Solitude

To my left is an open window. Caged in, I let my memories wander.

Night life rushes to the front. When it’s night, why’s there light? Staring through the window at the beauty of the moon, I’ve had sleepless nights with music by my side; Lights from roads have haunted me resulting in recurrent dreams for more than a fortnight.

When it’s bright, all I see are members of the animal kingdom – the chirping birds that pluck out plants from the hanging pots; a cow that chased when I carried a heavy school bag; squirrels that get around the climber and disturb my nap by cracking open walnut shells over the compound walls; a distant well surrounded by coconut and toddy palms – a comfortable resting place of woodpeckers and Baya weavers.

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To my left is an open window. Caged in, I let my memories wander.

Night life rushes to the front. When it’s night, why’s there light? Staring through the window at the beauty of the moon, I’ve had sleepless nights with music by my side; Lights from roads have haunted me resulting in recurrent dreams for more than a fortnight.

When it’s bright, all I see are members of the animal kingdom – the chirping birds that pluck out plants from the hanging pots; a cow that chased when I carried a heavy school bag; squirrels that get around the climber and disturb my nap by cracking open walnut shells over the compound walls; a distant well surrounded by coconut and toddy palms – a comfortable resting place of woodpeckers and Baya weavers.

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Academic Integrity

I have my own moral principles, and one of them is not to copy in an exam, or do any sort of plagiarism. Whether it’s a class test, term test, an assignment or finals doesn’t matter to me.

I’m someone in the top strata performers. I listen to lectures diligently. When there was a surprise test a few weeks before the finals, I failed at school. I didn’t regret it because I knew I deserved it for my preparation level. There have also been times when I’ve stood alone at college for non-submission of assignments. This made me lose marks in the internals. However, I’ve been happy for not choosing to compromise on my value.

I was tampering with this value – my academic integrity – in other means somehow, under the guise of being good. Little did I realize it until I got punished for being good. Continue reading

One-Liner Wednesday #10

Tragicomic

I’m bittersweet, happy and sad watching my little buddy leaving to her preschool to get smarter like me, and also cross at the same time that she has forgotten to wave me a goodbye in her crying spree.

Photo from lindaghill.com

Credits & Footnote

This is in response to the ‘One-Liner Wednesday Prompt’ by Linda G. HillThe challenge is to write a motivational or funny one-liner inspired by the given picture.


Money – Six Word Stories #14

Here are my six-word stories on ‘money’ – a few collective stories, and a few individual ones.

——– Terminology ——–

Money’s just another socially developed concept.

The most common medium of exchange!

Cryptocurrency… digital commodity used as cash.


——– Pandemic & Digital Life ——–

Pandemic’s yet another trouble… Coin shortage!  Continue reading

Leave – Six Word Stories #10

This is in response to ‘The Saturday Six Word Story Prompt’ by Shweta of ‘My Random Ramblings’. The prompt for this week is ‘Leave’. I was left alone with boredom and so there are quite many six-word stories on ‘Leave’.

Leaves are equally anticipated and hated!

Eyes rewind memories when leaving school.

Farewell – none wanted to leave home!


Leave your burdens to fly high.

Don’t leave heavy words remain unsaid!

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Visionary

It was 2007. We were taken to a college from our school to witness the speech of our beloved former President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. It was an international conference on math and science. I don’t remember what he spoke. Please don’t ask!

After the incident, many of us became excited and started fighting for his books in the school library. ‘India 2020’ and ‘Wings of Fire’ remained popular reads for years. I guess it’s present even now in the reading wish-list of many.

Those were the days when the year 2020 was over-hyped. Delivering a speech on “India 2020” was a proud moment for most school-goers. Transforming the nation to a developed country was a goal back then. Continue reading

Girls’ School

What did you miss when you were at school?

Boys, to make friends with and have fun like girls from other schools.

Then, probably, you’d have a great time here at college?

That’s an obscure NO.
This comes nowhere near the time when we need not worry about our yells or dress code.
To hell with gender biased norms!

First Leg – Entrepreneurship

Our first effort is always worthy for almost everyone of us. As Mandela quoted,

It always seems impossible until its done!

One such was the effort towards Entrepreneurship at the age of 16. The mightiest Experience then! We were at the 11th grade and the people at our school started speaking about the words student community hates.. Responsibility, Team Effort, Handling Money! Who’d like to mess up fully when we are not even aware of what we’re gonna do?

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