Hello People,
Hope you all are doing fantastic. I was too enthralled with work and practically forgot that I had a substack to take care of. Nevertheless, I am back and this will be our 2nd newsletter edition. This has everything from poetry, short stories, and abundant anecdotes, verses that have meaningful expressions. Without further adieu let us join the wild ride.
-Your’s affectionately
Kallol Poetry
Free your mind--Short story section
We all are facing a mental health epidemic, it’s time we realize that it’s a problem of epic proportions and can destroy you. The next short story is a testament to why mental health needs much garnered attention but sadly it does not get it. This story is about the creepiness and sneaky fear that gets you despite people perceiving you as okay.
Do you exist Mr Fear?
I am here, there and everywhere, in your bones, muscles, tissues and cells vibrating in energetic spheres of time. I am a vivacious germinating tree with roots strengthening the ground that is near your Mooladhara Chakra. Jerking you to bring you to senses.
(When conversing each speaker is marked by the first letter of their name, such as Nikhil=N, Vivek=V, Sunaina=S)
“Bro it's time, let us go,” says Nikhil. Vivek argued with his mom, “Ma can you be any more late, please let me reach school after lunch.” “Ohho babu, I keep telling you to wake me up as the clock hits 5 in the morning”, says his mother. “How can I? You sleep so peacefully”, replies Vivek.
N: Why what caused you to be so late? We missed the bus already!
V: Chill! we are in our senior year, and being late is kind of justified, I mean these are the last years we will be in school, after this who knows where we will be in which part of the world?
N: Well ain’t you dreaming! Now shut your fantasyland talks and let us catch the bus from Autrum lane, where the bus stops for a few minutes, remember the twins that always come late.
V: Okay! I mean we can be late, but if you say so let us be on time for today.
Nikhil runs while tugging his bag on his shoulder, and Vivek also runs along. They both jumped while the bus was on the move, they stopped in mid and took some time to catch up with their breath. While sitting at the back Vivek greets his friends. “Hye boys, how is our troop today? Ready for the cricket match!” “Yes!” in unison, yells his friends. Vivek sits with Nikhil leaving the back seat.
V: Bro you coming today?
N: No, does not feel like going today.
V: Hey why? Please come.
N: I can’t, I mean I would want to, but dude you are a famous guy and I am your bestie, I am supposed to be cool and all, and I am exactly the opposite of you awkward, weird, quintessential nerd with glasses on. It is difficult to constantly draw that kind of attention.
V: Dude! What are you saying? Bro! We all are friends, please come on! Boys let us cheer for Nikhil!
“Nikhil! Nikhil! Nikhil” everyone chants at the same time. Vivek yells at the top of his lungs, “Nikhil! Nikhil! Nikhil!”
Suddenly there was silence, the bus stopped, and a girl entered the bus and came close to him. Vivek makes hand gestures to tone the voice down.
V: Hye Sunaina!
S: You look good today Vivek.
V: I do.
S: Yes, you do.
V: Thanks!
Sunaina stares at his “awe in wonder” expression and bites her lip, moves to the other row and starts talking with her friends.
The bus reaches school, in the meantime, Nikhil goes to his section while Vivek goes to his section with Sunaina by his side.
Vivek sits next to Sunaina in class. He sees Sunaina distressed. He gently holds her hand.
V: What happened?
S: I am failing in Maths.
V: Why? You are so good at studies.
S: Yes! but not maths. I am good with the writing subjects.
V: Okay are you struggling with a chapter?
S: I mean exams will start soon and then I also have to prepare for the entrance exams.
V: Okay! What will you study?
S: Maybe a degree with some good majors. I like the social sciences. What about you?
V: I will study psychology. I will sit for entrance exams for Medicine. Then I will study Psychiatry in my master's programme.
S: That’s fascinating.
V: It is, isn’t it? Now please say yours as well.
S: Can you teach me? I mean you are amazing with Chemistry, Physics and Maths.
V: I mean I can but it will take time if you are not already well versed with the concepts.
S: I do not know.
Vivek meets Nikhil in recess. They both talk.
V: I like Sunaina, bro!
N: I mean there is a possibility she likes you too.
V: Hope she does.
N: She does…. (Nikhil says it with a pause! to take him into confidence that she indeed does..)
All the boys came into the cafeteria and chilled, prepared to play something for the rest of the recess.
In painting class, Vivek wanted to hold her and draw her to his side. The benches were joined. As she scooches to his side he moves near her and gently puts his hand on her waist, Sunaina taken aback lets him hold her for a while. Then she says, “Hey come to my home in the evening, tutor me on your concepts.”
After school ended, Vivek and Nikhil head towards their crossing where Vivek goes to his house and Nikhil goes to his, which is a km away. Vivek says to Nikhil, “Hey Nickie boy! We ain’t playing today!” Nikhil laughs! and says, “Say ‘hye’ to Sunaina from me.”
V: I am not going anywhere.
N: Oh I know! that’s bull!
V: Love you, buddy! Tomorrow come in a little late.
Vivek goes to Sunaina’s home that evening. He taught Sunaina some fundamental solutions on speed, distance, time, vectors, and optics, It was a physics-heavy class. He also practices some Maths chapters with her! After 1 and a half hours while she was doing a solution. He gazed at her face and gently pulled a couple of hairs back to her ears. He gazed while she was asking the question! She looked back! “Hey can you teach me how you derived this formula?” asks Sunaina while being curious and wanting answers. Vivek leans forward and kisses her ear. Sunaina looks at him, she pauses while Vivek moves forward and kisses her. She too started kissing him. Sunaina hugged him while he held her head, she tightened her arms in a warming embrace.
Finals happened, and even results started coming online.
V: Hey buddy! Did you see your results?
N: Nah ain’t opening? I will check them myself.
V: I mean I can check.
N: It's alright brother I will do that myself.
Later that day Vivek, Nikhil and Sunaina went to the Cafeteria and they talked their hearts out.
V: Hey Nickie boy! Did you get your results?
N: No! Man, I am trying but there have been some back-end issues.
S: It's okay Nikhil, many are facing this issue. Even my friends. There has been some lag in results. I have talked with the Principal.
N: Enough about me! Vivek has an entrance exam for Medicine tomorrow.
S: Hey best of luck! I am proud of you, as I know you will clear it.
V: I hope it turns true, Thanks!
Sunaina pauses looks at him and utters, “It will, I believe in you.”
The next day after taking the exam Vivek exited the examination hall and sat in his car while his father was taking him back home.
V: Baba can you give me back my phone?
B: Vivek! There is something I need to tell you. How is your exam and yes you can take your phone. Now the entry exams are over, and you have completed the ‘ban on phones until exams bet’ with your mother.
V: Yes! Please pass it to me, and then say.
B: But!
V: I insist! please!
Vivek turned his phone on and his phone buzzed like a vibrating alarm clock. Messages were pouring in from all quarters. The phone was overwhelmed and he suddenly paid attention to what his Baba was saying.
B: Nikhil died, beta!
Vivek did not know how to respond. With a shrieking voice, he yells “What? How? Why!” “I mean” He pants heavily “I met him yesterday. How can it happen?”
B: He failed his exams.
V: Who Nikhil? How can he fail, he is a walking Encyclopedia.
Vivek awfully distressed had tears flowing from his eyes as he looked at all the messages informing him that Nikhil died.
Both Sunaina and Vivek sit in the park and they talk.
S: You don’t wanna bid the last bye!
V: How can I?
S: He is my friend too. It's time to accept the truth.
Vivek weeps and holds Sunaina's hands and then sleeps on her lap. Sunaina after an hour gently brushes Vivek’s hair. Are you ready now?
V: Let us go!
Sunaina and Vivek watched Nikhil’s cold body before being cremated. It was a depressed setting covered in white fabric a temporary shed built for people that will bid bye to Nikhil. Sunaina holds Vivek’s hands while Vivek looks at his buddy trying to find him in that cold dead being kept flat and immobile, and in some ways almost a human, yet a corpse. Nikhil’s mother comes and gives Vivek an envelope. Vivek takes the envelope.“He wanted to give this to you.” Not being able to complete the sentence she weeps midsentence and then goes back to Nikhil.
Vivek puts his letter in his school bag.
Vivek did clear his entrance exams. He moved to another city with Sunaina. She took her admission and kept her major in Economics, Political Science and Developmental Studies. Vivek lived in a hostel (Dorm room/College Residence), while Sunaina had her own private room in the city. They both were in another cafeteria enjoying themselves! Vivek’s friends were also there. One of Vivek’s friends asked, “Guys since mostly we will be working now, let us try partying for 10 days. Sunaina replies back, “Well, that’s rich!” His friend then asked, “Isn’t it Vivek?” Vivek yells, “Guys the Megatron is here! I am the life of the party and I say let’s do it! while chugging 10 pints of beer all alone.”
Vivek wakes up in the morning does his daily morning ablutions and then sits near his roommate Akash!
V: Hey wake up sleepy head! We need to go to classes.
A: I do not wanna go bud! I will sleep! I do not feel like doing anything today!
V: Buddy you cannot skip classes come on!
Akash lazily moves out of bed and goes to his bathroom. While Vivek was rolling bits of paper suddenly he slowed down the rolling while staring at the window.
In the evening time, Vivek and Sunaina went to a restaurant nearby to have something. Vivek was staring at a food item. Sunaina asks him, “Hye oggling man! What are you lookin’ at? Vivek then snaps out of it and replies, “Can I look anything other than you sweetheart?” She giggled and started looking at her phone. Vivek changed his expression and ran to the toilet. His head was spinning and he felt numb, out of place. He lowered his head down parallel to the sink. He held the sink with his hands and then started making sounds from his stomach to stop something.
5 minutes later Vivek came back. Sunaina asks me “Where did you run off?” “Just went to the washroom” says Vivek.
S: You up for the 10-day party plan! I will meet you at 9 in the night.
V: As you please, my Highness.
The clock ticks 9, Vivek’s phone is buzzing! Akash asks Sunaina, “He will come do not worry!” Akash texts Vivek, “Dude you are always punctual! We are having fun man! Please! come”.
His phone is buzzing. He lay in his bead moving like a broken body, trying to soothe his pain. As he moved his legs and his head sideways a tear came out of his eye. Then he started bawling! He cried like he had never cried. Sobbing in tears, he calls his parents! His Ma picks up his phone.
M: Hye Babu!
Vivek starts crying!
M: What happened Babu? Are you crying?
Vivek cannot stop crying.
M: What happened Babu? Please tell me!
Vivek tried to speak, but could not.
M: Did somebody mistreat you, please tell me!
V: Ma….!!! Ma….!! “I need help”.
M: What helps Babu? Please tell me openly. Is somebody doing something to you? Is something wrong?
V: Everything feels bad Ma! It has been happening since school days.
M: Why did not you tell me?
V: I did not have the guts.
M: Please stay put we will get you back!
V: Please come soon!
Vivek sobs while saying this. He lay shaking and took out a piece of letter. It was written, “Open when you are ready to accept it, I neither was and never did.”
Vivek sobs and starts read.
Free your soul——War Poems
In tough times like these, it’s natural to have broken spirits and hang your head in shame. The world is definitely at war and it does not regret being in one. Here is this edition’s collection:
The terrorist label of convenience (3 parts)
Germination of a Killer
Maa said, “The times were always rough.”
Huff and Puff, I went there.
Saw things, wasn’t a dream. In many beams,
I saw the cacophony and shrill voices.
Murder! Murder! The crows cawed at the top of their lungs.
The snake’s untethering fangs were out and about,
To usurp my family and the brethren, was there anything left of us,
Hungry as savages we started eating our flesh, I did not flinch an eye.
But then I saw Ma! Lying in a pool of blood, cold warm presence,
As if she yelled in her shrill trebly voice, “Baba! Do good things.”
But Did I? Can I? After seeing things! Horrible things! Abhorrent things!
Living like a killer
“Sharjah, don’t kill him, He is just an infant, I beg of you!”
“Where was your voice when our land was taken away bit by bit?”
“In top and bottom, People Flying, digging out of mud, pushing us.”
One on one, ten on ten and hundreds, thousands, millions,
all shapeshifting crude savages pretending to be civilized, in their
own doped-up realism have to be brought down to their knees.
How can freedom and land be taken without violence, in essence, take it
and die, instead of dying without taking it.
Am I the killer?
The lopsided balance, and hazy resenting essence,
definitions are so foggy and vague, the sheen balance,
glistening in the high-rise glass building of falsehood.
Not knowing what we are made of. Do you see what I see?
I see more, I feel more, I have lost more but yet I wanna live more.
The first kill creates tension in your heart, that’s when you know,
you will die someday in a solitary reaper way, not knowing if what we did
for the nation or God is enough, We tried being tough, but we are broken,
with our hands rough, waiting to say “All ends”.
If at all the goon pretending to be a saint do not trick us into submission.
Beyond the narrative: The world is at toil today. Wars are being normalized. Revenge as stated, is becoming common at pan-national levels. Why is this happening has many layers. Throughout this episode of brutal reckoning, we also need to introspect on various notions of many things that become part of a war and why the ideas are so different between communities, regions and religions. Sometimes the evil is just a facade, whereas deep wounds lay in hearts, organs and souls.
The Shadows of Yesterday
I died,
And died again,
Bleeding many times,
Accepting many lies.
For you to not die,
For you to know better.
Further, the truth goes,
It’s covered in tar and smoke.
The gunpowder is fuming a vengeful heat.
People say beat and repeat, in hashed voices
The cries only grow louder, and louder, harder, I question why we even died,
For what? Many are still hell-bent on killing each other, pushing everyone to the vortex of time.
Chime in, save humanity, make the sounds of danger and humane calling heard, beat your drums and hum your music.
If not today, there will be no tomorrow, if there will be no tomorrow, there will be no living existence.
Inch by inch the lands are taken back, inch by inch the undiscovered lands are demanded.
Even the wounded are dying from pale skin dysmorphia. The vengeful lust for power hovers around the tower.
It is the culprit who forever and ever exists beyond the bend of time. You can try haphazardly to steal, forcing everyone to kneel
Down and brown the days simmer in the nocturnal blue, and the hazy cold bone-chilling air brushes the bodies of fallen soldiers.
Two wars, millions killed, billion dreams crushed, trillion seconds spent in agony and despair.
Quadrillion seconds spent in regret by mothers who lost their kids, young ones, their adult sons who were tricked into fighting a war that was never theirs.
Yet, I ask you, you did not learn from us. For we thought, our death was a time-bending affair. The flow of treacherous action will reverse its blow and move back to the source.
New weapons, new ways to destroy, cataclysmically point towards humanity’s soon-to-be ending demise.
Congrats on this stupendous achievement!
Warlords of the internet, a barrage that fancies war (2 parts)
Shadows speak,
Underneath masks,
Pretending as if they care.
They do care,
Splitting our hair,
Breaking head and drawing brains out,
Plough seeds of hatred in it
And fit in the musculature,
Only the designs have changed.
For he does not know,
He will never know.
Never feel the seeds of separation
As these tragedies that lay behind the curtain
Tremors of Holocaust
“Can Ezra see us?”
“Noah, can you tell me, can she see us?”
“Tell your Dad! I am going in, Tanya.”
“They got their mother’s apprentice and now she is locked in the gas chamber.”
“The chambers reek in the smell of hog’s death.”
“The mistakes have to be corrected. Kill them all, for only Aryans deserve to stay in Deutschland.”
Time can see, the weight of today!
People were mauled and beaten,
Eaten in the finitude of historicity
The oppressed becomes the oppressor,
The bait gets eaten before the destruction of identity,
In promiscuity lands being stolen bit by bit,
Inch by inch, like the wars were never happening
in other ends of the world, but then we see.
Why is everything bound to be destroyed? Is it okay?
Was settler colonialism of the Brits in the New world okay?
Of the temporary jail that made the Aboriginals hostage in,
their own country! But its sheer ignorance, and the construction
build in the facade of lies, inching bit by bit to extinction.
The farce promise of democracy
“Ali! Ali! Have you seen Iqbal?”
“I haven’t seen it Rashid, he might have gone for Namaz, it's Friday today!”
“You do not understand we will die rotting here, the shapeshifters have landed in Iraq! Things will be turned into rubble soon.”
Dreams! Dreamland, Lucid realities,
Everything has a price, perpetual synchronicity,
is a myth, give and take is a lie.
Pretenders and Marauders, even colonial stooges always,
berated the values of today! The classic case of self-aggrandisement,
covering all shades and characters, for perpetual political control.
Dipped in blood money, powering guns of the world,
the stinky being knows he is stinking, but can’t utter the word.
Shh! This is global peace. the pity is too little to mention.
For the economy, lives and people are pushed
towards a cliff to not create a hanging hand! Or lending help to a hand.
But to cut them even further! Go drop a bomb there. Come again,
Do you want the support I will give you? But can you tell me who dropped the bomb?
Do not reply I did. I am just hear to save you.
The hungry malnourished fighters
Noor! Isa said, “you were part of the liberation army, Is it true?”
“Yeah, I was? Why?”
“Why did you leave it?”
“There are warring fighters and then there are military commanders?”
“Okay!!! And!!!”
“The warring fighter are foot soldiers they fight for liberation and willingly blows themselves up. Then there are military commanders, leaders and their children go to the Kufrland and study., have a life and live in peace.”
Religion is Opium
Its essence and high is crazy,
You will trip the entire day.
You will remain high all the time.
You will fight for the bigger cause.
Never pause, listen to the sensible man.
They say the right things
Teaching you the art of killing,
Savages, ravaged in a heap of flesh.
Like meat and body all lapped up in between.
The smell of smoke and gunfire is not a pretence,
But a turn-on, the eyes cannot see, feel, and perceive.
Conceive the face of the devil behind the veil.
Hail them and kill yourself, these designs are paradoxically woven.
The Conundrum effect
This time the upheaval in paradox came from the context of war. This special poem illustrates how the kingmaker is waiting to seize the opportunity to create power vacuums during the chaos. Thus presenting to you “Chaos is a ladder.”
Chaos is a ladder
Measure the angles, the tangled connections are too timid, see beyond this structural integrity, the smell of hypocrisy spread in fumes,
The farcical perfume, which is not a smell of choice, but an imposed voice, the powerplay begins, the politics is redesigning itself.
The rabble-rousers and shapeshifters have landed and discovered new lands, new worlds, “Come and get your share?”, Master utters.
Hahaha! Can you try anymore harder? Become, faster, edgier, carrier of diseases, spread and decimate all!
No swords are needed, nor are the words needed to fight a warring state. All states are devolving, the charlatan evolving, pulling its tongue out, doing that nasty wink,
Quick the Pharoah ran, in cumbersome tan, the white skin with reddish palm, forcing the sweaty melanin coating to wash, hush and crush by the spirits of the new beings of no land.
Time to pull the bait, heaviness is the depth of duress, declare the rebels as ‘savages’. Uh! the state is so crowded.
They breed like rats, let them rot in famines, in multiple streams, their echoes float in drops of blood killed unarmed by the civilizational thief.
Run, the world is ours, you take west, we take east, “Convert these hoodlums and savages, once and for all.” Our world of haphazard religiosity is the ultimate truth.
Did you say brute measure? Where lay the treasure, Is it fear that is here? Crossing the lanes lit by boisterous glare!
The darkness masquerading in mediocrity the world clashes with choices, forces beyond someone’s kin, and the intelligent man ruled the world.
Oh really, “Is that intelligence you say?” I carry the marks you lay! All cataclysm is bereft of meaningful substance. Gunpowder killers are not winners.
The sad thing is, the bad is yet to conquer even generations later, in the name of dubious democratic dreams, the civilizational thieves have killed all,
Ravaged nations, duplicitous aspirations, and geared notions, all unstoppable for an unforeseen parable to be solved and ended,
In dread, the voices look somewhere if at all there is someone somewhere, in attributes all the bodies lay dug deep!
Like the children buried feeling the weight of their kin. They are gone, their families lying in the length and breadth of their land, just buried deep within in the form of microorganisms.
Hence, we come to the end of our newsletter, do share your opinions, ideas and experiences reading this, what floats your boat and what did not? Do share and tell.