Swagittarius💁

26|Photographer|Writer Talk to me about all things art. ✨

[swagittarius23]

[swagittarius23]

Fly me to the moon.

[swagittarius23]

209// Stay in the back of my mind. . . . . . . . . . . #grainisgoodmag #analogfromtheworld #35mm #35mmfilm #magazine35mm #upgradetofilm #filmphotography #analogphotography #filmdiscovered #shootfilm #onearthmagazine #grainisgood #filmwave #vintagefeelsmagazine #portraitstudy #worldviewmag #filmlifemagazine #feministart #analogfromtheworld #thedaily35mm #portraitsofficial #photocinematica #thefilmmagazine #women #thefilmcommunity #portrait_society #thinkveryfilm (at Bhubaneswar, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR4ac5eLV-G/?utm_medium=tumblr

[sunbeamdaydreams-deactivated202]

What's wrong with Gandhi?

Where do I begin?

- Criticized the Jews for defending themselves against the Holocaust because he insisted that they should have committed public mass suicide in order to “shame” the Germans instead of fighting back. His exact words were, “But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

- Wrote an open letter to the British people in 1940 telling them to surrender to the Axis even if it mean accepting genocide.

- Was very anti-black. I hope you can stomach reading how he treated black people in South Africa. It’s fucking disgusting.

- Refused his wife life-saving medication (for religious reasons), but those religious reasons all of a sudden no longer applied to him when he was in a similar position.

- Refused to have sex with his wife for the last 38 years of their marriage. He felt that in order to test his commitment to celibacy, he would have beautiful young women (including his own great niece) lie next to him naked through the night. His wife, whom he described as looking like a “meek cow” was no longer desirable enough to be a solid test.

- Believed that Indian women who were raped lost their value as a human.

- During his time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered that a young male was harassing two of his female followers. He responded by cutting the girls’ hair off to ensure the “sinner’s eye” was “sterilized.” He later boasted about the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them.

- Argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honor.

- Believed that menstruation was a manifestation of the distortion of a woman’s soul by her sexuality.

- Waged a war against contraceptives, labeling Indian women who used them as whores.

- Held the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who own them.

Sources:

Websites:  Women Suffer From Gandhi’s Legacy,  People who most likely chose Gandhi as a historical figure to do a report on and immediately regretted it, On Mahatma Gandhi, his pathetic racism and advancement of segregation of black people by Sentletse Diakanyo, Not All Peaceful: 13 Racist Quotes Gandhi Said About Black People by Nick  Chiles

Books: Sex and Power by Rita Banerji, On Pacifism by Derrick Jensen,  The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

[earhartsease]

Also literally went on hunger strike to prevent the new Indian constitution from outlawing the caste system, because he believed in the idea that people are born into the wealth/privilege or poverty/privation they find themselves in. Patronisingly referred to the so-called Untouchables as “children of god”. It took another half century to get caste outlawed, and of course its still deeply embedded in the culture and people are still getting murdered for transgressing its theoretically illegal rules.

[mrdyketator]

Fucking disgusting that we still have a holiday for him anyways.

[spookyscarykittycat]

Wasn’t he also an actual pedo?

[flowerchildandstuff]

Fucking hell, every Indian citizen needs to read this.

REBLOG.

[swagittarius23]

[swagittarius23]

Choose Your Subscription

Welcome to the mess in my head!

To provide you with a seamless experience,

I have multiple options that you can choose from

To confirm your premium membership

Don't worry, you will be provided

With detailed description of each of the plans,

So you know how close a friend you want to be.

1. The Silver Plan

While it might be the basic plan,

Available at a very minimal price of

A text from you that reads "I am there for you.",

Be assured that the viewing experience

Is still worth it, nonetheless.

Here, you can skinny dip in the

Shallow part of the ocean,

Find a nervously smiling Sonal,

And on certain occasions,

An almost non-existent Sonal,

Because she'll be in her shell,

Avoiding everything that might

Need her to talk to people.

2. The Gold Plan

The first upgrade, with the flexibility of

Subscribing back to the Silver Plan,

The price to be paid is occasional

Assurances that I am human

And it's okay to breathe and not beat myself up;

Here, you will come across a different Sonal,

One who's mostly zoned out,

(It's not you, it's she),

A Sonal drenched in the rain of anxiety,

Writhing in the agony of everything she could have been,

But everything she that she is instead,

And, of course, the golden chance to witness

The massive outrage of creative outbursts, or the lack thereof.

3. The Diamond Plan

I know you are excited, or perhaps it's just me,

But the Diamond Plan unleashes the complete package!

The price is a bit more, but nothing that you can't afford,

All you need to do is to give out your best hug,

And then you get to see the rarest form of Sonal and mind,

A full breakdown, with tears and howls

And ugly snorting noises and unintelligible speaking,

Perhaps you'll get your outfit stained too

If I reach out and hug you back and continue crying there

A panic attack on certain occasions,

And the insanity to end everything around and about me;

And the cherry on the cake is that the first subscriber

To the Diamond Plan gets to see me without disguise forever!

So which of the plans would you...

Oh! You will think about it.

That's alright, you can let me know anytime.

[swagittarius23]

Jazz in the Bar

You know when someone doesn't belong to a place,

Speaking in a good way, that is -

When she walked in through that door,

I knew this wasn't the place for her;

With another day of dreary mundaneness,

My scrap of a car had pulled me towards

The local dingy bar, like every other night,

And like every other night,

Everything in and about the bar was

Just another carbon copy of

The rotten monotony of all other nights -

The same man slouched in a corner booth,

His liquor breath a competitor for skunks,

The same unenthused bartender pouring drinks

Like someone wound his key and now he couldn't be unwound,

The same Shadow twins in their skimpy little cloths,

Trying to seduce men into buying them free drinks,

And much like their surname, they stood in the shadow

Until they decided their prey for the night,

And the same ten EDM tracks on repeat,

It felt as if everyone's musical taste

Had gone down the drain next to the alley outside my house,

She was the only lotus in the mud;

She sat down on the high chair next to me,

And ordered her poison - a peg of neat whiskey,

Which then turned to eight, all the while she hummed

The Shadow of Your Smile in the most angelic voice,

Forty six years of my life, and she was the only one

Who sang Tony Bennett like she grew up in his era,

Awkward tipsy conversations became sloppy kisses,

And the next thing we knew, our moans echoed in the shabby washroom,

She bit her lips as I grazed her neck,

But in her drunken stupor, she didn't feel the knife

That I slowly slid inside her skin, feeling the blood as it

Trickled down her velvet skin like honey,

She was the collector's edition of a human,

And she deserved to be preserved for all of eternity,

Now she rests in the trunk of my car,

As I drive into the night with "The Shadow of Your Smile"

Playing on loop, until I reach home and set her up on display

[swagittarius23]

AND IT WAS ALL YELLOW

i. Yellow was the color

Of the smile on your face

When your lover got you

A bouquet of daffodils

On their way back home

Because they knew you could use

A little bit of cheering up.

ii. Yellow was the color

Of the warmth on your skin,

When the sun shone

Through the window

Just enough to keep

The chilly winter winds

From freezing you to the bones.

iii. Yellow was the color

Of your quivering voice

When were ready to give up,

But the next thing you knew,

You won accolades from everyone

For not just being a magnificent singer,

But for the aura you emanated.

iv. Yellow was the color

Of the fear that took over you

When you were lost in the crowd

And you couldn't find your friend

A massive breakdown was on the way,

But your friend appeared

With your favorite ice cream.

v. Yellow was the color

Of the happiness in your heart

When you first touched

Your baby's face and exclaimed

With a baby-like excitement of your own,

And right then you knew that you held

The best thing in the entire world.

vi. Yellow is the color

Of the power inside you

That makes you everything that you are

And everything that you are not;

Yellow is you.

[swagittarius23]

THE ROOM

When I moved out of my city,

My broke existence allowed me to live

In a rather rundown building,

With just six other people,

Whose faces I have never seen,

But whose voices echo

The corridors every night;

Mine is the tiniest room

That I have ever come across,

With a bed from which

I fall off on most nights,

A chair that creaks like

The bones of an old lady,

A nightstand that stands

At the foot of the bed instead,

And a door that seems to be

Jammed shut since its birth ages ago,

There is no window,

The only source of light is

A bulb that hangs from

The exact centre of the ceiling;

I don't know if it is the stress

From all the anguish within myself,

Or because of everything horrid

That the people in my building

Keep shouting at the top of their lungs,

But nightmares have become

A frequent visitor,

The constant one being

The walls of my room closing in;

Perhaps it's my mind playing tricks,

But every time I wake up,

My room feels smaller than

The last time I'd have seen it awake,

I fell asleep last night

After 6 bottles of beer,

The walls in my dream

Were just inches away from me;

I woke up five minutes ago,

And as I was about to fall off the bed,

I hit my head on the wall,

I feel breathless, I think I'm about to die.

[swagittarius23]

BRUNCH

Sundays were for waking up late

And going to Fiore

For the most sumptuous brunch

You showed up in a pink sundress,

I wore my favourite Pink Floyd t-shirt;

I reached for a hug,

You stopped me with a smile,

One that felt more distant than Icarus;

Greta took our order ,

But before leaving,

She placed a Jenga set on our table,

So we don't get bored while waiting;

It looked perfect,

The pieces stacked neatly

With utmost care,

But then you pulled a piece,

The stack shook a bit,

But as I pulled another,

It seemed to fall back into balance,

Looking at it brought me

Almost the same level of peace

That I find when I look at you

When you are asleep and

The moonlight falls on your skin;

You pulled a new piece

Like a reckless seven year old,

As if the balance of the structure

Somehow distressed you;

Your face showed an expression

Of a mighty accomplishment,

The stack was now mildly lopsided,

But another piece out,

And equilibrium came back,

You pursed your lips,

And frowned to focus,

After several minutes you pulled a piece

Right from the bottom,

But before I could bring back harmony,

Down fell the stack,

The pieces came crashing down,

While people from the tables

Four, Eleven, and Eighteen

Stared at us with displeasure,

I smiled in embarrassment,

And when I looked back at you,

You were gone, a note on

Your side of the table;

Our love was a game of Jenga,

The only difference was that

You played for the stack to crash,

And I played to let the stack stay still.

[swagittarius23]

The Ride Back Home

Every night at quarter to eleven,

We both would be the last ones on the bus;

He standing strong at eighty years old,

With one foot unwantedly in the grave,

I, merely breathing at nineteen years old,

And pretty much willing to jump into my grave;

Both were headed to the same motel -

He worked as the night guard,

I worked as the pretty (!?) girl

Who was supposed to smile at drunk strangers

And show them their rooms,

Funnily, even after months and months

Of travelling and working together,

Neither knew the other one's name,

Our only communication was

A magnificent smile from him,

His eyes twinkling brighter than stars,

To which I replied with a meek, mirthless smile,

Mostly out of courtesy, a bit out of compulsion,

But it was only after eleven months

That he came and sat next to me

On our ride back home at seven in the morning,

"You are too young and pristine

To be working in that shady hellhole."

And after a three seconds of pondering,

He resumed, "But I guess everyone has their reasons";

I looked down and nodded, while he continued -

"You know hon, you remind me of a squirrel.",

And then as if sensing my mind,

Or perhaps judging by the

Quizzical look on my tired face, he said,

"You scurry along those dirty corridors,

I don't remember ever having seen you

Stay still for a while, and on the rare minutes

That you stop by to catch a breath,

You sprint again to escape from those

Filthy paws of tipsy predators trying to pet you."

I don't know what surprised me more,

The fact that he had observed me so precisely,

Or the topic of our very first conversation.

"But do you know? Squirrels are strong creatures,

And I believe so are you",

He ruffled my unkempt hair,

And stood up to leave as

We drew closer to his stop;

And as he stepped out of the bus,

He smiled his most radiant smile;

Three days later, he was found dead

In his tiny room at the retirement home,

Loneliness got the better of him,

Giving him just enough strength

To hang a noose around his neck.

[swagittarius23]

Conflicting Storms

At 3 AM on a stormy night,

I looked out of the window,

The lightning bolts flashing like

A natural disco ball;

The cat purred, it needed to be fed,

The other cat lay slouching,

Much like his dysfunctional owner,

I drew myself a bath,

Sank into the tub,

And stayed underwater for

Twenty three and four seconds,

But chickened out when

The bubbles of death showed up;

I took a towel, folded it into a swan,

Unfolded it again, folded it into a rabbit,

Unfolded, folded, unfolded, folded,

Until I started feeling pity

For the poor towel,

And then I wondered if anyone

Ever felt pitiful for me;

The rage of the storm outside

Grew like a hellish inferno,

But the flame inside me

Was calmer than the ocean;

My heart felt non-existent,

Perhaps it had forgotten how to beat?

If you think about it

Loneliness and Emptiness

Are like Bert and Ernie,

You cannot take one

Without signing up for the other,

But when you feel empty,

You don't hear yourself anymore,

Or your thoughts, or demons,

Or the cats purring,

Or your lover confessing that

They fucked someone else;

I guess that's what emptiness sounds like,

It lives on without making a sound,

But grows faster than

Any storm and any inferno.

[swagittarius23]

The Strange Thing Little Kiosai Saw in the River

Little Kiosai, thirty six years old,

Little, because he stood tall at

Four and a half feet

But don't let that fool you,

For he was once a samurai

And a ferocious one at that,

The scars on his face told

Stories of yore

And his chonmage made him

The most eminent in the room

One fine day, wishing to breathe

Some fresh summer air,

Little Kiosai went on a stroll

Along the Kamuiwakka River

The birds sounded happy,

So did the rustling leaves,

And the burbling river

Was like a symphony to his ears,

Knowing he was alone,

He fancied himself a bath,

Nature's numerous children

Witnessing his act;

He took off his kimono,

And lay aside his katana,

And swam in the nippy water,

Each stroke of his arms

Taking him deeper into

The lap of the river;

And after one such stroke,

His eyes glanced upon

The pinkest Tsubaki flowers,

Desiring to own one of them,

He swam across to their resting place,

But within seconds, he let out a gasp;

Next to the Tsubakis lay a woman,

Her hair open and astray,

Eyes shut peacefully,

But that was it, just the head,

Floating there akin to the flowers;

Little Kiosai stared at the head,

And he kept staring for longer than anybody

Could, or would, or should,

And right when he snapped back into his sense,

The woman stared back at Little Kiosai,

Her lips curling into an ugly smile.

[darkbicademia-deactivated202206]

Stupid Dark/Chaotic Academia Things I’ve Done

1.     Pulled an all-nighter to complete a project I’d procrastinated, hours before its submission. Got distracted by music, crying and writing poetry instead. The project itself took about an hour.

2.    Woke up at 4 am to cram for an exam that was in hours, ended up having a dance party to hard rock instead and realized I may or may not be on the verge of failing. Ended up getting the highest marks in my class.

3.    Recited poetry while spinning around only to collapse and have blood rush into my head, causing an onslaught of headaches for the next few days.

4.    Procrastinated studying math by dramatically reciting Dickinson.

5.    Ran upstairs to my flat while having a walk while listening to Florence+ the Machine because I had an idea for writing. Proceeded to write for an hour or so, only to realize I hadn’t sat down there all day, my finals were in 2 days and I was absolutely unprepared.

6.    Studied subjects that had nothing to do with my school curriculum on YouTube just because I got bored. While I was barely able to keep up with whatever the hell was going on academically.

7.    Wrote a shit ton of useless articles on various psychological, historical and astronomical topics for my newsletter instead of doing my damn homework. Thankfully no one has realized yet. My school is useless lmao

[willkillforgoodmemories]

Loving the Chaotic energy Allow me to add

Chugged up 3 glasses of coca-cola for an all-nighter to complete an art assignment

Ended up doing 20 pages worth of math equations while listening to ‘Highway to Hell’ on loop

Drinking so much coffee to stay awake that I ended up having headaches for a week due to withdrawal

Always end up forgetting to write cause I wrote it in my mind

Studying for tests that determine 75% of my final grade on my ride to the school cause I’d rather die than study on weekends.

Having all my notebooks opened to do all my work simultaneously so its just me between a circle of maths, english, history and science books

Always studying to be at least a chapter above the teacher, cause proving them wrong is fun

Having designated notebooks for each subject but still end up writing on any page that I can get my hands on

Trying to make sure that I am always occupied cause I weirdly burn out if I am not doing anything so I end up doing my friend’s work as well, and well, I’ll do all the work I’d get

I am currently reading 5 books of different genres all at the same time cause time is an illusion and I have no idea how my brain is absorbing any of it.

I may or may not have tried learning 57 languages, 2 instruments and 1 medium of night all in one hour. I did not succeed, sadly.

I once had this hellish sleep schedule to maximize the stuff I did in a day by pulling 30 all-nighters back to back, only sleeping every 48 hours for 10 hours. I still cannot believe I didn’t crash or die. BUT I did end up doing a lot and getting ahead in school.

Signed up myself for a ton of contests and competitions so I can’t breathe in relief, I am booked up in work till July

[starlightshadowsworld]

Wow.. You know that you mention these I have a couple to add on.

1. Took a break in the middle in one of my GCSE science exams to think about the next stage of the story I wanted to write for a good 5 minutes.

2. Accidentially became one of the founding members and people in charge of a university society.

3. Signed up for a women’s leadership programme at Uni, attended like 3 sessions and still ended up with the diploma.

4. Has “started to learn urdu” at least 4 times at this point because I keep stop and starting. Will literally look up more stuff about the language than the language itself.

5. Learned the alphabet and numbers 1-20 in BSL because I was bored.

6. Has a folder I planned to put all my study stuff in… And it’s completely empty. And my notes are everywhere.

7. Spent 4 days doing nothing but getting up to work on my essay, ate like twice a day and had ran out of cans of coke. I had basically no caffeine and only stopped when I literally couldn’t work on it anymore and crashed on my bed at midnight.

8. Has 4 books I’m all part say through that I haven’t picked up in like 2 years… And didn’t just remember them now… 👀 While complaining I have nothing to read.

9. My cousin does her Shakespeare revision by listening to me rant.

10. Procrastinating learning something by learning something else.

11. Accidentially became absolutely obsessed with dress history one evening (despite never truly knowing the difference between stays and corsets)

12. Went on a whole dramatic speech analysing a poem and forgot to write it down because clearly I’d spoken it into existence.

[chvrcol]

guess i should add some of mine for the sake of self reflection:

1. had a full fledged panic attack before my biology exam but ended up getting 82/85

2. prepared most of the syllabus on the bus or rickshaw to college because somehow that helped me memorize quicker

3. would skip science lectures to make art on college walls (some of them are still there)

4. placed cigarettes at the end of certain topics in my notes so i would be motivated to study them

5. OD’d on drugs one night and gave a presentation the very next morning

6. left premedical for art school but gave admission tests for law schools however ended up being an economics major

7. never seem to remember where i keep my notes after taking them

8. joined the school basketball team, didn’t do shit but ended up getting a gold medal with the whole team anyway

9. was about to get kicked out from college for being absent so long until my friend had to explain i was in rehab in a different country

10. a friend and i created a sign language of our own to communicate answers or ask each other questions from across the exam hall, it was used for mcqs

11. used pages from previous practical journals to keep samosas or jalebis in while studying

[purplecherrypie]

Some of mine just for fun :)

1. had a lovely notebook all set up for my planning and to do lists, and still ended up scribbling notes on the back of old assignments and receipts

2. made a massive folder of notes in my first year that I never ended up using

3. bought some gorgeous frames and put them up in my room, and didn’t fill them with photos for an entire year

4. wrote the conclusion for an experiment without actually doing the experiment and still got a high grade

5. studied for 7 hours straight in a haze without taking breaks to eat or rest and only emerged when I realised that my mind was so fried that I couldn’t do basic arithmetic anymore (I have since learnt my lesson, this is a bad way to study)

6. ended up with five empty mugs of tea/coffee on my desk at the end of each day

7. went to a club and stayed till 4 am, then went back to my friend’s dorm room and ate two packets of chocolate biscuits, got home by 5 am, slept two hours, then went to class, wrote a test, and got 100% (although it was crystallography which is my favourite subject, if it were anything else I’d have absolutely failed)

8. discussed criminal law with my friend who’s a law student while walking through Hyde Park, which has led to a lot of odd looks from strangers

9. spent hours writing the perfect lab report even though it was worth only 6% of my grade and I had an upcoming exam worth a lot more that I hadn’t revised for at all

10. had a breakdown over a bad grade, cried for an hour, then washed my face, calculated how much I needed to make up for it, and sat down to revise

11. spent a week panicking over a project that ended up taking only an hour

12. used a pile of textbooks as a table for my coffee mug

[swagittarius23]

Ah, well, I guess I want to add some (not-so) interesting ones too.

1. Would reach college at 7.20 AM, get my friends, and reach a movie hall by 8 AM, watching all sorts of movies just because I didn't want to attend early morning lectures

2. Was bunking a very important exam with a cousin in the 3rd semester of my engineering, found my best friend on the road, persuaded her to bunk too and the three of us went on a mini road trip

3. Rammed my bike in a neighbor's Mercedes because they were throwing stones at a puppy

4. Came back drunk AF at midnight while I was living with my sister, acted pretty normal so she couldn't suspect, but once alone inside our room, I mistakenly knocked off her box of vermilion and spent 20 minutes cleaning the floor so she doesn't get to know

5. Flunked 13 subjects throughout my engineering, and cleared all of them in 2 days straight

6. Currently writing 6 short stories and all of them are at different stages, none of them being nowhere close to completion, but still getting random bursts of ideas to write new stories

[swagittarius23]

Tried creating a colour version of one of @iyworks artworks that I came across on Pinterest.

Didn't really turn out as expected, but it was worth a try.

[swagittarius23]

Who am I?

[swagittarius23]

Loving is easy, you had me fucked up.