Btlk-like

It was a pleasure to write with you Julie! (@julesgems) :))

Growing Up

You are three asking your mother when will you be four / You are four and full of life and cartwheels / You are five and love everything other than the unbearably flashy rhinestone dress / You are six and scrawny which also translates to being an easy target to bullies / You are six and you befriend the guy who locked you in the playground because he wanted to see a little girl cry but instead, you climbed over a wall three times higher than you / You laughed in his face as his friends ran away, scared of a little girl kicking their asses / Why am I always small? Why do I always have to be strong? / You are seven and great at skating / You are seven and you used the word upside-down when reading Tom Sawyer and you are so proud of yourself for knowing it / You are eight and love life / You are eight and you love life / You are eight and love life / You are eight and you love books and travel and that one time you walked out of the train station when dawn was just breaking / You saw the prettiest sky of your life; a sky so blue and so dark and so light that it stole the drowsiness right from your eyes / I know you still wake up early in hopes that the sky will one day walk down the memory lane with you / You are nine and you swear the house is so big you will get lost here / You imagine playing hide and seek for hours on end here; swear that you almost forgot where the rooms go / You are ten and the house is not so big anymore / It is full of life and things / You are always somewhere / There is a summer there I spent visiting the hospital / I don’t quite remember now / Hospitals sometimes start to feel like home now / Eleven is a happy blur: I love everyone and everyone loves me / Eleven is happiness: I knew everyone and everyone admired me / Twelve is blue and black; there were moments I lived through that I never knew I would miss / Thirteen is a lot of carrying friendships I don’t like / Fourteen is a lot of sighs of relief; of friendships left behind and the year of growing before everything goes to shit / Fifteen is a lot of fun and not remembering things that hurt us; things that haunt us / Fifteen is fun and shenanigans with newfound friends you like enough / Sixteen is hard work / Sixteen is a lot of fighting and sometimes fun / Sixteen is for the bitch face and cuts / Sixteen is a lot of wondering what you’ve become / Sixteen is fake friends and smiles which will ruin you / Sixteen is the year of silly crushes on boys who think the world revolves around them / Sixteen is a lot of “I am almost an adult” / Sixteen is for parties and the time your life was as perfect as those IT kids in the movies / Sixteen is a lot of cold air on your face and feeling this city become home / Seventeen is for survival / Seventeen is for keeping your head down / Seventeen is for breakdowns / Seventeen is the time you snap and take a stand / Seventeen is having your own back / Seventeen is very alone but that’s okay / Seventeen is a lot of cussing and spiraling / Seventeen is for the nightmares / Seventeen is for closures / Seventeen is survival / Seventeen is for the big fuck you which is never said / Seventeen is for winning / Seventeen is for winning / Seventeen is so many goddamn wins / Seventeen is a big fuck you that escapes as a smile / Eighteen is relief / Eighteen is the growing up that sneaks up on you / Eighteen is acceptance / Eighteen is so much happiness / Eighteen is how everything is okay and everything is home / Eighteen is the year of being childish and loving it / Eighteen is a lot of love and happiness / Eighteen is a goddamn dream / Eighteen is doing everything you love and telling it to its face / Eighteen is dreams come true / Eighteen is growing up and growing up and being okay with it / Eighteen leaves with patience / Eighteen is a lot of learning to stay / Eighteen is fading yet forever / I am always going to be eighteen in some parts /

Please don't let the government or anyone erase any more of history. It is on you. You have a responsibility.

EDUCATE YOURSELF.

Be neutral for long enough to realise that perhaps you are in the wrong.

Form educated opinions which are backed up by facts.

Try reliable sources and if reliable sources fail you, try to gain perspective from different ones.

If you don't know enough to have an opinion, SAY SO. Don't just sprout some bullshit to sound intelligent, you don't. You sound ignorant and hateful. When did it become wrong to just admit that you don't have enough information to form a well educated opinion?

When in doubt, always take the stance which doesn't undermine a person's life or belief or belittle them or discriminate against them.

Burning

Love Birds (but like the Love is real and pure)

Desi Dark Academia

Wears Chicken embroidery Kurtas with pants to give the perfect combination of modern and traditional

Long, long haired women who always wear a braid to keep it out of their way

Glasses. Simple glasses. Removing them makes you look like a different person. Fuck contact lenses, you say

Have read The Mahabharata, The Bhagvad Gita, The Ramayana multiple times and analysed it to the point you know it better than your grandmother.

The stories of Akbar Birbal are a vivid part of your childhood

STEM students with an intense knowledge of history

Historical monuments splayed in ALL cities with their own history and stories

Havelis with squatters living in them

Villages.

Being Bilingual since birth, sometimes even knowing three languages before you enter primary school.

Your mother sitting you down, oiling your hair on Saturdays and braiding it for you

Your mother's gold bangles, which she got from her mother and will eventually be yours.

Mehndi. Weddings and Festivals which leave but intricate Mehndi designs that linger on women's hands for a while. Or your mother putting Mehndi in her hair because fuck chemical colors.

Haldi. Haldi is everything.

Your family cures and recipes.

KADAAS. Bitter Kaadas with herbs and spices that your maa, amma/daadi or nani forces you to drink because they're good for your health

Chai is the first thing in the morning. Or the last one at night. The calm that washes over you when you're in the midst of a late night study session as you make yourself a cup of chai in the middle of the night. Quietly, because everyone else is asleep.

I want to write a poem for you

so I did this thing awhile back and it’s been a hot minute, so I’m restarting it

Reblog this post and I will stalk your tumblr and write a poem based on your aesthetic

The first memory I have of this town

Is of wanting to leave-

To stand in a place and know you do not belong;

Scratch that.

I remember rain like I remember birth.

I remember puddle jumping in pristine clothes and

Trying to remember things I have long forgotten.

I forgot the light, I forgot existence.

But this? This I remember.

I remember the streets I walked all the way back home, aching;

I remember the loss of that day;

I remember feeling unbridled joy

Of the very next at the glorious win.

I remember screaming songs LOUD

With my best friend on our way to school,

Our own voices echoing in our heads

Like we were masters of a world

That did not exist just yet.

I remember the sneaking out of practice

To meet someone I hadn't seen in months;

I remember not being able to

Lift myself up from the bed

With a body so intact you'd think

I hadn't ever lived through a day.

I remember running miles

On a broken foot,

I remember swimming through all of this dread on broken toes.

I remember punching holes in walls and staring back at hands that were still hands.

Not god, not the powdered dust of my bones yet;

I remember broken knuckles but an intact heart.

I remember thinking I will never be able to get out

And I remember not wanting to leave.

I remember the solace in coming back,

Coming back after days, weeks or months.

I remember coming back.

I remember grocery store chains

And drunken new years';

I remember being 16 and staying up all night

To watch the sun rise; it rained that day.

I remember walking out of the train station,

Rubbing the drowsiness out of my eyes at age 6

And seeing the most gorgeous sky

Like it was yesterday.

I still wake up in hopes of a morning the sky looked that gorgeous.

No. I think I forgot.

I see the city change herself and she has parts I do not recognise sometimes.

I remember coming back to her like I remember birth. Not so much as a definite event

But as something that happened.

She will be here,

Smiling.

A.G.