Miscellaneous Works 

When I was small I would pester my father every night to tell me a story. We would make all sorts of deals just so I could get one story out of him. He would say if I ate my dinner quickly he would tell me a funny story. If I came to bed early I would get to hear a ghost story. On very special occasions, if I had been especially good, then he would tell me the story of Bon Bibi, the goddess of the Sundarbans.

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That one story every night was my treat. The whole day I would look forward to it. I would even call my father at the office and remind him to think up a story. And at night when he would tell me a new tale in hushed tones, with me lying so close to him, I would be the happiest. When the story ended and I fell asleep, I had wonderful dreams of princes and princesses and terrifying ones of man - eating tigers and wicked ‘pishachinis’ who captured little children.

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Twelve years later my love of stories is still the same. The number of books beside my pillow has lessened, each page takes longer to read but the magic is still the same. Even now I sometimes lay alone at night telling myself the same stories again and again. I don’t ask my father to tell me these stories anymore though. It’s not because I don’t want him to anymore. It’s because I don’t need him to. The memories are enough for me. Just remembering them takes me back to my childhood and I like that. I like having that doorway which I can open any moment. I like that it leads me back home.

My stories will always lead me back home. They will always lead to my father.

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Aasthika Das, Batch of 2019

And so we dropped the bombs,

The grenades and the fires,

And so the white wreaths -

Replaced the bouquets,

And so the sky shot missiles...

Instead of shooting stars,

And so the guns were fired,

Leading to lives lost. 

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Remember the butterfly,

Who shall still fly,

Remember the streams,

Which shall still flow,

Remember the poplar tree,

Which shall still sway in the breeze,

Remember the little bird,

Which shall sing forever. 

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Anupama Choudary, Batch of 2023

I won’t forget it in a hurry,

As simple as it might be, 

The raindrops had begun to perch on your hair,

Dewy. Shining. Almost glittery. 

They weren’t slow, exactly, neither were they pelting. 

They fell at the same pace I was falling, 

Swift, yet lazy. The far away strain of the conch blew

While I looked down at my feet, 

Blue suede, splattered with grassy mud.

You reached your pianist fingers down, 

Brushed against my kohled eyes, smudged them even worse. 

My childish heart flies, 

My feet fall into your steps. 

Over the rippling puddles and, 

Broken brick path, 

Upon the rainwashed granite, 

Backs up against the wall and eyes on each other. 

The cranky elevator heaves up while my heart plummets down. 

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Arkopriya Pal, Batch of 202

It may seem very strange to hear, but winter hated the cold. He hated how his breath made the winter shiver, how his touch made the flower wither, how his footsteps made the earth turn white, and how his absence brought in the bloom - brought in the spring. 

Oh, how the Winter loved the Spring!

He loved his laughing, twinkling eyes, and his pretty pink blush, blooming like flowers; he loved his soft footsteps and his sweet breath, breathing love and life, and he loved his, as dark as the clear sky (or was it like the fresh brown earth? Winter forgets sometimes). But what he loved the most of all about the Spring was his beautiful, beautiful smile - brighter and warmer than anything poor cold Winter could ever dream to feel (as though it were the sun, no, more glorious than even the sun, just as unreachable, the Winter muses) 

And yet how the Winter loved the Spring!

He who from the shortest brush of their fingertips, gave Winter butterflies that should never have been seen.

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Divisha Jaiswal, Batch of 2018

Traveller, visitor, one who flits from a place to another; a soul who loves to roam, an explorer who is never home:

 

Find the corners of the world

Become one with the colours of the earth

A rose motorbike I rode

To the edge of the sky

And a purple pedal I pressed

That taught me to fly.

Rusted remains of stories

That took me to rainbows

And worn out wisps of conversations

I followed the pot of gold.

It took a forever and half

For the universe to become

And ill spend my two eternities learning the letters of its name.

 

Himadri Agarwal, Batch of 2017

It is hidden in every crevice of the city, 

Leaving no room for mercy or pity, 

Hidden, but not unseen; hidden but not unknown, 

Visible in the flames fuelled by hate alone. 

 

It is hidden by the veil of devotion, 

Hidden behind accusations of moral pollution, 

Hidden by slogans promising a better future, 

Tainting the glories of a great culture 

 

You can hear it in the cries of a rioter 

You can smell it in the fumes of gunpowder 

You can see it in the pages of the book, 

You can see it, but only if you learn to look 

 

Shivali Gabrani Basu, Batch of 2019

Like a shower of crystals, 

From a pastel blue-coloured sky

Downfall the drops of tears, 

And up goes an umbrella, I say fly

My heart is alive to the tunes of harmony,

To the beats of the rain, I say love me. 

 

Maybe if the rain keeps on falling, 

Nobody will notice my tears, 

Maybe if it keeps on sheltering, 

All my fears will remain suppressed, concealed. 

 

I look to one side, 

Hoping to see a familiar face, 

Yet, like a failure every day, 

My old memories, I seem to displace. 

 

Why do those crystals come from the sky? 

Matching the teardrops from my eyes, 

As I continue my echoes of loving yourself 

Among the burden of words, I have lost myself. 

 

So I stand in the rain, 

With solitude as company, 

And like the rain, loneliness’ magnitude, 

Begins to sink in.

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Mohona Sengupta, Batch of 2023

And then one fateful day,

Amongst all the rubble,

You will find a dusty old photograph from grade three that brings it all back.

 

You amidst the classmates who you spent your childhood with,

That one teacher who always smiled at you,

That one girl who always made everyone laugh,

That one girl who cared way too much about her hair,

And that one sick kid who would ruin every class with her sneezing and coughing.

 

You, a grown up now,

Look closely at the younger version of yourself,

Happy, just happy,

Smiling at the photographer who always asked you to keep your right hand over the left,

And you always did it the other way around,

Those little bits you spent with friends now lost in the big world,

Those little moments now lost in time,

The pure happiness you left behind to step into this world.

 

Because you wanted to be a grown up,

And now, you regret your only wish as a child,

A tear races down your cheek to be a part of that photograph,

In a desperate attempt to have it all back,

But now it’s all in a photograph, 

The memories are frozen,

The people gone will never come back,

Lessons learnt will last forever,

The photo will be framed,

And the stories will weave their way

Through generations to come.

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Vaidehi Meharia, Batch of 2019