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 celebrating the first monsoon shower on the hot pavement. And Serendipities. Faint glimm

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.  You are a terrible artist.  *** 

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 American writers,

“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 have to be informative? Does it have

Pinterest | Linda Owen You sneak into my thoughts, When I am not alone, Like a breeze enters half-empty room; Enters stealthily from a window left unintentionally open; Whispers the arrival of storm to the curtains of the window; Enters softly, gradually, and then intensely. ***

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 of

I love his stories.  I love the timbre of his voice  and the places it takes me  effortlessly. I love to hear his stories- His voice offers no escape.  In a world full of mash-ups,  he is an original sound track.  He is a hot rose blooming on my face; as deep as the ocean; he recalls Christmas bells.  And I love his stories. They  remove the deepest thorns  from rose-heart; balm my temples and heal them scars. His voice, is a lover  reciting an old ballad,  when he laughs.  And when he sighes,  the sun sinks in the sea  in the other spectrum of sight. I love to hear his stories. They remind me of the 'April showers breeding lilacs  out of the dead land. ' Kohl to the eyes, ice to the burns, his voice is the music of rain . And so it offers no escape! I think about his voice as a gradual change from reality to dream, morning to eve, from wedding to mourning- a note of shehnai . His voice, thus, becomes a stinging, burning  heart on my hand,  a w