Two Drops of Freedom

walk a road downtown,

mind's play, a fleeting glimpse.

two sides of roads untouched,

carry the warm feet ahead.

follow the road they say,

where to, who to,

they fail to say.

try to plot a murderous fling,

so long it went, unseen.

now the clock turns, the bells chime,

call out to the feet, to stop, to ride

the waves as they go,

but there are so many, the feet cringe

meet the stones, the sand,

stuck in the grace of chaos,

meet the guile, the wicked smile.

lose their balance and trip and fall.

why do they walk i say, 

why shouldn't they walk you say, 

why shouldn't they walk i say.

trace the ghoulish path,

they walk on,

 leave you behind,

leave them behind,

they go on, 

not the waves not the stones, 

mark a road of their own.

where it takes them?

to my pride, walk ahead .
walk away and out of sight.

blue and white

fire in water, unusual sight.

sand in hair, salt in eyes

blind the blue, and distort the green.

take it in, the sand in your feet.

its the brine that stings, the calm flutters.

the stony rocks and the pious sea, 

blend together like sandy fingers.

and create electricity.

the sea cringes, the stone ever sturdy

creeps slowly to etrust the feel.

it is a langorous cow, an attentive tigress,

drowns the stone and leaves it bare.

caresses and drenches, both alike.

When I give the Word.

I was taking my daily walk with a friend, biting into the delicious chocolate frostik, when suddenly she said something and i replied pretty dramatically with a few heavy words here and there. She stood there and stared at me for a second, giving me a 'what the hell is wrong with you' look. i said, "well, I'm a writer, I'm allowed such things." I've never refered to myself as a writer ever before, and i doubt i can for atleast another 5 years. But that one comment led me to think, why at all, did I say that. Well now, I'm not particularly a boaster, nor do i actually think of myself as such ( does this comment make me one?).I do not do cool things like play an instrument, dance all those complicated dance forms, click away to glory with an expensive DSLR, or play with colours and preserve a view on canvas. I want to confess though I take pride in calling myself a writer. She asked me, "dude, how can anybody write, I mean why do you write at all".

Well, here goes. I SUCK at expressing myself, I think writing covers that area. Or so it should. Apart from that, it opens a completely new world of possibilities. You can be anything, say anything for or against anyone, and they'll be reading your blog liking it. That is the power of the Word. When Written properly it has power to move nations. Gandhi, long back used this and sent a letter to Hitler. Martin Luther King made extensive use of it, so did a certain bored female who had nothing better to do. writing is actually a very twisted thing, its like wet clay, mould it in anything you want. If read carefully, it can probably map the writer's brain right in front of you.  It is like an eternal private joke with yourself (yea that's forever alone talk). Anyway, imagine the power one can get, by merely twisting words.

Also, to a writer, it doesn't really matter whether people like what they write, because if you start writing for yourself, you don't care. People might have different reasons for writing, some really serious ones, some for soul searching, some also to wile away time. Me? I don't have any such fancy motives. No i don't want to take over the world, I'm not a lonely little girl in a big bad world, nor do I have to put across a message that will make your life easier, reader.
I'm just,Me. I am Shivani Bansal, and Writing makes me happy.

The Mighty Me

I walked the sea of red,  shrouded by the gold gleam,

The weight upon my head, bore me down every second I stepped.

The sceptre in my hand, and the velvet coat,

Followed the girl in white, as she swung her flaxen rope.

Dropped to the chest of the man I felled,

Her eyes pouring down on me, with diamonds of grief.

Did the right thing, I took 20 heads

 my kingdom, grateful.

Her eyes took mine, and held them like gravity

Told me a hundered stories with but a single drop,

Caressing her cheek.

Slowly slid her hand to her father’s side,

Touched the hilt and made it pure.

The sabre kissed her neck as she made rubies.

The rings I bore, the pride.

I watched it settle to a pebble sitting there.

As she gave her head, she took mine,

Buried it 6 feet under, and shamed.

I drank that night, the elixir drinking me,

Saw her eyes, as they bore into the stone I had in me.

Pierced it like the sword at my hip,

Gleamed like the gems I had.

I took to white, at the sacred ground, bowed my head.

Walking the path of destiny, years after I gave up my stones.

I saw her, the girl in white, looking down upon me.

Stabbing me with her eyes, tearing down

The Mighty Me.

Giant of The Sea

She fell down the rabbit hole,

 scraping her arms against the wall.

In over her head, she couldn’t find a way,

That’d lead her closer to the ray,

Of the giggling sunlight that bounced off the water,

That reflected off the scales of the Giant of The Seas.

With a seductive eye, he laid upon her,

The venom rushed through her like exhilaration.

She’d fall from the skies into his arms,

Be lashed and bloodied, her mane flowing,

Like water on her shoulders, and velvet on his face,

She’d fall towards him and into his arms.

She saw the sights, of a story untold,

As she fell down the bottomless hole,

She saw the things of past before, of things that might,

Again behold, the sight of her falling ashore,

Near the light she thought she’d be,

Into the arms of The Giant of The Sea.

My world or yours.

It is a town that you'll probably read on the back of a Hindustan lever product, like an outlet, and forget as soon as you graduate to the ingredients or even before. I don't know. But its a town where hundreds of girls in a hijab are educated. A town where by the chandragiri river 5 college going students would sit on the shore, under the bridge, and throw stones in the water. A place rightfully called the 'God's own country' houses such a town called Kasaragod. It has open fields where the grazing cows are disturbed by the nonchalant kids playing cricket. A place where you find houses of all possible colours and sizes, a place, a reflection of modern India where a small town life and city life goes on parallely. Where people are willing to help random strangers accustomed to concrete jungles cross the real ones in slippers. Where coconuts and big mansions are a daily sight. A state, longitudinaly located at the shores of the Arabian sea, kerala has two main sects of people. Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. Now this is a very abstract distinction that I could make to know better about the state as a whole. The town, Kasaragod, redefines simplicity as never before. It almost makes you wonder what if you were in place of a random stranger you see walking on the road, going to school. How different would life be. Its almost amazing to think how precisely things work out for people, because even one little change could lead to completely different life journey with new goals and accomplishments. With new concerns, contexts, worries and personalities. But here I am sitting in an air conditioned innova, with headphones on, writing this, rather than that girl in a hijab with a packet from a grocery shop , walking home and wondering about what to cook for the night.
This in a sense leads of to conclude that people live in their own heads. Every single person has a different world and different perception towards life. It is difficult to understand because of its large magnitude, in terms of the whole world. But then again, our brains can only process so much. Or can it?

Into the night

Im here, on my way back home from manipal and I just crossed a place called ansoti, which probably doesn’t even figure on the map. Frankly I’ve had a history with trains, when I was a kid and a train would come on the platform I would be amused how I felt that I was moving and train wasn’t. Then physics happened and I realized that it wasn’t something magical about me, but something called relative velocity. Then came a time when, whenever a train came on a platform it was time for vacations to end and it was time to go back to hostel. Back to my friends, back to what we called ‘central jail’ but wept like, well girls, when we left. Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya.

Then came a phase when the whole meaning of travelling in trains changed for me. It stopped meaning what it usually does and became travelling in locals in Mumbai. It meant fighting for place to stand even when there were seats available(who am I kidding-they usually weren’t).It meant hanging out of the doors and reaching the destination in one piece, it meant earrings for Rs.5 and vada pav for another 5.

Trains have always brought about a rush of memories to me, and at the same time, creating new ones- real and hypothetical. Now, when I sit in one, I realize how miniscule I am, there are so many different lives, so many different peoples and their own different world who come and travel together. When I was a kid, at the end of a journey I would probably have made friends with people in mine and next two compartments. Now,  here I am, sitting on my own little berth and writing. Trains are like an intersection of so many lives completely different from each other. It is that common point where everyone exists in equilibrium with others. They have different backgrounds, different reasons to travel, different destinations, but at that point they learn to co-exist. That is human nature, I think under all the fights and everything we are as ONE. We are like grass blades, separated at the tip, but conjoined at the very root.