I Remember The Day After Writing The Last Exam Of My Grade 10th Finals. I Was Convincing My Father About

With crestfallen eyes, the young boy then asked his father from where melancholy emanates, and the father answered: "The agonies you acquire are the children of elation. If not all, they're the nephews and nieces. 'Tis not the sun just effusing sunlight, but the same sun that draws out the elixir from the oceans and forms the clouds, and the same clouds that take the shape of storms. 'Tis not the aroma enticing the butterflies, but the same fragrance that decides which flower would be plucked first by a lover to give joyance to his cherished. 'Tis not the light just illumining your flesh to perceive yourself in the mirror, but the same light that decides the emergence of the shadow on the other side. The poor Earth has little to produce on its own. So every time you're elated, know that it is burrowed and costs someone else their own contentment, whether animate or inanimate. Every time you're enraptured, know that it's just an altered form of someone else's grief and desolation".

Shayan Das, Excerpt from Origin of Sorrow

I was a dream until one day I had my own dreams. My peers thought I'd outshine them; my parents expected my light would embellish them until one day it blemished me. 'Cause to shine is to build expectations and to build expectations is to be vulnerable. You ascend, albeit you know that the higher one goes, the more bones he breaks each time he falls. You trade your ambitions to build someone else's, snivel in silence and make endless excuses to defend each catastrophe until one day you find yourself becoming them, exhausted and devastated, on the verge of hitting mediocrity, and questioning why you couldn't be that anticipated one. All you wonder is if only you could stop that 7-year-old boy from striving those extra hours to top his class, rip apart the diary when he wrote his first story at 11, fasten those lips that whispered in praise of him, burn the books that told a 15-year-old boy that he can be almost anything in this world only if he aspires to. You pray only if you could dissolve into oblivion until one day you get to make a noise and yet remain unexplored.

Shayan Das

The problem with being an artist is that you are expected to make pain beautiful; make your insecurities look drop-dead gorgeous, albeit knowing that with every stone turned to gold, you're deprived of using it to build a home. A good friend of mine once said to me that to make art is to bear a fruit. When the fruit fails to taste delectable, you don't say just the fruit is bad; you point out that the plant is bad. When the art doesn't relate to or contradict your own convictions, you don't merely complain the art is bad; you indicate the artist is bad.

Shayan Das

"No, I won't eat," 5-year-old me would say and slam the door with vexation after being rebuked by his mother. "You eat alone," he'd cry in response to the persistent calls, knowing at the same time that mom wouldn't take a single bite, leaving him hungry. After an hour or two, mom would be back with the plate, feed him with her own hands, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The pollen grains, I learned, dare to fly, soar, and flutter in the wind only 'cause they know there will be flowers to catch them.

A bad day at school. 15-year-old me would bitterly answer a question from mom and regret the entire night for yelling at her for no reason at all. He'd sit beside her the next morning and greet her with a sorry. "I didn't mean to..." he would utter, and mom, cheerful as ever, would respond with a smile by that time. "You needn't," she'd say, and ask with uneasiness, "What happened at school yesterday?" "You could reply to me in that way," she'd add with assurance, "'cause you cannot with the world. 'Cause you trust I'm the only one who won't take it to heart". He'd already be in tears, embrace his mom tightly, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The love I sought for ages, I learned, is a mother.

Shayan Das, excerpt from 'The Love I Learned'

They misconstrued my softness as weakness, perhaps oblivious that even the softest of waters can burn, break, cut and freeze people to death.

Shayan Das

I stumbled upon you by accident and now, with a minute and half, I love you?

Your words are what I will look for in everyone from now on to stumble across love.

Thank you so much for writing this! This means a lot. Wish you a great day/night ahead <3 ⁠

I discovered self-love that very day when I extended my arms to embrace your delusional form and ended up embracing myself.

Shayan Das

How is it that each time we fall in life we seek someone else in the same condition to console our inner self?

Shayan Das

Success to him was to relish the failure of all the inefficacious attempts that altered forms (in the shapes of disheartening remarks, abominations, taunts, agitation, maladies and envious faces) faster than seasons but couldn't resist him moving.

Shayan Das