tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23101824210246684282024-03-05T12:20:09.869+05:30IndulgenceIndulgence is just a personal expression, a search inside the soul, an attempt to tiptoe silently in the inner world of turbid emotions, to embrace oneself for one's imperfections, to allow oneself the liberty of gloom and the madness of joy, and the candidness to mould them into words...Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-5628209986793606582023-08-25T14:40:00.000+05:302023-08-25T14:40:22.342+05:30<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I dream of resting your face in my lap and sitting under the stars on a beach. As the waves wash my feet and the breeze dissolves us, we will let the silence of the moment take over, our hearts growing and swelling up with the love we have for each other until it transforms into love for everyone and everything and until they are one big entity, until all the ocean is one big heart. So when I bend down and kiss your forehead, I'll taste the saltiness of the love of the heart </span><span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space-collapse: preserve;">that is the ocean. In the silence of your calm presence, I have often felt my heart become fluid as my eyes join them in thanking the universe for being alive. Your love is sacred. It is the language in which the universe speaks to me and tells me that I'm whole.</span></span></p><div><div class="x168nmei x13lgxp2 x30kzoy x9jhf4c x6ikm8r x10wlt62" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; overflow: hidden;"><div><div><div><div class="x1n2onr6" style="position: relative;"><div class="x6s0dn4 xi81zsa x78zum5 x6prxxf x13a6bvl xvq8zen xdj266r xktsk01 xat24cr x1d52u69 x889kno x4uap5 x1a8lsjc xkhd6sd xdppsyt" style="align-items: center; border-bottom: 1px solid var(--divider); color: var(--secondary-text); display: flex; font-size: 0.9375rem; justify-content: flex-end; line-height: 1.3333; margin: 0px 16px; padding: 10px 0px;"><div class="x1c4vz4f x2lah0s xci0xqf" style="background-color: white; color: #65676b; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; width: 7px;"></div><div class="x9f619 x1n2onr6 x1ja2u2z x78zum5 x2lah0s x1qughib x1qjc9v5 xozqiw3 x1q0g3np xykv574 xbmpl8g x4cne27 xifccgj" style="align-items: stretch; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #65676b; display: flex; flex-flow: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; justify-content: space-between; margin: -6px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-30394608495801340862023-08-25T14:37:00.004+05:302023-08-25T14:41:36.936+05:30<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">What is life</span></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If it is not the quiet place</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That wants to keep staring at leaves that move in the wind</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And listening to the water make waves</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What <span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>is it even</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not the desire to allow</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The most natural thing which is growth</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While also wanting to clutch hard</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At how things are</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is it</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not the moment of being held and wanted</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the warmth of your bare skin on mine</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When we are half asleep</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the blurring of the rest of the world to background</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In that moment</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is life</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not, wanting love and acceptance</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At all costs</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And then losing and finding oneself</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And learning to be truer, braver each day</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is life</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not this beautiful, eternal, messy balancing act</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of letting go</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of holding on</span></div></div>Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-61858645383331222982022-09-06T13:55:00.001+05:302022-09-06T13:55:07.040+05:30Sometimes reflections come to me in silly rhymes <div>May I always think of work and love as inseparable synonyms</div><div>May I find ways to color the world with my unique fingerprints</div><div>May the contents of my heart paint rainbows in clouds</div><div>May I create more 'permission' around me, to be crazy, to be loud</div><div>May I become an expert at making visions true</div><div>And may those visions never end, may they deepen and grow more hues</div><div>May I create, may I collaborate, may I err, may I correct</div><div>May I sing, may I dance, may I paint, may I direct</div><div>May my being all that I am help make the world all that it is</div><div>May the full glory of individuals unleash and never cease</div><div>May I create a new world and show you that it is possible </div><div>May I show you that it's not me, it's also you, and you are irreplaceable</div><div>I have this tiny dream, come join me if you will</div><div>The fire you vaguely remember, it's alive in you still</div>Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-14117065565659524312022-03-22T22:11:00.013+05:302022-03-28T20:39:50.335+05:30Everybody's a Stranger<p><i>Inspired by Sindhuja Sarasram's beautiful anthology, Everybody's A Stranger in which a dear friend is a contributor</i></p><p><br /></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was 2007. Second year of college. I spent every day making the most of my new found freedom. Internet was this beautiful rabbit hole that had something for everyone. Back then, people loved meeting strangers online and it wasn't so frowned upon. Something in me wanted to find spaces to be myself. That took me to Orkut writer communities. There, among many brilliant writers, I met a writer called Raj. His poetry had this distinct Bengali intellectualism to it, which I really liked. He seemed to like my writing too, and we became 'Orkut friends' who sometimes exchanged messages. Somehow, we managed to loosely stay in each other's lives and in admiration of each other's writing for a few years. By 2009, most of my friends were moving to this new platform called Facebook. On first looks, it seemed overwhelming. There were too many pictures, too little text. I didn't relate to it. Reluctantly, I too, though, fully migrated to Facebook. In 2011, Raj messaged me and asked me if I wanted to be part of this 'secret' incredible online group of writers on Facebook that he was part of. He told me there is only one rule. There is no rule. You write whatever you want, without inhibition, without judgement. When I was added to Blurts, I held back for some time. I read other people's writing. There was Anupama, whose writing took me to a small town of Kerala, simple pleasures, sticky, mundane afternoons, complex family relationships, a bicycle and ice lollies. There was Sidra, who happened to hail from the neighbouring country and whose writing was familiar, raw, honest, and at a very deep level, a reminder of the female experience on the subcontinent. There was Abhipsa, whose poetry felt like hope, like flowers in spring, like love, and Sarat, whose writing about bike rides and mental illness and heartbreak represented this honesty with himself which reminded me often of Bukowsky's brokenness and almost spiritual bravery, and Esha, who wrote right from the deepest place in her heart about the world, about family, about making sense of a very harsh world, and Richa whose words, like her photography, represented presence and taught me that presence is sometimes joy and sometimes brokenness, and Vibha whose words contained her whole heart, and Vaishalee whose writing was her ode to learning to love oneself, and Kinni whose writing was rebellion and a fierce expression of her soul, and Smriti who was the 19-year-old mother hen. Smriti's head and heart and hand lived in that group. Her writing was summer, it was childhood, it was dissent, it was love, and it was like K, her partner, honest, clear, true. There were so many more - people who didn't write much but read often: Smriti C and her humour and attempt to figure life out, Madiha and her constant encouragement, love and commitment to learn, Sanjeet and his unwavering friendship, Santon and his quiet, deep reflections. When I first wrote and received love on that group, I felt overwhelmed. It was the first time I felt part of anything. Blurts was community. It was not just a bunch of strangers who liked to write. It was a bunch of us who were courageous enough to be our whole selves in our writing, and a bunch of us who were somehow able to hold that space for each other. We were from different parts of the continent, and some of us got a chance to meet, but even the ones who we never met, never felt like strangers. We did birthdays and Secret Santas. Raj and Vaishalee married each other. Smriti and K are still together. Sarat and I dated briefly and remain active parts of each other's lives as very close friends. We have seen each other through graduations, first jobs, career transitions, marriages, kids, divorces, and we do not write as much on Blurts anymore, but we remain - a community. Sometimes, stars align and strangers become much much more. Everybody's a stranger...until they aren't.</span></p>Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-87366064655308965942022-01-05T21:58:00.003+05:302022-01-06T07:01:58.756+05:30Resurrection<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">My heart beats fast as I type. This is Indulgence - a labor of love - a place that has hosted so many of my feeble attempts at expression. I started Indulgence in 2006 - on the insistence and encouragement of friends in my first year of college. Since then, much has been said and much has been concealed from this place, but it remains - a place close to heart, a home almost, that today I have decided to return to. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A lot has changed in the past few years - in the outer world and in my inner world. If anything, the relationship between the two has become stronger. I believe that I have become clearer - with both my unique identity and my oneness with the universe, with my shared misery and suffering with all of the living world. As it is early January, I feel compelled to reflect on the year gone by. It has been quite a year - a year of the illumination of truths. We saw the world come apart, systems of health, education, public provisions exposed, shattered and rebuilt, we saw the power of the collective human spirit - systems that emerged outside of all rulebooks of organizational behaviour - systems of love, of collaboration, of showing up - for complete strangers, for each other, for ourselves. Personally, the year held a similar trajectory for me - it made me confront truths - external but most importantly, internal. And, it shattered falsehoods and false systems and through much messiness and struggle, brought me on the other side, where there was light - of awareness, of compassion, of a self that was a little bit more true. Of everything that 2021 taught me, the biggest learning was to always show up for oneself. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">As I write today, my heart is heavy. Most states have entered partial lockdowns again, schools have been shut (ironically, malls, pubs, restaurants, places of worship and even wedding gatherings are allowed to function with some restrictions). The COVID statistics have become relevant again. I have spent much of the day ensuring the people in my team are okay, have the support they need - many are symptomatic, some have tested positive. I have been unsuccessfully trying to avoid the news of the Bulli Bai app - this is the sort of thing that has the potential to cause utter despair at the state of things. But, I know that 2022 holds promise. I can see that as a collective, we are having conversations we weren't having. We are despairing over things more publicly, more openly. In 2021, we have seen minor and major wins of democracy. In 2021, I have seen wins - many, many of them. I have managed to get better at keeping up routines, at being easier on myself, at being truer to myself, at standing up for myself, at holding dualities. So, I hold this duality in my heart - that at a higher, divine perspective, may be all of this that's happening is just ebbs and flows - the way of things, but also that with a human perspective, it is okay to despair, for oneself and for fellow human beings. It is okay to allow the heart to sometimes, sink and not be hopeful. It is also the nature of things.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking of hope, Indulgence is back in the public domain today. I hope to be better at allowing myself and my innermost world to be seen again - unless some days I am not, and that would be okay too.</span></p>Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-88292630978755486522019-07-18T00:14:00.003+05:302019-07-18T00:14:40.078+05:30July 27, 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Tonight, I am grateful for growth. For this wisdom that allows you to accept, to let go, to be. For rootedness. For the realization of the power of seeds, of sparks. For the exploration of true humility, true service, true love. For paradoxes and middle paths, for ambivalence and balance. For hope. For the luxury to ruminate, to let structures fall and rebuild, to shine light on the darkest, dustiest corners of self. For the feeling that it all comes together. Of course, to fall apart, but it does. For this rhythmic convergent and divergent nature of existence. For okayness and now and this breath that's been faithful for yet another day.</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-16030713291207262512019-07-18T00:14:00.001+05:302019-07-18T00:14:15.981+05:30November 18, 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"Is human life worth living?", you ask as I tell you the story from my mother's childhood when she returned home to find her pet rabbit tortured to near death by her adoptive brother. "What builds or rather unravels this capacity to be so cruel. Is it even something that blame can be attached to?". </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"We do this to each other through our inability to love. But loving is so hard and has so many definitions."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"How did we end up creating a world where we enable so much hurt that </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">leads to so much cruelty?"<br />"It is our inability to adapt to all the diversity that we all carry. Each human being's need is so different, and our capacity to cater to that so limited."<br />"That is why I wonder, if human life is worth living"<br />"It is. Even if it is about learning to love one other person."<br />"Would you want to come back?"<br />"At least a few more times if I had you to love each time."</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-87691757771888991632019-07-18T00:13:00.002+05:302019-07-18T00:13:29.191+05:30February 10, 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dear T,</div>
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I write to remind you of the gift that life is. I want you to realize and remember that it is a gift that you must never take lightly. That you will go through many dark phases, but always emerge stronger, clearer and a little more compassionate. That the demons of childhood do go away, and when you are 30, memories of that time will feel like stills from another life, or reels from a movie that you felt deeply. They will not affect you or define you, but they will sh<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">ape you. T, you will spend life looking to get better, and this will sail you through a lot. But you must remember to not seek perfection, which you tend to do. You must let go of shame and fear. You know that people do not need to earn love; they deserve it, irrespective of who they are. Do not make yourself an exception. You will love and laugh and forgive easily, and you will get hurt a lot. But you must not get cynical. At around 30, you will learn that you do not carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and that the only way to change the world is to begin with yourself, and that the process of change begins with acceptance. You will learn to hold greys, and be gentler on yourself and others. I hope you remember to laugh and have fun.</span></div>
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Love,<br />T</div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-28241870662234349452019-07-18T00:12:00.003+05:302022-01-06T07:05:56.908+05:30Banjara Hills<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif;">There's something intriguing about this part of town, the hills have been carved into roads and streets with beautiful bungalows and showrooms, but you take one left turn and you are in narrow lanes with near vertical drops lined by houses. Young boys in kurtas running down the lane with hands on each other's shoulders, women in burqas(always in groups and never alone) returning home with their children, men sitting outside their houses, bonding over something on the phone or</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif;"> sharing a conversation about the day gone by, and another left turn and you are going through probably the biggest graveyard you've ever seen, innumerable graves on both sides of the road with not even inches between them, and you think about how you're looking at more graves than people, and a thela with someone hawking something to eat and little lights on the cart just outside this graveyard. You think about the juxtaposition of life and death, how there's something beautiful about the acceptance and assimilation of the graveyard into the landscape. You think about the people, the children you saw, and wonder about their ancestors that are perhaps buried there, watching over them, and the living watching over the dead, co-existing with them in their dance of life. The next left turn takes to into an impossibly busy market. It's lit up and alive. You wonder what lives of children are like in this community. You notice that this whole area automatically registers as a community. You know nothing about them but you know that these are people who live intertwined lives - they create safety nets but also nooses, they live, love, laugh, fight, cry and die together. You dream of a community of your own some day - some place you'd finally belong.</span></div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-34683842364878478072018-02-04T18:52:00.001+05:302018-02-04T18:52:14.236+05:30Minimalism and Leadership<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the ideas I have found myself to be most influenced by in recent times is that of minimalism. Minimalism in possessions, but also in thoughts and actions.</div>
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Being in a new role where the stakes always seem high hasn't been easy, but the only idea that has helped me cope is the constant guiding question of: is this strategic? What is the best use of my twenty-four hours? How much of it is going towards quelling short-term fires, and how much towards longer-term growth, we<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">ll-being, and slow but stronger and systemic change. Could even the first kind be a step towards the second? What is life but a series of decisions we make in the face of constraints? What is life but a long workshop in strategy? Isn't minimalism just strategy - choosing only what adds value and recognizing that any surplus might actually deplete value?</span></div>
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Some of my strongest successes in my role as an enabler have been when I've found the sweet spot of 'enough', when I've let go of the desire to prove *my* relevance, and have found comfort in my role of planting ideas and enabling conditions for them to be nurtured, when I've freed myself from the comforting feeling of *doing* a lot. Last week was a significant step in this direction. In attempting to find my method in madness, I stumbled upon the life-changing link between minimalism and trust. The challenge we are attempting to tackle requires a collective, and that requires that we don't just support, challenge, but also trust each other. That's the only way we'll be able to define a beautiful line of action around our roles - a limiting line of action that will make our locus of impact limitless.</div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-63569846822113183452017-03-23T13:49:00.002+05:302017-03-23T13:49:48.357+05:30Things in Boxes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It is time to put things in boxes<br />Times like this bring the customary over-analysis<br />Of moments tagged to places<br />And memories attached to objects<br />And people, <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />of course, people<br />But we don't use them as symbols<br />They are the ones we find symbols for<br />In things, in places, in terrible attempts at obscure poetry<br />Just like this one<br />Isn't poetry a tool of deception?<br />One immensely empowering<br />through its nature<br />of concealed ammunition and partial catharsis<br />of uncorrupted choice to the poet<br />of the ratios of revelation and concealment<br />independent of the constant of expression</span></div>
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Free form is convenient<br />It's one of those big inclusive boxes<br />that eliminates a lot of smaller ones</div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-86044783358684525702016-08-27T17:21:00.001+05:302016-08-27T17:21:53.441+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think of coffee stained pages<br />
and loose, ink-stained sweatshirt sleeves<br />
of the valley beyond the library window<br />
and the long road to the hospital<br />
that was frustratingly uninspiring<br />
I think of the road trips and the life lived on the edge<br />
of adventure, eccentricity, wanderlust and madness<br />
of how a lot of it was painstakingly deliberate<br />
of how rain is never about the moment right now<br />
of how when the red bricks soak, they register<br />
but not quite<br />
of how when the frogs come out<br />
and when the green is pronounced<br />
and when the air is laden with petrichor<br />
and when LKP floods and footballers play<br />
of how a lot of it is observation<br />
one step short of experience<br />
always almost there<br />
but never quite<br />
The shroud lifts only briefly<br />
only to reveal what wonders lie beneath<br />
and falls back very lightly<br />
so you see through it but you can't feel<br />
you can smell but not touch<br />
I am a prisoner in my mind<br />
and may be that is why I write</div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-44380052311595473392016-03-21T16:37:00.001+05:302016-03-21T16:52:28.956+05:30The Goodbye<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bangalore : Hey! Heard the ticket you're carrying is one way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me : Yeah</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">B : Here, take this ridiculously gorgeous and dramatic sunrise at the center of the road.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bjezpfS61mU6sAPPB9Dc4LhU9LfWCrd_rvFu1leGwqOPPOSVjoypEobAr-8qT7FlbnMAyIvs79a_A0T0zpkscj6OnkETA9fuBOv9lh1YDG_P85e9YxRNF9UIeS6UPo6KAnU_K_SVZvd1/s1600/IMG_0817.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bjezpfS61mU6sAPPB9Dc4LhU9LfWCrd_rvFu1leGwqOPPOSVjoypEobAr-8qT7FlbnMAyIvs79a_A0T0zpkscj6OnkETA9fuBOv9lh1YDG_P85e9YxRNF9UIeS6UPo6KAnU_K_SVZvd1/s320/IMG_0817.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me : Why, thanks! I can't believe you'd do this for me!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">B : I didn't make it specially for you, but go ahead, take it personally. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me : I'm gonna miss you! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">B : Don't be embarrassing. I've already moved on.</span><br />
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-37898035265082984042016-03-18T15:17:00.002+05:302016-03-18T18:32:56.623+05:30To Leaving<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A city is the crowd that makes you feel lost and insignificant. It is the finding of kindred souls in unexpected places. It is the claiming of freedom through the privilege of anonymity. It is the art and culture scene that happens in its theaters and city halls, and also in its parks and cafes. It is late nights and inebriation and long, aimless conversations. It is the rooftop of a friend's place with a beer in hand, or the quiet balcony of a dream home you moved into that you never could make your own. It is the unfinished businesses, the unsaid goodbyes, unexpressed sentiments, unvisited corners, unknown alleyways and markets that you wanted to see but probably never enough to make it happen. It is the beginnings and non-endings of uncooked could-have-beens. It is the rush hour traffic that chokes you at times, and comforts you at others, the landmarks that are remarkable only to you because you cared enough to notice, the books you've read on the commute that dissolved into the landscape to make it come alive. It is the language you never quite learnt, the regrets that lurk in the corners as you cross them, the nostalgia that you know is going to follow you, the moving-ins and moving-outs, the stability and the ennui, the wanting to belong and the realization that you finally do when it's time to leave. </span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-89659788084845924102015-06-11T01:16:00.002+05:302015-06-11T01:17:15.312+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I sit after a busy busy day hoping that all of this matters - this wanting to make a change, to learn, to help, to be better. This tangle of responsibilities and answerabilities. This rush. This longing for the comfort of the bed, and yet wanting to stay awake for the greater luxury of typing out a few lines. This tiny little precious personal perfect moment of solitude in the deepest, darkest hour of the night. The desire to make this moment, this rain-laden breeze, this sound of the keys on the keyboard, the faint sound of crickets outside and all of the pervasive silence my own. This wanting to hold on to this moment lest the night give way to the day that is devoid of all this magic.</span></span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-82645671261149553322015-06-07T02:14:00.002+05:302015-06-07T02:27:23.935+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am the happiest in open spaces - spaces where I can stretch out my arms, make a full circle and claim the space. Perhaps, that is my personal key to happiness - having that space physically and metaphorically in my life at all times. And then, life is just about having the space and striving for that space. Just a few yards of empty space around me - a space to call my own.</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-14875363878890436942015-06-06T01:32:00.001+05:302015-06-07T02:28:00.717+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Stand by your supposed-to-be's. Because no one else will. And because if you do, they won't let you down.</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-42670902836792653792015-04-20T23:15:00.001+05:302015-06-07T02:28:35.559+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Wait wait wait! Hold on! Spare me tonight, darkness. Not yet. I'm just learning to hope again. Tiny baby steps. Tiny little breaths of trusting anticipation and appreciation for the beautiful uncertainty of life. Tiny little whiffs of the uncharted unknowns. Let me, for now, soak in all of this. I am young. I am alive. And life is so intoxicatingly beautiful!</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-3045074117918396152015-03-23T22:04:00.001+05:302015-06-07T02:28:50.849+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">After a long long time, I feel like writing. And not about sorrow or nostalgia but about how miraculously beautiful the world is, how cool the breeze is tonight and how I love the way it touches me, how there's a faint scent of the earth, and an elegant stillness to this hour, right here. I love this city, and all the different ways in which it charms me. This city is love. And home. And hope.</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-8903397873376385382015-01-29T20:21:00.001+05:302015-06-07T02:29:28.093+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Evenings have a distinct quality of taking you down the forgotten lanes of memory. I look at the people walking the perimeter of the park, and I wonder if they too are reminded of long lost childhood evenings in places they will never set foot in again. As you grow older, mirages start to break. You start to slowly take your idols out of their moulds and see them as what they are - flawed, disappointing, afraid human beings. And, perhaps, as we are never given something that we can not handle, with this process comes the ability to accept people for exactly who they are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">'Godhooli bela' - that's what they call this time of the day - this slow, slowly fading light that belongs to the children and the birds. It is called godhooli bela because at this time, the cattle, mostly cows (hence 'go' from 'gau') would return in large numbers from the fields, and their walks would raise a lot of dust (hence dhool) which would cloud the vision. This is what Papa had told me, and I am glad that some day, I might be able to take someone back to the vision of a far-off village with this definition, just as he had taken me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Evenings in Darbhanga were probably the quietest ones of my life and hence most prominent. Dadi would make a big deal about 'saanjh batti' and light a diya and sing a song of longing. In the song, Yashoda would pine for Krishna's safe return as the day started to darken. I could feel the anxiety in Dadi's voice as someone would light a kerosene lantern and hang it in the verandah. Sometimes, I would go to roof to have a look at the mosque from where a far off voice would stir my soul, and I would wonder if perhaps, in another life, I had a connection with the song of the azaan. I never found the mosque though, so I would watch birds flying in perfect patterns above our coconut tree - returning to their own little nests - perhaps some Yashodas going home to their hungry and waiting baby Krishnas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This godhooli bela, I remember that innocence, and I remember remembering - sitting in my very windy balcony in Patna, watching the forest inside IGIMS, humming a slow tune, and affirming to myself that there will be a better life. As I write this, I get the picture of a page being turned of this diary - isn't that how life is too? Turning, page after page, filling, line after line, until the ink runs out.</span></div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-35464808857803882822015-01-23T01:59:00.001+05:302015-06-07T02:30:27.681+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">I feel okay. I feel...'centered'. There is no better way to say it. I feel okay with being me - being lost, sad, devastated, and everything else that I am. It's a strangely comforting acceptance to finally not care about what everyone thinks, to finally listen to myself and allow myself the space and time to flounder and fail. It's scary and yet liberating like nothing else. There is a process that is happening and I can feel it, that of re-aligning to my inner compass that I was way way off from. Things are not perfect, not right, not the way they are supposed to be, but they are okay. And sometimes, that's all you need.</span></div>
Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-45877213240904524472014-12-10T01:01:00.002+05:302014-12-10T16:35:13.664+05:30Being a woman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My one advice to women everywhere is to be a person. Just be a person. Before being a woman. It's great to embrace your womanhood, but before you do that, just stop and be a human being. Question the way you look at yourself. Question the things you take for granted, the things you expect, the things you accept. You are not your mistakes any more than anyone else is. You are also not who you date, how you dress and definitely not the shape of your body or the texture of your<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> skin. It's a great thing to take care of yourself, but that shouldn't be the purpose of your existence. That shouldn't be why you get up in the morning. You don't owe beauty to anyone but yourself. Just go out and live life and make mistakes and learn and be hurt and grow and please, please, create something! Invest in who you are. There is too much pressure to look a certain way to allow you the freedom to spend time on other things. Do not let that happen. Crow's feet are good. They tell a story of a life well-laughed at. Smudged mascaras are good because they say that you lived intensely. Do not pull up the glass on a sunny day. Lose the complexion. Gain the kiss of the sun and the wind on your face. Get dirty. Clean up later. There is so much of life to live and it's so insane to waste the chance to live it!</span></div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-41751628133915663732014-12-04T00:14:00.001+05:302014-12-04T00:14:57.749+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So, that is why I write. To give everything a sense of meaning. To be understood, in whatever broken way, by whoever has taken the time to read the words that flow out of my mind. To feel that what I think and know and believe matters. That it is not insane to want a world that is better and kinder. That it is not utterly impractical to want to have a life around my own ideals and to not want to slit the throats of all the dreams I have grown up with for the idea of a 'workin<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">g' thing. I write because I want my words to 'work' too. I write because I need you, whoever you are, to know that I care. That I get angry and disappointed in the world sometimes, and that sometimes, I have doubted everything that I am, and that I have almost killed the real me for the idea of someone I am not, in the pursuit of a life that was never mine.That I still, after everything, somehow, hopelessly and inexplicably, believe.</span></div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-79424021183958736482014-10-28T22:57:00.000+05:302016-10-23T16:07:03.503+05:30Chhath<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's the festival of Chhath. I will miss it of course, for the nth year in a row. I don't even have a count. The festival is now nothing but a tradition of nostalgia that surprisingly doesn't fade but grows stronger with time.</div>
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Chhath. A personal festival. Celebrated only in some parts of the country. And yet, it was as if the world celebrated it when we were younger, when we didn't know there was anything different that existed, that there were other cultures, other rights a<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">nd wrongs, other shades of skin, of light and dark. As I type this, I realize that more often than not, I write nostalgia. And I wonder if this is who I am, if I am really trapped somewhere in the bygone, and then I realize that the present doesn't make me pick up the pen any more. Happiness doesn't make me pick up the pen. Fear and anxiety do. Loss does. Regret does.</span></div>
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Today, families that still manage to be families and get together on Chhath as an annual tradition would have come together. The late arrivers would have arrived today, and would have been teased as work-shirkers who arrived after all the pedakias and the thekuas are made and all the daliyas are prepared. Tomorrow, the day would be spent catching up, playing antakshari, dancing, and fake palm-readings; the children would disappear into their separate worlds with cousins, and wouldn't be found when looked for. Bedsheet tents would be made, ghost stories would be told, crackers would be burnt, fights would be resolved, tears would be wiped, while the fasting members of the family would stand in the river/ pond/ pool and play homage to the setting sun - all in the backdrop of the most melodious Chhath songs streaming from loudspeakers. </div>
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Tomorrow night would be a night of anticipations. The kids would hardly sleep for fear of oversleeping and missing the time before dawn. Showers will be taken with cold water in the freezing hours of pre-dawn and the music and the crackers would begin anew. The earthen elephant lamps would be lit to light the darkness and the sun will be awaited. Millions would pray to the rising sun that morning and then would begin the raiding of the dagras with all the food that was not to be touched till now. Children would be warned against having too many Gagar nimbus for the fear of falling sick, so there would be elaborate planning for stealing them, probably involving holding an open bedsheet on the lower floor to catch treats being stolen and dropped from an upper floor. Everyone would chew sugarcane, peeling it with their bare teeth, and the antaksharis and leg pullings would resume.</div>
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I would like to believe that this still happens in families. That the large three storeyed houses do not echo with the sound of emptiness. That some of the generations have not disappeared entirely, that people are not so disconnected that they aren't even expected to be part of this tradition anymore.</div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2310182421024668428.post-70376264096262293342014-09-10T15:34:00.002+05:302014-10-28T23:12:43.602+05:30Pick up a pen <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pick up a pen<br />When your hands are too shaky to hold it still<br />Because to yourself you have not been true<br />When damp layers of your soul scrape off and fall on the floor<br />And you hear the sound of it too</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When you've watched the sundown of free thought</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Into the obnoxious sea of social obligations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And the burden of time crushes your ambitions</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When you realize how powerful the word ambition is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And yet so commonly mistaken</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How easy it is to shatter and yet be shattered again</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Into smaller pieces</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By all means</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pick up a pen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When you are ripe enough to bleed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Or let it lie inside the leather case</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For worthier shakier versions of your hands</span></div>
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Tulika Vermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15401674385189410785noreply@blogger.com2