06 January, 2025

Neither me, nor you.

Illustration from @littleguns_ on X

 For Isla Bell

I walked the same roads as you
crossed the same paths but
in the end, only one of us gets to keep walking.
What made me live and you not?
Sheer luck.
And that’s what we have to depend on
that’s what we have to wish upon.
To be able to breathe.

What makes my actions lead to nothing more
than a mildly concerning story and hers to an obituary?


Everything I read or hear about this I think to myself…
What’s the difference between me and her and her actions and mine
I’ve met people like the ones she encountered and was perhaps just as close
to ending up like she
So why did it happen to her and not to me?


What makes me different? What makes her so easy to be taken away?
Why do I even have to be in a position where I wonder why her and not me?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Isla Bell was a missing woman for a large part of 2024. In October/ November 2024, they found her remains. She had been murdered. The reporting on her case is difficult to read as it insinuates and blames Isla somewhat for what happened. It’s unacceptable. It’s painful. But it’s a narrative we’ve read and heard over and over. All I know now is that I wish nothing but torment upon the men who did this to her and those everywhere who have destroyed/are destroying/continue to destroy the lives of women. And I extend it further to those who destroy them even in their deaths.

11 December, 2024

good damage



How and why do I feel so miserable? My period app says I’m due to start bleeding in about four days, so that might be why, but I just feel off! I’m unhappy, unsatisfied, annoyed, and restless. I wish I had more in me—I wish I was successful, well-off, and talented. I feel wasted, rotten, and unremarkably unimportant.  


The weather has been so hot too, and it makes me want to claw my skin off. I sweat so easily; it’s so gross and unladylike…  


I used to not care about gender roles. I’ve always prided myself on being a liberal child, even in the conservative household I grew up in. From a very young age, I remember challenging my parents’ beliefs, proclaiming my judgment-free convictions. I didn’t mind looking like a boy. I didn’t mind letting my leg and armpit hair grow out. I was more independent—and less fat.  


Every time I write the word fat or even mention my weight, it feels like I’ve detonated a bomb. The awkward bomb, like casually dropping a slur in the middle of a chill conversation and watching everyone go silent. That’s how it feels to admit, even to myself: I’m fat. Or I feel fat. Or I’ve gotten fat.  


When I let myself say it, it’s like everyone in my head stops what they’re doing, goes silent, and stares at me. I can’t seem to admit it—not fully. I’ve buried it so deep, avoided it so vehemently, that even when I try to address it, there’s this bleak, unnerving silence. If I admit it, then it becomes true.  


But it’s already true!  


I miss having my Instagram account. I miss the attention and validation it brought me. Like a past relationship, I know I’m forgetting the bad parts—the fear of posting something my parents might scrutinise, the panic over comments about suggestive angles. Growing up felt like jail. I shouldn’t have had to feel that way as a child. That child shouldn’t have grown older only to make fear its home.  


There were other bad parts, too. Worrying about posts that didn’t get enough likes, stories with too few views, follower counts going down, or someone else’s account growing faster. There was always something to keep me up at night.  


And yet, all I can think about now is how good I felt about myself when I had aasthameow.  


I want to unfollow Melbourne influencers who make me feel awful about myself. They have platforms, opportunities—access to things I wish I could experience. But I don’t want to be like that. I know they’ve worked hard, and they’re reaping the rewards. Still, it stings to click on a story and see someone my age, in my industry, a friend of a friend, being invited to concerts with after-party entries while I stand in line for eight hours, wait another four for the performance, and leave without the signed poster all VIP ticket holders were promised—because customs.  


I feel hateful. Furious. And I don’t want to write anymore.  


But where do I go? What do I do with all of this? It’s lodged inside me, spreading like a stain. If I walk away from typing this, the thoughts won’t stop. And if I don’t document my misery, what’s it worth?  


Two things are on a loop in my mind:  

1. Diane Nguyen Good Damage monologue from BoJack Horseman: “Because if I don’t, that means all the damage I got isn’t good damage, it’s just damage. I’ve got nothing out if it, and all those years I was miserable for nothing.” 

2. A quote I read on someone’s Instagram story: “Art isn’t good or bad; it’s just profitable or not.”


I’m clinging to that second one, hoping it helps my mental health because right now, it’s not looking great.  


Not everything has to be tied together, you know? I could be happy with myself without feeling like it would deteriorate my work. Self-worth and productivity don’t have to hold hands. I could be free from my demons. But I’m competitive—and my own worst enemy. I wouldn’t even let anyone else win that title.  


Btw I started a Substack. So if you like to read, there's material there too. 

19 November, 2024

Spoken in Slams


On 16th November 2024, I performed, for the first time, my poems in front of an audience. It was a nerve-racking experience but I knew it was something I had to do for myself. Both these poems were written about two years ago. In that time I submitted other poems from the collection these two come from, but never sent On My Own Since 2009 and I Am anywhere to be considered for publication. I knew they needed to be heard, not read. 



On My Own Since 2009

It’s 2009, I’m fat and my mummy still has reign over how I dress, do my hair. I am naïve, born a blank page. Easy to blemish. And the earliest ones leave the greatest impression. Brown-bodied, I stand out. Brown raised, I act so. Oil in my hair, it’s split into two, braided tightly. Roti rolls with aloo ki sabji wrapped in aluminium foil sit next to new books blessed by Saraswati Ma and my ma; sindoor on her right ring finger make swastikas on first pages of new notebooks and on my wrist, tied are saffron, amber and maroon threads.

It stains. All of it.

My silence is taken for compliance. A little brown girl, slightly overweight, at moments her brain attempts to compensate for she cannot communicate nor fully understand the language in which they tease and ridicule.

It’s the language in which I write and speak today.

Devanagari, oily red smudges and the scent of tadka. I erase it, with all the might of a nine-year-old, but the र etched and creased my page, the oil made it opaque and heavy-handed imprints stood their ground so I dowsed it all in correction fluid. Its smell rendered me light-headed; but the sight and scent of white could make me a companion, I could become familiar.

Instead they smeared the blank slate with charcoal, the colour of hate. Ripped off the threads on my wrist and used it to measure my waist. I would go home and mummy would scold, not knowing what I had endured. 

And so, with my mutilated page, since the age of nine, I’ve been all alone.


I AM

I am hairy-legged, spice-eating, bad at math

which might be disappointing, but...

I am multi-language speaking, bright shiny clothes wearing, after-school tuition going, more than just male loving

which could get me disowned, but...

I am colonised country born, Holi/Diwali celebrating, oldest daughter in brown family, generational trauma ridding

which is okay, I’m capable...

I am model minority, relatable but unique, token brown friend, bondable over shared histories yet alone when in need, too emotional for your ease, not desi enough to understand slang, too brown they tell me to go back to my land

 I am no one you’ll ever think me to be...

I am trapped inside my own head, bound by traditions and culture, the same that give me reason and structure, I am migrant child with feet for sake of stability, a nowhere home and a lack of linear identity.

I am

me.