A Bag of Thoughts

Between the heat and hopes of flying cars, Delhi never fails to surprise me. It’s ordinary for me or one of the other Delhiite classmates to stomp out of our boisterous classes during lunch because Delhi is being bashed to death by the other non-Delhiites in the class. The first thing any classmate says to me about my city is basically an insult. I’m not a very zealous patriot but somehow listening to people go on about how my hometown is seriously nothing but garbage is irksome. Delhi might not be a hill-station or some miraculously, breath-takingly clean city but it is home the same. Once you stop staying and start  living in a place, it becomes more than merely just that. You stop thinking of it as polluted and corrupted- you learn to accept it and truly love it.   Delhi is more like a reckless king who was handed the throne when he was but a child- basically an adult whose childhood was snatched. It only partly makes sense, and is mostly very cinematic- but that’s how ...

peripheral p əˈ r ɪ f( ə )r( ə )l/ adjective 1 . relating to or situated on the edge or periphery of something.    of secondary or minor importance; marginal. Peripheral vision :  Side vision; what is seen on the side by the eye when looking straight ahead. Is peripheral vision, indeed, marginally insignificant? To imagine vision without periphery would make us. . . blind. The beauty of seeing it without watching it, of it just being  there.  Of it sitting there to complete your vision, your view. Periphery isn’t just the edge of our vision, it’s not the the edge of anything but actually,  everything .  What is the end to you might be the beginning for another, what is background for you might be the very thing that brings color to another’s life.  Periphery is everything. It’s our trash but the cat’s dinner, it’s our god -their fairytale, it’s my love against your prejudice... It’s the differ...

Volunteering at a zoo was my biggest mistake, mainly because waking up while it’s still dark felt terrible. Especially when your sibling was sleeping like a log when you weren’t not allowed to. Mornings in India always felt too  early . People slept in like it was normal, and yet, here I stood waiting for the five o’ clock shuttle. When it finally arrived, ten minutes late, I climbed aboard almost asleep. The driver acknowledged me with a nod and I offered him a small smile as a part of my routine.  As I blinked rapidly to stay awake and sat down to prevent myself from falling as the bus started, I suddenly heard what sounded like a growl. I sat up straight in my seat, glancing at my surroundings. It was a small bus and appropriately so because the only other person other than the driver and I was a short middle-aged man who was absorbed in the screen of his phone. Must be a trick my head was playing on me, early in the morning. I looked ahead. Memory of all th...