"Truth" - A Poem by Tahreen Fatima

 

Truth

Truth is like the Sun. 

Although it drowns for the night, 

It will rise the next morning 

And shine again. 

Truth is also a lot like Love. 

Often difficult to find. 

But when found, 

Impossible to forget. 

Truth speaks— 

without a tongue, 

without a voice. 

And truth reveals, 

The human crying beneath the very smile you wear; 

Or the monster lingering within your loved one. 

Truth is not just a bed of roses, 

So learn to embrace the thorns. 

Truth is the shadow that dances 

Forever, from dusk till dawn. 

Truth is the only virtue that does both—

Hurts and Heals. 

Hurts the Heart, 

Heals the Soul!

                                                    - Tahreen Fatima (BtCFs)

"Manisha" by Tasleem Fathima

Manisha 

What's the use of making so many highways when there isn't a single street in India where women can roam freely?

What's the use of so many schemes made by the system, when the system itself fails to give justice to the victim?

What happened with Manisha was the death of humanity. The culprits aren't from another planet, they live in the same place we belong.

They could be one of our relatives.


Don't wait for any administration to introduce one more void document to deal with these incidents. Instead, we’ll deal with this ourselves.

Yes we can! But how?

Let not the fire of Manisha's body cool down. Let it burn until the dark night fades out, giving way to natural enlightenment. Let's be the one percent change we want to bring in the society.

Irrespective of your gender, teach your grandfather, father, brother, uncle, professor, boyfriend, colleagues to respect women. If they don't care about that, then tell them to value their own life which came out of a vagina, that belongs to the same community where another woman was raped and received no justice. Where the victim would be remembered as another abused vagina.

Eventually the one percent change will sum up to a hundred, creating a peaceful society to live where everyone is Human. 

                                                                                                           - Tasleem Fathima (MSCs)

"Stargazed" by Sunena Kawle

Stargazed

There were so many questions

How to do it?

Am I capable?

Is it worth it?

The society, my family?

Hesitancy, doubt, fear

Now constant companions,

I gathered my courage

Even as my soul was anxious.

I went on the mat

I fought and wrestled,

I came out, lost and beaten:

Thirteen seconds was all it took.

Days turned into weeks,

Weeks into months.

They are now a collection of

Scars and bruises,

Old and new.

I went onto the mat again,

Willful and ambitious;

I came out

Stargazed and victorious.

                                             - Sunena Kawle (BA)

"The Gordian Knot" by Aishwarya Lakkakula

 

The Gordian Knot 

She ties a knot 

with a snake in the grass. 

She steps in a water—

Sharks waiting in hunger. 

Her life is a feast 

for the vultures waiting for her to sleep. 

Her nine days' wonder 

Ends with a flash of thunder! 

Her blood is sucked 

and the bones are crushed. 

Her breast is burnt 

and the womb is raped. 

No part of her is left—

even the least. 

The music is faced and the bullet is bitten. 

Only because the knot is tied! 

The knot is tied 

to rape her. 

The knot is tied 

to crush her. 

The knot is tied 

to kill her. 

The strength of the three knots, 

I wonder! 

Stronger than a Gordian knot! 

And her seventh heaven never comes back... 

Departing, not to have a way back.

                                                    - Aishwarya Lakkakula (BA)

"A Sigh of Relief" by Ciri Kovida

 

A Sigh of Relief

One September night, my younger brother and I were home alone when my parents were out of town which gave us a reason to pull an all-nighter watching movies. So, we started preparing for a movie marathon and ordered a pizza with extra cheese. We picked movies of the thriller, crime, horror and mystery genres.

We started watching the first movie while waiting for the pizza. The volume was on 80, the ambiance was dark and so was the movie. We were so indulged in the movie that we didn’t realize an actual killer broke into our apartment complex and started shedding the blood of the residents. The whole place was filled with cries of fear while we were clueless.

Suddenly I received a phone call from my friend and paused the movie for a while to talk to her; that’s when I heard the loud screams of the residents. I opened the door and peaked at second floor through the stairway railing.

I saw a person holding a knife, blood dripping from its edge. He was covered from head to toe in black clothes and a black skull cap. He started heading up to third floor leaving blood stained footprints behind.

We lived on the third floor.

I was uptight and filled with apprehension. I rushed back to my apartment and closed the main door, asked my younger brother, who was still unaware of the situation outside, to lock himself in the bathroom while I went to hide myself in my room. I took my phone and called the police and stammered anxiously about the killer. Not a second later, I heard a huge thud on the front door which gave me chills.

After a while, I heard the killer break open the door. We had switched the lights off before playing the movie, so the house was dark, with the mystery movie running in the background as the killer entered.

He placed his bloodied knife on the dining table and started approaching the bathroom where my younger brother was hiding. Fearing for his safety, I mustered up the courage to come out of my room, and noiselessly grabbed a spoon from the dining table and tossed it towards the kitchen to distract the killer. He stopped walking and I took the chance to take the knife that he left on the table and rush back to my room and lock the door.

Covered in sweat and frightened, I followed my instincts and hid the knife in one of the shoe boxes in my cupboard. The killer started hitting the door to enter my room, and that’s when the sound of the police siren was heard and the banging on the door stopped. I still didn’t open the door. Instead, I switched on the lights and started searching for the knife I hid in the shoe box. I rummaged through all the shoe boxes but I still couldn’t find it.

I was too late. Someone opened my door.



Then I heard my mom scolding me about making a mess.

I was in a state of confusion for few seconds and then I realized that my mom had opened the door.

Reality hit me hard, when I realized that it was all a dream. I breathed a sigh of relief, sat on my bed and started pondering on how a dream could be so real that I actually started scattering my shoe boxes, searching for the knife without knowing that I was already awake. Though it was a dream, I experienced the fear of losing my loved ones and trust me when I say that that feeling is the worst.

I wiped the sweat off my face and started cleaning my room with my mom nagging me in the background. I laughed at the fact that my dream was so unrealistic that no one on the first and second floors thought of calling the police, but then again, our dreams are meant to make us the protagonists.

My dreams have always been incredibly vivid. And the fun fact is that this dream occurred when I took a 20 minute nap!

                                                                                                                          - Ciri Kovida (BA)

"I Wonder What We Find in an Empty Classroom!" by Hiranmayee

 

I Wonder What We Find in an Empty Classroom!

School and college experiences become more fun and exciting only when the classroom is filled with a crowd.

The first time we enter an empty classroom, a whole lot of confusion, anxiety, excitement and enthusiasm occupy the chairs.


It begins when we start speaking as strangers. Then, start knowing each other. The relationship starts blooming, we first become classmates then friends. We start sharing and caring. We then start bothering each other. We play, prank, learn and live.

The classroom, on the entry of our friendship, wipes the older emotions we felt. 

Friendship occupies not only our seats but also our teachers' hearts. Between our teachers and us is the most precious relationship that we often forget to notice. They teach. They scold. They shout. They laugh, have fun and support and share. They hold thousands of hands and yet stand still and strong.

"Did I ever thank them?"

That still stands a question that I would never like to answer. I would never like to let go.


Days pass, months flee; the years spent together are never forgotten. We never knew we were hiding a treasure which could never be stolen. We seldom realized we were making memories that would be hidden forever inside the classroom.

And when we look back, years later, "I wonder what we find in an empty classroom!"

                                                                                                                      - Hiranmayee (BA)

"Life-Line" A poem by Aishwarya

Life-Line

Life is not a line, long and straight,

It is a segment, cut short.

It is a two-page book of birth and death

Where experiences are written with many a letter,

Emotions are painted with many a colour,

Passing clouds are reds and blues —

Where blues are downpours in floods

And reds are rains in the desert sands.

                                         -    Aishwarya (BA)