Nidhi Katoch blog

I'm sitting in this corner of the room, unaware of my own self. The curtains on the window are staring at me. Every piece of this room is giving me questionable glances, without moving from their place. When I look at the vase, it asks me about the flowers I'd promised to bring. Bookshelf asks me to go through some pages and that fountain pen on the table pleads with me to refill it, to colour the whole stack of paper blue. I don't want to look at anything present here. Each and everything is asking me to move for them as if I'm the odd one here, a human who isn't supposed to choose their corner. How much I wish to become a thing, non-living, a commodity which people wouldn't notice when they enter here. I wish I could mix my skin with these walls, my eyes on the glass of the window. Stoic-Detached-Devoid. I try to gather all those drafts lying around me, but my heart wants me to tear all these into pieces. I can't bear the sight of this stack I've been ...

It was a summer night of June. I was walking on the terrace. A shower of rain had made the night humid as well. My whole body was smeared with petrichor. I wished for once everything would stop. These constantly moving vehicles on the lane below and those irritating sounds of fifteen second videos which were coming from the terrace of another building attached to ours. Sometimes I start to hate these videos serving us the entertainment we don't even ask for, we don't really want (and definitely I don't really need). Like every other person, I'm also guilty of recording and binge watching these videos. It's hard to ignore them as much as it's hard to stop inhaling the pollutants of the environment. The only way I could think of peace was to turn on my headphones. But music wasn't able to put me at ease. I failed to find something interesting to read on my phone. Then I decided to let the thoughts come to me and go. Whenever I can't control the situations ...

A little sparrow came to my window today. It's been a while since I've seen a bird so closely or maybe it's me who has stopped noticing these little delights around me. These house sparrows are so rare to find in cities, after watching this bird I started to miss home. However, even there now their number has reduced. How easy it has become for me to ignore things around me! Now I mostly forget to observe strangers. I don't like to talk. I'm just running wild (obviously in my mind). And this running is leading me nowhere.  This little sparrow felt like a message to look around, to hear the music around me, to feel the morning sun and enjoy the summer blooms. When I opened the window, it flew away. Happy and free in the vast sky of endless possibilities.  

I saw the white Bougainvillea vine on the rear gate of someone's  house and ran toward it to click a photograph. This is what we, the slaves of technology do. We first click the picture and then praise the beauty around us. Yeah! I'm ranting like those people who constantly nag about the cons of technology and can't live without it for a moment. After all, it's this internet access which has allowed me to share my thoughts with people all around the world. Then I started  to ask my friend to try different angles to get a perfect picture of me with that vine. Yet the best picture was the one with my back on camera, which I'll share under the hashtag of summer aesthetic. Flowers have always been the part of our lives. From literature to temples, from greetings to the gift to loved ones, from our birth to doom, flowers walk with us. These little petals of colors fill our lives with colors. We compare the smile of our love with the blooming flower and our sorrow with un...

All three of us were having coffee in the cafe and were laughing at something. But my eyes were only following you. I looked at your face, 'How happy you are today!' I thought to myself, as if trying to convey my message through my mind.  I knew that the day after tomorrow you'd be home and I would remain here. Stagnant! Oh! How much I wanted to follow you like I used to do when I was a child. I had never felt so jealous of kids, the way I felt today. Kids can cry anywhere, at any moment, while we adults are supposed to behave. I wanted to hold you but I didn't. I knew you would get to know my feelings even with my single touch. This could make you sad, more than me. I didn't want to take that risk. After all, You're Mother! Far more experienced and smart than me.  I turned my gaze to my twin. I wondered if she was thinking the same! Our eyes met and she nodded with a small smile. I nodded back and became a part of the conversation again.

The carpet of pale leaves is lying on the ground. I'm listening to the rumble of leaves. These old-pale leaves are leaving their place to be filled by new ones. Don't these old leaves feel bad that soon they will be crushed by someone? Don't they realize they are nothing more than trash on these busy roads? Who can understand the cycle of life more than them? Aren't we like these leaves? Doesn't our life resemble the life of these leaves? Useless, detached, thrown when our season ends. Don't know why I'm feeling sad for these leaves. Pessimism doesn't leave us so easily. But I also believe Optimism and pessimism go hand in hand. I should see the positive side, because with the fall of those old leaves I can see more green ones, more space for new unborn leaves. More flowers on trees. After all, March is the month of warmth and flowers. Month of endings and preparation of new beginnings. Maybe I should also shed my grudges, my anger, my overthinking and w...

As usual, I'm again sitting idle. This is the most common start of accounts, encounters (or whatever you want to call) which I often share here. Sometimes I feel that you (yes! You, my reader) are definitely bored of this beginning. But still you come here again and again to see what story this idler has to tell.  Oh! yes, story.  I'm an early riser and love to see the sunrise. I was standing on the balcony that morning. The sun was about to rise. Few people were coming out of their houses for morning walk . I was slightly irritated by the constant cooing of pigeons. One stray kitten was busy jumping from wall to wall while another was sitting by my side. In this city, people hire men to wash their cars daily, unlike in my own place, where people usually forget when was the last time their vehicle took a bath. A deliveryman was waiting to deliver a courier outside a house. A guy came out with a toothbrush in his mouth, the deliveryman handed him a bouquet of roses and left.I w...

I was browsing the bookstore when I felt a pang of loneliness. I knew this feeling would leave me soon. After all, I didn't visit the bookstore alone. The noise of people started to irritate me like the buzz of a housefly in my ear. I shut my ear with my hands to block that buzz from coming toward me. Everything stopped but my heartbeat.  Who on earth has ever been successful in deceiving his own heart? I shut my eyes. But still I could see that my heart was increasing in size constantly. It was becoming bigger and bigger and started to pop out of my body. There came a point when it burst into a thousand pieces. Those pieces fell in every direction, some pieces decided to hang in the air. A few people came forward to collect those pieces as if those were some precious metal. Some tried to place them in their voids. Some tried to swallow those.  I was standing there, alive, wondering why they were so greedy? Greedy or needy? I could see a part of me in them.  I felt like e...

I bought myself coffee and settled on a nearby bench. A lady and a young man were sitting in front of me. They seemed mother and son by their gestures. It was the fifteenth consecutive day that the sun hadn't spread its rays. This is the problem with the plains. When I'm at home, on the hills, I get to witness the sun, even if it is for a few minutes. But in the plains, it seems impossible to get blessings from the Sun God during winter. Some readers might be aware that I'm not a big fan of cloudy days. These grey skies color my heart blue and blue skies make me cheerful. I wanted to push clouds aside and take some warmth from the sun. Obviously, I couldn't do it, so I indulged myself in a favorite habit of mine, observing (one might say snooping in strangers' lives). The scene around me was simple, some were heading to their destination, some were hanging around. A person who makes paid sketches of people was sketching a kid sitting in front of him. It was evident ...

I was sitting by the lake watching the birds come and go.  At some distance from me a man was looking at the lake lost in his thoughts. I tried to figure out the emotions behind his cold stare. But obviously I can't stare him for long without looking like a creep. So I decided to return to my thoughts. Wind and water were playing with each other. They were making calm music and it seemed birds were taking part in symphony. I wanted to get lost in their world. I imagined myself as light as feather only to fly freely and calmly settle down on earth. From where a child would pick me up, place me in his palm and again blew me in the air.  Never to come back but to float with wind, to play with water and to settle again in someone's palm or in the lap of earth. I looked again at the direction of that man. This time he turned his head to look at me. He waved his hand and I waved back with a smile. And we kept on sitting there, lost in our own thoughts... 

' I don't think it'll rain today, 'You said to me. 'Look how the sun is shining.' I didn't make any reply. We kept on walking in that silent corridor. Occasionally one or two people passed by us. For a while I took off the mask to breathe freely and soak my face in fresh air and sunshine. 'There's the scent of old almonds here.', I said to you. But according to you it had a wet earthy scent. Every place carries a different scent. We often associate memories with fragrances. That fragrance was reminding me of an old house made of mud which had been closed for a long time and I had written my name on its wall with coal. The next day was a great spectacle like in every Indian village. Because the owner of the house who had shifted to his new pucca house, had complained at home itself. I got scolded and scolded more for showing my teeth. 'Just because you're now capable of writing your name, it doesn't mean you should show it off everywhe...

 "परछाईयाँ रह जाती रह जाती निशानी है ज़िंदगी और कुछ भी नहीं तेरी मेरी कहानी है" (Loose translation: There remains only shadows and memories Life is nothing But story of you and mine. ) These lyrics of an old Hindi song somehow stuck in my head and I was singing them repeatedly. I looked out of the bus window, there was mist rising from the hills above. I stare at the mobile screen of my co-passenger who was sitting a seat ahead of mine. He was busy recording the scenery in his phone. 'Do these gadgets really serve complete justice to the nature's beauty?', I thought to myself. "Life is nothing But a recording of our days and nights our struggles and fights our tears and smiles. " I started to add few more verses and laugh out loud. Few eyes moved toward my direction to make me embarrass enough to shut my mouth. Who the hell am I to alter this beautiful song with my ugly verses! Sometimes I think technology has brought us all under same roof, we all have ...

 'There's a musty smell here', said my sister. I nodded in agreement. The paint was crumpled from place to place. The damp walls of that old building were the proof that sunlight hardly enters there except through a window on corridor that too only in evening. The whole place was surrounded by pines and monkeys. Since, the hall was filled with people I decided to stand by the window. I walked through the hall pretending I'm on call. I've always been fascinated by windows. No matter whatever the view is! Sunrays were kind enough to fall over my head. I peek outside the window, all I could see was trees, trees and trees. I started to hum and few lines of Sara Teasdale's poem came to my mind- "But why do the pines on mountain's crest Call to me always, "Rest, rest"? " I've a deep relationship with pines. They remind me of my transition from a teenager to an adult. How I fell in love, how I lose friends, how I experienced my first, no sec...

I tried to write few verses or sentences but words didn't pop in my head. I wanted to write and tell so many things but words didn't form a understandable and socially acceptable sentence. It felt like the ink in my pen had been frozen. To add to the gloom sun wasn't up. If someone asks me what I don't like about winters, I would say rising of sun after 8 or 9 in the morning. I knew that I won't be able to write this morning again. So, I decided to leave my diary at peace. I walked out of the house nearly 11 of the morning. I came out of the gate and a stray cat ran inside another gate. 'There are so many cats here',I heard myself saying. I walked across the park saw two boys playing badminton in purely wrong way. 'Those teenagers might be brothers. ', I said in my head while observing their facial similarities.  I crossed the park and move ahead to road. Don't know for how many times I'd passed through this road. I walked in fast pace, which...

I was sitting on the bench, not knowing what thoughts I was lost in, a voice from behind caught my attention.  When I looked back, a lady was asking me about trendy shoes nowadays. She was an elderly lady with walking stick in her one hand. I'm not a person of small talk. I usually respond with smile. With the mask on, it has become difficult to respond.  Well, that happy lady left me soon to buy herself shoes. But she made sure to tell me that she's only 65 years young. And she was more young than me and the fellows of my age. I went to bookstore just to come out empty handed. I bought myself a coffee, made myself comfortable again on same bench and started to look around. When you're hanging out alone people tend to come to you to talk more often.  An old man or woman offers you a candy or nut, a random person asks you about book you're reading. How can I forget an old man/ woman's political thoughts! It's better to stay silent and let them talk, nod in agreem...