Sunlit Procrastination and Poems
There's something about winter approaching that makes even procrastination feel meaningful, as if the world is telling us to slow down...
Yesterday, I watched my neighbor's little kid reach up to catch leaves still falling, one by one. Each leaf came down with such deliberate slowness it seemed like time itself was being gentle.
My cat found the only patch of sunlight in my apartment today - a thin slice between the curtains. She's been napping there for hours, and I've been watching her instead of answering emails. There's something about winter approaching that makes even procrastination feel meaningful, as if the world is telling us to slow down and notice.
The light is different now. Not just shorter days, but a different quality altogether. It made me revisit these four poems from our archives. They capture something about this threshold moment, when the world feels both sharper and softer at the edges.
On Sunlight and Tomatoes by Jerin Tom
The winter sun is forgiving today, and you are julienning the tomatoes in the kitchen. There is something in the air this evening, and it is worth singing about. In the sunlight spilling across the cutting board, your hands seem forgiven. I sneak up behind you, my hands around your waist, and kiss the back of your neck. You are still here. You are still here. This is us making love. This is us slow dancing. I wish we never run out of tomatoes. I wish we never run out of this sunlight.
Heart Full by Shelly Narang
This morning it woke in the darkrooms Between past and the waterway, This morning it beats differently shifts shape of its own accord from bird to the budded branch. It rolls over in the chest, Like sounds of intense gurgles in hotel rooms, a sagged old man groggy with winter, And later skips like a child at the shops Staring at those glowing sites of desire. Sometimes stopping suddenly in the shade, When things and people get inside too deep Else an empty room where the ghosts of the dead wait, tuning through moments. Sometimes it gets bored too, Sometimes elated too easily, Delighting in the sight of cyan orchids, From the room window Or the smell of burned toast It has a few terminals too, They call them chambers, Infinite hallways of longing The arrivals and departures go on and on, Inside the conveyer belt never halts Sending out perpetual luggage, Filled with dreams and a thousand lies. Then someday when someone leaves the heart closes its doors, And locks all its gates too becomes smoke, a wispy lie, curls like a worm and forgets its life, makes a few wrong turns. Heart sits with its hands folded in its lap For hours in gardens and streets Witnessing blue parting in the silk of sky, It does what it wants, takes what it needs, Alive till the flights come and go.
My Stockholm syndrome by Adeeba Lari
I was fifteen when I first read about Stockholm syndrome
an act where the hostage falls in love with the captor,
and suddenly it all made sense.
The feeling that bubbled inside my belly whenever someone said your name,
the way my hands went cold when I thought about other places,
the shrillness of my Amma’s voice when I mumbled about leaving you,
I was in love with my captor; the place where I had lived all my ages.
I haven’t slept in different houses,
I have had the same school, the same set of people,
the same tea leaves for more than two decades now and
the bitter aftertaste sits on my eyes like a cobweb you forget to clean.
When I turned eighteen,
I sat on the leather stool papa got from the city shop
and looked straight into Amma’s eyes when I whispered ‘I want to go to Pune to study.’
I wanted to feel what Pune’s air would do to my hair but you,
like my Amma’s tight grasp on my wrist,
held me back.
I sniffed yet another longing,
twisting it between the braid you always tied for me.
That night we had fresh paan after dinner,
the city and amma’s favourite.
My amma would tell me that if one leaves their home town,
bad things happened.
The city will forget you but
you will always remember.
I would have questioned what
if I hadn’t heard the tale a hundred times.
About the woman who married a new man with his new town
and he left her for his old town love.
About Amma.
When I close my eyes,
I see your march skies ever so pleasant,
the way people drive on your roads so recklessly yet safe,
the sweetness of malai-makhan on my tongue in cold winters,
all these memories etched in my skin that I am compelled to name it love.
But there is this ache inside my bones,
which I can’t deny.
In another life, the answer to the question of my favourite city
could have been London and its sombre face
or New York and its time machine
or maybe even Mumbai with no space for me,
But in this life,
I answer in a voice oddly similar to my Amma,
Kanpur or as I call it,
My Stockholm syndrome. I've always been sour by Anjana Venugopal
I discreetly remember
One of my old lovers
Wearing a perfume that made me want to love,
So I spent a multitude of my mornings
Basking in what I remember to be
The smell of freshly squeezed oranges
Head to the chest, heart to the brain
Love to indifference
Fitting existence into a Rubik's cube.
Just so, it could be
Solvable, probable, definite
Flu seasons always began with the sting of Calpol
Of bitter tongues singed with too-hot porridge
Mother would be peeling oranges
Singing a non-vocal lullaby ( I hoped)
For a child as inspired as I,
Oranges were a mystery box.
Unwrap to find - sweet, sour, rotten
The fruit was a consolation that
The peeling is over.
More often than not, I've been loved
Like an orange being peeled.
With haste, catching a quick bite between bus rides.
With poise, taking out the piths with tender fingers,
Feeding a lover's lips, a dream.
With hurt, comforting feverish foreheads
With citrusy sweet sections.
No wonder I've always been sour.
I laugh.
The orange is naked.
There are no answers that make sense.
This is an incomplete poem.