gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

How do you wrap your head around the mess?

Does anybody have a manual on how to do it?

For our two bare feet, it is a line too thin 

that we are treading. 

You hold your breath somewhere in the middle, 

And somewhere in the middle, you end up crying 

Rivers that don’t even wet the ground below. 

To you, you let out tempestuous sighs, 

But they don’t even cause a leaf to flinch

A butterfly’s flapping causes a tornado? 

But a wretched heart’s throbbing

How is that nothing?  

You look behind and you look forward, 

But you do not look within.

Haste not, faith will emerge.

After a millennium or a day,

who knows?

There's no guarantee

A hundred wars or just one more,

Before he appears in saffron and gold

"What is there to hold on to?"

There’s a sky, look up,

Coloured with imperial blue, 

You find yourself amidst the green facade,

That reminds you of all gentle things, 

Of vitality that springs up from within

But just underneath, a creation of the same creator,

Waiting to gulp you whole. 

But just as the fear starts to cripple you, you learn to join your hands. 

A magically humbling thing

Do not worry, you’ve got to do it a million times,

Till help comes.

You might fall

You might die a terrible death

who knows, but you gotta do the praying. 

A random outpour of heaviness

@gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

For as long as I can remember I have always indulged in my reveries with mirth and wonder.

Reveries of the prettiest kind, that light up your little self from within, and make you long for stars and moons.

Reveries that urge you to dig out the very earth that your legs are dirtied in, and hunt for the rarest gems.

Reveries that pull you towards the ocean bed despite your crippling fears, and dive deep in search of pearl oysters.

But when you are so tender and full of fervour, that dreaming is like food, water, and air to you,

You are tested by the onslaughts of this mad, brutal world.

Again and again your tall constructed structures of hopes and dreams,

Are wrecked by opinions,

And words - the most destructive weapon, are aimed at you like cannonballs.

And eyes, that pierce your soul and deem everything that lies there, unholy.

As you watch these structures come crashing down, a peculiar aversion rises from the pit of your belly.

An aversion to the very act of dreaming that once was an enchantment.

But you should know and know this well, that life is just about this.

To learn to listen to the voice of the self when the noise of the world becomes deafening.

To decipher the words of the soul and treat the words of the world with indifference.

© Gargi Yadav

[gargiyadav]

How do you hold a conversation with your bruised, tattered self?

A self that represents your inner-child wounds, with your unfulfilled fantasies all over her face, hands dirtied with the soil of life, hairs turned brittle and grey in the blazing sun. 

A self that’s bare and naked, with nothing to hide, nothing to cover. 

How do you sit in front of her, with ironed clothes, gold earrings, manicured nails, red lipstick?

Are you able to muster the audacity of taking out your shades and looking into her eyes?

Or even address her. 

How do you address her?

“Hi, nice to meet you.” ?

Pretension doesn’t work in matters of the soul. 

Do you dare to offer her tea or coffee?

Herbal, chamomile, matcha (nonsense)?. 

Her poise is baffling. I see all the years of disappointments she wears on her skin proudly. 

Her eyes are as dark as my morning coffee, with things to reveal the more I stare into them. 

There are no fake adornments. 

Despite any material beautification, she sparkles in elegance. 

Even when she speaks, she speaks only the truth.

“How are you?” comes out of my mouth as a reflex, lacking any real concern.

Instead of saying ‘I’m fine’ as I thought she would, she shoots ‘I am not okay’. 

I curl up in astonishment and humiliation, with no words of consolement to offer. 

We have an awkward, long chat, and she doesn’t deviate from her predicament.

Once or twice, I tried humouring things up a little with my impromptu jokes.

Only to be patronised by her unchanged expressions.

I small-talked her into believing that despite all the sadness, we can find joy,

I show her the blue sky outside with its hopeful vastness,

With barely any success. 

I brought her pretty flowers, but she refused to even look at them. 

The more I convince her of hope and miracles, positivity and gratitude, the more she seems unconvinced.

I tried showing her a fascinating little purchase I made as I was coming to meet her, but she looked frustratingly uninterested.  

She only looks relieved when we discuss where it hurts, 

How it hurts,

Why does it hurt?

She only finds some solace in the act of digging out the buried, with the spade of curiosity.

The only time her eyes widen with hope is when I hold out her hands to have a look at her scars. 

Or when I caress her bruises, examining them patiently.

When we were done with the meeting, I stood up and hugged her. 

I embraced her wholeheartedly.

A little exchange of warmth, and her dark, mysterious eyes welled up. 

I promised to take out some time from my busy schedule and meet her soon. 

She seemed cheered just by the thought of it. 

© Gargi Yadav

[gargiyadav]

Ever since you've shown me how to truly devour a fruit, I couldn't get it out of my mind.

You dig in like it's your first taste of happiness.

Your orange eyes and orange hands and orange lips, all became one with the fruit.

The more you peeled the pieces one by one, the more I wanted to have a taste of it.

Your eyes fixated on the little pretty fruit as if they hadn't beheld a prettier thing. Your entire being mingling with that fruit. Your hands gentle with the life you held, as loving as anyone's hands can be.

Your orange-eating made me realise just how tempting a simple orange can be.

And just how much I was missing out on.

To me, who just does the eating, this whole thing appeared crazy.

Even though there's hardly anything crazy about it, but I've longed to see such desperation for life. Such temptation. Such zeal. Such pure unadulterated joy.

And now that I have, I've come closer to knowing what living truly is.

As a child we all were devourers but then as we grow up, we forget just how sweet-smelling the oranges are. We only do the eating. We do not live in between the little pauses, we always run after movements and dynamics. We never choose to linger in the little silences of our day. We never really devour the simple brilliance of our moments.

But there was so much care involved in the way you ate the fruit that day. Even though it was you who was totally immersed in the orange's brilliance, I was busy wondering just how delicious that orange would be for someone to go this crazy over a fruit?

But when you showed me THE way, I found myself fascinated by a little pulpy orange,

cute and

round and

endearing.

©gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

“How can a person know everything at 18, but nothing at 22?”

A clean impressionable mind and untested faith. What are the odds of not making it through?

The first time you are tested, despite the staggering jolt, it almost seems like your heroic fantasies have come true and all of a sudden you start seeing yourself as a Greek hero with terrible fortune but immaculate strength of spirit.

The first time you get a beating, it’s easier to forgive the forces of destruction and grow a peculiar liking towards your own destructor, romanticize the suffering, and have the smoothest comeback.

Even the second or the third time is bearable, almost reassuring.

But on losing count, you grow weary.

When you lose that novelty, that zeal, and the wide-eyed exuberance, you find yourself on your bathroom floor in the middle of the night, with all your made-up stories, figments of imagination, and unbacked explanations lying before you, in tatters.

What once felt like the missing piece of the puzzle, the same stories now stop making sense.

What once felt like the perfect explanation, now seems deprived of any possible reasoning.

The narratives in your mind, that so far saved you from the perils of the unknown, or so you thought, have now turned obsolete, failing to serve their purpose anymore.

Tell me, at such a moment, how do you come to terms with the crippling lack of explanation?

How do you tell yourself that the “lesson learnt” needs a redoing, and perhaps another going-over should make one wise?

Another round through it all should fill the gaps. But will it really?

Just the inability to put tags to all your problems, causes more restlessness than the problem itself.

Just how indecipherable the pieces lying in front of you appear, the same pieces that made perfect sense to your gullible young self.

All you are left to do now is assemble the mess, pick it up, wash your face, decide what to do with the chaos, and start the hunt for newer narratives.

The ones that will console the 22-year-old you. The ones that are relevant today.

You may know everything at 18, and nothing at 22, and that’s okay!

- gargi

[gargiyadav]

Sometimes, we know deep within that holding on won't help us at all.

Still, we hold tight the figments to our best capacity.

What creates fear is the uncertainty that looms ahead, with its veil spread over a seemingly endless terrain. The darkness haunts us.

And the fear stands tall, in front of which our every attempt seems but a mound,

Crushing them till we start to crumble from within.

Tell me, how can you build a structure, when your very insides are breaking into pieces?

How does one create, when the insides are nearing towards a collapse?

But the ones who have taken this leap before always claim that even a little faith is enough to conquer this mountain of Grief.

They have done it before and so it is doable.

Perhaps that little faith is what you are supposed to hold onto when everything else is wavering and flinching.

[gargiyadav]

Death and Reawakening

There isn’t a thing as profound as the death itself.

I see you lying dead in front of me and I hate to admit but in this very obscenity, I have found a new love for life.

Your lifeless form is shattering me to pieces but in this very moment, there is a surge of a new feeling that wasn’t there before. A feeling that couldn’t have come by seeing only the glorious side of life.

Now, I want to break down badly, let out the ocean I carry within, be done with all the crying and grieving, and mingle with the self. This very moment makes me want to start my journey towards home. And this urge to go back home never came in the grandiose of living.

With the absence of life, I have no option but to grow a liking towards death. And now that I do it, it isn’t so bad actually.

In fact, out of all life’s plays and happenings, the one thing that stands tall as a perfect embodiment of truth is death.

In the face of it, you realise that life is not about living. It’s about dying.

Only when you die a hundred times, are cautioned recklessly by its horrifying clutches, its numbing ferocity, its invincible might, you learn the right ways to live. You shed the unwanted layers and slowly you come closer to your Self; The real home.

Only death can reveal the momentary nature of our existence, the truth in all its sham and glory.

Only death can kill the pride, the biggest obstruction towards our way home.

[gargiyadav]

On seeing my loved one in the deathbed I had a sweet awakening.

You are hit by the epiphany that life is just this - a limited time allotted to you to perform your buffoonery and leave. Nothing else matters and all the rest is a facade.

But at the same time, it gives you a newfound love for life.

For when I saw the crippled lifeless body lying infront of me, and when the truth of immortality finally dawned upon me, my mind immediately went to the one thing that's permanent - the soul.

That's the only truth and the only infinite and permanent. The only cause worth working towards. The only thing that's meaningful.

[gargiyadav]

The carriers of grief never make it so obvious, you know.

A couple of hours never do justice to any conversation. Only when you spend days living in their mysterious cocoon do you realise what lies behind the misleading walls; the workings of their heart, the heaviness in their world.

All it takes is a picture that transports them back in time with no manual on how to come back.

Or a word or two, that may carry great intentions but somehow lands their world as catastrophically as a meteor.

Coffee mugs, too many for a house of one, lie on the kitchen shelves just like that. Taking up spaces just so that there is a little less emptiness.

However, the unattended corners of that house are the areas that resemble reality the most. Fallen, unpicked objects, rest in those dark corners, screaming negligence. Collected dust somehow won’t appear unwelcoming at all. After all, houses of this kind are the ones meant to collect dust, not the young, lively ones where dreams brim at every corner.

Some pretty little souvenir becomes their most cherished possession. And only when you ask them about it will you see a big glimmering smile on their face, which is otherwise a rarity.

Some pickle jar that falls and breaks, somehow also breaks their hopes of preserving the long-gone. It’s the jar that bottled memories and not just pickles. The smithereens of it are too many to be ever bottled back to life.

However, it’s in the little things that they still keep the dead alive. When the haunting nights become too much and the walls start to creep in, it's these little things; a ring or a locket, that comfort their restless heart.

Then, they just keep the ring in their shirt’s pocket, near to their heart, and all becomes fine.

You and I can never make out the workings of their heart. However, the house they harbour, the walls that surround them, the plants that are withering in their vicinity, and the moss that’s starting to grow in their world, are the only witnesses.

Look at them carefully and they will tell you all about the carriers of grief.

How they carry rocks everyday and the world goes on nevertheless.

@gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

Even an eternity is not enough to make sense of the human fickleness. Perhaps, that's why you are all so caught up in your misery. Always entangled in the unknown.

But can't you really tell, this is how it was always supposed to be?

The tarnished, messy, awry life of humans, far from perfection.

It was always supposed to be this incomprehensible.

[gargiyadav]

On December and Waiting ~

And as the November leaves fell, I let out a deep, comforting sigh, and opened my eyes to a glorious December morning. 

December has such a bad reputation. When people think of December, they think of sadness. Of dreary streets and emptiness. Of stabbing silence. Of ice-cold hands and feet. Of hearts that are unable to keep warm. 

But on looking at the face of December, I realize it isn’t so bad after all.

It is the kind of silence that will help our souls replenish. Perhaps, the bare, dull trees are trying to preach us grace. They stand tall and wait gracefully for April. They know this is a part of the cycle. And so, they wait. Letting nature do its magic. 

On looking at all the discomfort that December brings with it, I breathe deep and decide to wait. No matter how tiring it gets.

Bury my head deep in my pillow and get into a horrendously long slumber if need be. Give my cells the replenishment they need. 

But I must wait. Wait just as gracefully as nature does, for April to arrive. 

If December is so generous to teach us waiting, then it isn’t so bad really, is it? 

@gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

I wish my father knew this.

I wish he knew that you can't grow a plant in your house with just air, water and light. It needs love too. 

Just giving the plant a place in your home doesn’t mean the job’s done. 

Don’t expect it to thrive if your house is not conducive to growth.

Don’t expect the plant to grow uncontrollably in a house that doesn’t know how to tend.

Don’t even dare to dream of flowers and fruits, if all you are doing now is the bare minimum. 

The poor plant will barely survive in your dull, dreary house let alone thrive. 

Providing it with an unattended corner, watering it out of mere responsibility, and leaving it to fend for itself, is not the way to nurture. 

It needs your attention, your adulation, your best intentions.

When you water it lovingly, with an affectionate smile and a gentle presence, it will know. It doesn’t have eyes and yet it will know. 

If it can shrink to your cruel words, it will definitely flourish to your warming affirmations. 

If he knew this, he wouldn't treat me unlovingly. He wouldn't go around thinking that providing a child with clothes, food, shelter, and education is all that's needed. 

That it can live off of it and blossom into something wonderful.

I wish he knew that if a plant cannot survive without love, how will a human? 

[gargiyadav]

~ On Journaling ~

On days I know no words, and nothing seems to bleed out of me, I joggle the ink bottle. I let it spill on paper and form something on its own. 

It then forms something that mirrors some deep unvisited corner in me. 

Then, all I do is behold it and take it all in, a little jolted and shook. 

[gargiyadav]

It’s more important to be kind in this world than to stand up in retaliation every time you are misunderstood. 

It’s more important to be the preserver of peace in this war-ridden world where blood is wasted like water, than to armour the territories that we claim ours but is a land of nowhere. A land that was ever only of the one above.

If you are to pick up arms and fight, always pick the weapon of love. There are so many already holding the gun. 

What if you have to sacrifice a thing or two and be meek at times? But when the times have passed, the seeds of love you sow today will bear fruits tomorrow. 

And they will remember you when they see the children of tomorrow play under their shade, laughing together, whispering secrets into each others' ears, and holding hands without any reluctance. 

That's how they reclaim the humanity that was lost from centuries of what - bloodshedding? The very thing that makes them human in the first place.

©gargi

[gargiyadav]

The mundane and the ordinary is what needs to be romanticised, not the alluring dreams of unprecedented.

But here I am indulging in my fancies that make my stagnancy a little more tolerable, knowing it's not right, I still do it willingly.

Here's my argument.

Can you blame a heart that's tired and a mind that needs to be freed and undone of so much damage?

I have been, for so long, a victim of trauma of various kinds.

Dreaming at one point became a useless, risky, dangerously unabashed thing to do.

But now, the act of it seems pleasant again and brings the joy it always should.

For someone else it might be idling, but for me it's like a glimmer I have been needing for so long.

Then isn't my day-dreaming a sign of healing?

[gargiyadav]

And just as you are casually going by the day, engrossed in the day’s usual business, just then it hits you with all its force;

The memory of the gone. 

The stubborn remnants of the departed. 

You are jolted and shaken, almost turned numb when these memories pay a visit. They are never predictable. 

They always come uninvited. 

You cannot lay your finest mats or decorate the table with the freshest blooms. Or polish your plates until you can see your face in them. 

Nothing will suffice. You can never be prepared. 

They come rather ungracefully, barging in tempestuously, instantly demanding all your attention. 

You might be up to something, but it doesn’t matter. The memories are here and you are supposed to greet them like a lady. 

At the table, all sorts of things are discussed. 

The strange, the unexplored, the dark, the discomforting, the abhorring. The disgusting, but also the sweet and the pleasant. The ones that make you soft in the most uncomfortable manner. The ones that take a part of you and leave you with something amiss. The ones that create a vacuum. 

Everyone has something to say. A lot to say. But you’re the only meek, with the presence shrinking by every minute. 

They all blabber incessantly.

And you silently listen as your insides churn. 

That’s how it is every time these memories visit. 

You are just fine before their arrival, but their hasty, uninvited visit, leaves you torn apart. And then you’re supposed to get over it as if nothing happened. 

As if you’re still as whole as you were before. 

Only you know, you’re not. 

@gargiyadav

[gargiyadav]

You cling onto the why's and how's of that one gloomy day.

And let the sweet scents, pretty views, and every gift that life gives you,

surpass you like a gust of wind you're too caught up to notice.

If only you'd stop and see the color purple in the fields you just crossed by...

Isn't that your favourite color?