UnSingle stories at UnSingle Readings Bengaluru

UnSingle Readings  and Open Mic with Anuja Chauhan and HarperCollins India was every aspiring writer’s dream! Bangaloreans stormed in and bowled us over with their stories, poems and quirky rants. And some of our favorites took home awesome Wooplr goodies!

 Here our favorites:

When I thought I was in love with you, I drove myself into a right state. I

got so exhausted I threw my back out like a wheezing old Auntieji. I

twisted sideways, backwards, over and under, fell on my bottom and finally accepted that loving you was more difficult than passing the ISC Boards. No that’s not true- I passed the Boards and well enough for sweets to be distributed in the mohalla , but loving you was like drinking a lemon granita on a winter’s day…I had to swallow despite the khar-khara roughness in my trachea and had to clear it very, very, painfully softly as though I had passed gas in public.

That was fine too, that was tolerable, but the months of waiting was not. Seriously though, waiting for you was like waiting for summer, in the Antarctic. The snow falls steadily or if you live in a place like I do, the grey rain falls on grey concrete from a grey sky and all these are just one shade you know?

You asked if loving you had been difficult,  and I was lying when I said no. Loving you and forgetting you and all things you is the hardest thing I’ve done (I just realised how that came out but its funny and punny and smart so its okay if its slightly non veg). I couldn’t stop loving you though, because you were like Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham- I had to come back to you despite the drama, the cringeworthy cheesiness, and the total eye roll inducing moment when Jaya Bachchan comes bearing a silver thaali, clad in a silver sari, adorned with silver jewellery looking like BR Chopra’s Bhishma Pitamaha. How she heard the khatkhata sound of Shah Rukh Khan’s helicopter above all the din troublesome Rani Mukherji was making is beyond me. How she heard the khatkhata sound of Shah Rukh Khan’s helicopter above all the din troublesome Rani Mukherji was making is beyond me. But, I digress.

Yes you were a pain, my fawn, but I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.

2. Me & the Sleepless Nights by Yashika Singh
Oh you sleepless night, could you be less charm,
You I try to avoid, yet am pulled back into your cozy arms,

We talk endless, yet incomplete the duologue always remain…
He, who holds both of our hearts captive, we talk of the very same

You envy me for spending a peaceful few with him too,
Even I am surprised, how fast the time flew,

But you & I are bonded from the time, him, when I hardly knew,
We are the soul sisters, Us – no God can slew..

I have visited you time over time, In adulthood, In teen
I have experienced with you, experiences, new and pristine.

With you, I lost my virginity to LovePain.
Without you, this life, could I ever sustain??
So..
Here I come to you… back & again..
Have lots of memories to sail through, to share
Tonight I am going to stretch to the dawn.
All the Sleep Gods …… beware!!
3.How do you fuck poetry?  By Anushree Bharadwaj
How do you
take it by the wrists and
trap its flutterings in the circle of your
thumb and forefinger–
How do you bend it over the kitchen counter
and map the foothills of its spine?
Do you wear a harness to trek the plateau of its
shoulder blades,
and not fall off the cliff as you dig
a bite off the precipice–
What do you hope to find here?
This is no fairy with trapped wings, this is
a fire raging on dry shrubs,
a doe trapped in a bobcat’s gaze,
a tigress shielding her cubs–
There is no caution here,
only impulse – because what do you hope to cling to
when your chin loses traction and slips off
the ‘L’ curve of its shoulder–
How do you pull free when your knee
sinks into the parabola of its waist,
when the forest of its hair calls you home?
There is a point of no return at
the dip near its navel
where the kisses evaporate;
there is a numbing paralysis at the
small of its back like the tongue of a glacier,
and there is a life jacket upon its lips.
How do you fuck poetry?
You don’t. You savor it.