Chaicopy In the Meantime Vol 3 Issue 2 Nov 2019

An MCH Literary Journal

In the Meantime

Vol. III | Issue II | November 2019

An MCH Literary Journal

In The Meantime

Vol. III | Issue II | November 2019

Chaicopy Vol. III | Issue II | November 2019 Published by MCH Literary Club Manipal Centre for Humanities, Manipal, Karnataka-576104 Only the copyright for this collection is reserved with Chaicopy.

Individual copyright for artwork, prose, poetry, fiction and extracts of novels and other volumes published in this issue of the magazine rests solely with the authors. The magazine does not claim any of those for its own. No part of this publication may be copied without express written permission from the copyright holders in each case. The magazine is freely circulated on the World Wide Web. It may not be sold or hired out in its digital form to anybody by any agency whatsoever. All disputes are subject to jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic of India. Š Chaicopy, 2019 Cover Art - Meghana Injeti Cover Design - Sre Ratha Layout and Page Setting - Sre Ratha Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief: Gauri Sawant and Elishia Vaz Fiction & Poetry Team: Jannet Johny, Laya Kumar, Madhura Kar, Sailza Kumari, Shweta Anand, Krutika Patel, Amulya Raghavan, Serene George, Sonia Sali, Francecsca Fowler Non-Fiction Team: Divya K.B., Pavan Kumar, Siddharth Thakeria, Bidisha Mitra, Ajantha Rao, Visual Art Team: Meghali Banerjee, Pavithra S. Kumar, Aditi Paul, Kalyani Nandagopal Design Team: Sre Ratha, Dyuti Ramesh, Ganga Niranjan P. R. Team: Brinda Mukherjee, Sania Lekshmi, Sadhvi Hegde

Editorial Dear Reader, The theme that we picked for this issue ‘In the Meantime,’ is one that our team ideated several months before we began working on it. This is the sixth issue of Chaicopy and we stand before you with an issue that is dedicated to the journey of this literary journal, across multiple issues and to all the editors and contributors etched in its collective memory. We map the journey of Chaicopy so far, even as we look forward to many more issues to come. We stand in between, in the interstices of time and content and our contributors engage with the same.

In this issue, we play with memory, with journeys and direct the spotlight onto those spatial and time-bound events that are often unarticulated and overlooked. In our section Chai Expressions, Serene George paints a vivid affective and sensory image of the seemingly mundane everyday in her piece titled ‘The Flower Boy’. We find that flowers frame and map these intervening in-between spaces as Aekta Khubchandani deconstructs life events recorded in memory and titles it ‘let’s find a tiny spot to grow flowers.’

It is the very essence of time and the interstitial political moments that we assessed as we conversed with Dr. Shilpa Phadke about how women use subterfuge to claim fun in an era where public spaces are politically written off as unsafe. Dr. Shilpa, a Sociologist and co-author of the noted book Why Loiter visited Manipal Centre for Humanities on 10th October, 2019 to deliver a lecture on ‘Defending Frivolous Fun.’ We follow this engaging interview with Sonia Sali’s delightful piece ‘A Reason on the Banks’ which trails the meantime, dwells in it, mulls over it, and travels alongside it as it journeys through a very self-aware pathway. The piece is interwoven with multiple surprises in terms of both its unfolding and its structure.

Even as our words evoke imagery, our Visual Art section curates

time through art pieces and photographs. Our Visual Art contributor yet stable hourglass that graces our cover.

We go beyond limiting ourselves to only expressing our gratitude to the contributors. A string of meaningful acknowledgements are rightfully due also to the Manipal Centre for Humanities (MCH). The Centre, over the years, has nurtured and supervised its students’ growth no less in the creative and extracurricular world than in academia. MCH has never been averse to students envisaging ways and manners that could juxtapose and draw closer to each other the diversity that is alive and discernible within its walls.

We also take this opportune moment to thank everybody who helped us, and at times, each other, to make ‘In the Meantime’ a breathing reality. This particular Chaicopy issue is indebted to the incumbent Chaicopy team members for helping the amorphous ‘meantime’ vocalize itself through words and images. Through the process of ideating and curating, to assembling and compiling, we always had in mind the people who avidly supported us. We would like to thank Dr. Ashokan Nambiar, for being accessible and supportive during our own skeptical moments. A heartfelt note of thanks to Dr. Gayathri Prabhu for guiding the curation of the issue over the years and then undoubtedly trusting us with its future. We unreservedly thank Dr. Nikhil Govind, Director, MCH, for ascertaining that there remains an avenue at the Centre whereby the students can express their most personal musings, and do so undauntedly.

This is the first issue that we are curating as Editors, and our experience, so far, has been nothing but a fitting combination of being nervously eager and eagerly nervous. We wish to improve in the near future and make Chaicopy a flourishing journal that is here to stay.

We hope we’ve curated something that you, dear reader, will have fun reading and fortunately, re-reading!

Warmly, Elishia Vaz and Gauri Sawant

Ingredients Chai Expressions The Flower Boy | Fiction | 3 Serene George The Elevator Ride | Fiction | 4-6 Siddhartha Krishna I AND AM | Poetry | 7-8 Esther Shekinah Collins Bedtime Tales | Fiction | 9-10 Serene George No. | Poetry | 11 Amina Vidha daughter of the mountain house | Fiction | 12-15 Uma Padmasola let's find a tiny spot to grow flowers | Fiction | 16 Aekta Khubchandani Ash | Fiction | 17-18 Shreya Srivastava MID AIR MADNESS | Poetry | 19-20 Sudha Vidyasagar elsewhere | Poetry | 21-22 Aekta Khubchandani

Turning Pages | Poetry | 23-24 Drishti Soni Through the Momentous and the Minute | Fiction | 25-26 Ekasmayi Naresh Senseless | Fiction | 27-33 Drishti Soni

Kaapi Sessions Frovolous Fun "In the Meantime' : An interview with Dr. Shilpa Phadke| Interview | 36-42 Serene George, Gauri Sawant, Elishia Vaz A REASON ON THE BANKS | Memoir | 43-45 Sonia Sali

Visual Art Meantime | Visual Art | 47 Riya Nagendra Work in Progress | Visual Art | 48 Cityscape | Visual Art | 49 Superbird | Visual Art | 50 Vidhya Gokhe Hypnagogic | Visual Art | 51 Metamorphosis | Visual Art | 52 Meghna Injeti

Soliloquies of a lonlely house | Visual Art | 53 As one listens to the Rain | Visual Art | 54 Jaqueline Williams The Contributors | 56-59 The Teatotallers | 60-65

Chai Expressions

The Flower Boy Serene George

The sun was weighing down the air, rubbing its warm underbelly on the land, stirring up waves of heat and dust. There was just enough shade under the scrawny tree for the flowers to be covered. The mat ruffles, the saccharine smell of marigolds rise into the smell of burnt tyres of dusty buses. The flower boy’s sturdy hands grip the white cup of boiled corn, his smile brilliant in the sun, patting down the ground for his friend.

His friend nudges the roses, flips the stringed jasmine and they squivel their spoons into the cups, laugh, spray the roses, each other, and push the corn around, squirm a bit towards each other and then towards the flower. The wheel blatantly pushes into the edge of the mat, steering open the scorching, ugly gut of the car. The boy nimbly lifts the marigolds smiling up at the bald head stuck out with an appeasing smile and wave of a hand. He twists the garland into circled heaps, nudges the roses, smiles at his friend and moves his corn around.

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The Elevator Ride Siddhartha Krishna

Nick stood alone, waiting for the end of his journey in what he thought of as a vertically moving metal coffin. Just two minutes left, he told himself, in two minutes I’ll only have my dozen other irrational fears to worry about.

Pop music, that was only popular about six months ago, covered the otherwise eerie silence. ‘6’ said the sign above the door. Nick stared at the sign counting the seconds. “Come on,” he said, trying to will it to turn to ‘7’. Many of his friends had told him that this wouldn’t make elevator rides any more pleasant but he preferred to stare the lift down and discourage any funny business.

He had to endure the dull box every single day to go to his office. All the while, the annoying music played, the motion unsettled him and the mirror on the back wall presented an affront to his intelligence. You really think a cheap illusion of extended space will deter my fears of the walls closing in around me? Well, THINK AGAIN, he addressed the elevator’s designers. He could imagine them patting each other on the back for managing to make everyone’s lives just a little bit worse.

“If it’s really so bad why don’t you just take the stairs?” his friend had asked.

“Laziness always trumps desperation,” he’d said in the hopes of annoying her enough to change the subject.

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In the Meantime

“Forget I even asked,” she chided herself and moved on.

While the elevator inched upwards, he thought about Zeno’s turtle paradox. But before he could visualize the small eternity that had passed, the elevator dinged characteristically and a girl his age walked in. She was wearing a Doctor Who T-shirt, presumably to one of those ‘modern’ work-spaces where they have newfangled notions such as ‘mandatory informal attire’, ‘napping spots’ and ‘job security’.

The lift continued moving upwards and he started staring right at the door, in accordance with unspoken elevator etiquette and subtly tried to look at the girl. He recognized her as the girl he’d been trying to talk to for weeks.

This is my best chance yet to talk to the cute and nerdy girl from the office and it’s right when I’m sweating profusely. How ironic! he thought.

You’re not using irony right, a voice chimed from a corner of his mind.

Not a good time, Pedant Voice!, he told himself.

The voice got cross with him and mumbled to itself before shutting up. Where was I? Oh yes, the girl that loves Doctor Who, he said to himself, wordlessly. I should talk to her, finally find out what her name is.

I should start with a joke. I’ll say “I wish this elevator was bigger on the inside.” He grinned and exhaled sharply. That would explain my claustrophobia and my charming sense of humour.

The girl showed a slight smile as if to say: “I wonder what the sweaty guy is thinking about”.

After that, there’ll be a small talk void and I’d have to ask her something mundane, he continued, Slowly we’ll get to talking about our interests and passions and the interpersonal walls will begin to melt away.

We’ll date for a few years. Then she’ll get a job offer in another country and move away. Long distance never works.

A few decades later we’ll get together again and buy a small house in a remote town. We’ll have some kids and they’ll grow up and move out.

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We’ll get ready to live out the rest of our days before the world is rendered uninhabitable by an impending apocalypse. That’s when she’ll finally realize how pathetic a person I am and she’ll leave me.

This will send me down a path of darkness to become a truly terrible person.

The kind of person who would stand facing the back of the elevator just to make everyone uncomfortable.

After a few years and some misadventures with a ragtag team of time-travellers that I’ll unintentionally befriend, I’ll be back at this moment trying to stop myself from meeting her. I’ll be senile, exhausted and indecisive, wondering if I should undo a lot of good moments just to avoid some heartache, wondering if I should just live with it. I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’VE DONE WITH MY LIFE. I’M TOO OLD FOR THIS. 83 YEAR OLD MEN CAN’T KEEP TIME-TRAVELING. WHAT AM I GO… The elevator dinged for the 20th floor and the girl walked out. m Nick was suddenly wrenched back into reality and before he could finish processing what had just happened, the elevator dinged again.

Huh, I’m at my floor already, he thought as he walked out and prepared himself for another day at work.

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In the Meantime

I AND AM Esther Shekinah Collins

In the meantime, trying to swirl the twirled lobes of my brain, Hunting down the grey ashes of my trauma in the gray matter, Trying to think and ink my thoughts of blue.

The rift between feeling externally connected and internally devastated.

The Space between the foundation and my skin, the Space between the jamming of my double chin and the helmet strap, the Space between my teeth, and its gaps, The Gap between the slimming belt and my waist, The Gap between my feet, and the five-inch heel of my sandals, The Gap between my quest, and the question, the Infinite distance between ME and me.

The ones who were familiar turned into liars, The void between Ever and Lasting, I tried to sport and port my feelings, the painkillers failed to seep into my flesh.

The distance between the failure, and my ailment, Where everything falls down, though it was up and set, never thought it would upset me.

Trying to muster all of me and call people, who said they would be by my side, they shot me with a bullet of betrayal.

An Ocean of emptiness dressing my heart, 7

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vehemently trying to tear down the nerves of my Iris, just to pour out my agony.

Momentarily the blood rushes to the veins of my eyes, the eyes blush in pink, curve springs in my face, cheerfully resonating that the eyeballs are pink and not dusky.

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In the Meantime

Bedtime Tales Serene George

(For Elikutty)

“Tell me again,” the young nun asks, pulling her knees to her chest, her navy habit sways, spilling over the edge of the bed. Four more faces settle, resigned, all at the edge of the bed facing the old man.

“Yes. Once more.” the other nun nods wearily, her fingers smoothing the edge of her veil. The old man keeps making his bed.

“What is there to say?” he replies. “She was complaining her chest was stuffy.”

“As she always does.” the weary nun murmurs.

“We had just come back from the town doctor and it was midnight”, he says, holding up his young grandson. “She couldn’t sleep. So I made her some black coffee. I fell asleep and then it was morning.”

The aunt at the doorway nods, “He called me. It was over by then so we didn’t go to town again.”

The nuns nod. They had the same eyes.

The grandson wiggles out of his grandfather’s hold towards the window by the bed.

“She still could have been taken. You never know”, the young nun softly repeats.

“They would only chain her to some machines telling us she’s alive and charge you for every pump of oxygen for a couple of months. I know this,” the weary nun says.

“Imagine if she was bedridden. It was a great blessing from God. With all that fat in her body and your aunt’s bad knees?” the old man says, shaking his head in dread.

“She would have started rotting in a week,” the weary nun murmurs, “I know this.”

“Two hours would be enough. She used to stink before she came here,” 9

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the young nun says.

They all nod.

The grandson knocks over the glass of dentures at the windowsill, the water spreading into the carpet. His mother gets up from the bed, pulling him out of the room quickly, hissing at him. The young nun picks up the dentures and places them on the windowsill. The second aunt comes in from the kitchen with a cloth, wiping up the remaining water.

“Sit, sister,” the weary nun says, moving to the corner of the bed. The second aunt settles down on the bed facing the old man’s bed.

The young nun pulls her knees to her chest.

“Father, I was not here,” the second aunt says, “Tell me again.” ***

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In the Meantime

No. Amina Vidha

No. I have a prismatic perception they say, At this, I grin.

The story runs through my mind.

The dark room and the 120 cursed days, The days when my innocence shattered and disappeared.

The act of the monster who fingered my confidence in consent out, The starvation in the eyes of the monster that seemed to unceasingly treat me as if I were a meal, The act of the monster ripping out my belief in the power of the syllable - no.

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daughter of the mountain house Uma Padmasola

The picture stood inside the glass-fronted cabinet, propped up against the back. Vishnu lay on Vasuki, his head propped up by his elbow.

Lakshmi pressed his feet, as usual.

Gradually they faded, fogged by my breath. I streaked blurs behind me with my nose and palms as I moved from picture to picture. I liked the male gods. Their eyes always had that languorous, half-lidded look that was so alluring.

Shiva was my favourite by default. I was named after his wife, after all. I lingered by him and allowed myself to be drawn in by his intensity and destruction. Bad boys for the win.

Then I came to the picture of Tatamma. She was also framed and propped up and garlanded like all the others. I wondered if she was a god now. I leaned against the glass, my nose the point of all the pressure and decided she wasn’t any fun anymore either way.

She used to be fun. She’d sing me songs about Krishna, “Utti meeda paalu perugu”, curving her arms towards the ceiling while I wondered how Krishna ate so much butter without feeling sick. He got away with so much. So what if he was a god? Wasn’t he born as a human? (This was always a point of confusion for me. Wasn’t Sati human? But she was a goddess too.) It wasn’t fair.

I was curious about Tatamma’s head. I knew it was shaved, but I wanted to see.

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In the Meantime

In the middle of the night, when I had to pee, I’d pass by her (her bed was in the living room). She didn’t sleep much. She’d be sitting up, fingering a rosary and murmuring.

But she changed. I can’t pinpoint when because it wasn’t sudden. She just sat on her sofa in front of the TV and didn’t move or speak. Most of the time, she didn’t seem to understand when people spoke to her. She stopped realizing when she had to go to the bathroom, so she was made to wear adult diapers. She couldn’t eat by herself, and when spoon-fed she’d hold the food in her cheeks like babies do. So she was yelled at.

But sometimes she understood that she was being yelled at, if nothing else, and her eyes would well up.

She just sat in front of her sofa and the TV would be tuned in to Telugu movies with goondas fighting it out in there and I’d be angry. Because she used to forget that what happened on TV wasn’t real, and what if that happened now?

She still didn’t sleep much, but whenever she got a sudden burst of energy she’d traipse through the house at night. She’d come to my room too and I’d wake up. But I wouldn’t be frightened by the sight of her at the doorway, even though she was clothed completely in white and the years had blanched her skin and bleached her eyelashes.

I went to Nanamma and asked her, “Vishnu’s always having his legs pressed. Do his legs ache?”

She laughed a lot, cuddled me, and went and told everyone in the family what I’d said but she didn’t answer my question.

While Mummy was having her afternoon nap, I sailed into her room and cradled her arm, pretending it was my baby brother. I did this every afternoon and it annoyed her but she’d gotten used to it. Inevitably, though, after a point she’d had enough and shooed me away.

I wandered around our compound, a stretch of cement that was the driveway, surrounded by cobblestones and trees. I amused myself for a 13

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while tiptoeing along the raised edge of the driveway, making my balance more precarious on purpose.

Our house was an independent bungalow in Banjara Hills. I stood at the wrought iron gates, curling my fingers through it like claws, like children do to barbed wire in magazine photos. But the traffic up here at this time, peak noon, wasn’t often enough to distract me. I rattled the gates and made faces at Vijay, who was our security guard when he wasn’t being our driver. He told me to fetch the car keys. I brought them, holding the ring pinched between thumb and forefinger, my arm stretched out to keep them away from my body. I hated that the keys swung so much while I walked. He picked his ear with them, I’d seen him at it and I didn’t want them to touch me.

He put out his palm behind the gate. I just stood there. He sighed loudly, squeezing his arm through a gap in the swirls of iron and put his palm out. I dropped the keys into them gingerly. He swiped at me then and I ducked away and ran, sticking my tongue out at him. The gates groaned as his weight was on them momentarily. It wasn’t a playful swipe, but partly authoritative like when the adults at home smacked me on the head when I said or did something they didn’t like and partly it was like he wanted to get at me.

I ran to the servants’ outhouse. The maid’s little boy was toddling around outside. I called him to me and squished his cheeks. His knuckles were dimples in his pudgy hand; even his elbow was one big dimple. I decided he was the perfect baby brother and I skipped around him while he took unwieldy steps. Then I squished his cheeks again, and a shadow fell over us.

I looked up at Nanamma. She frowned very deep, to convey severity and told me not to touch him or play with him. “Why, why, why,” I whined and jumped on the spot, flapping my hands at her in frustration.

I went indoors, dragging my feet disconsolately along the marble floor.

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In the Meantime

Mummy was awake and on the phone. “No, you know, I feel the mother is partly to blame. Why do they leave their children alone with them, I don’t understand. You know I never let my kid go alone with the driver.

Being at home, why should she send her kid alone with him you tell me?”

“Mummy, I want a brother,’’ I drawled out loudly, slouching and letting my head loll back. She shushed me and blinked sideways, her frown-of-emphasis relaxed. “Yes. Yes, I’ll send her. A new pattu parkani I got stitched for her just last month. Purple-blue double shade with silver zari.”

I squealed as I was picked up from behind. Mummy shushed me. “Do you hear that?” Nanamma’s voice sounded, overly excited in my ear.

“You’re invited to the Kumari Puja!”

I wriggled and whined, “I don’t want to go for the puja.” Mummy placed her hand over the receiver and said, “They’ll be doing puja to you.”

I writhed feverishly and Nanamma was forced to release me. I darted, yelping to the glass-fronted cabinet. I strutted in front of Shiva, who was showing off his shapely legs. “I’m a goddess.” I knew it, all along. I didn’t need him to make me one. My picture filled the pane, filled the cabinet-wood-walled frame and moved. Unlike the gods in the walls, I could do things.

I bounded to the outhouse where my baby brother was still walking his wannabe-walk. I felt an exhilarating conviction that I could lift him, maybe even bounce him.

I hoisted him up. My slight hip didn’t suffice to balance him on, so I wrapped my arms around his chest, strapping him to my chest. “I’m a goddess,” I said to his downy head.

A shadow fell over us. Nanamma smacked me upside the head, and I dropped him.

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let’s find a tiny spot to grow flowers Aekta Khubchandani

You’re (too) sweet at 16, gradually bitter by 18, at 21 you’re adulterated, your tongue well versed with an alcoholic dictionary. (At 9, you planted sprouts seeds on a bed of damp cotton. You smiled from your eyes, gingerly). At 24, you’re friends with 30, 40 and 50. You see yourself in all of them— taking life lightly, they’ve let loose, they’re happy, sometimes, aimless, with cats and lovers, seldom partners. (At 13, you had forgotten about germination and growth, you didn’t wake up to water your plant).

You meet a man. He’s someone’s father. You have the conversation that you should have had with your dad. You meet a woman who feeds you cashews and apricots before you sip on coffee. In an island on Goa (with mornings of countless plants and trees) you call them your family.

I wonder if we are adults when we’ve tasted too much skin, know bad touch from good, good from bad, know touch from an arm’s distance.

Elbows make dents through rib cages, you’ll question gentle pecks and head rubs. The best part of drunk kissing is kissing. The sad part is being drunk, ‘cause you can’t taste the kiss when you’re hungover. The sun is a warm cake, baking softly on the seashore. It’s low tide. There’s wind in your hair, you are this feeling- neither too little nor too much, floating and standstill. Days become nights, you go nowhere.

They say that memory changes shape every time we visit it. Can we change how our bruises look- have patches of us with plants or (at least) a bouquet of branches, instead? Flowers grow anywhere.

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In the Meantime

Ash Shreya Srivastava

Ash. There was never a problem with ash. She had always savoured the surface of a mossy wall or a tree that sported in stark melancholic misery, the victories of algal growth against her back when she had to light a hundred thousand carcinogens and give in to momentary elation. Elated moments rather. The smoke, the wind would carry the ash away. And you could always find moss in that city. Trees, walls, parapets, bodies of humans. Anywhere you would lean, you would find a dense saprophytic-photosynthetic potpourri of life growing abominably in all directions akin to vertical tumours. That reminded her. Smoking causes cancer. But in the meantime, what could she do. Every time, she realized, she had acquired a wretched spell of the past, of a scarred self-esteem, a broken period between two periods, of accepting linear standards, of giving in to solitary temptations, of dirty nauseating memories, of cold-blooded murders of human worth and a lot more.

While she was thinking, she was smoking . No, no, no. You got it all wrong. She was smoking and in the meantime, the world was running fast around her with the speed of wave-matter pulsations. Her neurons were firing all thoughts she had never thought would be able to pull her like millstones around dead men.

In the meantime a lot was happening, someone, she loved was throwing glances everywhere. Or was she overthinking? Was this another one of the negative responses of the frontal cortex? Someone she had perhaps envied was up on the hilltops of success. How could she for even one moment give in to the shallowness of such thoughts? Someone was thrusting a dagger in layers of intact human skin. Muscle. Bone even.

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Someone was fucking someone with words. Others with actions. The world was running on its toeless fat thighed legs. It was getting dark.

She threw the stub on the mossy road and stomped on it. Some ant just felt an earthquake, she thought.

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MID AIR MADNESS Sudha Vidyasagar

You sit with your feet dangling Suspended in mid-air.

The earth reels around below drunk in sunshine The clouds wander aimless in directionless space.

The hills are humps of mud.

The rivers are ribbons on the land’s tresses.

You travel between destinations, soaking in anonymity.

The world you carry in your cranium is frozen in suspended animation.

The past you dropped at the departure gate.

The future is unseen until the arrival.

All you know is your waist Strapped to a fleeting present.

Oh, for these moments Of weightless living!

Breaking the shackles 19

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Of gravity and ground.

To feel the freedom Of a bird in flight, To fly, and never arrive.

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elsewhere Aekta Khubchandani

this poem has already begun somewhere else— in bellies, which if you open you’ll only find seeds of melons and apples in amma’s pickle, and stitches that made my first crochet dress I wore for Angad’s birthday in kitchen diaries where knives and peelers are swords and knights are the names given to the ones cooking from mouths of tributaries and tap waters poems are running and running out tongues of affection glued to kala khatta colas and kulfi sticks, garam moongfali in pockets and in dreams dreamt on a mini giant wheel the motherhood that comes from the motherboard nursing words to stories is an editing craft in the 13 year old’s diary with letters to lost ones, 21

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in the eyes of the newspaper boy and the horse that came by to give 10 rupee rides to little ones between toe nails and thigh gaps there’s so much to discover, much more to wonder between the time that daisies take to bloom and a shell-less snail takes to find home and the flutter of flies towards the light, the ones that churn the stomach this poem has already begun somewhere else and somewhere else it’ll go

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In the Meantime

Turning Pages Drishti Soni

You were covered in dust and tattered on the edges You were stained with cheap wine and teary smudges You were frail from the wear of a thousand frantic and a couple of patient hands And your colours were faded from elongated romances and one night stands.

Wait.

I am making you sound so poetically, preposterously damaged, I almost forgot to mention, To give context I am not one to romanticize, well – in relative terms.

But you.

You inhabited the old-world charm of a bewitching book a cluster-headed girl in her favourite skirt with a coffee stained sweater and a Robert Frost tattoo covered by her cascading hair picked up at a second-hand book sale on the corner of a bustling street and found her oasis as she smelled your pages.

She was no introvert.

But everybody needs an escape and you gave her a vacation instead, when she was the slightest bit disturbed.

And no one who passed by would be mistaken as they glanced for a millisecond that it was anything but you that made her smile and gave her the courage to turn the page and read the next line – 23

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-

Even if she already had it memorized.

Goodness gracious how I digress, compelled by the need to express in vivid details of all explanations.

Enough about the girl, let’s leave her to the pleasures of her concealed imaginations.

We were making a rhyme of your unconventional descriptions.

Your yellowing pages contained stories repeatedly read That every time, evoked something new instead And yet always some transcription went over the head But you made it to many a bed, Resting on comfortable bodies that dozed off with your pages spread.

And oh! There were creases in your binding Complemented by simple teases in underlined words Yet, you weren’t idealistic enough to be simplified by the herds Making your way into the hands of the mystified girl.

Now, I must promise you a final resting place You may not be weary, but ready for solace I can no longer stand on the corner of a bustling street ‘Cuz damn it you’re beautiful and no one else’s to claim And we’ll travel the world, but our home will be indiscreet My bookmark will always be in you somewhere And I’ll link you to the Robert Frost tattoo under my hair.

Promise me your pages will yellow with my skin Your creases will deepen as my wrinkles begin I’ll be sifting through your pages as the years pass by Call myself a writer, every single time I try And when the last page is turned, It’s still justYou & I. 24

In the Meantime

Through the Momentous and the Minute Ekasmayi Naresh

Much like the proverbial climber the innocuous ivy, growing along a mighty mountain of a house or a majestic member of the woodlands, mine has been a growth, mercurial and meandering no direction in sight, no goal in mind.

When I did happen to plot this map for me, my mind dismissed it as a matter for a future “she” who, wiser and more experienced, would surely find that which the present sought.

But in the meantime, do I, like the climber, stay in another’s unwavering shadows hidden, tucked away in Creation’s furrows to lie unnoticed, touched only by time’s passing sway?

While I assumed this would be how my time in history would be anthologized; the workings of this wonderous world thought much to the contrary.

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As I waited for now to become then the hands of the clock and several half-baked decisions took me to places anew, to encounter exciting situations; where I forged new friendships broke promises and hearts, rivalled old foes earned values and smarts; looked adversity in the eye, bid my comfortable home, goodbye fell defeated in loss and stood tall in victory, made this resistant perseverance my one true identity.

Maybe the wait for the eventual is eternal and infinite but in the meanwhile, this thriving life, leaves me with a smile

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In the Meantime

senseless Drishti Soni

Her house smelt of expensive perfume and ginger tea. You could almost hear the tea bubbling as she glided across the hallway, barefooted, leaving a trail of her scent. This scent was indistinguishable, it was proof that you had been with her. Heaven knows how she afforded it. It could never be washed off her or her belongings. But it could be washed off you.

Her wet hair dripped down her back, one droplet racing the other to curve around her much coveted hip. Her blouse clinging to her breasts, almost as if grasping every bit it could before it would inevitably be peeled off her body. Her skirt grazing onto her thighs, gently but surely – almost teasing itself with the touch of her skin. As always, she seemed ignorant or rather indifferent to the activity revolving around her body and buzzed about on a quest of her own.

She rushed to the kitchen, remembering her dear ginger tea – reaching the stove just in time. Not a moment she spent alone was unaccompanied by a steady steam out of a cup of ginger tea, that cleared her throat and mind.

She gently sieved it into a cup – sighing in pleasure at its colour.

Her house resounded of sighs and turning pages. Her sighs varied in tones but they came through the day, every day. The only thing that could dare to think that it had caused the sigh was this ginger tea. The rest of the sighs were hers alone. They came through different sources and it didn’t quite matter to her who delivered them. It was she who opened the door. It was she who ordered them. What she received as payment, was 27

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not something she asked for. It was only gratitude at having heard her sigh.

She meanders with a cup in one hand looking for her book, overturned on the page she left it at. She finds it hard to withdraw herself from the surrealistically real worlds of Anita Desai, Margaret Atwood, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Walker and so. She could almost picture herself being a subject of one of their upcoming novels. Maybe, she could write one herself. She devoured, just like other things in her routine, every word on every page.

She curled up on a bamboo chair with a purple cushion, already immersed in the book. Today was her day off. She could indulge in leisure of a better kind than usual. The book let her enjoy suspense more than the other things of her life, the slow crackly turning of pages as she rushed to finish the last word on the previous page. It was always a wonder what the next page said.

The organization and uniformity of the typed words pleased her eyes – aesthetic she thought.

Her house displayed an aesthetic of pastels and tidiness. She hated a mess.

Her bed sheet was always wrapped tightly around its mattress without a single wrinkle, despite the ruckus that was created on her bed. She was not one for extravagance. Everything she owned lay hidden - in neat sections behind locked doors. Her own head as sorted as that. Never would she falter in producing an answer. Only her main door remained unlocked.

She painted the house such that the colours seemed to soften the edge she carried in the curves of her body. They melted into one another. Soft colours that cooled things down, that reminded her of places she had been to, places she would go to. Colours that showed taste of a higher class. white table on which lay lilacs of a soft lavender, a notebook with an 28

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Fidgety from the tension in her book, she glanced up at her creamy. white table on which lay lilacs of a soft lavender, a notebook with an almost complete to-do list and her pen. Her breath steadied and she plunged right back into the book.

She gingerly brought the teacup to her lips. An odd but accustomed mix of tea and lipstick tingled her taste buds as she sipped absent-mindedly.

She let it float around her mouth before she finally swallowed – delightedly.

Her house tasted of skin and sugar. If you came to her house, you came for her. You came to know what ingredient she held between her legs that no woman could behold. You came to taste her, her skin and in every inch of her house she had shed some of it. Your appetite was meager for her. She lived in abundance, but heaven knows (and you’d have been there by then) that her abundance was exclusive, elusive.

In her ginger tea, she added only one spoon of sugar. But after your hearty meal, she would hand over to you something sweet – a confectionary (to-go, take-away). It would help heal your bitterness at knowing you would never taste her again. Most people kept it in a corner, nibbling at the crumbs, making it last as long as possible. It was delicious, but it was only a consolation – never quite like the prize. Her own food however was adequately spicy, there was nothing she needed to be consoled over.

She grimaced as the last sip of tea brought with it the sugar that had settled at the bottom of the cup. She placed the cup on the table. It felt smooth and cold – now devoid of the hot tea.

Her house felt of crisp notes and smooth surfaces. There was not a single crack in a wall, in a showpiece, in anything that she owned. Nothing of hers was broken. The world outside her was a different question altogether, though (falling apart). You could see her reflection everywhere as you followed her, that’s how smooth it all was. It was all a little 29

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slippery for you, but she glided across.

And you follow her out into the living room, still staring at her smooth skin and the wonders it did. You’d be embarrassed to even think of the crumpled currency in your pocket to hand to her. If you didn’t have new notes straight from the ATM, you’d run to procure them. You owed her.

Even if she didn’t ask for notes that crunched as you picked them up from the machine, you knew you could offer no less.

Her house got through all five senses, imagine what she could do.

She lazily went to place her cup in the sink with her eyes glued to her book in one hand. Just as she freed her other hand of the cup, the doorbell rang. Her lips pursed into a smile as she rolled her eyes slightly.

She walked halfway to the door, then said calmly but loudly, “the door is open.” She waited to see the knob turn before returning to her book and chair.

In walked a man with a camera, a sharply dressed woman and a couple other people, looking frazzled. She glanced up for a minute, returned to her book, finished her page as they settled down and then put the book aside. Her ease frazzled them further but they contained it, waiting for her to begin. “I spend most of my money on travel and books,” she said nonchalantly, “the joy is just a tad greater than that of the sex.”

Taken aback, the sharply dressed woman (ensuring that the camera was running) asked, “so, you enjoy being a sex worker?”

“For god’s sake, it’s a prostitute. That’s what I am. Who even came up with the term sex worker,” she snorted. “Yes, you can say I do enjoy it.

Although I don’t charge – they leave me whatever they wish to. Like I said, I do it for the sex.”

“You’re educated and you don’t even care much about the money, so why are you here?”

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.

“You documentary makers try to find too much purpose in everything. I just enjoy it. Haven’t you made a career out of what you love too?”

The woman faltered, “I uh, it’s different, I get to choose my projects and my career doesn’t stop me from other things – having a family, travelling! I can say no.”

“You only get to say no to your ‘projects’ when you reach a certain level of excellence. I have surpassed that level long ago. The fear of my denial consumes so many, they dare not approach,” she smiled, almost empathetically at this woman’s inability to understand.

“Why not literature? Why not travel journalism? Why this?”

“This doesn’t stop me from the rest. I have travelled half the world. But I always like to come back home. There is something here that keeps pulling me back. Maybe it’s just the men. But you’ve seen our society.

This is the only way to satiate my sexual appetite. The only way coming back for those men is worth it.” She returned to her book, not even glancing in their direction.

The group retreated, oddly intrigued and satisfied at the same time with this interview. They had worked so hard to get this opportunity. They closed the door behind them.

There was no doubt she loved the sex, that she chose her men, that they paid her for it and that she couldn’t care less for the money. But there was more. Under the lilacs lay a journal Memoirs of a Sex-Starved Woman written by ‘Tainted Lips’. And under this journal lay a letter congratulating her on winning the Pulitzer Prize, dated 2 years ago.

She never really let that letter out of her sight. But it was for her eyes only; she was fiercely private, fiercely protective.

Why was she taking money for all this, when she didn’t really need any 31

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of it? She always dodged this question with practised confidence, arrogance almost. Nobody knew of her book, but everybody could see her lavish lifestyle, knowing full well that even a premium charge wouldn’t cover it. So the question came to her repeatedly, till the curiosity for gossip in people fizzled out, and she could maintain the enigma she was known for. But this question always made her quiver a little, despite all the years, all the practise.

You see, leaving behind an abusive husband gone even more rabid after a miscarriage (of a son, gasp!) can never be easy. It got harder because she was a young woman of only 22 years, deemed infertile, living in a slightly orthodox family. But she left, somehow. What did ring in her ears after all these years - bruises healed, divorce settled, and the urge for a child satiated with regular visits (and donations) to the local orphanage - was the thunderous voice of her husband. The memory is still blazingly clear.

She was covered in so much blood that it was hard to understand where it was all coming from. She was staggering out that door. He screamed, “You were never capable of being a good wife or bearing my child. But what’s worse, you are not even worthy of being a mistress! Even the lowest of scum wouldn’t pay a rupee for you! You have dreams of being a writer but you can’t even sell your body, let alone pages with your ridiculous mind on it!” With that, he made a pathetic attempt to spit on her, soiling his own shoe.

She remembers a burning tear running down her cheek.

Rage, ambition, strength, lust.

Seven years later, every smooth denomination she gets, makes its way to her drawer where she is saving money. Gathering massive funds from the most honourable men – for her body - to get revenge. She always sends her beloved ex snippets of what is to come – beautiful flirtatious 32

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. women with STDs, exquisite frames with her poetry embedded, portfolios of high-profiled lawyers, biddings on his house, it goes on.

But that is all just build up. You see, the to-do list still isn’t complete.

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Kaapi Sessions

Frivolous Fun ‘In the Meantime’: An interview with Dr. Shilpa Phadke Dr Shilpa Phadke is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

She has a background in Sociology, with a special interest in ‘Gender and the Politics of Space’. Dr. Shilpa visited Manipal Centre for Humanities on October 10th, 2019, and delivered a talk titled ‘Defending Frivolous Fun: Feminist Acts of Claiming Public Spaces in South Asia.’ The interview was conducted post the talk by the students of the centre Serene George, Gauri Sawant, and Elishia Vaz. The topic of discussion was understanding the dynamics between spaces and the idea of ‘fun’ for women in the meantime.

I - Is it better for women to have access to the public domain once all violence has been eradicated from it? How can public spaces be accessed by women for fun, in the meantime, while they are waiting for public safety?

S - It is not as if public spaces are not safe. They are cast as unsafe. Data suggests that the most dangerous spaces for women across the world are their homes. The highest amount of violence against women takes place at home and is perpetrated by people in these spaces. Violence at home, in many countries, is about 80% more than public violence as some data suggests. So there’s a gigantic difference between violence that takes place in public and at home. It is this that makes public spaces seem as dangerous because it indicates the possibility of uncontrolled violence that might happen to you and the perpetrators are strangers in this case.

I might go out and have a good time, but I return home much after my curfew. What happens to me when I come home after my curfew is that I may get lectured at or get grounded. Even this is a form of violence which may take place, but no one will call this an act of violence. They call it “protection,” they call it “love,” they call it all kinds of things, but they won’t call it violence. Violence, in the public imagination, is what 36

In the Meantime

. takes place outside by strangers and structured violence is eliminated from this definition. Families restrict their daughters from leaving the house too much as they are concerned that they may meet the wrong kind of men and get attacked by strangers.

They may meet men of the wrong caste, class, religion and that they might fall in love with them - that’s the most significant anxiety. This anxiety of the sexual control of women brings many women to have fun via subterfuge. They won’t say, “I’m not going to listen to you.” Instead, women tell layered stories so that they can go out. So, in the meantime, women are having fun.

But one of the things we found is that women are having fun by strategizing and not politically claiming spaces. Now, however, movements like “Take Back The Dhaba” is a political claim that accesses public-fun. However, it is not the case that women who are not politically claiming it - are not having fun. But here’s a group of women who claim political-fun where movement is seen as a performance. They are going out in public spaces talking to people, and by being out there, they are normalising their presence to regular, random policemen, to rickshaw drivers who come and say, “Madam, don’t you want to go? Why are you walking on the road? Come in the rickshaw.” Or the policemen will say “Oh, don’t be here; it’s not safe.”

Then you engage in a conversation where you are not fighting, by using responses like, “Why is it not safe for us? We are walking with so many others. Why is it different?” It is the sort of conversation that, over time, hopefully, builds more conversations and brings more women in the discourse. To make them feel that they can be out politically because it is not true that women are unsafe in public spaces.

You might say it’s the middle class that’s claiming public spaces, but I’d say a lot of lower-class young women, to be fair, access public spaces.

They do things like book an Uber and go for a joy ride in the city at night. Many of them are college students and come out of slum areas, but they book an Uber, they do these things. It’s not as if the desire to engage the city is not there. You always feel like, “Oh poor women don’t have such desires”, but on the contrary, women express these desires 37

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but on the contrary, women express these desires across class d ifferentials. So there’s this kind of broad reception, but tthere are always spaces that we can claim simply by making use of structures that already exist. Women use religion a lot. Women use religious events as a way to get out. For instance, Garba is often an all women’s space and provides a way for women to hang out with their other women friends. Or they say that they’re going to the temple and they meet their friends. It’s not that they’re not going to the temple. They’re sitting in the temple, but they sit outside, and they’re chatting with their friends. But they tell their families that they’re going to the temple, which is again something respectable young girls can do. But I feel like one of the things is that we also need to push towards is to make fun more legitimate for women in public spaces.

I: You talked about the workplace and women’s resort to subterfuge.

Don’t you think that this is an indirect political assertion?

S: Of course, it’s filtered, but you can’t force people to claim things politically. Would I rather that women didn’t go out at all if they are not claiming public spaces politically? No. If that’s the way they can go out, they can manufacture tall tales simply to leave their home. Whether these tales refer to work or college or going out with certain ‘safe’ people, it can be anything. Now, with cell phones, you can be anywhere. Unless you’re being tracked using the GPS! So that also operates as subterfuge.

I feel that ‘subterfuge’ isn’t the political answer, but it might be feasible for individual women. I would not discount it. Hopefully, there will be a point where you can make that political claim, but in the meantime, it’s okay to access public spaces via subterfuge.

I: Even in the context of these public movements, whenever women access fun politically, it is always organised fun. Have you thought of spontaneous fun, in that way?

S: I think, in the day time, people can have spontaneous fun, but at night it feels more unsafe and therefore, it is planned through. It is more 38

In the Meantime

. unsafe and therefore, it is planned through. It is more organised. What ‘Blank Noise’, a community art project, invites people to do is to walk alone in public spaces. You’ll have these T-shirts with “Akeli, Awaara, Azaad” written on it and women wear these. Their actions create a space that allows dialogue. While spontaneous fun is inaccessible, in the meantime, we have to organise fun. Certain spaces enable spontaneous fun for men, women, queer people, and others. We should hold on to such spaces; therefore, organised fun is not necessarily bad.

I: Is your goal to finally reach a point where you don’t need to organise it anymore? An article in The Guardian mentions how infrastructure has a gendered aspect to it - women and men have different needs and use for public structures and systems, concluding that we are living in a hugely male-oriented world in more ways than one. So, how do you conceive and comprehend the concept of public space in this discourse? What constitutes in the public space? What are the role of performance and this dichotomy of spaces?

S: So, performance is what happens along the way because it does. But I think the goal is just to have a conversation and to be in that space and to remind yourself also that space belongs to you. We are often told that it doesn’t. What you’re saying is very reminiscent of what we were told in the workshops that we were doing with students.

Whenever there is an attack in any city or any town in the world, the young women in these workshops express anxiety. Not that they’d be attacked but that those attacks would be used to restrict their movements. And sure enough, it works! They say, “Oh, don’t you know what happened to that person who was reported in the news. Why would you want to go out?” So this is constantly used as a way to restrict access.

But when people get attacked at home and killed at home, no one says “Don’t go home.” Right? So one of the things we are saying is that no space is safe. The desire to access a city which might be a versatile city is not an odd one. It is the desire to be part of a space that looks exciting in the city. And also exciting because we are also located in modernity.

Our literary imaginations are also situated in modernity. A lot of the 39

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work we read is located in modernity. So modernity is the space of ‘the ,exciting city’, ‘the city of anonymity’, ‘the city of hope’, ‘the city of possibility’. It’s completely natural to want to access it. It’s not at all odd or strange. But often those who are seen as vulnerable are looked at as if we’re odd if we want to access it.

On one level, this is a spontaneous thing. The organising also becomes second nature. The ‘Why Loiter group?’ - We found them by chance when we started. We found that there’s this group of women loitering.

So we emailed them saying this is so exciting for us and they added us to their Whatsapp group. We kept saying we’d go, but they kept loitering in different parts of the city. It is second nature to them. It does not involve a lot of energy, effort and planning, rather occurs casually.

There are events where the activity is planned. However, most of the time, they were just wandering and having chai on the streets. At one level, it is quite spontaneous. It is, however, on another level, a strategic move, as they decide upon a meeting point and take it from there.

I: How could you intrude on male-oriented online spaces and loiter there? For instance, in male-oriented gaming sites, when a female enters the avenue, she’s bombarded with questions similar to “What are you doing here?” Is it possible to enter such spaces and establish that “We are just going to stay here.”? Online spaces tend to mimic street spaces, with researchers conducting studies on how women get slut-shamed on spaces like these.

S: Yeah, it would be exciting. But consider what you are saying as well.

Certain spaces are tagged - even online spaces - as masculine spaces. So there is, of course, the possibility that, in the twitter world, you will get attacked for expressing a feminist opinion. This is also evident in the gaming world where you (women) would be considered outsiders.

I: Do men today contribute to the way in which women resort to subterfuge? Or have they been good recipients of women coming out into public spaces and loitering?

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.

S: I think they are allies. I think there are men who are allies. However, issues emerge even within this. So as part of the ‘Why Loiter movement’, men wanted to come, but they were asked to dress as women. It is quite problematic in terms of trans-politics. Men are wearing a particular outfit as a thing, not because they desire to do so but rather to display that they are allies. It clouds the trans-politics too much. You recognise the intentions are good, politics is good, but it can also be open to this kind of interpretation, and I think it’s a fair critique.

I: Is the idea is to arrive at removing the rationale of unsafe public spaces for women someday? Is it about coming to a place where you can remove the rational assessment of fun? Thus, everyone can have fun and it essentially becomes a space for anybody and everybody. Do you agree with this?

S: But what has happened to fun is that - it has become neoliberal fun..

So, for instance, the Marine Drive in drive in Mumbai is a place where people hang around during the day, but during the night, the cops don’t want them to. Now I remember being in college, and I went to South Bombay to college, and sometimes you are busy with activities for a college festival, and you’ll miss the last train. So we stand and call home. If it’s a large enough number, no one is worried about you. And we’d hang out all night on Marine Drive, and no one said anything to us. There was this ice cream shop near that was open till 2 o’clock, and there was a five star hotel coffee shop that eleven of us would troop into and have two coffees and we got very dirty looks. But, you know you could do that and there were no cops telling you that you can’t be doing it. And now, cops will tell you it’s unsafe for you after about one or one-thirty at night and they start shooing away people, but if you’re actually stuck in the city, it’s really a very safe space to be. That is because it was this open promenade that is well lit. But what is going to happen to students now, when they’re stuck, where are they going to go? They’re actually rendering them more unsafe by saying you can’t be here. But 41

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increasingly, not just women but everyone is being excluded from the public, in a sense, in the name of safety. Because they want to interact, so they’ll be in metros or sit in a coffee shop.

One of the other things to look at is PDA (public displays of affection).

Look at some of the things people do in coffee shops. On the streets, however, you’re not even allowed to hold hands. So, they want you to move all this indoors where you’re paying for it, and that means that only a certain class has access to it. Whereas, on the street, everyone has the access and the freedom to do as they wish.

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A REASON ON THE BANKS Sonia Sali

Was it a quiet evening?

Or was it just a quietness I perceived?

With my endless list of chaos was it even quiet?

It wasn’t any “peaceful quietness” but a strenuous one........

Five kilometers away from what I called home, sixty from what I called love, one from what I called peace and crouched right on the banks of what I called bliss and rest to my soul I feel insecure, hopeless and no reason to live. Yet as I relax my body on these banks, I feel it all washed away. My piled-up mind was a stranger to my own body and I was lost in the chaos of my life and every day as I fail, I see those rocks being slashed by the water yet staying put and growing stronger each day.

Away from everyone, the melodrama of life and daily hustle, I find solace on the banks of a river I spent nights and days with. My mind kept racing, trying to make sense of the irony of life, sweet as it sounds and bitter in every bite. I spent many a quiet, hectic evenings here, hopeless and tired but every time it lets me turn back home with hopes of seeing a clear blue sky with a tinge of pink here and there.

T, incorrigible a million times,-

QueernesS, dIspute, baf-fl-eme-n

dAZed and stunned, the world twirled and twirled all around me, grabbed my waist violently, the wind snatched my hair together in its fists and threw me off my senses and put out my desire to live.

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Living with the painand the muddle I feel numb, tired and drained of my energy that I have got no strength to even hope.

Nevertheless I walk down the pathway of life aimless, grieved and hoping madly in my heart to see light at the far corner of the road but in vain. I don’t know why but I walk on, my mind secretly telling me, hiding its hopes from my body that I would very soon see faces and hear soothing voices. And yes, my legs carried me further and further down into the jungle of life, little knowing that the mind is in appreciation of the ways of my feet. Every day I move on to places unknown and streets unfamiliar and every minute hoping for a hope, yet seemingly and widely planning hard to give up this long, never ending walk that I have been doing for the past 21 years. Pretty long.

In the meantime‌ This long journey I have ever always thought of giving up, finishing it off for good, I thought not so when every day I sit at the banks of the ever-flowing river, flowing on and on to places far off yet happy, cheery and gurgling down. Funny but these banks taught me lessons in the meantime when life gave me reasons to quit, to jump mightily into this river and float away like a corpse feeling nothing and sensing no more.

These frequent, lazy, seemingly meaningless visits to the banks of the river revived me every day, built in me a power so divine, the power to press forward and the courage to see, to appreciate, to realize and to accept pain and believe that it would pass away like the flowing waters that keep on and on even when the sun shines down garishly and slows down its gurgle down into the ocean.

Why jump right into the current and die when you can swim against the current and reach the banks successful, content and happy.

I found my answer, the answer to why I should walk on when the lights are out, when the streets are deserted, when people have isolated you and when you are all alone on an empty, dark and moonless night. I found it because while life is about you and you alone, it is a challenge, 44

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. a challenge, to walk down bold whether or not you have company. You need to rise up against the odds, fight the thoughts that make you give up and light yourself a candle and walk down bold even when you are alone.....

After many a drama of life. Very often in the meantime...

As I sit by the banks hopeless, I hear the gurgle of the waters, the quiet rush of the waters between the pebbles, the silent chirp of the crickets and the gentle breeze that promises me the hope of a better tomorrow.

In the meantime, amidst the tension between life and death, with all my afflictions, dolor and hopelessness, I see light peeping through the thickness of my heart-rending pain...

Each day on the banks a new hope grows in me, a new reason to live even as I see the waters flowing on and on, the little bird flying higher and higher and the lilies of the field swaying on and on to the music of the wind...

There seems to be a reason in the littlest of things and a reason to light my lamp again...

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Visual Art

Meantime

Riya Nagendra

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Work in Progress

Vidhya Gokhe

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Cityscape

Vidhya Gokhe

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Superbird

Vidhya Gokhe

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Hypnagogic

Meghana Injeti

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Metamorphosis

Meghana Injeti

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Soliloquies of a lonely house

Jaqueline Williams

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As one listens to the Rain

Jaqueline Williams

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The Contributors

Aekta Khubchandani Aekta is currently matriculating her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School in New York. Her work has been featured in The Aerogram, Narrow Road, The Bangalore Review, Skylight 47, and elsewhere. Her recent poems are published in print in the anthology, “Quesadilla and Other Adventures” by Hawakal Prokashana, Best of Mad Swirl: 2018 by Mad Swirl, Map called Home, by Kitaab, Singapore to name a few. Her works have been long-listed twice for Creative Writing in English by TFA (TOTO Funds the Arts)- 2018 and 2019. Her spoken word poetry has travelled in India and Bhutan.

She secured the first place in Mumbai Regional Qualifier and the second place in the National Slam at Waves fest conducted by BITS Pilani Goa, in 2018. She also performed her poem, “I tried to look like Ma” at TedX Bocconi for her talk, “Fiction is the truth sold as lies.”

Amina Vidha Amina loves exploring, adventures, writing and reading. To be more specific, she loves reading a thriller/mystery. She aspires to work in an asylum for the criminally insane one day and encounter psychopaths and sociopaths first hand. She knows this sounds a bit crazy but it’s quite intriguing when one thinks about it. She likes to call psychology her passion. Apart from her interests, she’s leaning towards social work, mostly human rights and climate change. She likes to talk about what’s happening and keep herself and others around her updated. Bringing about a change in this world is like a dream to Amina.

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Drishti Soni Drishti is a 21 year old student of literature, currently taking a gap year to understand herself a little better. She writes in an attempt to show the world through her eyes. She wishes to create experiences and spaces that reach out to everybody, and make them question their way of being, at least once. @absurdlyartistic Ekasmayi Naresh Ekasmayi is in her final year of Masters’ and she studies Clinical Psychology. She is fascinated by the power of words to create and dispel confusion. She is an inveterate lover of stories and poetry.

Elishia Vaz (Refer to the Teatotallers’ section) Esther Shekinah Collins Esther is pursuing her post-graduate studies in English Language And Literature at Madras Christian College, Chennai. She likes to scribble lines in her notebook, and it took a long time to realize that it was poetry. She had to learn everything the hard way, life was not a bed of roses but that has never stopped her from reaching her destiny. She is striving hard to reach the stars and beyond.

Gauri Sawant (Refer to the Teatotallers’ section) Jacqueline Williams Jacqueline likes dogs, books, balconies and perforated notebooks 57

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Meghana Injeti Meghana is a student and part-time amateur freelancer.

Her love for exploring themes that are quirky, emotional, semi-political, comical, and everything in the middle made her dive into the sphere of digital art, drawing and poetry.

So far, her tiny work profile consists of publishing illustrations for Sophia’ college magazine, and a poem for ‘Delhi Poetry Slam 2019’ weekly e-Magazine. She has also worked as an Art Assistant for ‘Vitamin Stree’ for few of their art-centric video segment projects called ‘Scratching the Surface’. Fact time! She jams to overthinking, is conflicted while choosing between Netflix and Sleep and knows the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody’s lyrics.

Riya Nagendra Riya is a cartoonist and a student of literature who enjoys drawing her cats, illustrating poetry and song lyrics, and expressing her existential woes through her art.

Serene George (Refer to the Teatotallers’ section) Siddharth Krishna Siddharth is a Biotech student from KCT, Coimbatore. He’s 19 years old and has lived in Coimbatore his whole life. Right now, he’s stuck at the threshold to adulthood, reaching out to the future, and simultaneously clinging to the comfort of the past.

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Sudha Vidyasagar Sudha is a doctor, as seen in her signature. She is a senior citizen who writes a few pieces in the Hindu open page. Poetry is her hobby. She likes timepass, typically in the meantime.

Uma Padmasola Uma is a first year student of MA English at Manipal Centre for Humanities. She studied liberal arts at Azim Premji University. She writes fiction and fangirls over Barbara Comyns, but only when she has the time, even though that’s all she wants to do.

Vidhya Gokhe Vidhya is a person who gets excited about the little joys in life like cats, flowers and a pretty sky. She wants her work to reflect that even when life makes us feel down and out, we can still find beauty in simple things, and capturing these little things in photographs is just one way to hold them close to our hearts.

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The Teatotallers

Editors-in -chief Elishia Vaz Elishia Vaz is a homebody through and through. She’ll face the world if offered peanuts, South Indian food or a good trek.

Gauri Sawant For Gauri Sawant, life in general is a grueling ordeal. And so was travelling from Mumbai to Manipal where she is currently pursuing her Master’s in Arts. She is a perpetually bemused cat fanatic who chases after random animals and is needlessly enthusiastic about walking. In addition, she believes words are absolutely wondrous.

Fiction and Poetry Team Amulya Raghavan Amulya is a lover of the universe, books, music and tea (and occasionaly fancy jewellery).

Francesca Fowler Francesca says eccentricity is an understatement when it comes to her – one man’s sanity is another’s insanity. She is passionate, hopeful, and curious.

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Jannet Johny Jannet is mostly day-dreaming and has an unusual talent in bringing up random topics during conversations. She is currently pursuing her Masters in English Literature and likes exploring different authors and writing styles. She’s also a hardcore fan of chikki and most things sweet.

Krutika Patel Krutika exists solely on coffee and chips. On a regular day you’ll find her binge watching and on only on special occasions will you find her doing something productive.

Laya Kumar Laya is a second year undergrad student in Manipal. She is trying to find her own voice by exploring different forms of expression.

Madhura Kar Madhura is a second year Bachelors’ student at Manipal Centre for Humanities. She is constantly in awe of the magnanimous cosmos and when it comes to her own little one, she prefers to curl up in the corner of a large library; mostly with green tea and Murakami.

Sailza Kumari Sailza is a first year MA student pursuing her degree in English. She enjoys binge watching on Netflix, wearing fandom related t-shirts and drinking copious amounts of coffee.

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Serene George Serene George is a BA 3rd year at the Manipal Centre for Humanities.

She is bad at writing bios.

Shweta Anand Shweta hails from the city of Thrissur in Kerala and is currentlypursuing her M.A in English at Manipal Centre for Humanities. She completed her B.A in English Literature from Wilson College, Mumbai and has written for the college magazine, ‘The Wilsonian’. She has also interned as a content writer for a few companies in the last three years. Apart from enjoying writing and reading, she is also an avid fan of the T.V show F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and loves to occasionally daydream over a cup of coffee.

Sonia Sali Sonia is a freelancer and a student of first MA English. She is a horrible introvert who has her best friend in herself and quite often lost in the blue skies. Well, she is often lost yet a deep thinker. She likes anything deep and out of this world. Quite strange.

Non-Fiction Team Ajantha Rao Ajantha is a sarcastic Potterhead, who is perpetually sleepy.

Bidisha Mitra Bidisha is someone who hopes to be an influence and make a difference.

She is passionate, attentive, and agreeable.

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Divya K.B. Divya is a first year MA student, pursuing her degree in Literature. She can be bribed with anything and everything horror, decadent desserts, angst heavy rock music and good company.

Pavankumar Pavankumar is a B A in Humanities student, majoring in literature. He is currently interested in Culture, Gender Studies and translation. He is primarily focused on translating underrated Kannada Literature to English for better and larger exposure, as well as translating unavailable contemporary English literary scholarship such as Judith Butler to Kannada.

Siddharth Thackeria Siddharth is a third-year undergraduate student from MCH majoring in sociology.

Visual Art Team Aditi Paul Aditi is a first year Masters student pursuing her degree in English. She enjoys spending her days either binge watching absurd shows or at art galleries. She can usually be found ranting, a steaming cup of tea by her side.

Kalyani Nandagopal Kalyani enjoys classic rock, vegan food, and 90s sitcoms. Her creative outlets include music, writing, and visual arts.

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Meghali Banerjee Meghali underestimates herself on a regular basis. She listens to Korean pop, and crushes on her pet plant KOCHU. Meghali is the most non-Bengali Bengali one will ever come across. Her biggest failure till date has been to write three serious lines about herself and her so-called sunny disposition is dimming with age and assignments. Among all this, she also tries to study Sociology. Meghali talks too loudly and curses too much for her size and likes to believe she is funny as fu-oops!

Pavithra S. Kurup People ask Pavithra how she manages her hair, and she laughs in response because she doesn’t. She is a dancer, procrastinator, and a dog owner.

Design Team Dyuti Ramesh Being encapsulated in nature is Dyuti’s favorite thing. She loves her coffee and pretty things are a magnet to her. Art feeds her soul. A collection of unique memories is what Dyuti lives for.

Ganga Niranjan Ganga is a first year BA student and her hobbies include painting, cooking and gardening.

Sre Ratha A raging feminist and a consummate fangirl, Sre can be found jamming out to rock music and occassionally One Direction. She is currently pursuing a Masters’ degree in Sociology at MCH. She loves binge-watching TV shows on Netflix and reading as well.

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PR Team Brinda Mukherjee Brinda a Third year Undergraduate student pursuing a major in Sociology. She appreciates art and creative work as well as socialising with people.

Sadhvi Hegde Sadhvi is a first year BA student who cannot find anything interesting to say about her. She can be found either watching air crash documentaries or complaining about the Manipal weather.

Sania Lekshmi Sania is currently pursuing her undergraduate in Humanities at MCH. A staunch admirer of Elizabethan poetry and theatre, she is interested in exploring the crossroads between philosophy and literature. She has been recently introduced to regional theatre and is working on it at present.

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