I hate summer, with utmost passion. Summer in my city is not your usual romanticized singing of the cicada-esque experience where the thin breathable fabric on your body gently oscillates in the soothing sea breeze as you nimble on freshly shaved ice. Summers here come with a declaration of war, an epidemic of fatigue, blisters heat waves and ORS shopping. There is, however, a soft spot in this city's summer towards its inhabitants, you can see it in action after 11pm, from the peel-your-skin-off gusts to lull whispers of air passing by, such is the contrast in treatment at this hour of night. There is a strange aroma that fills up the space around, maybe it comes from the transpirating rocks cooling down at the riverbank nearby, maybe its a pressure difference bringing in the air from lands I have no clue of or maybe its the prayers of those troubled at day answered for them to be at peace as they slumber. Whichever it is, it is gentle with a discrete presence. At an instant you sense it and at the other your nose is left searching; maybe it is more playful than it is gentle, whichever it is, it is kind; as opposed to the nostril numbing gales that one has to endure in winters, this fluff like aroma, these summer nights are kind on these ever so fragile nostrils.

I never thought I'd have a strong enough urge to write something, but I am grateful that it came, a sort of background to these thoughts can be given in time, I currently lie in a sliver of time where even a day's happenings can amount to a year or two of data acquired for someone who is say, in their 60's. I think things happen to us so quickly at this point (or sliver) in time that we do not get any leeway to catch out breath let alone hold a pen or get on top of keys to punch down what went by us.

Things accumulate, they yearn to be let out and eventually they explode, and that is when we push ourselves to write, though us would be an unjust generalization here.

Thing #1

I have a junior at college, he is a dunce at studies but that is the only thing he's a dunce at, I saw him dragging his friend to a photoshoot that was going on for his (and my) team had qualified for the college intra faculty football tournament finals. He drags his friend who refuses to come along, Nihal then proceeds to say the following words "don't you understand? I want you to be included in an important moment of my life, I want to share it with you" proceeding which his friend and my mind fell silent. A day has passed since then and I sit here pondering as to how beautiful of a thing that was to say to another person. I sit and think how guys in general don't usually express themselves to that extent, I think to myself how would I feel if someone said that to me, I think to myself what sort of a face would my friends make if I said that to them, do I even have the courage to say that to them?

Thing #2

Thing 2 requires a little lore so here goes:

Valorant is an online tactical shooter game, a lot like CSGO or Call of Duty, it has a range of characters you can play as while carrying out the goal of defeating the other team, each of these characters have a story attached to them thereby giving them depth. One of them goes by the name "Omen" his story involves him being involved in a failed scientific experiment with his friend due to which he end up transforming into a half-human half-phantom/spirit sort of a juxtaposed entity. Omen longs for his humanity, he has a hazy memory and several other things that make him my favorite valorant character. Of his many signature lines one is where he wins a battle all by himself and says "Still just human". I think about that line a lot and what it entails in that context. Another time when I find that line relatable is when I find myself crying. Crying is something I don't want to lose, as I have seen people who do not know how to weep even in times where it is most natural to, and to me emanates such a distant from humanity aura. And so be it today or yesterday or any day that follows, I continue to think and say to myself whenever I cry, "still just human".

Thing #3

Thing 3 needs to be refined a little more.

I believe this will do for now, articulating thoughts is a hard skill to master

I love muted colors, they give off a wisdom that a reverse synesthete would give the world and more to hear. I think writing comes to me as naturally as these muted colors in the sense that in the process of writing I have no sense of the words that will be spoken or written by me in the next zeta of time, I can make my own phrases as I go and I can speak nonsense for a prolonged period and It would all tie in together well because at the end there is always a solace I can seek in not knowing what my mind had planned out, nothing has to be planned really. If I keep at it, my words, my ink will all come together, merge into one giant platter of a petri dish like platform where all my alliterations will give way and metaphors convoluted in rusty execution will save me from my muted cage of solitude, my freedom burning a kind washed blue. To me colors come naturally due to my sight but the colors I want to show the world are only a few scratches of paper away, and in this way I see not only colors from my retina but also my soul, as it reaches out to me, as it pours itself out with passion to the brim of my finger tips and hovers over me and within me like a ghost adorned with a kind, washed, blue. Muted colors speak to me as the wind would speak to cattle in a forest and in my pursuit of writing I follow their will, binding me in my own freedom.

I have 15 minutes fellow reader, 15 minutes to tell you about how happy I felt on a particular moment for a particular pocket of time on this day, today was a rainy day and a day of hoarse winter, the drizzled drops complemented the cold air in such a way that only a mad man could smile in the face of it all, and for today I was, terribly and blissfully mad a man. A girl I secretly like had left some of her possessions with me but before I say any further let me tell you what do I mean by liking someone secretly, it is a feeling of utter confusion wherein the prospect of a beloved is veiled in questions even from you to be secretly fond of someone entails that the reason you are drawn to them is a secret as of now, even to you; however, we are as of now, very good and respectful friends. Yet I could not help but rejoice like a child when I had got the news that she would be here soon on this very cold and rainy day treading these very roads which I don't think of very often. Dear reader she was now here, present right in front of me, just 10 meters away it was raining ever so gently and like a mad man I walked without a care in the world into that rain and thrash of winter gust. I loved the rain even more so today and walking for those 10 meters were the most pleasant 10 meters I have probably walked compared to any other given day, I give her the belongings that I kept with utmost care she, gazing with an amused concern beckons me now to go home, oh how painful those words seemed then and now as I write them down, and unexpectedly but even more blissfully so she shaded me under her umbrella just as I was to leave. My dearest of readers, I am not further able to express what peace and glimmer I felt in my heart today, as I walked back through the roads which will now be of interest to me, back to my home.

So my cousin went to this bakery somewhere in a small town of Uttarakhand on the day of Eid and she said it was like a bakery+coffee shop with coffee flavours as many as the petals of a lavender. Another thing that she mentioned was that this shop is placed at an elevated terrain and there's an expansive corridor, a balcony sort of within the bakery. You can sit there with your coco filled croissant or cinnamon rolls blazing with delight whilst brandishing a freshly brewed mixture of caffeine and bliss. Here's the best part though, whilst you wield all that goodness via the expansive lense of the balcony you can see the Himalayas right in front of you! Right yonder. This wholesome conjunction of a bakery and coffee shop is run single handedly by a cheerful young maiden. She does everything around there and she's as warm and welcoming if not, even more welcoming than the scent of the shop itself. She is the sole owner of this nirvana wherein smiles and cheerful thoughts are exchanged and peace is found on the snowy tops of the majestic Himalayan range.

The correlation of peace at mountains with tea is so prominent in my circle, especially mountains that give out all the hues of green and lush. It is only normal for tea to spring first to mind while seeing such sights that entice you to think about the delicate tea plantations where the little ones are nurtured for their trying journey to become a delicacy. To speak about coffee and that too with the same enthusiasm in this climate can become a challenge most certainly, as to find a cocoa bean plant within the jungles up here would be the equivalent to finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow by a narrow stream somewhere in Ireland.

But despite this the sophisticated aura that the wind patterns and the shades of pearl white beyond give off is something that could only resonate with the reassuring scent of coffee, and just by that account and the fact that coffee shops are springing up pleasantly more and more as the years go by. The energy of what many term as dark academia and poeticism intrinsically lies here, within the crevices of cinnamon rolls and the foam and froth of freshly brewed coffee.

Frothy as the Damascus wine with an aroma that carried a similar intoxicating spell the wind hushed northward as though cavalry moving under the cloak of night. Trailing long with a canister of water on the side of my dear companion we set on foot towards a place not yet well known to the Arabs, a land where clouds gather in abundance, where turrets of fortresses oversee such clouds. We set course on a new moon’s eve to get the position as accurate as possible as it was only on a new moon’s night that we could make out the exact whereabouts of the star Altair, as under it lay the land of Constantinople. Using a slender stick tied to my camel’s back we set a temporary marking of our trail, to be safe. This line of thought faded along with the horizon as with the coming dawn a sandstorm advanced.

They call it Eqaal as it is a piece of cloth that is wounded by a rope around your head, also where the word Aql comes from, a sound Aql is a one that’s tied firm in knowledge and faith, and so with the knowledge of the winds and my Eqaal’s grip I directed my ride through the storm, steady and sure just how a merchant desires to progress in life, but little does he know about the sound Aql, had Bedouins been greedy like the silk route merchants who now pass my left side, they would have been nonexistent. The sun was now setting over Al maghreb and the horizon had cleared up just in time to accommodate a visual of the last blade of light dipping down beyond the thin line that divided this world and the world unseen. The next day at dawn, my companion and I arise to land which is closer to our destination and the path lying onward and the sky under which it lies seems to have been taken under siege by a surplus of low-lying clouds, their merciful shade had made us forget all the hardships of the days prior. I remember how the tradesmen used to reason as to why I accompanied the word shade with merciful, is a shade in itself not mercy enough? The reason my friends is that a shade is only of the properties of what the object is that casts it to be, and so it becomes an obligation to make that distinction. For a soldier who is knee down in blood in midst of war, he too sees a shade, but does that mean the arrows that cast it are carriers of mercy?

One such arrow dived down upon my ride’s shoulder blade, dusty eyed I could not make out the soldiers that stood guard, much like the sky above the city was on the verge of something similar. The enemy arrows had aimed for beyond the city walls, though swift the determination they carried was a matter of pity unlike my condition as with another arrow now to my waist I was on my way for a travel greater than I could ever assume. May the winds carry man as effortlessly as dust, may the gusts narrate their stories to passersby, may the dunes be a testament to man’s perseverance. As the rain of red settles gently on my bed I remember, from dust we were and to it we return.

I see mystery in the sky played out

as night takes helm, leaving the day now

topaz, in its exhaustion, settles gently down

I see altair and deneb the first to arrive

In murky blue they hide, in peace they live

In darkness they lie, a secret solace they give

They might hear the calls of the mosque below

They might shake and shiver

They might cry in sorrow

For even stars see, time and its lies

For even the sky knows

Of its inevitable rest

Not in topaz nor in thistle

But a surging black

From wherein will rise

a generous new sun

Up goes my gaze

Into the heavens

reflected in your eyes

the stars reciprocating gently

the solemn desert sighs

my hands long for your gentle embrace

gentle as the sand drizzling down

amidst the blinding storm that sets

with a wailing, heaven bound

my beloved i search

for even an oasis down yonder

for scraps of skin to inscribe

my poems that within resound

of your disastrous love.

My love for you, is my love for the moon

the stars that shimmer, a dawn which looms

just round your eyes, turning what you see

Into vivid poetry.

the palmy quilts you string

that engulf us at night

as we breathe at ease

like the stars in your sight

with dunes that shift

and time that forgets

for how long I’ve stayed

under your wistful shade

I wish i could write a poem that

You

Would find in a diary where i write

To

My friends long forgotten that dwell

Do

Forever in my mind like a scar

You

Would not find it cozy i assure

You

Would flee from my poem just as I

Do

In the nights i reproach in my heart

Who

Brought light in my timeline as night

Drew

For a time that was never meant to rewind

No

Now i dream of days where i could write

To

My sufferings from a time when I was

Blue

And confess of a poem I hid from

Them

Which lied in the shade of a withered

Stem

Of whose petals you see how they’re

Unkempt

As my desires for a life

Outside my

Contempts

A bedouin like I when I gaze at the sky

I find therein my father

With glints of stars passing by

But beyond that just behind

Of the clouds you will find

The shades of emotions

That are timeless through time

A cherry tint at dawn

With dew that has drawn

From perches of lantern hilts

Where moths slumber in their quilts

A purple hue near the night

When the birds cease their flight

A tangy ripe in the noon

When the sun greets the moon

A terrible tan at times

When there is sand in my eyes

Roaring with the dunes

Forging unearthly tunes

An unfathomable grey

At times of moist and mist

When prayer chants advance

Seeking a calm rain dance

In the month of July

With father, my sky

I narrate to you all this

As the rain clouds pass me by