Bucket List

Since I know how much you hate the attention, I'm just going to overwhelm you into submission. Happy Birthday! I can't be there and that sucks enough. First ever. Incomplete, isn't it? No matter. Next year onwards you'll be rich so no more buddays away. Deal? COOL. :D Here's to unsure first steps out of that door with background music *drumroll* "Beta, she has no friends." One walk in the middle of winter and zindagi ke secrets ka khulaasa *cue sounds of oysters cracking open to puke out pearls*. A lot of consequent "evening walks" that led to the same building se same bus, same school *gasps*, same dost *giggles*. Oh my god your 12th. (Not living it down, nope.) OH MY GOD MY 12TH! Smatterings of drama in between. Cooked in tamashco sauce, a trip to Vac's *starry eyed* and a lot of inevitability later, here. Thinking about how we ever got this far (no, really), how we found each other at all (fuck Serendipity, I will punch your f...

In the face of sheer agony that's resonating in the echoes of the bullets and bombs that ripped homes apart in the flash of a blinding second, I am able to feel strong because of men like Antoine Leiris. I am able to believe in the humanity that's kept this world alive since its inception and strive to live up to it because of the inspiration that every stranger, who lets another in need, into the welcoming arms of their lives; loves a fellow muslim citizen despite the religion that brings undeserved condemnation and isolation upon them, those who're as innocent a victim of the terrorists as those who lie sleepless trying to reconcile the fact of the loss of loved ones to their reality; who extends the compassion of a real human heart to those who're grieving but standing tall across Beirut, Baghdad, Syria and all of this world; who pauses for a moment and thinks about the mother whose son is holding the gun and pressing the trigger that eradicates the light of  a th...

"Tum saath ho ya nahi, kya fark hai? Bedard thi zindagi, bedard hai." How I wish. You're missed terribly in every breathing moment like the presence of a guardian angel would be if we knew the feeling. I wish things weren't the way they are now, uncle. I wish there was a way to rewind to the moment that changed our lives forever and perhaps, there was just that one little thing we could have done differently. I'd want to take that chance just to have you walk into my room and demand if my parents were being too tough to handle during those dismal days of class 12. The tears flow mercilessly, slashing through the cheeks you'd caress in encouragement, in the memory of the Sirius Black you've always been to me. It's nothing short of iron in the gut to think of you and have the memories of being pushed to take that mike, wear that sari, smile for the camera with mock reluctance. You're loved. Knowing how close we came to losing you irrevoc...

I woke up to my phone pinging. Having checked my notifications, I was scrolling through my newsfeed and came across a post which said, "Dating my ex? Want some of my leftover pizza too?" My brain's la-di-da swinging steps came to a rude, abrupt and resounding halt. I know I may seem to be overreacting here but I was stunned. I felt violated. Not only as a woman, if you're scared I'm going to pull the F-card (Feminism) on you but as a human being. I'm aware it's a troll comment, meant to be taken as a joke but- is it really? How far are we willing to go in the name of a joke? Is there no line we choose to draw for ourselves that segregates a healthy joke from an over the top comment in bad taste? Humour is a means of expressing the truth in a manner that isn't as offensive to the person at the receiving end. This comment was absolute shit. I'm sorry but where is the basic dignity that you award to a fellow human being, forget someone you...