The Beach

As dunes and castles form on the ever-gullible sand, promise me, my love; you’ll not let those footsteps form on the sand of your heart. Promise me that you’ll not flow away with the wind and the disloyal water, that you’ll never change your shape for something that never belonged to you. Let them trace and measure your depth; you’ll not give in to becoming shallow like they all do. Promise me, the wind would not carry you like it does everyone else. For humans are supposed to have feelings, that’s where the irony lies.

Bhavna Khurana

Photography by Astha Chourasia

Chilly

No matter how crippled and dried you are on the outside, deep within in your soul, you carry nothing less than an inferno. You are a blazing fire, the colour of the blood. You possess the potential to move the quiet, to sweep the silence off its ground. You might not be an eternity, but your effect is.

Move on, we’re not here to stick around tastes and deceptive appearances.

Bhavna Khurana

Photography by Astha Chourasia

Wanton Windmill

In the hustle of our tirelessly moving lifeless lives, we’ve forgotten where we’re heading to. We all have chosen a path, not a destination. We know what to do, but not how to do it. We spend most of our lives thinking, without attempting to do what we thought.

What is a mill without the wind, where is a human without the being?

Bhavna Khurana

Photography by Astha Chourasia

Order of the Palpable Smoke

Frequently I sodomize the concept of organization. It would seem that a private intellectualism of this caliber could only be that of a social degenerate. But I am a flawless character when it comes to asocial honesty. I am more than ‘the Outsider’ of Camus. And I try to use such honest eyes with everyone, even across the dumb spiritual smoke around people.

I have a friend who smokes too much and is on the verge of protracting angina. That is hurtful, for him and for me. The smoke in his lungs is too much, and his resolution to smoke is also equally strong. It’s a choice for him, with the smoke, without the smoke. He chooses smoke every time. I think, he likes to lose himself in those rising smoke rings, which seem so beautiful. Life awfully progresses, as do smoke rings. It’s his way of looking at his spiritual organization.

But till whose shore does his smoking matter so much? Where will it all accumulate, besides his lungs? I keep thinking, smoking kills; smoking causes cancer. There should be ‘no smoking’. But it’s not just about the smoke; it is essentially about the cigarette. The cigarette is not a bystander; it is intimate with your lips. You graze it, smother it, chew on it, crush it, squeeze it; it’s a harassment of sorts. That is palpable. To feel the nervousness inside, damning all the spiritual quotes you have ever read, and think that cigarette is your friend. The cigarette was a friend when he left; cigarette was a friend when she left; cigarette was a friend when the room was empty. And to think! That some detest the smoke!

A volume of air filled with smoke can only be felt; it cannot be captured, for it would be like trying to capture the air. Most of the things in our lives can be felt, but it might seem very pointless in capturing them. Smoking is like looking into a frame of history, we see diagrams, pictures, images emerging and disappearing. It’s like a vivid imagination, an indirect benefit to the mental state. Smoking is a tribute to those who have problems. Smoking is a signal fire of a weak heart. Smoking is to incite a response. It is a different type of ascendency for some, and a means to lay off honesty in the air. But above all, I think, for some, it is also an instrument of the battle against the perilous mind, the madness of which the smoke avoids conquering. It is a sign of the fire of disorganization.

– Nivedita

Neons

“I am excited about the meeting.”

“Which meeting?”

“You know, folk, work and play.”

“Aha! Whispers, ranting and chugging!”

“Yes! heights, ropes and bridges!”

“Oh yes, the incandescent lights,

Hordes of insects,

Neon flights.”

“Rails underneath,

Roads above, and water overhead.”

“The visual grammar,

Libraries of signs,

The fluid red!”

“Fake films, battery parks,

Medical waste.”

“Full spandex suits,

Face paints and animal smell,

Life is late.”

“Atop such dreary mountains,

Of pollution and slime,

Folk work and play,

The neon mountains,

The civilized thrives.”

Photography and Poem by Nivedita