You Were Never Born to Die in Mint Condition

Sculpture: Expansion by Paige Bradley

Ambrosia C.

You were never born to die in mint condition.

You were born to explore and ravage every nook and cranny

Of both the world and yourself.

You were born to break your bones, your heart and yourself

In desperate attempts to find your reason for being.

You were born to bruise and scar yourself,

Walk till your knees gave away

On your journey to find the golden city of El Dorado and the silver lining of your life;

Swim until your skin wrinkled and your eyes burnt

On your quest to find the lost city of Atlantis

And the belief you lost in love and dreams and pixie dust;

Scratch and tear yourself while you dug a hole

To both the centre of the world and your heart;

Sail and swim the seven seas

To find Stevenson’s treasure island and Verne’s mysterious island

And hope to lose the fear of drowning you held inside.

You were born to travel the world time and time again

Till you believed you could travel it in eighty days with a blindfold on;

You were born to lose Milton’s paradise

And on your journey through inferno and purgatory

Hope to regain it under Dante’s starless skies

As you hoped to regain the love you lost under Gogh’s starry ones.

You were born to crack skulls and chip nails

And burn yourself with fire and light as you travelled alongside angels and demons

And learned to coexist with both.

You were born to tread Whitman’s leaves of grass and race through paper towns

As you hoped again to find all that may yet be real in this world.

You were born to find the chinks in your stardust armour

As you flew past nebulae and quasars with Pery’s little prince,

On your odyssey through the history of time

To uncover all the timeless truths no one bothers to look for anymore.

You were born to strain your vocal chords

As you learned to sing with the voices of the mountains,

And splash yourself with colours

As you painted pictures in the sky with all the colours of the wind,

Pictures for death to marvel at as he went about his daily routine of collecting souls

And you went about yours to collect memories.

You were born to write till you understood why a raven was like a writing desk

And read till your mind was blown to bits

As you sat inside the burning Alexandrian library

And hoped for more poems that seemed to detonate your soul;

You were never born to work a nine to five,

The maps in your head and the compass in your heart

Would never allow your restless soul to settle down

And wear yourself away behind an empty box with a screen.

You were born to turn to dust only after you had conquered the world,

And only after you found out that you can never quite conquer the soul.

My love, you were never born to die in mint condition.

Daddy's favourite (written by Aahir Mrittika)

Locks of black hair blemished the floor by her feet. Her six year old hands were shaking with anticipation as she kept the pair of scissors down. She grinned at mirror, it was a success.

Meera kept her shopping bags and called out for her daughter. It had been a long day. The lights of her room were on. Meera remembered how once, a week ago, she had walked into the room to discover her six year old daughter smeared with red lipstick and messy braids. Oh, how adorable she was, trying to dress up. She loved adorning herself, and braiding her beautiful curls. Entering the room, Meera let out a whimper. She wanted to speak, but couldn't find her words. At last,after  a minute that seemed like hours, she finally found her voice.
"Why have you cut your hair, dear?"
She asked, utterly confused yet aware of the soft whisper in her mind slowly turning into a siren.
"So that daddy likes me," her daughter said, hope glimmering in her warm innocent eyes.
"I am a boy now."

Book Review: A Farewell to Arms

                                   

                  Author: Ernest Hemingway
                  Pages: 284
                  Average rating: 3.8/5


The story opens up near a river, a young man looks out the window from a cottage, as the dust flies up with the soldiers marching about, The images of war, the story takes us back into World War 1, where a young American by the name Henry signs up in the Italian ambulance service. But the story doesn't limit us only to the complexities and pains of war, it also tells us about how love flourished amongst  this chaos, The young soldier sets his eyes on Catherine Barkley, an American nurse, she knew it well that he was  just amusing himself but she played along. While all this was happening war was still being waged throughout the country, battles being fought and lives being lost, Henry is soon sent to the battle front, quiet preparations carry on before going on the attack but little did he know what was  written in his fate, it was here that catastrophe had struck and Henry injured his leg, the events that transpired after this point were however all to his favour, he was sent to a hospital, an American one, it was a new hospital that had just opened up, his nurse there was non other than Catherine Barkley herself, from their pre-existing "relationship" this is when love flourished. They were madly in love. Before going off to the front again, Henry was  decorated for the bravery that he showed by diving head first in the bomb attack to save his mates, the very same attack that left him wounded and unconscious. The story however does not only revolve around these two, it also tells us about the amazing friendships and weird characters Henry encounters in this period of servitude in the Italian ambulance service.
The ending to this all is however rather sad, something better left for the readers to find out themselves, after all a good book doesn't give up all its secrets at once.Even though he wrote 47 different endings it is hard to understand why he went ahead with this one, but then again maybe something otherwise wouldn't take you on this adventurous journey of epic proportions.

Some readers say that this is his best work with a considerable amount of depth and it tells more about the sadness hidden within the author's mind. Scholars suggest that this book cemented his reputation amongst the greats, and I wouldn't be one to disagree.  The Novel had many adaptations, primarily as a movie that was shot in 1996 starring Sandra Bullock called 'In Love And War'. 

All in all, I personally loved this book and hope that many of you will read it and I would give it a rating of  4.3/5.  

Book Review: The Amphibian Man by Alexander Belyaev

Sayrat Salekin



Author: Alexander Belyayev
Average rating: 4.1/5
127 pages

A “sea-devil” haunts the Rio de la Plata. Strange cries out at sea, slashed fishermen's nets, glimpses of a creature astride a dolphin have created quite the macabre image. The devil had become a local phenomenon.

Not far from Buenos Aires, on a lonely stretch of shore,

On a lonely stretch of shore, not far from Buenos Aires, Dr. Salvator lives in seclusion behind a high wall, whose steel-plated gates only open to let in his Indian patients. Salvator, a scientist and a maverick surgeon, makes his son, Ichthyander, a life-saving transplant - a set of shark gills. The experiment is a success but it limits the young man's ability to interact with the world outside his ocean environment. He has to spend much of his time in water.

Enter the Spaniard Pedro Zurita. Local pearl gatherer, captain of “The Jellyfish”.  He learns about Ichthyander and plans to exploit boy's superhuman diving abilities to force him to pearl-dive for him, but fails. Unlike the Indians, who revere Dr. Salvator as a God, Zurita has a hunch that the God on land and the devil in the sea have something in common. Enlisting the help of two Araucanian brothers he sets out to probe the mystery.

But Ichthyander must keep his secret from the world. The conflict arises from his falling in love with a pearl-fisher's beautiful daughter, Guttiere- the same Pedro Zurita is determined to be married to. But Ichthyander’s secret is discovered and the girl's father attempts to exploit Ichthyander for his ability. Due to being kept caged under water, his ability to breath in the open air is affected, and he must now permanently live in the sea, or atleast for several years. The story shifts from the bottom of the sea to the Spaniard's schooner, “The Jellyfish”, and back again, with interludes in sun-drenched Buenos Aires and the countryside, the mystery of Ichthyander the sea-devil is unfolded before the reader in a narrative as gripping as it informative. Although ostensibly a lost-love-tragedy, the story has a significant focus on greed and commercial exploitation, here materialized by the greedy pearl-fishermen. Although set free, the lovers are permanently separated from each other.

The story received a silver-screen treatment in 1962 . “Amphibian Man”, was directed by Vladimir Chebotaryov. A 2004 Russian TV series was aired, loosely based on the novel.

To sum up, The Amphibian Man is a remarkable science fiction that is strongly recommended for young readers. Alexander Belyayev tells a story of love, greed, mortality and separation against the backdrop of a gothic tale of the struggling life of a peculiar creature in recluse. Similar to other works by Belyayev, the book investigates the possibilities of physical survival under extreme conditions, as well as the moral integrity of scientific experiments. It also touches on socialist ideas of improving living conditions for the world's poor. It opens our eyes to the bitter ways the world works in- where people are ready to invest behind the same figure that they had condemned, to attain something of immense value. 

"Love Always, A" by Umayeer Milky

Dear Friend,
Every day is a struggle and I feel like its ground hog day--same shit, different toilet.  Every day is a battle, and every night is a long arduous nightmare, killing every bit of hope you have left within you. I forget myself, who I was before it contaminated that version of me and made me someone, something I cannot understand. Someone I fail to recognize as... me.
I don’t know why I’m writing to you, or what good it’ll do to me or to you if you read this. You don’t even know me at all to begin with. But someone once told me if I ever felt misunderstood or lonely, you are there. You’re persistently there to listen to what people like me has to say. And you have no idea how much I appreciate this.
It took me a while to get hold of myself, take control of my actions, but then it hit me again. I think it was a dream. But then again, was it? I think it was a nightmare, my life flashing in front of me as I found myself drowning in a bottomless sea of misery and coldness. I felt like a seed wedged at the bottom of a pot, with soil being thrown at me, covering every bit of sound trying to escape my mouth.
I am sorry. This is probably a bit too confusing to comprehend at this point for you and so, before you stop reading, let me make this simple for you. I’m dying. Simple as that. The next day I might not even be here.
Last night I had a weird experience as I slowly tried to drown myself in the bath tub.  As the water hit me, I knew it was over. No point in struggling. A vicious wave hit me, knocking me down, dragging the air from my lungs. Even though my mind had made a decision, my body did not agree with it. I could feel my lungs screaming for air, crying out, as my legs and arms thrashed around wildly, hoping and praying to get free. I knew I had to stop them, hold them still, but it was so hard not to fight, with the air leaving me, It felt like there was a heavy blanket over me. I couldn’t breathe... and it was grave, demoralizing and shockingly scary. I could feel my heartbeat slowing down, progressively more, and I felt the panic fade away into numbness. I tried to breathe in, but when all I got was water... my mind went blank... my heart began to give up its fight and my body stopped altogether... I died. Or so I thought until I found myself on my bed, waking up from a bad dream, sweat beads on my forehead and neck.
I wondered of all the ways I could die if I don’t die because of my disease, since that night. Drowning did not feel like the worst option after experiencing it once even though it was just a morbid dream.
I don’t know what happens to the people around you when you are dying. Some people just give up on you, like you are already dead to them and some try to make you feel like the king of their world. Which for me is not okay because being in the spotlight of your entire world is not what you would want before you die. Then again you don’t want to be ignored by someone you care for or love. Sometimes I feel so lonely and depressed, the worst kind of depression which makes you think that no one around you can ever love or understand you. It’s a harrowing state of being alive when all you see is sadness and struggle. It is like looking at the world wearing dark sunglasses, which hides every bit of goodness alive in this world from you. All I know is the pain, and the pain is the only thing that knows me. The rest all fades away in comparison.
The other day I was walking down the autumn leaf filled pathway looking at people, mostly.  An eighty year old grandmother walking down the pavement, perfectly well and healthy, her grandson or perhaps great grandson clutching her hand with one of his hands, waving and jumping to reach for a balloon disappearing along the golden horizon. A boy trying to put all the things inside his bags to cycle home but interrupted by his girlfriend’s plea to stay back a few more minutes.  Just a few more minutes. Some of us don’t even get that.
Imagine the horror when your mother finds you relapsing on your birthday, inside the washroom, a few inches away from the land of death. She carries you to the hospital, not letting go of you for a second, sending you into the ICU, and waiting outside to hear the good news, though a part of her heart knows that it can be bad news as well.
Well I lived. After a lot of integral medications, psychoanalysis, side effects, I survived till I degenerate again. I imagine a troop of virus or bacteria invading my somatic cells, while I slowly disintegrate to nothingness. It is a very vivid image, gory at first, but then calm. Cool. Cold.  The repercussion of it horrible. Scary.
Father is dragging me to watch this new movie. Watching movies is one of my favorite way for time to elapse. But right now, I am not even bothered to go. I am too hollow to enjoy life anymore. My heart is too heavy to find joy anymore.  But I am gonna go anyway. Guess I can pretend to be happy to make the people around me think I am actually more than just a ailing piece of encumbrance.
I don’t know if I will ever write to you again. You probably don’t even want me to write to you. Sorry I wasted your time by making you my one-way therapist. But you don’t know how much I appreciate you reading this. So thank you.
Love Always,
-A

The Writer's Club

'There is nothing to writing, you just sit in front of the typewriter and bleed.' The writer's club aims to make literature alive again. How often do you see people walking around with a book, or how often do you see people reading a book on a journey. This is a platform for budding writers to show their talent and get themselves out there. It isn't only about literature or the art of writing. It is about the dreamer in each one of us. It's our thoughts, ideas, emotions, that we can bring out in the form of words. How amazing it is, to express and know, writing is one such medium. We want to show our generation how beautiful reading and writing is. How it is not only something for smart people.