From The Quill

I have no words to say That I miss you. Except that when I do The music starts sounding A little monotonous  The winter becomes a little More foggy and polluted. My imagination finds no words,  And life has a little less meaning,  Until I find you again. ~ Suranya

 I find myself in unfamiliar surroundings, Wander alone through the complex roads, That intertwines like two snakes fighting for survival And I chance upon a stranger. The sunlight reflects on his face. Blurring my view of his features. “ Is this the State of Mind? ” I ask. “ What are you looking for? ” He smiled. “ Peace. ” I show him the address. He shakes his head, amused. “ It’s a difficult road ahead, you would need more… ” “ More of what? ” “ Thick Skin, Carefreeness and a lot of self-love. ” “ Then? ” I ask, intrigued. “ Then you will perhaps find a glimpse of it some day. An idea, an abstract, a utopian world. You will get there, slowly, when it's time. ” “ How do I know when the time comes? ” “ When Death knocks at your door, Asking you to let go, He will surely take you there. ” “ But can I not reach there before Death arrives? ” He laughs, a hearty laugh, staring at me, Like I was a child asking something naive.  “ You will find a glimpse of it someday. ”  His ...

The silence is killing me Is not an expression  For some of us. Silence is a curse A reminder of demons that chase us Voices in our head, sins and shame We drown in the noise of the world. We need headphones in a crowd Playing music that keeps us warm Amidst cold judgemental stares. We need stories to be told to us Like when we were children To fall asleep to. Silence bothers us Like noise bothers some people. The beating of the heart, The involuntary breath The thoughts in my head I don't want to face  All come haunting me at midnight  In the silences And Music works its magic Drowning out everything Questionable and Tragic  Drifting me to sleep As if the universe Sings me a lullaby. © Suranya

Love, I had walked to your sanctum Seeking refuge for my barren soul. Hoping to be enlightened Praying to be chosen By your grace. I encounter strangers Who promise to be you Yet, they know not what you are. I encounter promises Vague and unkept, Unlike what you vowed for. I chance upon kindness, A welcome breeze of freshness And people think it is you. I smile at naivety, The desperate search for your presence That makes them feel they will be Less lonely, less unhappy, less insecure. But you never promised to be so, isn't it? In the chase, in the expectation and idea, They have lost you somewhere A representation of you they seek outward But can't offer themselves. I walk down the road alone, Solitude is my peace, As I realise I have been looking For you at the wrong places, In people and things, But never within me. ~ Suranya

I gave you my heart  Not looking for lessons  Nor expecting to be hurt. I trusted you with my soul,  My identity, my being.  Why is it that now,  I stand at your threshold,  Eyes full of tears,  Heart full of questions? Why can't you look at me,  When you say everything was a lie? If I had known, love was this  The pain I endure  The betrayal I feel  The trust was shattered into broken pieces  Of my never-to-be-healed heart.  I would have never loved you,  The way I unfortunately do.  ~ Suranya

 Once, just for once, imagine if this is the other side. The heaven or hell you dreaded,  A place you believed to exist (or not)  Because your faith said,  There was something good beyond. A reward for your virtues, a punishment for your sins.  What if it's just this, your world of good and bad?  No other repercussion of your actions exists. What if this is the place and you don't know it yet? It just gets worse and worst, doesn't it? That place you thought of often,  Your perfect parallel universe,  A loop of the same lives.  The seeking doesn't end. Then, what is the meaning of life? Is it just to reach the end? You keep asking, till you can't anymore.  Your head feels light, Everything is meaningless.  Silence fills the void; nobody answers. ~ Suranya

 How many times do you die;  Before you are truly dead?  Your body and mind work  Like people expect them to work  But you don't think before you act,  Or say or feel anymore. You live like a habit, you don't live anymore. How many of us can say we truly lived To know ourselves more than what  Others expect us to be?  To do the things we want to? How many can say we truly lived  Before we died? ~ Suranya

 The rain and the sunshine  How everything in the universe aligns  To make us meet at the perfect time  We praise it on fate and stars. The particles that we are made of,  The journey and the joy of life  The reason and rhyme for love  It all comes down to why. And all I can say, dear friend, Is that nothing is planned Yet chaos is a system  Beyond our minds. You and I are like particles.  Expanded and contracted with time  A part of this vast universe  Insignificant in the divine. We try in vain to understand  The mysteries that we take by chance  As a sudden coincidence or divine intervention.  But nothing in this universe is by chance. ~ Suranya

Hey there! Welcome to  From the Quill: Poetry and Musings by Suranya ,  my little nook on the internet where I pour out poems, thoughts, and the occasional mini-tale straight from the heart (and a little bit from the curious corners of my mind!). I’m Suranya. Most of you may already know me from my stories and history-related posts, but here’s something a bit different: poetry and musings. Musings and thoughts often from the deepest corner of my diaries that I have kept through the years, and poetry... It’s a love I stumbled upon rather late, somewhere in my 20s, and it’s been a journey of discovery ever since. I’m still learning, shaping, and experimenting with it, but every verse comes from my faith. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to have some of my poems find homes in lovely anthologies ( Poets of India, A Puzzle Called Life, Silent Cries, Remember the Roses ) and even pop up on amazing community pages like Byme Poetry, Poetic Reveries,  Poetry Grapevine, The Writ...

Her hand trembled on the white pearl string she held close to her bosom. It had tiny red spots on it, which she could not help but assume to be blood. Some of the war, its reminders of the sins of her kin, had rubbed off on her hand now. She shivered a little, trying not to lose composure. She had lost everything that was not hers to begin with. No amount of praying could now heal her broken heart. She was mourning her love in secret because he was gone, but she was still alive. To be scrutinised for lamenting such a forbidden loss. As long as she was breathing, she had to make sure she played her pawns well. She had to reconcile with her siblings. She had to make friends with the enemies. Anything that would make her relevant, even when deep in her heart, she wanted to slip away into oblivion. The most powerful woman in the world spent the night in the darkness of her room, wine glass in hand, helpless and defeated in the hands of fate. © Suranya Context: On 29th May, 1568, the armies...

This day in 1540, around midnight in the separate quarters of Kumbhalgarh fort, was born a prince who would go on to be his dynasty's most famous king. Not because he won a battle or had a huge kingdom, but because of his resistance against a bigger power, his dream of freedom, his rebellious heart, the qualities that a true leader possesses. Of course, he was not perfect. He was impulsive and often put his heart and emotions above his head and mind. He was sometimes not rational either. You see, rational people don't do selfless things that may harm them. He did. He resisted with all his might. He fought against all odds. He inspired people who came four hundred years after him to fight for freedom. He never had the life of a king, of luxury and privilege. He chose the life in the forest, the guerrilla tactics that forced him to stay away from his family, the life that led him to many personal losses. But he did not feel defeated. That's where he became the man he is. Happ...

I stand and watch The pawns change colour  As the chessboard burns.  Thoughts rattled, ideas shackled I often wonder how faith turns.  Blind they are, following kings to wars Being the first in fallen lines.  Wrath of Nature, angered Gods?  It's all your doing, humans. History repeats, blood and scar Yet you don't learn love over waging wars. ~ Suranya

The cry of the peacock haunts me  The scared call of the animals beyond  What have you done, mankind?  Where are your moral grounds?  We watch them burn  Being grazed on the grounds  Thousands of homes,  Millions of hopes abandoned.  All because Man wants  War and progression;  To develop a planet  Where only the rich survive,  Buy oxygen to breathe,  Make synthetic food to eat  And boast about a healthy life. ~ Suranya

So many have come and gone, So many have not succeeded, In leaving their mark. We are broken inside out; We always were Even before we knew what it meant. We were together yet alone. It made me wonder if Love was everything I read about in books. Loneliness comes to the soul In bouts of realisation; Like waves of reality hitting On daydreams of the heart, Waking us up in jolts. And then came the gloomy days When you were absent. Days which made me realise What it truly meant To love someone, Like in the books. ~ SURANYA

My heart is that of Radha's  Longing to reunite with my Beloved. My soul that of His,  One and the same, he and I.  There they sit together  Witnessing song, dance, and frolick  Colours that smear the same  On every skin,  Rich, poor, class and caste alike. The red of love, the orange of sacrifice  The yellow of spring, green of everlasting promises. And here I am, dancing in a frenzy  Singing the praises of the Lord  Who made you and I?  Would He not grant me a final wish,  And reveal Himself to me  As the drums play along? ~ Suranya Holi is celebrated across India as a day when Krishna confessed his affection for Radha. However, in most parts of East India, especially Odisha and Bengal, this full moon is celebrated as Dol Purnima. Here's why: Vishambhar Mishra was born in Nabadwip, Nadia, in a commoner's house on the day of Holi in 1486 CE. As he was born under a Neem tree, his nickname (Daak naam) was Nimai. His affecti...

I am the daughter who brought bad grades home. And every time I did, I saw a look of disappointment in my parents' eyes. I am the daughter who made my parents worry about my future. To the world that counts the intelligence of a child by their maths number, I was the stupid, head-in-the-clouds, immature person who cried at the slightest inconvenience. I matured later than my parents expected me to, and I was pretty sure at some point in my clueless life that I could perhaps never make anyone feel proud of me. The complaints were piling up. But I did, I made myself proud of who I am the most. Everyone else comes after that. I found my way, I stick to my dreams and believe in my ability to fulfil them, maybe not all at once but slowly, gradually and finally. I became independent not by choice but by the way life experiences taught me to be self-reliant is the best way to keep me from expectations and hurt. I go through existential crises, knowing so does everyone else at all ages aro...

It is weird how selectively our memories work, almost like we remember only impactful parts of dreams. Sometimes, when we remember someone or something, what pops up in our mind as a memory is a fabrication of reality with our imagination or interpretation of the person or event. Retelling of these same stories makes them as real as the present, yet they are not. Most parts are our perspective of a person or place, or event, and if you start sharing, you realise their memories of the same can be different from yours. Perhaps that is why happiness is rare, because when we look back, we only remember the profound moments. We don't try to recollect the unpleasant, the worst days and nightmares, yet they haunt us at our lowest points. But what about the mundane, peaceful days? We fail to appreciate them while they last, because they cause no emotional surge. Yet we crave normalcy and define it as happiness. Imagine if all our days were mundane, we would perhaps be devoid of nostalgia o...

"Days pass by as I begin to heal,  I want to feel whole again." It's an odd expression, I wonder.  As I keep my book down,  My eyes caught a couple  Sitting hand in hand  In a corner of the coffee shop. Why do we feel incomplete  Without a person or an achievement? I ponder upon it, staring at my reflection On the screen of the phone. I have my whole world.  Around me, even when I am alone.  Yet I, too, feel an emptiness engulf me. Remember when we read about black holes? How do they consume everything? Sadness perhaps consumes life.  Into a dark nothingness. We begin to put more importance.  In less important things.  And before we know it, The feeling of a void creeps in. Yet, once you heal Once you know better, You will see, all along You were whole. Complete. Filled with everything The universe is made of. Particles of hope, faith and love. ~ Suranya

Aj chal ek adhuri dastaan pura kar lete hai.  Ek teri ishq mein hum gerua orr lete hai.  Aj hawayon ka rukh mor dete hai.  Chal aj thoda jee lete hai. Tere ishq ka jogan banti firti hoon,  Duniya se chupake teri sapne bunnti hoon,  Aasuyon ko tera saya bana leti hoon. Par ab bohot hua chupna chupana.  Aj chal subah ke dhoop mein  Duniya se baya kar deti hoon,  Prem hai tujhse, sirf tujhse. Tu hi sach meri, aj tu yeh jaan le.  Do kadam main chalu,  Tere ehsaas mein ghar bana loon,  Aaja aj palko mein tere sapne sawar loon. © Suranya Meera Bai, a prominent figure of the Bhakti Movement, identified herself as Lord Krishna's wife. The princess of Merta, married to the crown prince of Mewar Bhojraj, refused to lead the life of a widow after her husband passed away in a battle against Babar. It is widely believed that when she was invited back to Chittorgarh by Rana Udai Singh after his mother Rani Karnavati had asked Meera to leave the c...

Where the damp wall  Smells like home;  And the faded poster on the wall  Reminds me of good times. There is this glow in the dark  Pack of Stars that I put up  Because I am scared of the dark.  And the bed, pillows and cushions  Seems to know me more than people. They witnessed my insecurities and fears. I can tell you which book is on which shelf  Without really looking,  Every single showpiece holds a strong meaning.  And a picture of You watches over me.  I can cry there in peace,  Scream, yell, vent and rant  All to myself, without judgement.  To people, it looks like a lonely corner  Where I allow no one, and nobody cares for it.  But to me, in good days and bad  That is my safe space. ~  Suranya

Confessions of a Lover  Etched in stone  For time immemorial  For you to adorn;  A love that was  Yet couldn't be.  Time's reminder to its travellers  That not all who love are happy  Not all whose names survive  Die a hero for their Beloved. Betrayal, abandonment, sacrifice  Virtues that a heroine would often live by,  That proved her worthy of being  A protagonist in his life.  But she was so much more.  One whose name was lost in time  Because her identity  Was not defined by his. Yet somewhere in some Bard's tale  A pillar or a few words in stone  She survives through time as his  Even when life kept them apart. © Suranya S ometimes in history, when you treat people as people, you stumble across characters, stories and incidents that touch your heart. Thanks to Anandabazar Patrika and its article on Saru Maru edict, long after I had read and mostly forgotten about Devi, what Asoka's first ...

Looking through your journals can be therapeutic. You understand what you did wrong and learnt from experience. I was going through my teenage journal and came across this one page where I admit to having a crush on someone when I was 13. I was a self-aware teen, hitting puberty and questioning my looks like any other. When I read what followed after I befriended him, today I would say he was aware of my feelings, exploited and manipulated me into believing he was a friend and made me do his work for him. I was a fool to think all that would get me into his good books and let him. It may look all naive and silly now, but I continued this one-way friendship for years till I could finally let it go and accept that he was not a decent human being. It was okay to stop being friends by choice. Why am I sharing this? Because most of my readers are teens who are going through their first crushes, puberty, heartbreak and everything else. It's important to know and realise that the portraya...