Author: Ami Asija, Class XII E
It’s been a while,
Since I wrote a poem,
It’s been a while,
That the while, has had me beguiled,
The old notebook rests restlessly,
under the mahogany desk,
In wait,
With weight,
Dried ink on brown page is heavier than the 172 pages,
Heavier than the reasoned rages,
Lighter than what words mean, Lighter than a single tear,
Tear-Torn, lit up on un-worded fears,
Of a time that I no longer visit,
But as I write, I suppose I just did.
And that is why,
It’s been a while since I wrote a poem.
After 5 years of using traditional chopsticks.
Today, I used a desi designed fork to eat my Maggi.
Something very liberating about that if you ask me. I used to watch anime, watch my cool cousin know how to use chopsticks perfectly and somewhere between the lines the fork became of lesser value to me.
Sure, I’d grown up using it so sometimes I’d reach for it in the kitchen drawer; but my hand would simply move towards the two wooden sticks instead. Now I can finally admit how annoying I, as an impatient eater, have found chopsticks. They slip all the time, it feels like a finger workout, you can’t have soupy noodles with them and… they’re just… foreign, to me, at least.
No shade on chopsticks, I still love them and engrave them with designs using carving tools to feel like Merida from Brave… but yes… as I picked up a fork today to have my Maggi…
I. Loved. It.
It had those oldschool patterns on it, the perfect wonky desi shape, it felt like the smell of my home in Gurgaon and the way 10th grade felt. The Maggi felt yummier, less of a woody flavour, and more of the taste of how Zoya’s (my first best friend) mother would cook it.
I think… I chose a fork today because the orange evening sun made me do it, maybe it was the way I was singing “Mujhe Tum Nazar se Gira Toh Rahe Ho” (a gatekept favourite), maybe because I feel time is slipping by every second and soon enough I’ll forget…
I’ll forget Gurgaon waala ghar, our group’s antics back in 10th grade, Zoya’s smile and her love for Elsa, and I’ll forget how I love this one specific fork in the kitchen drawer.
But for now, my Maggi’s getting colder, I’ll enjoy that before it slips away too.
With my fork of course.
I’ve often thought about the way we’ve been taught to leave the first page of a new diary or notebook blank. It felt like a waste of a page.
Someone told me it’s for God.
Does he enjoy stillness? Is that why?
Another person said it’s to make it look “neat”.
But, blankness isn’t neat, it isn’t messy, it’s nothing at all. Right?
And yea, I’ve heard a couple of stories around this practice.
But I wonder,
If it’s a bit bigger than that.
I theorized that people are a lot like libraries. Stay with me now.
Some of them have stricter rules of entry, reserved sections for particular types of readers, and they have so much to share once you start walking through the aisles and grabbing stories from different timelines.
And, here’s the best part,
you might find the same book in two libraries. I like to think of this as shared experiences, like people having a book of their story together, with different genres, plots, openings and ends!
And this is why I think we like leaving our first pages blank.
It’s a symbolism of not wanting to ruin those first moments of social anxiety, where you’re wondering if you should start the conversation, or help them out, the first introductions, where you wonder “where’ll this lead to?”.
I think we need that blank space before we start our books.
It’s not a waste of a page, it’s quite human to want that quiet.
Mhm, like I said,
We’re all libraries. Enjoy the quiet!
