india – insight07's blog

Sun On My Hands

A couple of years back, when I felt the world around me had closed into a tiny box I called my room, and everything was beyond my control. I had published my first book, Dreaming in a Fish Bowl. It felt very much like a whisper from me to me. Published as a paperback, with a local publication house, the book had been received with a lot of surprise. Most people did know I write. While only a small percentage truly understood the meaning behind the words, almost everyone has a copy of the book now. In many ways, it was a start of a conversation with others who were going through similar hard times.

Paperback (Available in India Only)- https://www.amazon.in/Dreaming-Fish-Bowl-Devika-Todi/dp/B09JYRL77B

As is the case almost always, we outgrow ourselves, and inevitably, the art that we create. I still carry the moments from those years with me, sometimes intensely so. Yet, there has been a shift. Slowly but surely, my world expanded from that tiny fishbowl, to the world. Sun peered in from all corners. And my hands felt warm from the touch of it. I felt joy, I feel joy. And the rollercoaster that comes with that feeling.
I felt it was the right time to capture this essence in a second book. So here it is. Sun on my Hands- a Poetry and Prose Collection.

Cube

I never tried putting a shape to my life
Earlier, maybe it used to be a flower, a cloud, a feather on a bird flying free
All my stories, experiences, feelings
Sunlight and fairy lights
Have been reduced to a cube of thickness 1 inch on each side.
Over the sharp edges I tumble as
A chance is played, and a move is decided.
Falling face first, I notice blood everywhere on the white ground
Marble does not absorb, but slips.
A layer above my skin, increasingly so
I am told to not take things personally.
What remains mine, then?
Not the victory, not the words, not the time
Just exhaustion.
I sleep in a blanket of tired only to wake up to
My body giving in to the demands of the city air-
There is no air.
This pandemic is global
But it feels so personal as it seeps into every crevice and pore of my life.
All my stories, experiences, feelings.
A dice on my screen, I play ludo with my sister before sleep, sometimes
To calm her and myself.
(Our cube room holds both of us together).
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~insight07
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Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.

25

My arms are on fire, flames eating up my fingers
Words that could have been an oasis
Burn with a rage that is eating the world.
How can we continue to walk like nothing is wrong?
My eyes are giving my love away.
Time is a slow crawl. Another step irrespective of my step.
We journey side by side.
A vessel that is empty of air, but full of hunger to prove
What? I don’t know. I am only 25.
I can’t know it all. Right?

~insight07

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Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.

Summer

Imagine a room
With six walls and a ceiling
Two full of windows
Two full of mirrors
And two cream walls that could easily be mistaken as being painted by light.
Each morning, the scorching sun enters the room
And fills each corner till it is overflowing-
The windows give and take sunlight
(There is no escape door or breather).
The mirrors burn and blind
All the walls are fires of their own.
In that choking space, you have a small table fan to your name.

Calcutta summer for you.

~insight07

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Copyright ©Devika Todi. All rights reserved.