A Little Bit of Grey.

By Meghna Gulati

this,
is a journey
through stories.
the living,
the loving,
the losing
and the learning.
raw,
hard-hitting,
jarring.
no different than fifty three clocks stopping all at once.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482874372

Meghna Gulati

Meghna Gulati is a nineteen year old from New Delhi, who doesn’t know how to be a nineteen year old from New Delhi, so she spends her time being people of all other ages from all other places. Meghna is the go-to person for everything: a story that you’re too scared to share; an idea that you think can never become reality; a birthday that needs to be made special. Additional benefit: you do not have to worry about the time. She goes without sleep for days on end. Among other things, she runs The ‘Zine - an online magazine, The Loud Whispers Project - a campaign to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, and a blog. She has been published on renowned online forums such as Thought Catalog and Writers Asylum, and considers this as the first step to get her work on paper.

Book preview

a little bit of

grey.

Meghna Gulati

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Copyright

© 2016 by Meghna Gulati.

ISBN:              Softcover          978-1-4828-7438-9

                        eBook               978-1-4828-7437-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, places, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

Maps

Schadenfreude

Home

Sleep tight

I do not have a name

Graveyard

Redefining beauty

A Hangman’s Obituary

Mothers

Bipolar

Writers Bleed

18

Redefining Art

free fall

Lost in infinities

Color me blue, color me red

Your face reminds me of a rhinoceros. (no.)

What do you think love is?

How do you know you’re a writer?

Of neck laces and burns

Relatability

The aftermath is not beautiful

Are you able to stay with your sadness?

Aborted

Breathe

Comfort

84

Protocol

Introduction

Open at the close

Dysfunctional

Silence is just the screeching of sound.

Foreword

How does one introduce an anthology of poems

written by one’s own daughter – someone who started

writing almost as soon as she could hold a pen? I have

seen her grow from when she had just started weaving

the words together, to form a beautiful tapestry. There

was a time when I used to edit her pieces. Now, a few

years down the line, I send her mine.

She has evolved as a writer from when she used to

rhyme words to make poetry, to today, when the warp

and weft of words lend more credence to her being

than ending syllables. Meghna is a lot of things – she

is someone who organizes and interviews and edits,

but first and foremost, she’s a writer. As she puts it, in

her piece, "How do you know you’re a writer?"

"You know you’re

a writer. That it is your breath,

your scent, the look in your eye.

That with it, you are alive- alive,

even in death, and without,

you are numb, small, unmoving.

Insignificant. You know.

You know you are a writer.

And you can’t not be one.

Not anymore."

Meghna’s poetry is a reflection of herself and the world around her. It’s about what she’s seen and what she’s heard, conjoined with her perception of the people around her. It’s not a view of the world through rose-colored lenses. It’s raw, it’s gritty, and it