The sketch that remembered me back
(and how i realized i am still there)
Today, I picked up a pencil.
After almost a year, my pencil touched the paper again; and for a moment, i felt like the sketch missed me too. at first, i thought i might have actually lost the ability to create- but it’s all intact. my hand still knew what lines to follow. my fingers still curled instinctively around the pencil like it was muscle memory and dragged my strokes into curvatures only my hands could trace without looking, like it was destined to come out as a stroke strong enough to have a personality.
kuch toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehena
chhodon bekaar ki baaton me koi, beet na jaaye rehna.
But there’s this weird, unshaken feeling inside of me, like the leftover echo of something that left too quietly- almost invisible. then it came, that ghost of a thought that keeps chanting:
“your passion died” maybe i did. maybe it drowned quietly and completely in a corner of my room where sunlight doesn’t reach. (and i almost believed it. almost.)
because the truth is, these days, i am afraid of blank pages. my mind is blanker than that. i avoid mirrors, and silence and people who remind me of the version of myself that once dreamed loudly and without apology.
when i was younger, i didn’t wait for a muse. i was the muse. i didn’t seek validation- i barely understood the concept. i created because it was inevitable.
but now, it feels like every stroke, every word, every decision i make comes with the question: “will this make me enough in someone else’s eyes? will this be enough? will you be enough?”
it’s exhausting- the constant performing. this exhausting theatre of being liked.
Adulthood feels like paying rent for existing. i used to be mindlessly, beautifully, naively myself; before i knew how adulthood claws its way into your chest without a warning and makes everything feel like a transaction.
a job. a role. a responsibility.
tu abse pehle, sitaaron me rahi thi kahin,
tujhe zameen pe, bulaya gaya hai mere liye.
sometimes, i wonder if i even belong here because today, all i feel is no sense of belonging.
not to my art.
not to my thoughts.
not to this moment.
not just here, but anywhere.
i have forever been longing for a home- not made of bricks, but of belonging. and maybe this city isn’t always soft, but it’s all i can call home. not because it embraces me, but because it knows how to let go- quietly.
like a lover who memorized your name but never dared to say it out loud.
there’s something about the sunsets here; especially the ones that spill orange and pink across the sky right before the monsoon creeps in like an old song you thought you forgot. how the light reflects off the edge of the sea like it knows your name. like it’s seen your worst and stayed anyway.
rimjhim gire saawan, sulag sulag jaaye mann,
bheege aaj iss mausam, lagi kesi yeh agan.
and the ocean- it never fails to arrive. like clockwork. like comfort. like a friend who doesn’t ask questions, only listens.
“samandar humesha special raha haina Bombay ke liye?”
maybe that’s why i never leave. not for the people, not for the traffic, not for the rent that swallows up your peace- but for the sea that never asks you why you returned; because even if nothing else stays, the waves always do. and for now, that’s close enough to home.
the city keeps building too. everyday a new layer, a new promise. the city that’s made up of all sleek curves and borrowed land- feels like the city trying to rewrite itself. stretching its limbs between chaos and calm, skimming so close to the sea it almost feels like it’s in conversation with the waves. like it’s saying. “look, i’m still becoming.” and maybe so am i. it reminds me of a version of myself that tried to rebuild from rubble.
but some part of me aches watching the shoreline change. one that’s built on forgetting; one that held fishermen’s children and salt-breeze lullabies. and in that transformation, i see a reflection of myself- constantly repaving, constantly adapting- becoming something i didn’t ask for still unsure if this is the version that finally gets to stay.
These days, i wait longer before calling someone home. i’ve been evicted too many times.
but after i do, i find out i was just renting the place- unknowingly- and i have to take off again, along with all my belongings.
if my belongings don’t have a place, then i can’t even complain of not belonging anywhere.
people come and go like seasons-
sometimes sweet like mangoes in May, sometimes abrupt like the first June thunder.
aanewala pal, jaanewala hai, ho sake toh isme
zindagi bita do, pal jo ye jaanewala hai.
“you have a promising future”
do i though?
do i ever let go of this yearning and sit in silence without spiralling over my thoughts?
do i ever let go of the fact that sometimes the love you need is right there in front of you you- you just need to be chosen.
some days, i wonder: will i ever be chosen- not as an option, but as an answer?
i feel like an artefact in a museum at an auction- rare, misunderstood, and always one bid away from being adored. but what if i’m too priceless to be purchased? what if love can’t afford me?
regardless,
i want to be chosen.
not like a trend. not like a seasonal fragrance. but like old song lyrics that you never forget even if you haven’t heard them in years.
ajeeb dastan hai yeh, kahan shuru kahan khatam,
yeh manzilein hain konse, na voh samjh sake na hum.
you think love is in the little things- but how little are those things until they turn into a bare minimum? how little is that bare minimum until it turns into basic human decency? how little?
it’s the littlest of things that anchor me back- a pencil. the smell of rain hitting concrete. catching myself humming songs i grew up overhearing- songs that smell like my nani’s house, like lifebuoy soap, like agarbattis before school. i used to make art because it poured out of me. now i hesitate even with a sketch pen in hand. my art supplies are enough to open a stationery shop. yet all that comes to my hands stops right before i ever try to create with them.
sometimes the rawest form of art feels uglier to me than the acne on my face.
(i think i’m uglier than my insecurities.)
sometimes i think they’re the only parts of me that stay.
humans don’t stick around like pimples or dark spots. you wish they would. but they always leave- so now i leave first to protect myself from the hurt but it’s still inevitable. i’m a museum of all the things, people, and places i’ve ever loved.
i’ve spent my whole life running from abandonment. but somehow, it’s abandonment that always finds me.
lag jaa gale ke fir ye haseen raat ho naa ho,
shayad fir iss janam me, mulakaat ho naa ho.
i keep loving in ways that leave bruises. i keep caring like it’s a language only i remember.
is caring a curse or devotion? i don’t know anymore. i don’t want to know anymore. it’s enough to make me miserably melancholic about everything.
i romanticize everything now-
the sorrow in joy, the ache in sweetness. like my brain can’t feel peace without chaos overshadowing it. it’s messed up like that. maybe that’s what it means to survive here.
to grow roots in a city that never promises to remember your name.
to find meaning in a line from a song, a chipped kulhad, a stranger’s laugh.
to realize that even the city forgets you, and maybe that’s what caring does- it ruins you gently.
but still, i care.
still, i sketch. still, i stay.
maybe that’s enough. maybe you are.
– 𝒗𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔𝒉𝒂 (like the sunset. like the sea.)
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