try one of three things. I’ve chosen to attempt a villanelle. Examples include One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

Shorts

I wish I could wear shorts everywhere,
Show off my bruised knees and my glistening shins,
Allow them to be declassified as merely leisure wear.

My legs deserve to breathe the open air,
I imagine it would catch several people unaware,
But truly, I wish I could wear shorts everywhere.

Understand that merely because pants are treated with more care,
Does not entitle them to a class containing silverwear,
Please, I beg you, declassify shorts as leisure wear.

This false notion propagates injustice,
It prevents shorts from being worn at classrooms and official events,
Shorts are stylish – allow me to wear them everywhere,
By declassifying them as merely being leisurewear.

 

2019: Ninety-Four

I feel like every day is a new opportunity to write on something I hate about summer. Today, I present to you, the clothing dilemma. Every single morning, I am required to wear pants of some kind. I generalize, but essentially, my University has a mandate that we must not showcase our ashleel ankles, or any part above them. Arms are okay. Because apparently arms do not create any issues in society. I wonder if anybody has been slapped. Arms have the potential to cause a lot of damage. Yet we don’t cover them. You’ve got to ask yourself why, I think. Anyway, coming back to the thick of things – the clothing dilemma is something I experience every morning. After bathing, as I put on these pants, and as I fasten my belt, all I can think about is how long the Sun must shine today before I can expose my shins to the world. This is because all I want to do is wear shorts.

In other news, in an attempt to fulfill my ambitions of making music again, I tried to install some software and accidentally got some adware onto my system. I’ve got rid of most of it, thanks to a timely installation of anti-virus software. But God, is adware irritating. I guess I got too excited last night. This is my punishment.

GloPoWriMo 2019: 4/30

Today’s prompt challenges me to achieve sadness through simplicity.

Hide And Seek

There is a purple packet,
That is rather shiny.
It contains chocolate chip cookies,
In a square shape.
In the winter, the chocolate chips are a little melted,
And the biscuits are soft,
They’re rather delicious,
Although I know they may make my teeth rot.
I don’t really care about the sugar,
I will brush thrice if I have to.
But Gujarat summer means that the chocolate chips aren’t as melted any more,
Which is not at all what I expected,
Also the packet promised 10% extra biscuits,
I just checked,
I was duped.
Clearly the 10% is playing Hide And Seek.

2019: Ninety-Three

Today I’ve discovered that my mother has once again begun to write poetry – and I’m really happy about this. See, my mother has the gift of the gab. Her storytelling ability and her creativity is something that runs in her blood. If she’s free, it’s pretty much a guarantee that she’ll start something to immerse herself into creatively. But she hasn’t written poetry for a very long time, so it’s absolutely lovely to see her back in the thick of things.

The first time I read something my mother had written – properly, was when I spotted this recipe book that she had at home. With red thick binding, the recipe book has “Lekha” on the cover, and is in such good condition that none of the pages are torn, although they’re incredibly faded. They contain some ridiculously mouth-watering recipes, and the instructions are written to make you imagine what you’re going to eat, and visualize it. I ended up hungry every time I read that book.

My mum’s poetry is something I’m looking forward to reading. More than anything because she’s really good at rhyming words. And honestly, that’s the most fun to read.

GloPoWriMo 2019: 3/30

Today’s prompt was to write something that takes time.

Stuck in the Exam Hall

I enter in my pyjamas,
Having barely slept,
My beard’s gruffy,
I’m rather unkempt.
But my teeth are brushed,
And I’ve had a shower,
I’ve put on some deodorant,
That’ll keep me fresh for a few hours.

The door shuts behind me,
Blocking off the chaos outside,
People scrambling for last-minute explanations,
Others admitting their brain is fried.
I walk up and down the aisle,
Locating my registration number,
I look hard into my seat,
Does it have enough cushioning, I wonder.

The next three hours are going to be terrible,
For my entire body will ache,
My hand is going to cramp, my brain will fade,
I’m certain my butt atleast deserves a break.
I inhale deeply,
And take a seat,
The door is now locked,
My fate, now sealed.

The bell rings, it’s frequency shrill,
The room’s gotten colder,
With the AC on full blast,
The temperatures are chill.
My body doesn’t seem to understand,
I can feel a bead of sweat,
My exam paper is here,
And I’m ready to get wrecked.

I glance through the paper,
And look around,
People appear confused,
Our lack of knowledge visible, unbound.
Nonetheless,
I start to write with confidence,
The goal is to fill pages,
Even if there’s little of substance.

As I’m writing,
My mind begins to wander,
And all I can think,
Is whether my clothes will be laundered.
Quickly realizing I need a break,
I decide to drink some water,
I take a look at the clock,
Someone’s phone is ringing,
The invigilator’s caught her.

That chaos took me way off track,
And now I have two hours left,
I feel the need to pee,
My request falls on deaf ears, I am bereft.
Across the room, I make eye contact with my friend,
He’s struggling too,
He makes a PG-13 gesture,
I chuckle, and to write, I continue.

Thirty minutes later,
My bladder feels like it’s about to burst,
So I begin to sprint,
After I urinate, I run back – this routine is rehearsed.
Time is now flying by,
And there’s 30 marks still to write,
I’m pretty sure I need an extension,
But no help is in sight.

This last question is way too confusing,
How have I even made it this far, I wonder,
Now I’m drawing arrows because I can’t write full sentences,
My time-management has been a blunder.
The bell rings again,
My paper is taken
My friend makes another PG-13 gesture,
We laugh, my faith in our arbitrary marking system, unshaken.

 

2019: Ninety-Two

Today, somebody asked me why I used exclamation marks in the subject of my e-mails, because they received an email from me (through one of the University webmail accounts that I manage) which ended with an exclamation mark in the title.

I laughed. Initially, I didn’t think this was a serious question at all.

But the person didn’t budge.

I hadn’t really thought about it. It was evident, however, that there was genuine curiousity behind how I could compose a seemingly “official” e-mail with an exclamation mark. So I attempted to explain the funda behind this act with the first piece of logic that came to my mind.

If I remember accurately, what I explained was that I felt a duty to make people open the e-mails I send out to them. See, if I’m putting effort into writing something, it’ll be nice if some people atleast open the e-mail. It’s pretty clear that individuals interested in the subject-matter will open it. But if someone who has absolutely no interest in the title opens it because of a catchy title or an exclamation mark I’ve used, who am I to stop that, honestly.

Might as well exploit the way the human brain responds to exclamation marks.

This ridiculously well-researched article takes a look at how exclamation marks work and how many you need to seem genuinely enthusiastic about something.

In conclusion, I think it’s safe to say that I’m the world’s worst click-baiter.