Nidhi Katoch blog

It's nearly 1 am, I can hear rain outside. Sleep has left my eyes and I'm eating instant noodles. A flickering light coming from my laptop as I'm watching a movie directed by Basu Chatterjee. I know almost every dialogue. I wonder how many people are waking up at this hour of the night. Is everyone happy or satisfied? What has deprived them of their sleep? Do they feel lonely? Or are they talking to their loved ones right now? Funny how we all are awake and alone but still are together awake under the night sky. A lot of people ask me how much pahadi I'm. I just push aside this question by telling I'm not a mountain person. Well, I can tell by looking at the grey skies that it's snowing in the mountains above. I can feel the winds of mountains from the plains. I might like city life, but when night prevails I lie on my bed I start to miss the clear black sky, my open window, the moonlit room, and the stars. There's a blank space in my heart that always remai...

Today when I opened the door to the roof I could feel the last night's rain all over my skin. The cuckoo was singing while perching over Gulmohar. Beautiful red flowers, which I find fiercely bright in summer's heat, looked so calm on this cool morning. I usually wonder what makes this cuckoo sing all day long.  A white feather came and settled over my palm. Whose message are you carrying today oh dear feather? I let it go with a little blow. How long can I have hold of it? People are like a feather too. You can't hold them for long. They'll go on their travel eventually.  Our love and our faith can't hold them. They don't owe us anything. If they do, then nature doesn't. A few days ago a fakeer came to me singing, I don't remember the exact words but he was saying, 'Finally bird Soar away breaking his cage, today'. His song moved me and my eyes became misty. When I offered him the money he politely refused by saying he had earned enough for the ...

This starless sky, Smoke coming out of vehicles often makes me think that those silent nights spent under the stars back in the home were way better. Home where we could spend the whole night counting stars and watching the moon. I miss those endless chats and how we used to identify the constellations. The science and mythology related to them. How those stars always stay together. We wished for staying together like those stars in Ursa major.  During monsoon nights when we tried to catch fireflies, the fragrance of jasmine had reached its peak. That sound of rain over the slate roof, the breeze coming from the direction of the mountain, a breath of fresh snow. The turning of our conversation from season to finding the meaning of love and life. You used to stress the fact that having company is a good idea while I believed in having some alone moments. No one is right or wrong in this kind of discussion. You had your experience, I had mine.  Well, that was a long time ago. No...

Sometimes we just want to sit and cry. I know I'm being a pessimist here but isn't it true? And we want our problems or sadness to go away with the tears cascading from our eyes. Sometimes I too like to cry. We all do. Whether men or women. But not everyone wants to accept in public. There could be any reason. I'm not gonna bother my readers but I've penned down the following poem while sitting by the condensed window. I'm still carrying the curse on my weighed down shoulders, All the wounds I've nursed again become open cuts and colder. Trapped inside the circle of time Morning-Noon-Night Never-ending is this climb, Don't know what is hurting more pain in my heart or shoe bite? Surrounded by the beauty which I can't see They say they want to be like me while I've never been me. Darkness arises  flows like a river in my veins They talk about advise As if they're the only ones with shattered dreams. Have I left people or have people left me? Am I ...

The fan swirling on the ceiling, the clock showing the wrong time and the closed window are all causing suffocation in me. In the stillness of night sky is numb, only clouds are weeping silently. Tonight even clouds don't want to be heard or seen. They just want to cry, cry alone, without any distrubance. Perhaps that's why clouds have decided to rain during night when there's no one in the street, who can curse them or feel happy for rain. 'Am I really child of this universe? Do I really belong to this world? There's something constantly breaking inside me.' How many times we've asked these questions from ourselves. When we don't find any answer, we crave for escape. This escape sometimes (in my case many times) flows from our eyes. Like these clouds outside. The positivity that lies in the chore of our hearts sometimes clashes with negativity which clouded  our mind, body and soul. There raises battle cry and lightening which illuminates our path. But ...