Flying kites

“Failure is not in my dictionary,” I began in a defiant tone, “because I am a  flyer of kites. In my hands, I hold the strings to hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of kites. In all different colors. They dance around in the sky, soaring higher and higher without limits.

Sometimes though, the wind blows too hard, the kite goes the wrong way or perhaps someone cuts the string. That’s what you call ‘failure’. And this kite falls down, slowly. Slowly, ever so slowly, it falls from the sky and comes to rest on a lone tree. More of these ‘failures’ follow. More kites. Blue. Yellow. Orange. Purple. Shiny. Plain. Glittery. Bright. Pale.

An Ignorant Teen’s Response to the Rise of Modern Fascism

The Rise of Fascism in Modern India

“There’s something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they’ve let us down, it’s only because we’ve allowed them to. It could be argued that civil society has failed its leaders as much as leaders have failed civil society. We have to accept that there is a dangerous, systemic flaw in our parliamentary democracy that politicians will exploit. ” – Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Injustice.

Today, Indian politics often seems to be just another topic to joke about at the dinner table. Something for the Eastern world to laugh at and the Western world to stare at, utterly confused. If an outsider is looking for anything else to be confused about in India (other than of course the religious hypocrisy and the various vernaculars), he can find it in politics. For me, as an outsider-insider Indian looking at my own nation from half way across the world.. you can only imagine my confusion.

The Voice Stops Here

Hero She Ma
bleeds.

Who yet sees?

The world goes on
No one listens
Those taken for granted
Hidden inside painted dolls.

Boys and girls, superfluous dramas
All on the outside
Deafness within
She said that and he said this
Real life is the real dream.

(Hero She Ma screams. No one listens)