Tales of a Tattler

  What is Christmas to you?    To some, it is a season of celebration; to others, a festival in a distant land. For many, it is the glitter of lights, the joy of presents, and the music of gatherings. And for some, Christmas is also the waiting and the hope, the quiet attention we give and receive, the small, often unnoticed reflections that linger in between. Perhaps it is all of these at once.   Christmas without Lights captures the stillness, where the true meaning of the season quietly resides.

  Love is complicated, as we may all come to learn. Perhaps one of its greatest challenges is learning when to hold on, and when to let go. Love is not always about grand gestures or perfect timing; sometimes, it is about discernment.    A Present for Christmas is a story of tender devotion and intimacy, capturing the quiet courage it takes to honour both your own heart and the heart of someone you love.

  Helping often makes us feel virtuous. We like to believe our touch brings comfort and light to what is broken, yet the view from outside rarely reveals how that offering feels from within. Even the gentlest intentions can create shifts or pressures we never imagine.    This poem lingers in that delicate space where beauty and strain coexist, where our intentions meet the realities beneath them, and asks us to consider what remains unheard in the music we admire.

  There is a strange comfort in repetition, a silent thrill in small acts that seem meaningless to the outside eye. Most times, these little rituals hold immense weight, shaping who we are and how we subsist.    Bubble Wrap is a story of friendship and a gentle meditation on the ways we seek solace and ritual in a chaotic world.

  Identity emerges in fragments: sounds, textures, and gestures noticed in others and reflected in ourselves. We rarely encounter anyone as a complete whole; it is in their contradictions and quiet luminosity that these fragments gather into meaning.    This piece is shaped by those observations.

  Kindness is often celebrated as a virtue, yet it is seldom neutral. It shapes lives, bridges hearts, and carries within it hidden rhythms and imbalances that sustain it.   Handful of Kindness reflects on the fine tension between giving and receiving, revealing how even the smallest gestures carry consequences we rarely perceive, and rewards we may scarcely comprehend.

  “Hope is a cruel thing,” said someone. Sometimes it indeed is. But should that daunting probability restrain us from ever hoping?    To hope is to defy the memory of failure, and to trust that what once withered may bloom again.    Dreams of the Earth  mirrors this quiet defiance, as the parched soil once more opens herself to the promise of a single seed.

  We grow up believing that maturity means control, and that to be disciplined is to rise above impulse. But what happens when control becomes its own kind of cage?     A Frankie for Me, Please  explores this delicate tension through the story of a woman whose simple craving becomes a mirror to years of restraint, and a reminder that self-denial is not always the same as strength.

   Sometimes the liveliest nights leave us standing at the edge of noise, watching the world gleam just beyond reach. And sometimes, those nights reveal that solitude, in its quiet defiance, can glow even brighter if we learn to see it through gentler and more observant eyes.   Whispering Light , inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks , lingers in that soft space, listening for that glow between noise and reflection, between those who gather and those who simply remain.

  The past has a strange way of returning, sometimes through the stories we tell, sometimes through the silences that follow them. They  don’t die; they wait for the right silence to breathe again.    In No Turning Back – Part 2 , the line between memory and haunting grows thin. What began as a nostalgic retelling now echoes with fear, as the night itself joins the circle of listeners.

All our lives, we clothe ourselves in certainty, pride, and the soft comfort of conviction. Yet there comes a time when those garments begin to wear thin. What do we do in such moments?    'Clothed with Skin' is a quiet meditation on what remains when the layers of certainty fall away, and we are left to meet ourselves: unguarded and real.

  The past never truly stays behind; it lingers in our stories, reshaping itself with every retelling. What once terrified us becomes a tale we tell with a smile, until the telling reminds us how real it once was.    No Turning Back – Part 1 dwells in that space where memory becomes myth, and storytelling becomes a way of remembering what refuses to fade.

  We often outgrow wonder without realizing it, never noticing the last time we believed the moon followed us home, wished upon a falling star, played in the rain, or watched clouds become dragons and ships, waving at strangers from car windows.    Yet sometimes, a single moon at daylight is enough to awaken what was never truly lost, only quietly forgotten.    Quest for Diamond is a gentle return to that gaze of curiosity and innocence, to the child who still looks up in awe through us.

  Sometimes, the most meaningful gifts aren’t found in stores or wrapped in shiny paper; they’re shaped in moments of love, sacrifice, and quiet devotion.    The Perfect Present tells the tender story of a father’s heartfelt quest to create the ideal birthday gift for his little girl, whose very life is nothing short of a miracle.

  We often imagine our lives as a steady passage through time. But what if time isn’t a line at all, but a spiral pulling us deeper into its own whirlpool? Would immortality still feel like a gift?    To sink is not always to perish; sometimes it is to see, to feel the enormity of what holds us, and to recognize how small we truly are within it.    The Blue Ordeal is a descent into an eternal stillness, where time halts, sound fades, and the self dissolves into the vastness of the unknown.

  The teachers we revere are often those who reached us beyond the syllabus, those who taught us to see, to hope, and to believe. Yet, we rarely turn the gaze back to them.    What if every great teacher is simply a lifelong learner, one who understands that to teach is to evolve? For when each classroom becomes a living mosaic of stories, teaching transforms into the art of listening, learning and becoming.     Raj is a meditation on what it means to guide, to falter, and to be transformed by those we think we are shaping.

  Who we are today is often rooted in the influence of a teacher who believed in us, nurtured our talent, guided us back on track, acknowledged our humanity in mistakes, or answered even the smallest doubts with a patient smile. From such moments we grew, reaching places and heights they may never follow, yet their lessons live within us. Though they continue teaching the same subjects, the knowledge, values, and inspiration they instilled endures.    Eternal Beacon is a tribute to all the teachers who live on through us.

We often see teaching as the act of imparting knowledge, and so we call it a “calling.” But in truth, teaching is a learning, a quiet and steadfast journey that shapes both the giver and the receiver of knowledge, until at times it becomes hard to tell who is who. Every class, every question, every hesitant answer becomes a gentle conversation between experience and innocence, wisdom and wonder.    Both Sides of the Desk is a reflection on this shared journey, on how standing before a class can awaken the memories of once sitting among them, and on how the lessons we give often return to us in unexpected, tender ways. It is a reminder that learning never truly ends; it simply changes desks.

  The earth’s turning is more than just rotation, and breath more than respiration; it is the universe expressing itself through us, and we through it. So Hum is a poem that breathes, meditates, and gently dissolves into something larger.

  One person's scrap is another person's home. What looks like refuse to some is the thread others use to stitch into shelter, memory, and belonging.  Stray Away is a story of a boy and the bonds that kept him tethered to a world that has little space for him. 

  Healing is never linear. Some wounds close while others open, and the healing touch itself can both mend or leave a mark of its own. Mosaic is a poem that lingers in that paradox of being broken and mended. 

  If we are always in the making, is any act truly final? If each misstep carves us further into who we are, can any role hold a single definition?    Daughtering captures a moment, where a daughter is unmade and remade under the gaze of her mother's constant love.

  “Smile is the curve that sets everything straight,” is a quote I have lived by since I first heard it during a school assembly on World Smile Day. Since then, I have tried to embody it in spirit and action. But occasionally, I would question its nature.   This poem is one such contemplation on the nature of smiles, and the pauses between each of them. 

  We are all good people.    And... we are evil people.   What we are, or what we become, is shaped by the coalescence of our many past and present decisions.    This piece is an experiment, an interpretation of the painting 'Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581' by Ilya Repin. It is a departure from my usual style, yet a deeply personal glimpse into the shadows and sparks that flicker within the human psyche.    Behind every human — from those who have governed the highest and strongest thrones to those of us who hold onto the fourth seat of the morning train — there are stories: of love, rage, legacy, and regret;  of what we try to control, and what eventually controls us.    Here is one such story of a man, a tzar, a father, and everything he could not undo.

  We spend much of our lives searching for signs that we hold a place in the grand scheme of things.   But if, for a moment, we paused, and truly listened, we might hear the quiet whispers of the universe: in the brush of wind against your skin, in the steady pull of the tides, in the quiet persistence of waves meeting the shore.    It is in these moments, that we realize that it doesn’t matter whether we are great or small. The universe isn’t concerned with scale. There is only the experience, and the unexpected peace that comes when we stop measuring our place in it, and simply let ourselves be.    And perhaps, that’s where this poem begins...

In 2020, Mumbai: the city that never sleeps, slumbered like a child. The railway halted, the bustles dissolved, and its "spirit" softened into tranquillity. An unfamiliar silence pervaded every corner and street. And behind every closed door, a different story quietly unfolded. This is one such story. A fragment of the moments, the memories, and the stillness that lingered among you and me. It is an elegy to all that was, all that could have been, and all that remains.

What is love? Ah, the age-old question. It’s difficult to define. Not because love is abstract, but because its definitions are ever-shifting. Love means different things to different people, at different times in their lives. This poem was born from my own reflections on that question. It comes from moments when I choose to set my guards aside, and experience the wholeness of love. It comes from those moments when love meant softness, patience, undemanding presence, and an ever-giving kind. It comes from a place of offering — of holding, without needing to hold on. Then, the moments passed. I returned to the definition I have always held: that love, no matter how generous, cannot exist without the self. And each time, I came back steadier, clearer, and more certain of what it means to give without diminishing. So, as I offer this poem, may it find its meaning in you. And may you find your current definition of love — whatever that may be — within it. Because no matter how it...

They say, time and tide wait for none — yet a clock does, and so can a person. What happens when both pause? This story invites you into a moment of stillness to reflect on our relationship with time, the weight of productivity, the illusion of motion, and the quiet spaces between apathy and meaning.

I found the spark for this piece in one of the frames from The Parting of Ways by Sukanya Ghosh, displayed in the white aisle of Cymroza Art Gallery. Cigarette — a digital collage built from archival photographs, placed opposite a vintage wooden cupboard, stood out in its silence. It captured how time had not only tarnished the photos and the cigarette held by the faceless figure within the frame, but also the memories. Is not the present like that too? Here now, gone the next moment. Yet it leaves behind traces that stain us forever. Not in the vibrance of tomorrow, but in the quiet greyness of a faded yesterday. This poem is a return to the whispers that linger.

  Some bonds outlive time, even if distance and changes of life blur their edges. This story was written to honour the girl I might have been had I grown under my uncle's constant affection. It is a tribute: to those who held us before we learned to hold ourselves, to those in whose laughter we now see a reflection of who we once were, and to the selves we have grown into.    What follows is a soft acknowledgment of what was, what could have been, and what lives on — across generations, through names, and in love that knows how to grow and how to give.

We rarely notice the silent companions of our daily lives, those that stand by us, not in grand gestures, but in the most quiet and necessary ways. This poem is an ode to one such companion: my handkerchief. In this experimental work, I try to honour its silent services, and its soft presence of that makes moments of distress a little less heavy. 

  Some stories are not entirely ours, but are told anyways. Not because we are mere tattlers, but because they echo something we have lived, something we remember in the quiet corners of ourselves.    Back when the world went quiet, a friend once spoke of a bird. The moment passed, but the thought of the bird, and what it represented, never left.    As you read, I hope you too find a glimmer of something forgotten, something familiar, something your own.

   In all that is shaped and seen, somethings are quietly unmade. I wrote this in recollection of my childhood walks to the church every Sunday morning.  I used to pass down a lane of glassmakers, whose craftmanship were reflected in every glasswork. I remember the mornings, the shimmer, the spectacle, and the silent stories that existed in the spaces between each piece.    This poem is about the quiet subjects that are always left off frame. 

  At sharp 00:00 today, Tales of a Tattler went live. No fireworks, no grand launches. Just a quiet click into existence in the vast world of the internet. Planning to announce it at dawn, I went to bed in the pleasant weather of Mumbai, cooled down by a light, unseasonal drizzle.   But the sun rose on a different kind of day. The air was heavy with the news of my country's retaliation to an inhumane act, which might soon become war. And then, a message from a close friend about a profound loss. Suddenly, everything I had planned felt far away, almost out of place.    I also found myself standing at the edge of a familiar feeling — one that has echoed through so many moments in my life. The feeling of getting something, but not quite being able to hold it. Like a line from Anuv Jain’s Husn :  “Milke bhi na mujhe mila...” ( Even after getting it, it was never truly mine.)  This launch felt exactly like that. The prelude to this moment was beautiful w...

  What makes a miracle? Is it surviving against all odds, or being conceived after years of prayers and failed treatments?     This story holds a special place in my heart; it is one of my first stories to take a physical form.  I can't quite remember when I conceived this, but it held on, quietly and steadily, till it found its way onto a page.  Take a walk through this tale of hope, heartbreak, and silent resilience.