Like a small creeper
Creeping into my life.
Like a small tumor
That latched on to my skin.
Like the after taste of coffee
And kisses with chewing gums
That stays in memory.
Like a cat that stays to feed
And leaves to wander;
Uncertainty and independence.
Like a thorn in the foot
Annoying and yet temporary.
Like me, like you, like them, like US,
The world has so many romance,
But yet, why does it sound like ours
And only ours twines like a thorny shrub;
Complicated, yet all we ever want?

Something seeps in the marrows of my bone, something that isn’t a good feeling. Something that makes my heart do a swoop like a rollercoaster. Something I induced by myself. Something I can’t help doing.
Something just makes my brain whir when processing new information. When connecting one point with another. Something that doesn’t work in my favor. Something that sometimes get me prepared for the contrary, something that might or might not happen. Something that isn’t in my field of control.
Something makes me overthink. Past experience? Fear of being caught off guard? Fear of the unexpected? Dislike for surprises?
No. I think I’m saving my heart from whatever it is. I think I’m just saving the future from frets but instead end up making it shrivel like a rotten melon and then expand back into its original fit when things go ok. But on the contrary, is what I’m doing actually saving my heart? Or is it not? Is it just me not ripping off the band-aid and keeping the wound a deep gash that’s never gonna heal, or am I just taking my own time…?

Midnight sun
A troublesome teen
A cute hopeless romance
A difficult-to-explain relationship
Walls around hearts broken
A friendship that never was
Annoyance and stupidity on loop
Whatever it is, it’s unconventional
Whatever it is, it isn’t easy
Whatever it is, would you want it?
Would you stay?
Would it still be the same?
Whatever it is, will our midnight sun be back?
Whatever it is, hope be the talisman.

Adulthood…
It makes me question what
I’m supposed to call
A home that is constant…
Is it the arms I was born into?
That they termed family
Or is it the arms that held onto
Me in situations innumerable?
Or the arms that we fell into;
Armed in armor and amour?
Is it home if I refuge, change
And move out of?
Is it home if I don’t feel home
Anywhere anymore?
Or is it just that, home is within
And we don’t just see it?

Our world has become smaller than it actually is. Technology enables us to easily communicate to people in the opposite side of the world with utmost ease. We are always closer even if geographically far.
Even though we’re well connected, we are separated through borders and nationalities. Borders don’t let people travel across them as they will. Globalization questions the very root of this problem: what would happen if these borders just go away. Globalization enables this through companies, governments and people world wide.
Globalization helps us with free trade. Without borders, consumers can purchase anything from any part of the world in a reduced cost. And more trade only leads to more job opportunities. With open borders, developing poor areas of the world is easier and much enhanced. Moreover, if the borders are open, then resources can be pooled, climate crisis can be solved and we won’t be depleting any of the resources.
But also like anything, it has it’s own bad side. It’s possible that with globalization, the coin of economy will broaden: the rich become rich, making the poor poorer. While it increases job opportunities, it also spreads jobs only in areas with low labour cost, leaving the other areas with a struggle for jobs. It creates a mindset of the rich and influencial being more powerful, creating a very uneven power pool. Globalization can also mean that it could lead to exceeded climate crisis and pollution.
Even if globalization can lead to a lot of development in a lots of areas, it can also cause equally scarring consequences. Like everything, it has it’s boon and bane.

She could go around around and around,
Yet she’ll probably end up getting lost.
Well she’s special that way, you see,
She remembers everything but her tracks.
I’d mock her for her Bad Ross Afro,
But at the end of the day, I like it the best.
Sometimes she’s a mother to me,
Sometimes I wonder how she’s my elder sister,
And sometimes, we behave like we used to, 13 years ago.
She is kind, clever, patient, and wise,
Yet we end up taking the worst life decisions together.
She is the brightest; brighter than Sirius,
Lighting up the path of hers and others around,
Yet she’d love to have her own James and Sirius.
She’s many things, but there is only one thing
That matters, to me, she’s the one thing I never had,
She’s the crazy sister with whom I can be me,
With whom I can talk, giggle and travel…
She’s special for a reason; she’s my sister.💕

The sky was an embellishing shade of purple. It was dusk and the road was getting more and more crammed up as people from work rushed back home from work.

Mr Bean had a tiring day at work. It isn’t easy being an actor, making a fool out of himself when he actually knows he can be doing better. He can be relaxing at home with Teddy, nothing to do, wasting the money he inherited from his super rich parents, but then something about the character Mr Bean made him want to act, even if he’s horrible at that.

The road started clearing up, becoming less crowded with various cars, with couples and people returning home from work. Now, the road was dark and isolated, bordered on both the sides by dense woods. The road looked secluded and almost no other car seemed to be nearby.

After a distance, he had to refuel. He stopped in a nearby gas station and it was empty. He felt a prick in his neck, as if someone was watching him. Turning around, he saw a guy, dressed in the Mr Bean suit, and a face mask made of brown paper bag, with eyes and mouth.
Of late, he has been seeing fans and haters coming up to him in places he least expect them, expressing their admiration or hatred, either which ways, it was overwhelming. Usually, the haters mocking wear the Mr Bean ensemble and come up, saying something, but this was a different case. He had an axe in his hand. Mr Bean was clearly trepidated. A second later, the axe struck his head, and down fell Mr Bean.

Stories connect people in a magnitude unimaginable. A story can bring together two people who have gone through the same thing, it can stir emotions in people and it can make people aware of something the author is trying to put forth through a story.

‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is one novel that struck me in a way that I’d never be able to forget it for my lifetime. From the way that it describes the unhindered reality to the fact that sometimes even if you go through a lot, you survive life.

The plot shows us how two cancer survivors meet in a cancer survivors camp and acquaint each other and soon turn out to get closer. It shows how both Hazel and Augustus, tread through life with pain as a simple element that keeps their life going. The plot, though highly realistic, shows how children can take life and death as an easy and casual ordeal; from Isaac who lost his eyes to cancer, to Augustus who lost his girlfriend to cancer and also a prosthetic leg and Hazel who goes about her life with water in lungs, an oxygen cylinder tagging along with her everywhere she goes and a nubbin like tube going into her nose.

Thematically, the novel gives in a bucket full of life lessons that’s worth keeping. It shows us how necessary suffering is, for ‘without suffering, we wouldn’t know joy.’ It shows how small children go about sufferings in life and that isnt the age where sufferings are supposed to occur. It speaks, at one point, about the scars we leave on people once we die and that it matters. Hazel doesn’t want to get closer to Augustus for the reason that she knows she’ll die soon. Augustus on the other hand, shows us how no matter how much the distance is, between people, the intensity of affection doesn’t decrease. He says, in the end that he is proud to have left the scar on Hazel. The fear of oblivion also would be something I’d say that was a recurring theme. The main characters suffer pain and death unlike all young and healthy people do. It makes Hazel feel disheartened that she hasn’t achieved anything that’d as such make her to be remembered. Augustus always yearns to do something heroic before he dies. Even Van Houten, the author from the novel, had this urge to immortalize his dead daughter, that he wrote a novel to show what would’ve been of his daughter if she hadn’t died. Even then, in the end, he kills the character, showing how transient and unpredictable life can be.

The characters are what I would call true heroes who survived plague. They all go about their lives with so much of penance and yet, they’re so young to suffer so much. Hazel and Augustus’s parents, both knowing that their children’s life is a thin line between life and death, make so much of the moment. It’s so heartening to see how Hazel’s mother celebrates everyday with Hazel, seizing the opportunity to show how much she loves her.

Honestly, I was made to read the novel by my sister. I was pretty reluctant because of how astrological the title sounded. It is not much of a giveaway, but it’s a small line from Julius Caesar where Cassius says to Brutus about how “the fault isn’t in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves that we are underlings.” A very hearty and morose, but a mind boggling vision towards life is what I got from a very thorough reading/analysis of the novel. Okay? Okay!

1. A new born baby

Crying and wailing
With chubby fists, soft pink skin,
Coming out of the womb.

2. The helping hands of a doctor

Calloused and congealed,
Yet gentle, caring and soft,
Serving the sick ones.

3. The Sun

A huge golden ball,
Hanging midst a blue curtain
Shining merrily.

4. A Dog

Wagging his long tail,
He waited for his master
Who loves him the best.

5. Time

A dimension that
Shows the value of life and soul
Yet it waits for none.

Translations of poems and literary materials have always been a means of exchanging ideas, information and knowledge. Apart from information and knowledge, one also gets to know the literary essence and beauty of that particular language it has been taken from. Translation does have its own bane, for the translator must ensure to not kill the life out of the poem, yet also convey the poetic and literary meanings. However, translated poems and literary materials often lose their beauty and essence, and it doesn’t remain the same after going through the process of translation. Translated materials, sometimes doesn’t make sense too, considering the cultural borders and differences. Therefore, the transition from one language to another, two of a vast and different cultures and background must be done with having lots of criteria in one’s minds.
We all know India for its vast and rich cultural diversity. India is also known for mothering beautiful languages that is rich in poetic, cultural and social baggage. Subramania Bharati, also known as Bharathiyar, was a Tamil writer, poet, social reformer, journalist and also an Indian Independence activist. He is known as “Mahakavi Bharati” for being a pioneer of Tamil poetry and is considered one of the greatest Tamil literary figures of all time. A man who had lots of ideas and opinions about independence, yet didn’t live long enough to see Independent India. A man who lived in misery and poverty, yet with such a broad and open mind about the country and its women. Here is my attempt at his poem depicting the beauty of things around us, which we fail to see.

பொய்யோ?மெய்யோ? (Falsity or Truth):

நிற்பதுவே,நடப்பதுவே,பறப்பதுவே,நீங்களெல்லாம்
சொற்பனந் தானோ?-பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
Whatever I perceive as standing still, walking and flying, are you all
Just my dreams? Are they mere illusions of my thoughts, making me believe in this world?

கற்பதுவே,கேட்பதுவே,கருதுவதே,நீங்க ளெல்லாம்
அற்பமாயைகளோ?-உம்முள் ஆழ்ந்த பொருளில்லையோ?
Whatever I learn, I hear, I imagine, are you
All petty illusions? Don’t you have a deeper meaning/ reason in yourself?

வானகமே,இளவெயிலே,மரச்செறிவே,நீங்களெல்லாம்
கானலின் நீரோ?-வெறுங் காட்சிப் பிழைதானோ?
The sky, the fresh rays of sunlight, the canopies of trees, are you all
Merely a mirage? Or are you just a result of my faulty eyesight?

போன தெல்லாம் கனவினைப்போற் புதைந்தழிந்தே போனதனால்
நானுமோர் கனவோ?-இந்த ஞாலமும் பொய்தானோ?
People and thoughts that went by, oh, just like a dream
It got buried under the earth, and lost in the past
Just like all that, am I also a dream to be forgotten?
Is the world a dream too, to be forgotten one day?

கால மென்றே ஒரு நினைவும் காட்சியென்றே பலநினைவும்
கோலமும் பொய்களோ?-அங்குக் குணங்களும் பொய்களோ?

Over time, the thoughts we perceive, With sight that arises multiple thoughts,
Are all these images a lie? Are the qualities of them a lie too?

A childish representative or perusal of thoughts a human has, penned into such a beautiful poem that questions everything. The translation does zero justice to the sheer beauty of the poem being written. I also assure you that it’d be a more cherishable experience if you read it in Tamil.