What it Means to be Free

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"But we don't need to listen to others. Only you girls need to."

He joked when I asked him to get up. Except that it wasn't really a joke.

.

.

Dear old patriarchy,

You've probably existed since the beginning of time.

You've helped countless men to reach great heights.

You've tricked the world into keeping you close

Rather than keeping up with these 'equal rights'.

That Time of the Year

Half past eleven on the 31st of December.

Raving crowds and coloured lights are all that they'd remember. 

I stopped making new year resolutions two years ago. Not because I stopped believing in them. But because I was still working on my older ones. The ultimate 'life- plan' was still underway, time management for me was still a bummer, and I hadn't yet sorted out my priorities quite well.

It'd been a while since I'd spoken to the diary. Every year the first pages spoke highly of my resolve. The two years saw no new diary and with it no new resolutions. In the last half hour of the year, I still found no reason to make one.

There in the midnight chill and the lights flashing in rhythm, I sat apart from the crowd. But not alone. 

When Your Plans Don't Work Out

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"What do you really want to do in life?"

I raised my eyebrows. It wasn’t an uncommon question, especially to a teenager who is in the most confused phase of her life. Here it was again, on a normal afternoon and in the middle of a casual conversation; the dreaded question. You think of dodging it by simply giving away an answer, but to some of them, it’s never enough.

 "I told you. I want to be a writer."

"That's not what I meant." He continued, "Say, what are you going to write about? What are you going to do with your writing? What is it that you want to do with your life before you die?"

Choices

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"Are you sure?" He asked the six-year-old. Here it was again, the crossroad of choices. The tiny mind was plagued with the fear of picking the wrong choice. She looked up at her mom desperately for hints, as if answering this question depended on life itself.

To her relief, mom nodded encouragingly. It was one of those lucky times when there was someone else by her side to give the green signal. Having gotten the approval, she turned to the salesman holding up the cute pink dress from across the counter. "Yes I'm sure." she chirped confidently.

Blank.

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An eery silence is floating in the exam hall. There's the mild ruffle of answer sheets and the sound of scratching pens cutting the quiet in the room. My gel pen slips through my sweaty fingers, landing noisily on the floor. It takes forever for me to retrieve it from beneath the bench.

It's not over yet. I still have enough time to finish, right? Right?!

"Five minutes." the invigilator cries. Panic wells up inside me. I read the last question. I know this. That complicated concept I'd learned so well. I can do this.

Some Things Dreamy

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A laptop, earphones, books, and pens. Strewn across the bed were these and a nineteen-year-old mess dozing over them. A typical day during college. My roommate is typing away frantically in her phone as if she were fixing third world problems. It's past midnight, so she decides to take a break and clean up my bed for me (what did I do to deserve her!).

Partly awake, this nineteen-year-old mess gets up to help as well. I'm only five minutes away from flopping back into a sound sleep when the phone rings. Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Dashy?"

Deep male voice. Aww man, was there some urgent club work at this hour?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. So I was just going through your blog and wanted to tell you that I really like it."

Silence. Wait, what?

The Dark Place

The rhythmic beats of the autorickshaw cut through the noisy wind. He stood at the door watching the brown leaves litter the tiled courtyard. I sat at the settee watching his smooth silver hair fluttering in the breeze.

He was exceptionally quiet this day. His wrist-watch wore a green strap, the same one he had worn earlier to the city. Strange. He was the kind who'd change watches the way we changed clothes - one for the weddings/parties, one for the casual outings, one for home wear, one for the nights, and so on. What was stranger was how his otherwise packed schedule seemed to include ample time for mulling and staring aimlessly at the courtyard.