
Shilpi Nanda

Shilpi Nanda
Shilpi Nanda
Shilpi Nanda
”The volcano became active on Sunday night. It had been lying in a dormant state- peaceful and pleased to punch with itself and the world but it has been reawakened and now hot freaking lava spews from it.
”Please calm down,” he pleads. ”It’s just going to be a repeat of last year. They say something that upsets you.You keep all this rage inside and ultimately you get depressed.”
”I’ve told you so many times, I’m here… just yell at me. ”he says offering to be the sacrificial lamb. I pity and of course value the friends who never left my side. What an ordeal I’ve put them through! Especially this one-all the uncontrollable sobbing he’s had to deal with.
I read out the saccharine sweet message I sent today.” You shouldn’t have” he says and tries to soothe my mind in his best paternal voice. But now I’m triggered. Two disturbed nights… the past two years racing through my head and crap I’m on a downward spiral. Unfortunately, it ends at the darkest corner of my mind. I try to stop the inevitable… excuse myself from the conversation and head into my dungeon. I think of a lucid way to write how I feel but I fail miserably. I devise methods of avenging myself by writing the nastiest entry so that years later when I look back my forgetful brain doesn’t forgive anyone by default. But again I run out of words.
I’m stuck now. The heart starts to pound, the left arm starts to hurt. “Why? Why are you getting so agitated?” I ask myself. ”The sheer hypocrisy of it all!” scream my guts. Since, I can’t come up with my own words… I start looking for something that someone, would have written about, how I feel. This is what I find.
“The difference between my darkness and your darkness is that I can look at my own badness in the face and accept its existence while you are busy covering your mirror with a white linen sheet. The difference between my sins and your sins is that when I sin I know I’m sinning while you have actually fallen prey to your own fabricated illusions.” _C Joybell C
”If I had to say something to the World at large, this is what it would be”, I think to myself. I reread what I’ve typed and suddenly the anger subsides. All I take away from it is,”I’m here… just yell at me.”
Wandering on Eid
“Since, I’ve grown up Eid doesn’t hold the same significance for me,” Saif says, as he bites into his Magnum Classic. It’s 11.p.m, we are sitting on one of the pavements at India Gate watching the traffic and eating ice cream. A few young Muslim boys have just parked next to us and are noisily excited about Eid. “You know, when we were younger we would get Rs 5-10 as Eidi and it meant the world to us. But I guess with age the excitement has worn off.”
”You know when I was younger, there was complete chaos at home but a couple of days in a year the house felt ‘normal’ and it felt like a family. Diwali, New Year’s Eve and Rakhi were huge and irrespective of how sick Mom was or who had recently expired, we still looked forward to those days. Happy days! I miss knowing that there will be a few normal days.” I say looking at the passing vehicles.
I come back home absolutely thrilled with the evening I’ve had. Bike ride to Old Delhi, hogging everywhere and then landing up at India Gate. Wow what fun!
I pissed off my instructor the other day when I said I’m bunking the gym on Eid. He looked at me rather suspiciously, thinking I was just making an excuse and asked,’Aap ki kaunsi Eid hoti he?” But Eid is almost as special as Diwali, now. When I’m in Kashmir, I’m invited to my assistant’s house which has more family members than I can count. Everyone gathers around the dastarkhan and we eat the yummiest food that my assistant’s mother prepares, while they joke about this that or the other. There are children running around noisily through the house and it seems like a big happy family and for one day in a year, I feel not so lost.
This will be another happy memory, I hope my forgetful brain doesn’t erase it.
Dadi Poti Ka Maqbara
Barah Khamba Monument Hauz Khas
Sakri Gumti-Monument from the 15th -16th century built during the Lodi Period.
Chhoti Gumti