Taruna Ghera

What do I write about?  I kept questioning myself and patiently waited for my mind to speak up.   I thought I should go take a stroll in the metro the other day, for I was struggling to shape my feelings and thoughts into coherent words that could capture the chaos within me. There was a discomfort—a gnawing uneasiness, like sensing a subtle shift in the air. It was uncomfortable, not being able to express myself was making me uncomfortable.   What do I write about, now that I have let you go from the only place I was able to think. Like when, while sending an email, if the subject field is blank, the system refuses to send the email, or it asks you 'if you still want to send the email anyway'. Well, i t’s pretty cold in here. I leaned over my laptop screen, still finding it difficult to enter the world of wonderment. I rubbed my hands to generate some heat in the palms as I realized my fingers started typing these words, this random gush of words that came through as soo...

People, places, and things I keep them so close, yet they feel so far .  Although everything is perishable and comes with a shelf life, we still have a special place for certain things. It’s almost paradoxical how something can exist within arm’s reach but feel worlds apart. Does this attachment make you materialistic? Or does it make you “too emotional”? What does it make you then? No one has a definite answer, because deep down, we all know it’s a paradox we live with every day. It’s not just about material things. It’s about what they represent—memories, emotions, connections. A worn-out book isn’t just paper and ink; it’s the comfort of late-night reading, the escape into another world. A favorite t-shirt isn’t just a piece of cloth; it’s the comfort of it being worn so many times by the person you somewhere hold so close to you and the moments you have spent with your loved ones. These things are more than their physical selves; they are symbols of moments, feelings, and piece...

  Here I am, writing about us, which once started with writing only about you. The poems, the random things I have written, though nothing was done “randomly”, it was all out of either overflowing emotions or just mere aggression or the urge to hold on my feelings for too long. I still remember the day I fell ill, a day spent in tears, yet paradoxically filled with inspiration. I wrote 7 poems that day, all born from the “random” gush of feelings that came and went soon after I penned them down.    As if, those feelings were desperate to jump out of me to release on the paper just to give a voice to  themselves. I thought it will be easier for me to write about you. But here I am, looking at the cursor while it flashes, thinking about the most appropriate word to start my next sentence with. Ah! The urge to sound sensible. I feel like I am at a stage of conflict between intention and execution. I thought writing about someone so dear would be easier, straightforwar...

She woke up at quarter to eight, yearning to fall back asleep as soon as her mother walked out of her room. There I was, hanging in the kitchen on the rack, thinking she was coming to pick me up. But instead, she chose her other favorite, the one she uses for her warm water. It's been a week since I am hanging here. It is t rue that I'm glad she isn't used to drinking coffee every day, but I'm also saddened about the fact that she didn't even come to say hello to me. or could have just come to wash away the dirt off of me, maybe!? Today, she finally chose me, poured in me some warm milk, mixed in 2 tablespoons of coffee, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 5 tablespoons of water, which she considers the ideal proportions for her "perfect coffee" as she enjoys it frothy and foamy. You might be curious about how I know the specifics of her perfect coffee. Well, I overheard her sharing these details with her mother. She also mentioned that she prefers to sip it from...

  Urgh! It’s you again. So, I finally thought I had freed myself from the mental chaos that had been clouding my mind, making me see and believe in things that were never truly there. It felt like I had been trapped in an airtight container of confusion and illusions, that even after so many years of not opening it, it is constantly blurring the line between reality and my own distorted perceptions. For a second, I thought I had found clarity, considering the calmness in there (mind), but it seems the chaos was never entirely gone, only lurking beneath the surface, ready to pull me back into its trap. Urgh! It’s you again. That familiar, uninvited presence that jumps up on me when I least expect it. No matter how hard I try to push it away, it finds its way back, as if it's been waiting in the shadows, just out of sight. I thought I had escaped it, thought I had finally silenced its whispers, but here it is, back to disrupt my thoughts and unsettle my peace. It’s like an unwanted...

  It's okay, go ahead.   It’s 5 in the evening. I got a call from my boss, probably she wants to assign me some work which I am not at all interested in doing. I came back home as I wasn’t feeling well. I went to the hospital but didn’t find a suitable doctor who could cure my disease. I had an asthma attack. Not a major one, just couldn’t breathe properly. But my other senses are working. Yes! Of course they are. My eyes are working, I can see properly, I can even talk even though I am having a hard time breathing. It was just an asthma attack. Now I feel like I shouldn’t have acted that way. Anyway, I laid down and eventually fell asleep. I might have missed a few important calls, you know it, intentionally majorly, lol. Was it really just an asthma attack? Or was it something that I didn’t understand and might be obscuring from it? “If I had known, I would have known, wouldn’t I?", said a voice in me. Phew! These voices. It’s been a week since I am in the hospital, s...

“In the middle of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” For a long time, I thought I knew her. She was perpetually smiling, spreading happiness, and bolstering others' self-confidence. Yet, I was oblivious to the fact that these were the very things she yearned for herself—a deeper comprehension from someone. I thought I knew her. Indeed, she harbored dreams, not of acquiring cars or a grand house. Her aspirations soared beyond what anyone could envision. She didn't dream of a life of luxury or pricey branded clothes. Instead, she dreamed of a life that made waking up each morning worthwhile, greeted by the birds' songs, the first sound she wished to hear, the fresh air she longed to breathe upon opening her window, and just enough money to satisfy daily needs. She has always shown kindness to the right people, those who live true to their nature, even if they are often oblivious to their own deeds. But somewhere along the way, I realized that the per...

  " Coffee beans ,   tall greens  and  you ..." You know that feeling when you go to sleep with a mind full of voices telling you to shut up and then the constant war of you telling those voices to do the same. But then, that very moment, there comes a feeling of  d rifting from nothingness into the fullness of thoughts, which is like standing on the edge of a still, vast ocean at dawn. At first, there’s a calm emptiness—a blank canvas of the mind where no particular idea takes shape. It’s a moment of weightlessness, where your thoughts seem suspended, like air just before the first breeze. And then with that feeling, everything, that seemed heavy, useless and uncomforting starts to feel light, useful and so much comforting.  Well, this morning was somewhat like that but with a pinch of paradoxes mixed in it. I thought, "Oh wow! there comes this ease in the air I breathe, and I can finally be going places from now on". But nooooo!! My mind and I have this s...