Naina Agarwal

Come to the Land. A lump of life-giving sorrows. Here everything is passion. Free and fettered . Obsession. Poison. Can you not notice the roots? Where the forests began.  The forests are still dense.  Just like your eyes.  As dense as Sundarbans.  Riddle  We live in the society wherein breaking of a coffee mug, dropping off an  iPhone , and the news of a lover’s death induces almost the same reaction- a dramatized one coupled with hatred for the whole of humanity. Maya  Far away from the  citylights  in one of those slums (with heaps of garbage and dry gutters) where hungry orphans lick water from the pits during Monsoons, there lives  a pair of eyes  with hope. They wish to come close to the  citylights  that always seem like stars. But starlight is an illusion.  Seasons A train whistle bringing flowers to the moon.  Brown fire  igniting rocks and pebbles. Cold wine...

Portrait of Jane Austen by her sister, Cassandra Born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, Jane Austen is considered as one of the best English novelist of all times. Her stature in the English Literature is so great that she is sometimes rightly referred to as Lady Shakespeare. With just six complete novels, a few unfinished manuscripts, and a handful of letters written to her family members, mainly her sister, Cassandra during her lifetime, Austen has left an indelible mark on the heart of literature. Her characters are timeless and her themes universal. About her own writings, in one of her letters, she remarked, "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour." Austen's wit, social realism, biting irony, and sense of humour make her novels extremely delightful. Here's to remembering The Lady on her birthday: Famous Quotations Providing Love Proposals From Austen's Her...

Picture Credits: Yuvraj Soi You paint nature  on the canvas of life -  As per your whims,  fancies and pride -  Using your tools,  you give colour to eyes,  Hair, rainbows, dreams,  wind, water, wine.  You give colour  to memories sunken dry, Dust, light, air,  space, night, sky,  Fire, leaves, laughter,  hopes, future, stars;  You give colour  to present and past.  But then you snatch it all  away in your hunger and greed, Thirst for power,  pleasure of skin;  Abusing these colours  with careless might,  Spilling them over,  welcoming plight.  You scrape colour from the mountains  to build your walls,  Steal some from the rainbows  to fill your flags,  Snitch colour from the night  and force it on the heart,  Seize some from the whales  and invest it on the lips.  All at a heavy cost!  And now you don't own your loss....

Picture Courtesy:  Meghna Middha I am not going to tell you all that phony, superficial, pseudo-passionate, wannabe stuff like, hug your read at night, keep it under your pillow and sleep or orgasm over the smell of the old books. That is no romance. That is no making love to the book. NO! I am not going to ask you to avoid picking up a sex story that’s hiding itself under the veil of campus fiction written by an engineer still in his 20s because well, I am not judging. And I am certainly not going to establish a hierarchy in hardback/paperback, ebook, kindle edition as the medium of read is a matter of choice. What I am going to tell you is the correct way to read! Choose your read Literature is an umbrella term. From poetry to fiction to prose, there are various genres that can overwhelm you, but don’t you worry! Here is an idea- choose one genre and then choose the category in it. For instance, you can start with fiction and go for novels written by Ame...

“A good conversation or a good book?”  Verrill, Allissa | Pinterest  I recently came across this question on Social Media and it had me wondering. A good book certainly sounds better than a good conversation since apart from providing pleasure, it also contributes to the attainment of individual knowledge.  Being a bibliophile and an introvert, choosing a good book over a good conversation came as an instinctive reply from my insides but then I thought for a while. Why not a good conversation? Why not keep a book aside since it is not going anywhere and try to delve in a deep conversation with another individual? Couldn’t reading a  chehra  be as interesting as reading  kitaabein bahut si  if we give it a shot? Isn’t it worth giving a shot? And while we are talking about conversations, why do they necessarily have to be good in the first place? What element leads to clipping the positive adjective of good with conversation ? Does it ha...

Listen, darling, this is a verse; Handled in maturity, baked in words. Here is rhyme, here is some scheme, And here I infuse some figure of speech. See how I use the device of Repetition, How I take care of proper punctuation. Imagine me infusing ornamental words here; Imagine me using embellished lingo there. Expect me to give it a classic touch, To make it look like a conventional bum. And here, in this line, we change the stanza. Bear with me on this musical extravaganza. I have not kept the net down, Ain’t playing tennis like Frost; By now you must guess Where the references are from. See to the foot, and watch the metre; Look at the rhythm; notice words sweeter. I don’t care about Mitchell, I can’t ignore people; I want appreciation, am a learned reaper. Only a fool would lose meaning in his 'play,' But I am a scholar, my verse will slay. For I have read a great deal of things; I know the technique, Oh, I know how it links. What do they know o...

Rahul is a  cheater  fuckboi!  He is a  cheater  fuckboi!  Scene-Still from Saawariya (2007) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali starring Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor  Rahul came into my life when I was on the threshold of my teenage. Standing on the edge of my teendom cliff, I felt no less than Holden Caulfield except that here, I wanted to happily jump off, thus, falling into the hell that they refer to as adulthood. I killed my mockingbird for him. I wanted to adult for Rahul. He with his Peter Kavinsky smile triggered my primal instincts; driving my animal out of the Sundarbans into the sophisticated jungles of concrete; causing a little catastrophe in my world. Rahul flipped my Universe upside down, easily becoming the centre of my being, and I began to associate myself with Simran, a complicated combination of Maya and Nisha, and Anjali. Rahul was my only boo but I did not turn out to be his only bae. He carelessly bro...

I post my pictures online to attract men. I don't have any other job in the world than to constantly seek male attention because that is what I live upon. My pictures online are not an expression of self. I don't tend to share my identity, my happiness, my moods, and my experiences with my family and friends, and people in general. Who cares about them in the first place? It's the compliments from men on my pictures that I look forward to. Everything else is irrelevant.  I grow my hair long to please men. Because chopping off one's hair is considered a bold step and the woman might come across as a feminazi. Long hair, on the other hand, is supposedly a symbol of femininity. So, I grow my hair long not because I love it and think that it suits my personality, but because ALL men love long hair, and I'm a stereotypical woman trying to fit herself in the existing patriarchal norms.  I workout to please men. No, not because I want to stay fit and healthy, and constan...