Fidget Spinner

City market, an inconvenient cornucopia of things. But why inconvenient? The crowd. Here, everyone’s in a hurry. This hurry paints everyone in a bad picture. Old men are senile, little children are imps and pretty much anyone who scampers past you, almost tackling you to the ground is a jerk. But given that it’s the weekend, can you really complain? You’re an asshole to a thousand people and thousand people are assholes to you.
When I go here I have two objectives, one is to scour the whole place for everything I intended to buy. Though a terrible idea, I also need to buy things that aren’t in my list. Any normal person would look at something when they go shopping and think “Hey let me buy that too, it’s not like I come here everyday.”
So here I am, on avenue road, carrying a big backpack sheltering old books, a bottle of water and a couple of empty shopping bags. Right before I started exploring the market to see where to sell my books and buy new ones, I saw two scrawny yet jaunty children selling small, colorful fidget spinners. ” Anna fidget Spinner bekaanna, ondu 30, yeradu thogondre 50 na” the older kid looked at me with hope glistening in his eyes. I have no idea how he sensed my inability to say no, but he fed on that. I went against my better judgement and bought the last two fidget spinners for 50 rupees.
The kid took the money and said ” Thanks Anna” and ran along in full speed, which was strange. So I keep the red fidget spinner inside and start playing with the blue three sided one. I spin it once, just once, and the whole thing comes apart. I was so disappointed. Not at the fact that it broke so quick, but the fact that the first ever thing I bought broke. In Michael Scott’s eternal words , I’m not superstitious, I’m a little stitious. So I go looking for these kids, and in the meanwhile I test the other one which was working perfectly fine. No wonder they gave me that discount, one for thirty, while it was actually one for fifty.
After hours of searching, by which I mean the 15 minutes through the maddening crowd which felt like 5 hours, I found the boys – the little cons – standing by a kachori cart. They bought one for themselves and were sharing it. The elder kid was holding a plastic bag with 4 more kachoris that I assume are for his family.
That’s when I started wondering, if the little children have to work so hard for a snack, maybe even their lunch, how destitute must their lifestyle be.
So I went to them, calmly. “Anna yenaithu, innond beka? Kaali aithanna ” the younger one said.
“Yes I know. Don’t need another one. Ondu naan itkothini, you take this one.” I said as I gave the good fidget spinner to the younger child.
They were confused. So I told them that they were sold for 50 each everywhere else.
So I gave them one last smile, tightened the straps on my heavy backpack and carried on with the rest of my shopping.

A shoulder

We didn’t have the best of friends when we were in school. We were no good either. The people whom we once called “best friends” are now the ones who say “HBD” on your Facebook wall on your birthday. Who is to blame for the premature end to our immature friendships? No one (at least not you).

Kids don’t know why they need friends. Kids don’t even know that they need them. We might boast of being friends from a young age. But is it really boast worthy? Is your childhood friend really the first person you go to when you need a shoulder to cry on or even put your arm around? If so, consider this write- up a tribute to your friendship!

It’s when we become adults, we start realising why we need a shoulder. We start to gradually lose our sleep as our brain starts losing time to process all the information and the experiences you’re going through. We just need that person, a friend (an actual one), to share the load, a shoulder, to sleep on.

We often find ourselves wishing that we were a child again, so much so that we start acting juvenile. We want to be children again, but there’s always a minute detail we miss out on when we wish so. We long for the presence of the friends that we have now, sitting shoulder to shoulder in our class, in front of the screaming lady.

In the end, we just need to know “There are people who care about me.”

Let’s all be, a shoulder to someone.

To my friends. Have not thanked you enough, cannot thank you enough.

Just go back to sleep.

It was a bright sunny morning…..or a gloomy one, I could never know for I’m just waking up now. ’12 : 00 PM’ , my phone read BRIGHTLY. I squinted my eyes and looked away, I don’t want to wake up, but even in my standards, sleeping after 12 seems preposterous. I sat up on my bed and did what any 21 year old girl would do – checked my Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and Twitter. Finally opened the camera and saw my face, having the smallest of hope that something has improved. Nope, no decrease in chin count. I lethargically got up and dragged myself to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and no, I didn’t shower. I have nowhere to go today, and I’m going to go back to sleep in 10 hours, I see no reason to shower. So after 10 minutes of taking a shit and 13563267 minutes of browsing every picture and video on my phone, I opened the door and saw a dark figure standing in front of me. He said… or whatever pronoun he/she/they prefer. “Do you always wake up this late?” I just assumed he was a friend of my roommate. “And who’s the one who thinks it’s his business?” I have heard his voice before though, a really long time back, so long ago, I’m probably imagining this though.

“I suppose I deserve that, you really don’t remember me, do you? I’m Uncle Carl. Your roommate let me in and went to work. I’ve been waiting for 3 hours now.”

A slight shiver ran up my back when I heard that name, I don’t know why, he was probably a disciplinarian to me when I was a kid, but I can’t show that I don’t remember him. “Oh my God, uncle Carl! How are you?!” I said with a huge smile, a fake one. “I’m good, Jasmine, and you also seem at peace with how I behaved and looking good as well.”

That confirms it, he was a real jerk to kids and to me. “Oh Uncle, that’s quite alright, a child needs it for growing up right.”

“That’s what I thought too, your mother didn’t think so when she caught me trying to remove your pants, she sent me packing and asked me never to contact you or your family again.”

And then it hit me, that’s why I got the shiver, the voice that said “It’s okay, it won’t hurt”. That’s where I recognized the voice.

“Dude that’s screwed up. I want you to get the fuck out of my house and heed mom’s words. Now take a step back!” I shouted at him, “Jas, it’s okay, I won’t hurt you” he said and the flashback came more alive, I was full of disgust and anguish. He took a couple more steps towards me, I impulsively stepped back.

He again came closer “That’s the reason I’m here Jas, I’m a changed man and have realised my mistakes and I want to apologize–” I shoved him “Apology not accepted.” I screamed. He took two steps back and walked out of my room, walked out to the balcony, “Sorry again” he said, his shirt puffing up in the wind with his eyes full of tears. “You’re gonna jump, aren’t yo–“and he jumped off the railing and I heard a thud after a couple seconds. Shit, what a mess, asshole jumped when I was mid sentence. I ran out of the apartment and pressed the button on the elevator and waited for it to come from basement to 6th floor, I got in, and a neighbor asked to hold the lift, I waited for him to get in and we went to the ground floor in the awkward “elevator silence”. I always wondered why we stand in the same position in a lift. Finally we reached ground floor , I got off and he continued to the basement. I went outside and saw a crowd around my dead uncle. Well, now I don’t have to call an ambulance. I just went back to my apartment and ate my cereal and watched TV.

Bloodthirst

I reluctantly entered the elevator and got up to the 2nd floor as instructed by the building security. The steel doors of the elevator creaked open. The whole floor smelled like death and as I walked past the man that was coughing, I heard a child scream from the room I was supposed to go into. I was terrified to my roots.

I slowly went into the room as the little girl came out sobbing, dragged by a middle aged man. I was able to smell the blood. A woman in white made me sit on a steel stool. She tied up my arm with a strap right above the elbow. She was wearing a mask, so I wasn’t able to make out the features of her face. She took a small stabbing device and jabbed my hand and I watched with an ugly grimace on my face. “I’m just drawing your blood for a test. Have you never had a blood test before?” the woman in white, I mean the nurse said. I said with a sheepish smile “I have, but I don’t know, I always overthink this part.”

Boredom

All men are born with an ability,

A God-bequeathed common quality.

A quality possessed even by a man who runs a kingdom;

Something that makes one do the random.

It is what we call boredom.

The solutions of many a people vary, Watching movies scary,

pictures painted,

opponent taunted,

pokemon wanted!

Or probably chose to roam.

Also watching TV staying home!

But I, of all these things, chose to write this terrible poem.

Does truth hurt?

Since time immemorial, the most deadly and feared thing has been truth. It has been believed that the truth has got us into trouble more than anything else. But that’s not the situation. It gets us into trouble only if it is in sequence with a lie. Almost the whole species of humans are victims of stress. Stress due to work,studies, relationships and what not. A solution lies in yoga and meditation. But the sole principle behind yoga is truth and ‘dharma’. A person is relieved from a big burden when he is being honest.

Some people may not deserve honesty, but you do. You need to be honest for YOUR peace of mind. Truth may be bitter. But bitter things cure our flaws. One lies when he gets over-conscious about life. But life is like soap, if held tight,it is certain to fall. Truth is like antiseptic solution, it hurts when applied but that is the one that heals your wound. Don’t break it more by trying to fix it!

Life needs a lot of things like happiness, peace and love. All this comes free with honesty.