For the Corona Warriors

We’ve gotta be seen and we’ve gotta be heard we’ve gotta shower the petals and impress the locked-in herd. So, we use them wings to fly across the kingdom’s span while motivational tunes are played on by our army bands. Our department of symbolism will go further with our banners, the officers will salute the …

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Lockdown Word Vomit

The fan whirs above me, the T-shirt on the drier hangs limp. I need more zing in my writing, I need I need I need something I can’t figure. Can someone tell me, please? Is there anyone else in this room? Are words always this slippery? Are stories suspended from the sky, their tails hanging …

Fitting a curve to animal sounds

Out there on the street is a dog who’s mixing up his barks with his yelps. If I listen intently, I may be able to find the interval of his calls. Would it scare him if I jump out into the balcony at that precise moment? Or would it make him happy? For either to …

Extension

Extension On the morning of day 21, the man on television arrives at ten, and begins his speech. Listening to it, I feel like I’m uncoiling a ball of wool in slow motion until I get to the core. The man on television makes me wait for long enough that I have to heat my …

Tremors and tech

On Day 20, emotions run high, and technology is at the forefrunt of conflicts it was meant to resolve. We resolve one by creating a video tutorial and sharing it over WhatsApp. We get parents to share their screens through phone calls and mirrors, not by mirroring screens, but through the real glass ones on …

Illusion

If the lockdown goes on for too long, I might begin to wonder if the universe is just a sphere with a radius of five hundred meters, everything else is a hologram, and all people outside are simulations. Day 19 of the 21-day lockdown in India

Lockdown

This lockdown is like a cocoon swallowing the butterfly. This lockdown is like a video game where the monster has infinite lives. This lockdown is like a door and everyone has the key but no fingers. Day 18 of the 21-day lockdown in India

What If?

What if, in this lockdown, we develop different idioms and phrases that mean the same? What if evolution put us on an express track each group in its micro bubble? What if every such unit became a Galápogos Island? And what if, when the gates open and we meet or bump into each other at …

Brain Damage (apologies to Pink Floyd)

The poetry is in the dumps. The poet too is on the slump. Remembering flow and metaphors, he laughs at all the times his words were good enough. The verses now, they don’t make sense. The verses now are full of pretence. Locked indoors, the poet struggles to string words, running out of themes, he …

Power Tussles

The screen is split into several squares, hangouts migrate to virtual spaces, awkward silences first, then nervous stares, you scan the screen for familiar faces. You see eyes squint, you hear breaking voices, some soft, some needle-like piercing your ears. It’s survival of the loudest noises, an arena for the alpha to emerge. And when …