1st Prize – Existentialist Conspiracy Club
by Kalpak Bhave
Yesterday,
I saw you look at the stars,
Our bottoms cold on the marble floor,
A garden of light above our head,
None of us saying much,
Me itching to get up and go,
You shooting a look, dare I moved.
“Is everything alright?”
They’d ask me once in a while.
“Yeah, she’s okay”
I sent everyone away.
“It’s just that sort of a day.”
A joint in our hands,
And fog in our eyes,
And faces blank,
Devoid of lies
Yesterday I saw you look at the stars,
Like a meeting of an existential conspiracy club
Every once in a while
you’d give me a sad smile,
Convey what you can’t put down in verse
Then go back to talking of the universe
Blabber about the Milky way
“Yeah she’s okay!
It’s just that sort of a day”
Yesterday,
I saw you crack up loud
Our laughter setting us aside from the crowd
I feared the both of us getting judged,
Especially you, the boy you liked was also at the party here,
But there was now a twinkle in your eye,
And a reflection in the bottle of daaru,
And then sometime you’d break into a song
Or frantically trying to explain your thoughts all wrong,
I’d giggle as I watched you drawl and drone,
The most comfortable place with you was the friend zone.
Yesterday,
I saw you fall face first on a pile of clothes,
Your eyes streaming, in their fresh laundry,
Bit of vomits stuck to your face,
Bit of it steeping to the curtain lace,
Once in a while, you’d give a loud wail,
But by nobody seemed to care,
Some fallen by the toilet pot
Some fallen because of the pot
Some passed out in pools of tears
Some just sitting, living their fears,
Slumped shoulders and fallen heads
Faces blank, and faces dead
“Yeah she’s okay,It’s just that sort of a day”
What sort of a day.Brilliant mind of my peers and I,
Mind that succumb to joy and tempt
Sitting in what looks like a cry for help
The smoke box that the house is,
Could indicate a fire,
But the fire has been dampened,
That’s for sure.
We all sit here,
Like a calamity’s passed
But truth of the matter is,
The calamity is this.
For just an hour ago,
We spoke of the stars
You and me,
And so many like us,
Isn’t that what we pride ourselves on?
That we’re not the kind of yound that party in a bar?
That we’re the intelligent kind,
We believe in conversations
With our existential conspiracy clubs
And all our fascinations.
Yesterday,
I saw you look at me,
With pitiful eyes,
I helped you up, carried you to the bed,
Tried to clean the laundry again.
Couldn’t, because I was just as high
So went and sat in the darker room
With the slumped shoulders and fallen heads
Faces blank and faces dead
Yeah she’s okay,
It’s just that sort of a day.
2nd Prize
By Komal Bodke
What do you think it would feel like
to stretch your palms open
underneath the night sky and watch
as the starlight and darkness
melted
on to your palms?
Just think.
What do you think it would feel like
to feel the face of a lover
you’ve never met
to feel the contours of a face you’ve never seen
To feel his skin on your palms?
Just think.
Falling, falling, fell the last leaf
of autumn onto a carpet of browns and reds
and the winds blew in your hair
It was drilled into your head – “Winter is coming.”
And falling, falling, you fell
into nostalgia when people you loved
were still alive in all senses of the
word – Sepia was the colour you saw.
What do you think it would feel like
to touch the rust on the gates
after the rains
after the iron has been washed
and washed and washed
I can feel it.
I can feel the rust beneath your skin
where you paint bright colours – you have no
idea where they come from
But you need the paint to look beautiful
So you paint anyway.
I can feel the rust
beneath your skin
where you washed
and washed and washed
every shade of water colour – they just
weren’t the right hue.
How lovely it would feel
to walk on air, to soar,
to feel weightless
to fly.
How lovely it would feel.
So you tried.
As you stepped off the terrace – you were
taking a leap of faith, weren’t you?
You stepped off the terrace
and you flew.
It was the last thing you ever did.
And as we picked your irreparably broken self
up from the ground
the tears left our eyes
but they just never
hit
the floor
We cried.
We cried but you were gone
We lost you like a weightless feather in the wind
I still have your rust on my palms.
Tell me.
Are you happy now?
You were so sad most of the time
Did you cry yourself to sleep that never came?
Did you feel incomplete –
lost?
Did you feel that even
if you hollered
your heart’s worst
they still would not understand?
Did you spend your nights up
thinking
thinking about how it would feel like
to soar?
Did you scream into your pillow
because there was this
nothingness
inside you that
you just couldn’t explain
and the silence was deafening
so you screamed
and screamed and screamed
and it was not enough.
Nothing was ever enough
You were never enough.
All you wanted was to be loved
So you screamed to the mirror, “Why
do you not love me?”
“Solace is in solitude”
they said
that’s what they said
but where do you go
where do you go when you hate yourself
where do you go?
So you left.
Tell me now.
Are you happy?
Tell me.
What does it feel like?
2nd Place Winner
WELCOME TO ADULTHOOD
By Kajal Ahuja
Do you remember the ten year old you who couldn’t wait to be thirteen
To wear those pair of heels, to have this teenage group
An epitome of amazingness
To be unlike other teenagers who yell at their parents,
To be the first 13 year old who changed the world
Who was a part of a rock band named red roses,
to be a doctor who cured diseases.
Well safe to say a lot of that wasn’t to be
But we don’t really learn, do we?
Do you remember the fifteen year old you,
All angry and outraged with the world
Who wore her self-righteousness as a medal and armour
Who knew that she was different, one of a kind.
Who couldn’t wait for three years to fly by
To turn into a butterfly.
I stand here today two months ahead of my birthday
And safe to say, I know better, I am better.
I stand slouched with braces on my teeth trying to figure out whether I am good enough
Not a butterfly just yet.
So I came up with these rules to help adults like you and me
To metamorphose into beautiful beings
And beauty costs
So here it goes
Rule number 1- You cannot lash out at people.
Even if you want to, even if you really, really, want to.
Even if you can feel the frustration and anger and disgust boil inside your insides,
And can feel that stomach turning, scalding potion chafe igniting the self righteousness dying to come out.
You may be so angry that letting it out is the only thing that’ll allow you to breathe, you still can’t lash out.
What’ll be even better is if you mange to construe a smile.
Not a smile that says you are acting like an absolute **** and I cant wait to see you fall flat on your face.
Because a lot of the times the person you want to abuse is someone you absolutely love, and a lot of the times the person is a stranger who happens to be an absolute imbecile
But you can’t say that out loud.
So it’s just better to smile.
Rule number 2: You are no longer cute.
I know it’s a fact more than a rule, but treat it as a rule and you’ll do well
You stopped being cute at 11 when you wanted daddy to hold your hand at the crossing.
Actually you stopped being cute when you tried to break your tooth so that your parents would put a chocolate under your pillow.
That’s when you became stupid.
People have been going along since then for good manners sake,
It’s time now to return the favour
Rule number 3: The world’s terrible and you are now a part of it
As much as one would like to stay in the neat and privileged category of being a child and therefore innocent and gods own,
You are now being pushed into either being a man or a woman.
This may have something to do with the blinding urge to either be with a man or a woman.
Don’t expect much luck in that area
If you concentrate carefully you’ll feel the hands that held you
Whose touch was solace
Or hands like your own that you’ve made sandcastles
with slowly pushing you away to your gray doom.
A push so gentle that can be felt only now.
And like the vile lost souls they outstretch their sinewy massless hands
And stroke your head in bliss As another innocent soul enters the dark side.
(You are no better than the rest, unless you be different from the rest, which is what everyone wants to be.
Everybody is smart, everybody is wonderful and sinister and beautiful.
Everybody is just as talented, and everybody is lovely to somebody)
Welcome.
Rule number 4: This is the main one. All of the above rules come together to make this one.
It’s on you.
When you are hungry and cranky, feed yourself.
When you feel tired and done, go for a walk,
When you don’t know what to do, do something
If you then go wrong clean up the mess.
Clean your clothes and your room.
You are going to have to find your own keys.
People will be there to help, but it’ll never be enough.
It’s on you.
It’s on you may be a beautiful philosophy but in practice is hell
When your friend whose moved won’t return a call, call again, but make sure to not let on the absolute need to hear their voice, it might put them off:
Also you are adults now
You want to study and do well, brilliant!
Find a way to fund that education
You want to stay in touch with family, wonderful
No longer do you have to smile at the dinner table while they discuss the politics in your club and the world as you desperately try to share your opinion
Actually you do, because you still are the kid,
Only now you don’t get a bigger scoop of ice cream than the rest
And are told to watch your diet instead.
When you have a bad day and want to scream, it’s your fault
People aren’t here to nurse you
When somebody else has a bad day and screams,
it’s your fault you should have been more understanding from the beginning,
If you are broke, it’s your fault
Even if you are clearly underpaid, it’s on you
You should demand what you deserve
What you deserve is on you
The state of the job market and the fate of the world economy,
Yes, all you.
It’s true what they say
Adults are hypocrites
Welcome to adulthood.
3rd Place Winner
Rant
By Maulik Debholkar
Born into this
Caged existence
Born into
A world of pain
Where a little Syrian boy
Might never walk again
Because those with the keys
To the fighter drones
Have accused him
And his kin
Of homicidal sin
Born into this
Caged existence
A world of fear –
Fear for my mother,
Fear for the women I hold so dear,
Fear that they might stumble onto
any lowly bastard on
The wayward end of this city
And that he might try to
Forcefully project
His masculinity,
Fear of the dark
Fear of the uncertain,
Born into this
Caged existence,
Where Education holds no intellectual purpose
Just a machine to send out
Worthless mindless servants
Forever enslaved to the system
That manipulates the masses,
Born into this
Indifference to the intellectual folk,
On the internet where
If you say something funny
Or crack a dirty joke
That irks those with large pockets
And even larger egos,
Fear as to whether a madman
With a gun
Or with a keyboard
Might follow you where ever you go,
Fear of holding onto my identity,
Fear I fear
The fate of this severed world
The impending struggle of the classes
The on going slaughter of the masses
On account of race religion and creed
So that the powers that be
Might finally breed
Their ideology
In the sheep they secretly keep.
Born into this –
Fear fear fear my dear
No fear for the reaper
He’s but an assured companion
On the way to the River End
Fear my dear
Of the humans that chained this world
Up in oil guns and currencies,
Fear of the monsters they’ve become.
I fear more for you though
The Future you will see
Will be far worse
Than anything that’s ever been
Fortunately enough for me my liver has run it’s course
Drink after drink
I’ve soaked all the blood that this world has shed
In my own blood
All
Without a word spoken,
Till this forsaken day
When the pain was just too much ,
Just too much
To take .