Aaditya Bajpai

  • The Lamppost

    There is a lamppost on the corner of a road no one remembers being built.

    It stands with a spine bent slightly backward as if surprised to still be standing. The light it casts isn’t gold, not quite. It’s that color just before a dream ends but before you know you’re waking up. It doesn’t flicker but you imagine it would if you blinked at the wrong time. And it does blink, with the wind maybe or with the memory of someone once leaning on it, half drunk with hope or half sure it wouldn’t last.

    The evening folds in around it, the kind that doesn’t quite settle. That blue which still believes in the sun though the sun has long walked off. And in that bruise-colored hush, the lamppost is alone but not lonely. There’s a difference.

    Sometimes, you find yourself staring at it as if it might explain something. The way it holds light as though it’s been entrusted with warmth it didn’t ask for. As though someone once whispered to it, hold this, just for a little while, and forgot to return. You think maybe that’s what love is, the holding of something bright without knowing if anyone will come back for it.

    You walk past and it doesn’t call, not in words, but in a hum low enough to miss if you’re too sure of yourself. It hums like old lullabies in languages that didn’t survive. Grief maybe. Or memory. Which are not always different things.

    It never moves. Never grows. But still, somehow, it changes. And in that change, you see yourself, heart first and blurred. Because love leaves footprints. And grief walks in them barefoot.

    You don’t know why it matters. But the lamppost knows. And it keeps burning. Because to stop would mean admitting that some things don’t return. And maybe it still believes.

    Maybe so do you.

    -aaditya

  • Spilled Water and Chopsticks

    The glow of neon catches your skin—
    pink and purple painting shadows on the curve of your cheek.
    We are haloed in “good vibes only,”
    but the way you look at me is the only gospel I believe.

    You wrestle with chopsticks,
    a clumsy dance of wood and slick noodles.
    Every spicy mouthful steals a blink,
    your lashes flutter twice like a nervous spell—
    and I am enchanted.

    My food cools, untouched.
    Yours vanishes, each bite disappearing
    into the story of your hunger.
    When I offer you more,
    you laugh,
    slide your plate too far,
    topple the glass of water between us.

    “Why didn’t I drink this?” you mutter,
    grabbing napkins like they’re answers.
    I want to ask if you are always this messy
    with things you care for.
    But I only watch
    as you swipe at the spill,
    as though it’s urgent.

    When it’s cleaned,
    I pull my plate between us,
    a quiet offering,
    a bridge.
    You lean forward,
    foreheads grazing—
    a fragile hello.

    “Don’t move,” you whisper,
    your breath pooling in the air between us.
    “Stay like this. Close.
    Like elephants. Did you know they do this?
    Heads together, a greeting.”

    I don’t tell you
    I already knew.
    I don’t tell you
    I want every moment with you
    to feel like this—
    strange, and full,
    and alive.

    aaditya.

  • December

    December stands still, yet moves within itself,
    a solemn breath before the year exhales.
    The air whispers secrets of frost and fire,
    a quiet warmth nestled in the heart of cold.

    Beneath bare trees, life lingers,
    fragile as the glass ornaments we cradle,
    shining and trembling,
    aware of their fragility.

    It is the month of hands—
    hands to hold close,
    hands to wave goodbye.
    Snow falls like memory,
    each flake a piece of what was,
    melting as it lands.

    The sky wears both dawn and dusk together,
    an endless twilight
    where time folds in on itself.
    The past feels closer,
    the future a breath you cannot catch.

    Love in December is fierce,
    burning against the chill,
    because it knows it must.
    Because it knows
    it will soon have to let go.

    And so, we wrap the year in ribbons,
    in the ache of holding on,
    in the grace of release.
    December, you are the stillness of endings,
    the weight of beginnings,
    a lesson in everything
    we can never quite keep.

    aaditya

  • Have I Gone Gray?

    I Often wonder what it would be like if the world had no colors?

    Without blue to mark the sky, how would I even know where the ground ends or begins? The sky wouldn’t care; it never does. It’s me—I need the blue, the reassurance. But without color, would I even need reassurance? It would all be the same. A shapeless, blank thing, indifferent to whether I saw it or not.

    No. If there were no colors, would I still feel anything? Would love still have a place in this strange, hollow space? Colors bleed into everything—maybe feelings are just the shades I wear inside. A soft red for love, a cold blue for sadness. If they disappeared, what would that leave me with? Could I still feel love without the red? Would I even know if she was next to me?

    Maybe I wouldn’t need to feel her anymore. Maybe warmth would exist without the red to dress it. Maybe it’s all just a glow, like two moons caught in orbit. But even moons need light. Without the sun, they’re nothing. Am I nothing? Am I just a reflection, existing only because of something else? Something that isn’t there?

    But… maybe that’s not emptiness. Maybe it’s the beginning of something else, something beyond the colors that have fooled me into believing they mattered. Perhaps the love remains, even when I can’t see it.

    What if color is love? What if red isn’t just a hue, but the pulse in my chest? If I lose that red, what happens to love? Would I even be able to touch her in a colorless world? Can touch exist without the proof of color? Without the feel of warmth against skin?

    Maybe I wouldn’t need hands anymore. Maybe I wouldn’t need to touch. I could just exist, like a thought floating in endless gray, sensing without seeing. Knowing without proof. A love that doesn’t ask for evidence. But… can love survive without proof? Wouldn’t it all fade, blur into the same endless shade, like a flat line on a blank canvas?

    Hasn’t it already?

    Maybe life itself is just nothing layered on nothing, a story told through colors I never even chose. If I stripped it all away, what would remain? Would I recognize what’s beneath? Or maybe I’ve already seen it—and I’ve forgotten. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to this same thought, the same question. What if there are no colors? What if there never were?

    I think I’ve already had this conversation with myself. Over and over. Like an echo trapped inside my mind, circling back to the same point.

    A thousand times, and yet, here I am. Still searching for color in a world that might have never had any. Or maybe… the world never lost its color. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the one who’s gone gray. And I don’t even realize it.

    (Aaditya, 2:00 AM, 26/09/24)

  • Asylum

    Whenever I look at a sunflower

    it’d remind me of you. 

    Sunflowers are metaphors for 

    the people around whom you feel alive. 

    I have an open field inside of me

    wherein the wind echoes your laugh.

    The open field has always been filled

    with roses, that your presence has watered.

    If this is what the poets call love, then I’ve

    laced far too many notebooks with the idea of you.

    How everything eventually is about you?

    How sometimes i go sleepless at nights, but then

    How I yearn to sleep a little bit more

    because you came into my dreams.

    How I grieve when I am not close to you?

    But then what is grief, if not love persevering.

    What is grief, if not love with no place to go,

    that corners in your eyes, and 

    in the hollow part of your chest?

    What is love, if not the poem 

    scracthed on the walls of my throat.

    How I’d want to linger near the door

    uncomfortably, rather than leaving.

    How I’d want you to forget your scarf

    and come back later, to find it. 

    What is love, if not everything that I feel for you?

    For it was when you allowed me to enter

    your world, when I was scared of mine. 

    Toh aakhir Kaha chala hai man ka rasta? 

    Tumhare paas. 

    -aaditya.

  • The Art of Letting Go

    Loving someone dearly is what we do the best.

    Probably better than breathing, we love.

    We cling close to it, aware that

    we in no way can control it.

    Everything seems to be wonderful, 

    Filled with colours, rainbows and lights.

    We want to stay close, and keep them close.

    We want to hold them, and take them home.

    Touching of toes, meeting of lips,

    Making love with your every bit.

    Beginning the days with their name

    And wanting to end the same with their breath.

    Adamant and ignorant of the fact that,

    All of it is just holding roses,

    until the thorns press against your fingers.

    Letting go is an art of necessity.

    We do not want it, but we have to master it.

    It wasn’t until I saw in her eyes, that

    irrespective of what I feel, it will never be the same for her.

    Even Stephen King once said, that sometimes in life

    You have to just let the bird go, for

    You know it’s not meant to be caged.

    When those thorns press so hard,

    That you realise that its time to let go,

    For it just means that we are all humans

    Incapable of holding on to everything,

    specially when it hurts the most.

    The only barrier to letting go is hope,

    We hope that maybe something somehow will work out,

    But it never does. It’s always the thorns over the roses.

    So, in the end, the whole of loving someone, 

    Becomes an act of letting go.

    So, take you moment, and take you time,

    And bid that farewell with all your heart.

    -aaditya

  • DECEMBER

    It’s the 17th of December, 6:05 pm,

    exactly two months since I last wrote to you.

    Have you ever yearned for something

    that wasn’t even yours to begin with?

    Because I know I have been lost, since so 

    long, in something, in you?

    The leaves of autumn have fallen dead, and

    here I am wanting to have an orange with you.

    This winter, it tells me, to finally stand up to you

    and tell you that I am so much in love with you.

    Its like even the ghost in my closet,

    is screaming to let it all out. 

    But it’s you we are talking about, 

    in front whom I am nothing but an idle candle,

    burning in its own flame, and 

    standing still nevertheless.

    My heart skips a beat and my world stops

    as my gaze takes in the sight of her stunning form,

    clad in her kurti and a dupatta.

    My eyes flicker my heart flutters,

    as I gaze upon the goddess of perfection.

    But it’s December, the month of letting go.

    December holds so much,

    the end of best times, and

    closure for all that was lost.

    A month so hopeful, yet

    carries heaviness in its frost.

    Maybe this time, I’ll say it all too.

    On Christmas’ eve, I’ll meet you at the golden hour,

    standing hopefully, you’ll be in my sight, 

    and, I’ll give you the yellow flower.

    Then? i’ll leave it to december

    to teach me that new beginnings,

    don’t really require new calendars. 

    Because I know, it’s always you.

    I’ll spend my eternity, in 

    perfecting the subtle art of loving you. 

    Today, tomorrow and the day after,

    every bit of my love, will be about you.

    -aadi.

  • i waited, you didn’t come

    The leaves have started turning to

    shades of yellow, orange and red.

    October has finally arrived.

    They say that the turning of colours

    Is to protect the leaves from cold temperatures.

    It’s October 6 today, and I am writing this to you.

    The evening today is nice and warm,

    Though it’s about to turn cold.

    I came nearby the lake we used to visit,

    Walked a bit, and even left a note 

    for you to read, between the pages of your notebook.

    The note said, “meet me by the lakeside, we will sit and talk”.

    The lake was still today, and had turned

    Orange, as if the sun was drowning in it.

    The sky was still alive, while I waited for you.

    I asked myself today,

    Did you ever want to go far away ? Where would you go?

    But I couldn’t find an answer, so I waited for you to give me one.

    “Aaj walk Karne chalen? Shaam ko, beside the lake?”, the note said.

    It was getting dark, as 2 hours had passed.

    I still wanted the answer, and I wanted you there.

    I kept walking and talking to the sun.

    It didn’t last long, as the sun finally rested in the lake.

    It was getting dark, and I kept waiting. 

    Maybe the note was misplaced,

    The wind was strong today.

    And a lot many reasons I gave myself

    to hold myself from crying.

    “I will wait some other day”, I said to myself.

    What happened today?

    I waited, you didn’t come.

    -aadi.

  • A Time Called You – Review

    “A Time Called You”

    It happens very often that we find a show or movie to be of such quality that it remains with us forever. However, seldom do we find something that becomes a part of us. “A Time Called You” is that ‘seldom do we find show’ and I can’t find any words to describe how I feel right now.

    I did think at the beginning that this would be good because again it’s a time travel romance drama, that too with Ahn Hyo-seop and Jeon Yeob-been, in any way the show would have been a hit. But I never expected this show to be this good with an entirely new and interesting plot. That’s enough about the plot. I won’t say anything further in order to not spoil it for you.

    The show, the characters and their story, it all became a part of me. I felt I was there too, watching them, enjoying with them, and feeling every other emotion that they felt. Every episode had me on the edge of my seat, thinking I had it all figured out, only to be surprised by unexpected twists and turns. I had to pay close attention because of the back-and-forth storytelling, but it was worth it. Yeo Been’s performance was outstanding, especially in how she portrayed the two different characters. The cinematography was breathtaking start to end and the colour pallete was aesthetically eye pleasing.

    All in all, A Time Called You is an incredible drama and it is very hard to express it in words, no review can make you feel how good this drama is, you have to watch this drama to feel the emotions. It constantly surprises you and keeps you on the edge of your seat. I tried to predict what would happen, but the story always had unexpected twists. The number of surprises in this drama is thrilling, and I couldn’t stop watching it.

    After watching it you will know why I am going all crazy over this. You will in know everything, in a time called you.

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