Thoughts to Words

"You were such close friends. Then what happened?" Then over time and due to long-distance, we fell out of friendship. None of these justifications has a role to play in this history. Long-distance and time had nothing to do with us parting ways. We ended the friendship. Why? Because we didn't feel connected anymore, that's just it. When the heart has decided to be absent, the last verse writes itself.   "Doesn't it hurt to lose such a friendship which meant so much in your life?" It hurts. However, it would hurt more if we continued to be friends because all that would remain is a tag. "Close friends"- we would try too hard to meet the expected standards of this label and fix things. Then we would secretly wish one of us abandoned this "fixing mode". To dodge going on a guilt trip, we'd hope the other person takes the initiative to quit first. We were close friends because we wanted to be. It is the reason why we gave our friends...

* Immediately delete questions like “May I know what are your qualifications?” or “Where did you get this so-called psychological fact from?” asked by mental health professionals in the comments section of your posts.  * Post some social media stories related to how you are just trying to “help” and your “opinions” are on a mission to save the world.  * In a country like India which has its population in crores, buy some followers for your page. Some means thousands and lakhs.  * If you are scared that mental health professionals will keep questioning your credibility then tell your loyal followers that you are not a therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist but you will continue to take PAID private calls and deep listening sessions because you are giving the world your 'precious time'. (Shhh, no one knows this is how your business grows.)  * The followers/pseudo lawyers you have will fight for you in the comments section of all your social media pages and also spend all ...

In the leash on permanence, there is fear.  Fear of loss,  fear of missing out,  fear of attachments,  fear of suffering, fear of losing control. In impermanence, there is acceptance. Acceptance of grief,  acceptance of here and now, acceptance of connections, acceptance of pain and vulnerability, and unleashing the freedom to let go. Zen isn't outside, on the highest mountain peak, or the sun-kissed beach,  it's within the universe. The universe that you are. ©songbriti

1. Act like you are qualified in psychology and market your unverified content in the name of "psychological facts".   2. Make it look like people don't need to go to therapists/counsellors/psychologists/psychiatrists because your pep talks are enough to heal mental health illnesses. 3. Use social media to grow your unethical business. After all, if it's a reel then who really cares whether it's real or not. Go live on different social media platforms, throw spoilt lemons at your followers, they will hopefully make lemonade and drink it too because you are an "influencer" and they love your blue tick. 4. Organize deep listening sessions without any professional training in mental health. 5. Never question your conscience. Keep minting money at the cost of someone's life. ©songbriti

I like silence, but not the one before the storm. I like silence, but not the one oppressing opinions. I like silence, but not the one tolerating violence behind closed doors.  I like silence, but not the one giving a parachute to the ego. I like silence, but not the one dividing nations. I like silence, but not the one used as a passive-aggressive tool to punish someone, I like silence, but not the one widening the rift between hearts. I like silence, but not the one forcing a person to stay in the closet. I like silence, but not the one dragging a life to death by suicide. ©songbriti

I have known you, but I have not known you at all. We are kites wandering in our own dialects, like limes and lemons. When we're on a tree together, coincidentally, because that's how we meet/met, our eyes talk in monosyllables and awkward nods.    Spring is in the house and it's adequately warm, yet somehow, there are extensions of snow dew  on my palms and yours too. We perform karaoke with tulips,  'The everlasting mixed...' The birds would be happy staying longer. What about our hearts? Can companionship keep them stronger? The sun is in a rush,  to go for the family dinner. Just then, something shakes the tree, and we fall on the ground. Distance doesn't have an opinion on how far or close we are, we do. Our cords are intertwined, but we have parallel skies. I have known you, but I have not known you at all.   ©songbriti

When it comes to instincts, it's hard to walk past them. Damn, they're the testimony of how I ran out of tissues to wipe you off my eyes. I shouldn't be appalled if my eyelids explode like a pressure cooker punched in the tummy. I trusted the trust you fabricated with the diabolical atoms from Lucifer's body. Although you never were a fallen angel. You were the slur that perchance died out under the sun but the dead are loafers chilling out here and there as the darkness to the conceited sky which is hungrily lusting to have eight distinctly adulterous consummations with the moon.  The venom in me isn't your contribution. I wouldn't give you the power of attorney because anything that has you in it is an arrow stuffed with the yolk of the deil. Plotting to drag me to a bed that has a sheet flattened out of a dragon who is in his slumber but is very much in contact with the inferno boiling in his mouth.  In the cup of your hands was the fault in my stars, I worsh...

Dear God, Do you write the fate of human beings beforehand? Your way or the highway kinda gameplay? Actually there are spoilers sold out by astrologers, palmists, tarot card readers, numerologists and a few others. Quite interesting professions to mint money out of the cat's curiosity. Then you have motivational speakers who contradict these fellows with the gift of the gab. They are like baits who make a fish market of people buy tickets to listen to how fate can be changed by hard work, smart work (latest update) and with a tank full of positivity that is somewhat twinning with a protein shake for the speed breakers in the hurdle race. These are trades that draw good profit and that's okay because we all have to figure out a way to feed our stomachs. My question isn't to them anyway, it is to you, you who is Great and the Ultimate, that is what I have heard so far from the majority. Going by the theory of you being all Powerful and the Creator, I often think why do people...

Dear Aman, When your heart was secretly hoping that time would not race against it but hold your hands like a friend who is true, I cried and felt helpless as you battled the terminal illness feeding on your health, the helplessness was making me angry. When you asked me to give love another chance I promised you I would but I kept my fingers crossed at first. Love was not the problem you see, losing the one you love was. Then when I saw you seizing your days even before the sun could rise and walking through life with so much love that sunsets were more hopeful than they could ever be, you somehow persuaded me to keep my promise. I still have my fears but my hopes are stronger and can win over them. Your translation of Carpe diem will always be my favourite and no one can replace it. I could have written this letter to you over the weekend but I pulled out a pen and paper right away because I am not sure if... Kal ho na ho. Lots of love, Songbriti

Amuse me dear muse, craft the spearmint muddled in my mojito, lure my quill mermaiding in Collins reef highball castles, serve cetacean cubes, a chilled classic open mic on the rocks, the rendition is on poetry. ©songbriti

Gracious Aquamarine in a sapphire gown, doing her grand jeté for a tropical concert, leaping in confidence, gliding theatrically, sweeping sailors off their feet. A canoe of wild roses perfumes the Pacific, a shaft of lunar light placed on it, an instrumental fusion by a harp and a piano, a ganache on the mise en scène. El Arco cheering for his soulmate, a young canary reads the narrative and romantic idioms in crests and troughs, a beach lover comes running home. ©songbriti

Skylines a bracelet of fairy lights. Skylines a ribbon of satin nooses. Skylines a pond of winking weekends. Skylines a diary of salary slips. Skylines a matchmaker of crony capitalism. Skylines a sanctuary of groomed rats. Skylines a firework of dwindling dreams. ©songbriti

Crammed messages on my fingertips, loitering in the steel railings. Patches of asynchronous music by trees freewheeling to please the stormy winter, insinuating midnight's solo gig. When two rough surfaces meet and greet, the settlement is amicable. A handpicked ambience to barbecue the excreta. Un-effing the eff ups after the fire is put out. A pact having conspicuous weightage but the heated leftover is a pokerface and can launch an asteroid to pay homage to the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. Inadvertent disclosures auctioning the queerness of an outrage to craters. Bidders with salt and bidders with freshwater. The highest bid is...? ©songbriti

The replica of a collar necklace in red was neatly placed on her slender neck before it rolled down like decadent cherry syrup. Her monologue came to a standstill. The onomatopoeia of her screaming was quitened by a glass with a pointed edge. Edges have a finishing line, her body fell on the floor and those warm palms were getting colder and colder. Her eyes were open in shock and her lips slightly parted. Her last word was "aarghhhh" even though she had the potential of doing much better than that. I closed her eyes and packaged her in a plastic larger than her size. She was ready for delivery, I put her into the freezer and ran to the bathroom. I retched up a thick tributary of vomit. I washed my face, scrubbed my hands...washed my face... repetitively. It was my first murder without a plan. She had done no harm to me. Why did I then kill her? I was guilty but "Sorry cannot make a dead man alive", hence an apology was not required. Guilt is disposable. Satan wa...

Life is too short to be demeaned by toxic positivity, cut me some slack because when there is a real problem with my mental health I take the responsibility to heal myself by addressing the illness first. Optimism is in the rulebook and a part of my routine too but the idea is not to exploit its usage by bombarding one-liners to shoo away the acknowledgement of the wound. Seeking help to lead a healthier life (physically, mentally and spiritually) is a human right. On humanitarian grounds, be kind and patient to LISTEN because off late good listeners are missing in action. ©songbriti

You ever felt out of breath? Multiply this feeling with infinity and that is literally how it feels when I cannot write. Pale, a feeling so colourless. My words are turning pale and the odds are not in my favour. I want to be able to write about the tangerine sky and about the white orchids calling out to me from the hills I grew up in. I want to able to sketch my heartbreak into a poem that dissects my tears into metaphors explaining the anatomy of pain. I want to be able to write the lyrics for the melody in a child's innocent eyes, a farmer's hard work, a soldier's day with her family, a friend's jokes...the list goes on. I can laugh, I can cry, I can do all of that in neat shots distilled like the water in Victoria Falls but the inability to write pushes my universe into a black hole. It does not end there, when I force words on paper it turns into a futile rhetoric with superficial aroma and this artificiality is harmful for my health, I feel sick when I get down...

Echoes of pearls, crab's noose, sharks lined up, a cruise wrecked, iceberg drinks scotch, the seabed swings, unkempt stories, settle on the shores, dispersed dandelions, sing a folklore, thunderbolt jamming, drums of heaven? ©songbriti

The month of Mental Health Awareness came to an end last week. Putting your alarm on snooze after this? Please don't. This is a movement with a global welfare perspective and it needs your support to grow. The awareness campaigns on mental health and mental illnesses by various organisations both on and off social media reached out to a section of the population which is great but reaching out to every human being is the larger objective. The baby steps we take now are the roots of the foundation for tomorrow. Understanding the person next to you, encouraging emotional hygiene, sharing your awareness with fellow citizens, normalising mental healthcare services is a few starters we need to work on. When winter is the season in town, you wear warm clothes to protect yourself from catching a cold. Agree? Winters will come and go but mental health is not seasonal, it is a permanent part of our lives. The month of May is the ship which will be back next year but...O Captain! My Captain!...

For a writer, life is an art in the gallery of papers and pens dipped in experiences, spilling inspiration on Earth to peacefully free what has been put to rest, to care about what is worthwhile in the present and to accept the uncertainty of the future but believe in dreams. 'Life is a muse' thinks a writer but she is the muse of life. ©songbriti

At granny’s house last summer, she shared how she missed her ancestral home, the tree in her neighbourhood with star apples, where she often met grandpa, he was caught stealing her heart there. Clay models she sculpted, depicted invincibility! the cub on the mother's lap, in the showcase, they belong to mom, it is her birthday gift, but they are my friends and good listeners too. Granny-The Michelangelo of our family. Education in India bunked the classes on renaissance, even after 1947, judge me not you grin of hypocrisy, are Sahifa Banu and Amrita Sher-Gil alive? Artists are supposed to be eternal but do textbooks in school teach gender neutrality? Her almirah had pure white sarees, red and purple were her favourites. Regressive mentality, kept in Pandora's box during Dussehra and Holika Dahan? Granny would sit by my side; a cup of ginger tea, the setting sun, all her attention on my stories. I would tell her… how efficiently I enacted the ...