My teacher, during the class said
"Women are Paralympians".
I had never heard a truer sentence.

When the tale of the kite wraps itself around your neck,
And yet continues to fly, freely
You should now know that freedom to one comes at a cost to the other.

But you must wonder, as Jupiter and Zeus watch this storm,
that leaves nothing more than dust in their eyes;
It's funny how kites are a symbol of freedom when they are actually tied to a glass-coated cotton string.
The same cotton, that another boy who looks directly into your eyes could have worn.
It's funny how when one side of the coin is painted in platinum
and the other side struggles to know whether it's still a coin with value as it is being corroded.
Yes, they were one coin. Once.

The tulip blooms fade before the foliage dies,
every flower that dies is not reborn
But on the land it does, is.
When the flower is no more,
the green stem still remains.

But did the flower die from the wasp
that stung its nectar and perhaps even the pollen
or did it die from the feet that stepped upon
because they were inside the duststorm that disallows them to look at the ground.

Do all flowers that die are reborn?
How many flowers can one wasp even sting?
How many times can you stomp over one flower until it has no petals but only your footprints?

As you wonder,
The tail of the kite has been detached from its throne,
You look, as you wonder, if this is freedom or that was.

And another Hassan chases it yet again.

My dear, you are not the sun.
You do not need to blind others or overpower someone's light to shine.

You are a star.
You shine the brightest along with all the others,
not without them.

I like women's day.

It is the only day,
When men finally respect women

For 24 hours straight.

This is one interesting day
when my father gifts makeup kits and concealers
to my mother

To hide the slap marks gifted to her a day ago.

The shades of the summer sky are nothing more
than the skins of every person in this Republic.

The sky in the morning,
Yellow, sun on the sunflower.
Basking winds and ‘dark-coloured’ skins.
It’s the skin of sweepers and sleepers,
who sweep the streets while their bodies become *****
and who stay awake all night, so we sleep.

The sky at noon,
when sun’s at peak.
Bright, blinding, unapproachable- Masculinity, it sounds like.
Of every man who’s bold and macho enough
to slap a woman
and then cry on every video game he lost.

The sky at one,
exhausting, tiring, perspirable.
Its every worker’s flesh that burns in
shinny kerosene, dark mines, bright flames and
stinking rupee notes.

The sky at three is
Foreign invader, refugee.
Like those who are unexpected, uninvited, unwelcomed
and either beaten or enslaved.
So, we make refugees regret seeking refuge
and perhaps being human.

The sky at five is
Settling into all colours and hues of the day.
It’s pastel and rainbow.
farmer,
who sets and rests smiling after everything the day does to him.
So,sky plants seed for the day coming.

The sky at seven is
blue, ultramarine, trying to become black, accessorizes itself with stars,
like girls who themselves as ‘woman’
and boys who try to become ‘black’, ‘strong’ like ‘men’.

The sky at nine,
all colours into one,
and all differences that can be distinguished to be appreciated.
It is every religion’s turban, tika, kufi and cross;
mixed into one India.

The sky at ten,
Dark, bleeding, silent, cold and warm.
A kiss after a slap.
It I an beaten,
her scars deepened,
her wounds opened;
silent.

The sky at twelve,
Black, starry, formed after mixing all colours
garnished with the moon.
It is the skins of all migrants coming to this republic
and calling it home
because they know they are farthest and closest to it.

The sky after twelve,
quiet, crying, waiting and hopeful.
It is every empty stomach’s hope and every broken heart’s faith.
It is people on the sidewalk and inside the palaces.

Right now, it is the sky at dawn.

Dark – trying to become light,
Hope- trying to be.
My skin- trying to become the sky.

These are all, the skins of every person in this republic.
The shades of the summer sky are obviously nothing more than this.

The brave at heart, deal with their brains before other's bullets