Here Comes The Sun

(Picture Credit: Lambieb123)

I am subdued, almost afraid to rise. I move slowly, wrapping my warm golden tendrils around the deep purple night. I beat it down to a chalky mauve, and I get stronger. I sculpt the sky to my liking – today it is lavender and peach. The morning dew glistens, and I extend my control. I cast a web of light, my luminescence filtering through the leaves.

Soon, I reach my zenith. I am formidable. I am dominant. I penetrate the darkest corners of your world; I even make the dust dance. I am amber and maize, an orb of incandescence like no other. I blaze mercilessly, a blinding inferno against cornflower blue. I am radiant.

Suddenly, I am hurtling towards the horizon. I shoot out haphazard streaks of magenta and tangerine – byzantine sparks following close behind. The dying embers of day tint the sky crimson and I create ink black silhouettes against it. I am fire itself, scarlet and majestic.

I allow my rays to swirl around the clouds, burning and returning, racing with the wind. I am surrounded by a whirlwind of colour and chaos; a perfect round, cut in half by the edge of the world.

Without warning, I find myself struggling to stay afloat. I am weighed down, and I feel my might wavering. The sky fades to a dull rose, my lustre diminished. I no longer dazzle. I am a mere shadow of myself, and the sky is now a bruise of ultramarine and violet.

I am engulfed by Stygian darkness. The stars are sequins, glittering impertinently. I retreat into a cavern, having resigned myself to defeat. I am the colour of midnight.

I convalesce, and I regain a fragment of my former strength. I stretch, tentatively peering beyond the horizon. I extend myself further, willing myself to illuminate and overcome the night.

And again, I rise.

© Anushka Baruah

(English Honours, 1st Year)

Crash Course on Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: http://www.forwallpaper.com/wallpaper/art-road-hands-sunset-motorcycle-bike-clouds-trees-132590.html

I

On Sunday morning, I was stopped by a priest dressed in white

He was late for a sermon, and he needed a ride

I said, “I don’t believe in Jesus, religion is crime.”

He just smiled, shrugged, winked and started on this rhyme,

                                       *

Then I met this young lad who played a pretty game

He said he was a slinger, had two goats to his name

He took me to the boroughs, where the fighting began

Within minutes he was off, screaming as he ran.

                                        *

Next I met this old gal, she was stronger than most lads

She had ninety wrinkles and a temper very bad

She once had a husband but she left him for dead

When I asked her the reason, here’s what she said,

                                        *

The circus cat was fired, he was out of work and down

Every dog has its day but what about the clown?

He was the jack of all gags but master of none

He said his life’s a bad joke, but here’s a funny one.

II

Riding on my Fatboy, on to the causeway

I’d give up anything, just to live on like today

A twenty first century cowboy, out into the sunset

I’ve just had a journey I’ll never forget.

III

Back to civilisation, back to law and order

Where men behave like cattle, and the money’s fodder

Oh I’m not gonna be a part of this roundabout

Gonna go up to my rooftop and scream and shout,

Coda:

“Life’s too short my friend, well, they said so

They’re gonna give you their worst, but you mustn’t let go

Life’s too long my friend, they don’t want you to know

You must do your best, and then just let go”

© Aishanya Sarma

(Zoology Honours, 2nd Year)

Kamla Nagar Days

(Source: Saving the Cycle Rickshaw- Sravya Garladenne)

You can hear the whistle blow 500 miles, and you know you’re far away from home when you wake up each day to the unfamiliarity of a relentlessly fast moving city. Every morning there’s a huge rush of students in the north campus, and consequently you can find a rickshaw puller reaching out to you at almost every turn made, greeting you with, “Bhaiyya metro?”

As you politely decline and resume your journey to college, you glance at your watch and wonder where the older edition of you that used to wake up at 6 every morning for school vanished.

Being from the north east, I’ll admit my weakness with the Hindi language and also the everyday tussle that comes due to it. Nevertheless, it’s something I expect the city will take care of. Now, being a residence of Kamla Nagar as well as a student of Ramjas College, (and also a terribly lazy person) I am an almost daily passenger of the illegal shortcut that goes through Kirori Mal College- well, unless of course there’s a guard standing on the back gate asking for an ID card.

Kamla Nagar happens to be a really unique place with deep sense of irony lurking beneath the surface. Kamla Nagar may not appear appealing to one when you hear its name for the first time, but I assure you, the number of brands, the fast food chains and the Spark Mall at the heart of Kamla will change your perspective. With room rents soaring sky high, it’s really incongruous when you see the poor in Kamla; the feeling only grows when you hear them saying, “Yeh desh garibo ke liye kaha hai.”

Twisted bylanes, tangled shortcuts, dirty alleys, premium brands, speeding Scootys, the engine noise of Royal Enfields’, the incessant howling of dogs at night- Kamla Nagar does have its charm. There’s something about the place that never ceases to amaze, and if you think about it on a deeper level, (and this might end up being philosophical) Kamla Nagar could serve as a microcosm of India.

A new leaf turns over the face of life, a new leash of life found in that leaf, love for home – conceived 2000 miles away from it, craving for Bengali literature, my mother tongue- after years of neglect, rediscovered in a land not known for it.  Delhi, and in particular Kamla Nagar, has proved to strangely beautiful.

I have been here for six months, yet it seems just like yesterday I got down from the flight and stepped into an unknown city. Then again, like Salman Rushdie point out in his book Midnight’s Children, “‎No people whose word for ‘yesterday’ is the same as their word for ‘tomorrow’ can be said to have a firm grip on the time,” can they?

Six months in Kamla and it’s evident that there are more things to come, more people to meet , places to go, sights to see- and perhaps, when the next set of exams arrive, even study.

© Jnanajyoti Bhaumik

(Math Honours, 1st Year)

Cold Friend

(Source: Emil Nolde- Sunset over Blue Mountains)

I held a snow globe once, and shaking it softly, gently
observing a winter wonderland in the middle of our Indian summer
I felt it shiver.
It was for you, cold friend
and I held it with care.

I never wrote you billet-doux
I never scented my gifts, never
splashed our photographs anywhere.
Neither did I tell my parents
that I’d discovered someone.
Not found, not met, but discovered the way your lips would part
while reading the poetry I’d written
and you’d blink twice while smiling
and how always, always, you would rub your rough palms on the table
as you waited for a meal to arrive.
I may not have done more,
but I discovered you with care.

I didn’t see you often when the rains pulled in.
Feeling you shimmer as our early flaws escaped
through the cracks of a careful sphere,
I pushed them under the bed we never shared
leaving them to writhe and multiply
as we walked under the makeshift sun.

You found it all one final day.
I never did much for you, cold friend, but that night
I cleaned up the shards silently, with care.

And silence is a clockwork tomb
I learnt, as I later dragged my sorry tail
to you, I a whimpering bitch on drying
grass, stepping on the broken glass.
Only needing a warm touch, however fleeting
I begged, tossing dignity aside
all after playing coy for a day.

I may have refused you once, cold friend,
but I pursued you
without a care for the stars
who sang for me, to leave.

© Zoya Chadha

(English Hons 2nd Year)