Tuesday 3 December 2013

Staccato.

I don't know why, but this poem makes me happy.

Life 
Feels like 
A scattering 
Of confetti 
Coloured purple 
Like the bruises 
My heart 
Pumps 
Blood onto 
And they throb 
A tattoo 
Of longing 
And anger 
And that confetti 
Scatters 
And that tattoo 
Drums 
Me 
To distraction 
Till I find 
You 
After which 
All i feel 
See 
Hear 
Is silence 
Of a brutish kind 
Shutting me
Down till
I can rise
Bits of me
Glued back
By your
Clumsy hands

You can read my other sub-standard works here: http://hellopoetry.com/-harnidh-kaur/

Wednesday 31 July 2013

Of Missings And Musings

Yesterday, I had a wonderful day out with three of the best women I know. A lot of inane conversations, meeting after a long vacation apart, getting my car towed away (and having it back within 30 minutes, no less). It was a sorely needed break.

When I returned home, I felt something missing. Checking my hands and arms to make sure none of my precious bracelets or rings had fallen off, I realized it wasn’t a physical missing. It was almost like a badly applied emotional plaster. There was an intrusive quality to this feeling. Something unknown. Like an irritant, it left me feeling uncomfortable for an astonishingly long time. Now, I’m not really a person who dwells too long on what is bothersome. I find that the discomfort ends when I can name the source, and I can usually do it fairly fast. This time, it was different. I went to bed early, and tossed around for a couple of hours. Nothing seemed to make sense. I was utterly confused as to what was annoying me. I don’t like being confused. It makes me feel stupid, and since not a lot of things can do that, I find it borderline painful.

Suddenly, I realized exactly what was wrong. It was so simple, yet so surprising, that I woke up my sister to tell her what it was. I have been, or correctly, had been missing a person I knew a while ago. I had been missing the said person, let’s call him M, almost constantly. It wasn’t the way you miss someone you love, with cheesy memories and sudden smiles at half-remembered inside jokes. There was no fondness attached to this missing. It was almost an involuntary part of me. I was never particularly close to M. We knew the same people, and went out with the same group, but we didn’t have any special personal equation. And yet, I missed him. I picked up my phone innumerable times, thinking I should call him. I thought of him almost constantly, and there was a silly phase when I was convinced I was in love when a man I barely knew.

Why this sudden shift towards discussing M, you say? Well, the uncomfortable feeling was related to him. Suddenly, I didn’t miss him. That aching void that I filled with questions I wanted to ask him, and the reasons I wanted, suddenly disappeared. It found itself replaced by the more important questions of how and when was I going to pay for my next conference.

I tried to put the two seemingly unrelated things together. Why would not missing someone annoy me so much? Shouldn’t I have felt relief that this constant ache that had me questioning my sanity at times had dissipated? I knew the feeling was irrational, so wasn’t the lack of it a good thing? Then, it struck me. I didn’t stop missing M. I started missing the feeling of missing someone. In the long time that I did feel this particular emotion, it had morphed from missing a particular person into a strange feeling of enjoying this deprivation. I was addicted to the process of missing someone. It gave me something to ruminate over, something to obsess over. It wasted time, and filled my thoughts. In all, it was rather perfect for someone like me. The intensity and the melodrama attached to missing someone had drawn me in, and I was trapped, clinging on to the barest of threads to feel that longing.

Addiction, as a rule, is a fairly negative word. It has unhealthy connotations, and I used to rebel against them. ‘Addictions can be healthy too, and they are fuel’. That was my argument. However, over time, I’ve come to discern between passion and addiction. Passion is what you nurture. You bleed dry, willingly, to fulfill your passions. Addictions, on the other hand, bleed you dry. They draw too much out of you, and you’re too enamored to realize just when you’ve given up too much. The feeling, this indescribable need to want something, was an addiction. It hampered my ability to actually enjoy what I was doing in the moment. Living in an imaginary wonderland only takes you so far. Then it’s unchartered territory, with pitfalls that translate into ones in the real world.

Addictions define a person, for in an addiction you can see a person. My vice is wanting to love. It’s not as much as being loved, as it is showing people that I care. It manifests itself in strange ways, and this one of the strangest. It was definitely an interesting experience, this whole rigmarole. It seems rather gimmicky as I type it out, but I know what I felt was real. What changed in a span of 24 hours is the fact that some small part of me has realized I have people I can truly care about now. I can express this need to love. I can display affection, and have it, for a large part, returned wholeheartedly. It’s a healing experience. Bit by bit, the intrusiveness of this sudden emotional patch-up is blooming into a sense of satisfaction. Maybe I am, slowly, putting the puzzle pieces back in the box. Building the puzzle back again is another struggle, but the foundations, stronger and sturdier ones, are building themselves.

Stay awkward
Keep learning

Harnidh xx

Proofreading (and allowing me to rant like a crazy fool) credits: Shree 

Monday 8 July 2013

A Jagged Verse

Recently, I wrote again. I wrote a poem. Now if you've read my past posts, you would know of the tumultuous relationship I've had with my writing. This was something born out of happiness, not negativity. I wasn't writing to impress anyone, or to prove anything. I just wrote to express.

It was liberating.

It's very experimental. I don't know how many people will understand what I mean to convey. There's no romance involved. It's just an account of human relationships, and how they flow.

Please leave feedback. I'd like to see how a poem born of satisfaction and calm reads to other people. 

A Jagged Verse

Taciturn tonight.
Dead inside.
A flame so bright.
Burning twice.
The song of ice.
Cold and lonely.
Shivering. Smiling.
Blanket of lies.

A blanket of lies.
Covering.
You and me.
From harsh light.
Light too bright.
We'd burn and blister.
Unable to survive.
Such beautiful light.

Unveiling.
Stripping.
All the deceit.
Gone up in smoke.
Acrid. Inhalations.
Exhale, mingle.
Cancerous. Like us.
Addictions.

Addictions.
Nurtured.
Vapourous coils.
Prisoners.
Morality and mortality.
Visions of which.
Illusions of space
Delusions of mine?

Delusions of mine.
Your reality.
A crystal city.
Crashing and crumbling.
Melodic chimes.
Born of destruction.
Regeneration.
A cycle of pain.

A cycle of pain.
Vicious. Unrelenting.
Entrapment.
Of the willing kind.
Variety of scars.
Decorations.
Medals of honour.
Survival.

Survival.
Delicious irony.
Cost too great.
Exchange of fates.
Still surviving. Still breathing.
Not feeling.
Numb.
Dead again.

Friday 17 May 2013

The War Of The Metas


Metathesiophobia is the irrational fear of change. Metamorphosis, on the other had, is transformation. Both essentially are derived from μετα, which is Greek for change. But what if you are forced to face them together?

I’m not a person very conducive to change. I live life in a very deliberate, planned way. Yes, sometimes plans do get derailed, but for most part, I have a situation assessed and under my control, even if seems otherwise. As I’m fond of saying, I have a priority list of priority lists. So, when faced with unexpected circumstances, people, emotions, I tend to retreat and cocoon myself in layers of apathy and loneliness. I’d like to say I did this voluntarily, but I didn’t. I hated every second of it. I preferred living a life filled with stretches of crushing hopelessness, and no perceived way out, rather than trying to change anything. Most people called it laziness, and I started believing that too.

It’s only now, when I look back at the time, that I realize it wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t lack of will to change. It was fear. There are times you get addicted to a certain sense of immobility. It’s almost thrilling, watching yourself sink into proverbial quicksand, and not doing anything about it. Imagine a disaster unfolding before your eyes, like a child walking off a ledge, and instead of reacting, you just sit there, watching, with morbid fascination. These are fairly visceral images, but they convey, to an extent, the immobility I felt. It was almost disassociation, the way I removed myself from the happenings around me. I wasn’t a participant, but an observer in my own destruction. This time affected my grades, my emotional well being, and I put on a lot of weight. I’ve always been a heavy girl, but a combination of many factors, including, but not limited to a sick wish to see how far I could stretch myself, saw me going up to 130kgs.

This phase, of course, was that of metathesiophobia. Soon after, I was unwillingly pushed into metamorphosis. A bad winter ensued, and I was given an ultimatum. Lose weight, or die by thirty. That really rankles you, being forced to evaluate your own mortality. An inspirational story should ideally follow here, with me being my own hero and saving myself. But fairytales and heroics are precisely that, fables. I whined and groaned, but somehow managed to bring myself down to a 100 kgs. Now, this isn’t about my weight loss, because that’s a tale for another day. But it’s about what forcing yourself to be better, even under external duress, does to you.

Suffering makes people kinder, and empathetic. They become better people for they have experienced things they shouldn’t have, and they understand the unfairness of a world where imperfection is isolated and castigated. Sadly, I’m not people. Pain and the wisdom it brought with it ended up being weapons. I became a caustic, bitter person. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done, but I did do them, and they’re a part of me. I shunted away people who genuinely wanted to help me, and be there for me. Hurting people is very easy when you see yourself as the victim of circumstances. It narrows your vision down. All you can see is what was denied, not what was given. Living like this is, to put in in kind terms, poisonous.

I’d like to think I’m accepting my fallacies and moving on. And, to an extent, I am. There’s only a limit to which a person can continue hating the world. Slowly, it tires you out, because there are far too many good people around and you can’t deny their existence, and the effect they have on you. I’ve been blessed with some astonishingly brilliant people in my life. Friends, who instinctively know what my weaknesses are, and where my hubris lies. People like these are the ones that pull down the walls you’ve built around yourself, brick by brick. They hold your hand and push you into using the same bricks to create a gateway to let positivity in. I know that sounds very cheesy and slightly farcical, but it’s true.

There are times when only what breaks you can build you up again. People hurt, people build. It’s a cycle as old as every one of us. But where does self-recovery figure? Am I always going to be at the mercy of someone’s whims and fancies? This would equate to my biggest strength being the biggest chink in my armor. Where does this leave a person, exactly, is what I wonder. Are you supposed to maintain a comfortable distance from people so as to make sure no one has the ability to hurt you, or are you supposed to cling to people and risk the possibility of them deserting you and leaving you stranded on a island built of insecurities and self-doubt? I can’t seem to figure out a middle ground. Is it my inherent broken-ness, or is it the story of everyone’s life? That’s a comforting thought, really, thinking of everyone simply winging it. Sometimes, I feel as though everyone got a manual to life and how to survive it, and I missed distribution day.

Coming back to the metas in my life. I think my real metamorphosis begins now. Physical attributes are fleeting, but I’m taking baby steps towards reconciling what I can be, and what I should be. I remember fighting with a friend of mine, and he asked me a simple question. ‘If you met you, could you tolerate yourself?’ That stopped me for a moment. Could I? How could anyone? Now, three years later, if someone asked me this question, it’d stop me again, but I think the fact that I can look inwards and not feel utter disgust represents some progress.

The process of evaluating yourself is one that requires a lot of courage, and I’m not a very courageous person. So, bear with me. I think I’m getting there, and even simple evaluation leads to some inherent evolution. I have a feeling it shows, if you look closely enough. Maybe one day I’ll answer the question with ‘I think I’m pretty damn awesome.’

Stay awkward
Keep learning

Harnidh xx

Thursday 16 May 2013

A Rickety New Beginning

Credits: My very talented sister (don't tell her I said that)



I’ve always been a writer. That’s what I do. I write poetry, which is probably not very good. Too many failed attempts at novels. A few mediocre short stories here and there.

I’ve never really bothered writing something about my life, or something very personal. Let me rephrase that. I’ve never really had the courage to bare my creepy little soul to strangers. But that’s me considering myself very important. I’m not getting any ‘audience’ here. Maybe this is the catharsis I need.

So, the usual ‘about me’ section. My name is Harnidh and I’m not a psychopath. Borderline sociopath, maybe. As you may have guessed, I use ‘maybe’ a lot. I’m in college, and I study history, mostly because most people are a whole lot more interesting when they’re dead. As my URL would suggest, I’m wholly, irrevocably, socially awkward. I do not understand social constructs and mores. I may live by them, but they do not really make any sense to me. A lot of what I write is based around my constant frazzled state, which is mostly caused by my lack of understanding of how human contact works.

I really do dislike writing in first person. It’s so…violating. It’s like laying bare a vulnerable part of you in front of people and watching it being trampled upon because no one quite realizes why it’s there. ‘Why would she even write if it seems like physical torture?’ I hear you ask. (Probably not, but I need some way to put my point across, yes?)

Writing has always been a ‘refuge’ from some of the horrendously taxing years of my life, both emotionally and physically. It’s been a ‘solace’ at a time when no one, literally not one single human being, could understand what I was trying to express. I put these words into inverted commas because honestly, writing was exactly the opposite. It was a cage, a trap. Since I could not escape, I embraced it, and I turned to poetry. Through my broken attempts at cheesy love stories and half-baked fantasies about a dragon-human specie called Draeken, I tried to channel all the inexplicable things floating in my head into something concrete. This was, to give you a fair comparison, a lot like self-harm to me. Some people cut, I wrote. I wrote of love, and loss, and longing. I wrote to torture myself with things and people I’d never be able have for my own. In a way, writing became my idea of penance. I punished myself by writing.

Most people around me, including family, thought I finally found a way to deal with many things they couldn’t help me with. Praise started pouring in from all corners. Silly school kids playing around, doting adults, and a mother who wrote herself all resulted in my ending up in the spotlight because I could string words together into what seemed like beautiful sentences. Soon, I started writing at a speed that scared me, just to hear those words again and again. Talented, gifted, blessed. These words made me greedy for more. Imagine an addiction that destroying you from inside out, but instead of being told to control it, you’re told to nurture it. And nurture it, I did. It became my very own Frankenstein. A product of delusions and horrors, brought to life just because I could. Bring it to life, that is. My writing soon grew to take over my life. I was ‘the’ poet, ‘the’ fat girl whose identity revolved around the fact that she was oh-so-deep.

However, soon, much too soon, this started to fall apart. Writing, poetry or anything else, is not an easy task. Whatever the reason behind someone writing, it saps something very precious out of you. My writing burned through me like a forest fire in a dry desert scrub. Soon, I was left without words. Imagine a cocaine addict not being able to buy any, but not getting proper rehabilitation either. That happened, basically. Also, alongside this, I entered a happier phase in life. College started. In having friends to talk to, and losing almost 50 kgs of weight, I found myself not needing to write as much, too. Slowly, as Pavlovian lessons would dictate, I started equating writing with scary, scary things. Every time I felt an urge to write, I quickly drowned myself in something easier, like cooking.

So, after that rambling preamble, I come to the crux of the matter. I’m trying to start writing again. Not poetry, because I’m still raw and chafed inside. I want to start putting words down and catalogue, mentally, where and how my life is moving. I need all the criticism I can get, and I need all the push to open myself up again. Hence, I’m going to work with deadlines. I want to try and upload a 800 words or more post twice a week, ideally on Tuesday and Saturday.

In trying to fix myself fast, I did a shoddy job. I’m going to have to retrace my steps and start over, because there are leaks and cracks that threaten to give in at any moment. This is going to be awkward, emotional, embarrassing and borderline torturous, but some things need to be done, irrespective of how difficult they are.

I think this should suffice as a first post to the blog no one will ever read.

Stay awkward
Keep learning

Harnidh xx