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Attention!

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“I’d like to thank the honorable Chief Guest Arputham, my department HOD Verona, my co-ordinator Jeyaraj, my best friend Deepan, the faculty, and fellow students who spent their valuable time being here!” Pavithra ended the event, which was followed by thundering applause. I was awestruck by her daring act of including my name in the Valedictory speech. Most of them didn’t seem to notice, but her HOD was stunned and confused by her sudden inclusion in their decades-old template. Pavithra winked from the stage and disappeared into the crowd that escorted the chief guest. Pavithra and I’ve been friends for almost three hundred days now, ever since she texted me after reading my blog. She was the first enthusiastic fan outside of my friends for my writing. She genuinely loved all my works and pointed out the few she didn’t. She had invited me to her college for a random workshop on “Girls and how they should be protected.” It was the most backward speech I’ve heard in years. But of co...
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The Eyes Have It!

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I parked the bike in front of the eye care hospital. Showed the online registration invoice to the grumpy uncle in the reception. He was talking on the telephone, about some new eye surgeon’s arrival. I stood there well enough to disturb him, and for him to cut the call. He got straight into the job, asking questions. “Name?”, he shrieked. “Deepan, with an ‘n’ in the end”, I replied. “Age?”, he looked at my hair, after asking. “27!”, I said, as I adjusted my uncombed hair. “Sex?”, he asked with his eyebrows up. I looked at him in disappointment. I didn’t want to be there at all. And everything was frightening me a lot. Testing my eyes, wearing specs, and being questioned about my sexuality, everything was a first. I just wanted to run away from there, but I didn’t. I knew I had to buy glasses to save myself from the recurring migraine.  “Male!”, I replied. Man, he thought a lot before ticking male. He handed me a small water bottle before taking me upstairs, to the lab. I opened th...
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Karen-um Naanum! ❤️

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Karennnnnnnnnn!   “One year ah wait panni kudikuren indha coffee ah,” I told. She looked up in awe. Then she smiled. “Aaamaaaaaa Deepaaaannnnnnn”, no exaggeration, she said that, the same way I’ve written. “Karen, naan onnu sollanum,” I told. She sipped her coffee again. She was all ears. What did I tell her? Solren. Before that, who is she? Karen is the first girl to talk with me from college. So, I immediately felt so good, thinking about how my beautiful profile picture has attracted her to speak with me. Later, I got to know the bitter truth that she texted everyone in the college and introduced herself. So, first bulb-uh. Talking about coffee, I asked her if we could have a coffee together. She said yes. But that coffee didn’t happen. I got busy with my personal life, and she was there, but I never cared to look back at her. A year passed by, and destiny brought us together again for a book fair, for which we both volunteered. This time, I was in the ‘I have nothing to lose’ m...
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Three Days. Three Freakin’ Days!

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What can happen to a person in three days? He/She can have surgery. Or a fracture. Or a baby. No, having a baby is a long process. But what I’m excited to tell is, suddenly, I had my eyes opened. I see the world differently right now. Yes, I’ll tell you about it, here. I know my non-fiction gets lesser views than my fiction, but this is something that I can’t resist telling. Chennai International Book Fair happened in YMCA Ground, on the 16 th , 17 th, and 18 th of this month. And that is what I’m going to talk about. I volunteered for the event, for two main reasons. One is, I knew a lot of publishers are going to be there, and I was so desperate to find a way to bring my novel this year. The secondary reason was, I was tired of adjusting myself and molding myself to everyone’s desire around me, so I needed to know how people reacted to “My actual personality”. I needed a fresh audience for it, or else, I would be defined to be an eccentric buffoon. So, yeah, I jumped right in, wi...
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Xerox!

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  “Anna, need some printouts to be taken”, said a female voice. I stood up to see the girl at the door. She was fit, tall, and fair looking. The lights in my shop hit her spectacles, so I couldn’t see her eyes, but I guessed she got to have big, round eyes. She came in, after removing her slippers and handed me a Toshiba Pendrive. I looked at that ancient piece of technology and looked back at her. “Does this work?”, I asked her, seriously. She was stunned. “Anna, it does work. Please hurry up, I’m running late”, she told. I booted that Pendrive into my desktop, laughing, and went through the files. It had three folders, Media, Work, and Personal, respectively. She told me to open the Work folder, and print the book named ‘Whatever It Takes'. I opened that file and hit Ctrl+P and selected the right printer. It was around 250 pages. I looked at her but I didn’t call her. I waited for her to look up from her phone. When she did, I told her it would take around 10 minutes. ...
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Un-Confessions: Toxicity

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  Un-Confessions: Toxicity   Blood oozed out of her head. I sat there, looking at her decapitated body. The hands I held, were now covered with blood. Her legs gave up, and became still, after some staggering. I realized what I had done. She’s gone, once and forever. What did I do, to kill her? What did she do, that made me think she deserves to die? She fell in love, and I didn’t. Confusing right? Yeah! She fell in love with me, and I never did. We both had known each other since college. She was from the Physics department, straight opposite to the English department I was from. We met first at the Writer’s Café, and little did I know, that wasn’t going well. “You’ve been in a relationship before?”, I asked. She nodded, so I went for further details. “So, let me get this straight, you’ve been in a relationship in your school? What made you think that I would even consider it?”, I laughed, I remember. She sat there, embarrassed. “You’ve been in a relationship, A...
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To The Friend, I Lost! ❤

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  To The Friend, I Lost! ❤   It's been a long time since I wrote about my friends. Hmmm! Then why am I talking about this friend today? I thought its never late to talk about people. I would’ve written about him some other day, even if I didn’t today. But, it's late. I lost my friend, my reader. He’s not with me to read this. I knew him in school and we had casual Hi-Bye’s then. During the lockdown time, we got connected through Instagram and got to know each other better. I was writing only about my friends on my blog, back then. I was writing about them, so that other people can know about them. One day, he texted me and told me he wanted me to write about a common friend we both had. I promised him I’ll, but I never did. He said my blog articles are lengthy, but he liked them that way. He wanted to keep reading my blogs. He texted me once, randomly out of the blue, asking when the next blog is dropping. He also said he prefers to read my blogs when he’s bored. I h...
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Another Love Story! ❤️

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I opened my laptop only to discover her voice message and the location she sent. I came out of the DM and checked the people who have seen my story, where I’ve uploaded the link to my new story. And, yes, she has seen the story, finally. I connected my earpods and played the audio she sent. Deepan, do two things for me. I know I have never asked you anything, so I would really love you to do this for me. One, text me ‘Okay!’ once you start hearing this audio. Then, please follow the navigation to the location I’ve sent! My eyes widened. Is she asking me to come meet her? I paused the audio. I’ve known her through the Internet for around six months. She randomly came up after she read my blog. She’s been my reader even before my boom. I’ve always expected her critique about the content I post. We got close. But I never disclosed where I’m from. Neither did she. Why does she want to meet me, all of a sudden? I played it. Ummm. Yeah, I still don’t see you up ready for the pla...
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Depression Diaries #4: The Term 'People Pleasing'

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Ever heard of people-pleasing syndrome? No, I haven’t heard about it too. If at all there is something like that, it’ll be like what am about to explain. First, lemme tell you what people-pleasing is. Altering your opinion or approach about something, so that the person (you want to please) is happy seeing your action. In this process, people tend to opt out of the happiness of pleasing others. Now, this is something we all do. We have different personalities with every people we meet. We have different voices for everyone we have in our life, according to our priority list. We please people to get our job done, or for them to keep giving us jobs, or to simply maintain a good profile with them. But we do have a part of us, who’d do what he/she likes, no matter who’s against it. That’s basically us, treating the personality we love. We do not compromise that personality’s wishes for nobody. I’ve seen nobody compromise with their wishes for the people they love. Or have I? Welcome to...
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Love is Love: The Final Act 🏳️‍🌈

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The Final Act: All Good Things Come To An End   “Yes, am perfectly safe and sound”, Pallavi rejected all our theories. She was not kidnapped by Nikitha’s father nor by anyone else. Her phone died, and that’s why she couldn’t respond to our calls. “I’m in T Nagar TTD. Come fast!”, she sounded excited. I cut the call and looked at Nikitha. She was smiling, probably thinking about their life together. I saw behind, Pallavi’s mother was busy on her phone while Siksha dozed off hugging her guitar bag. I reached TTD in the next 15 minutes. It was closed, obviously. Pallavi ran to me and hugged me. I detached her from me and got ready for some serious conversation. “What did you tell to your mother?”, I asked her. “Deepan, I thought you’ll tell her, it would be easy if…”, she was interrupted by me. “Did you think how heavy it is for me? Then think what it would be to her!”, I shouted at her. Nikitha held her hands. Pallavi started to tear up. “Aunty!”, Nikitha called Palla...
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The Loyola Phase Begins! ❤️

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  The Loyola Phase Begins!  ❤️   8:10. Still 8kms away from the college. Our vehicle broke down. First day of offline college. Can't think of a better combination, right? College starts at 8:20, and I thought I would reach by 8:40. Usually, the hero’s entry comes after big anticipation and buildup, right? Yeah, I could sense all your ‘sighs’ and I could also see people trying to exit this article. Wait, here comes the funny part. I missed the whole first period. That Risky Selfie before Church. Loyola College is something I’ve dreamt of, ever since I knew I had to do a degree after high school. I had vibrations through my shoes while entering the college. I made it to my block and entered the preview theatre, where the orientation was happening. A boy who’s late for his first class, that’s how my classmates saw me. Seriously, that didn’t go the way I wanted. Karen singing "Visiri", and Varun beatboxing while Santhosh introduced us what Street Side HipHop was, I ...
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Dear Appa! 💓

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  Dear Appa!  💓  Last year, it was his 49 th birthday. I had started to think of his gift, three months before. I thought of gifting a short film. I wrote the script, rehearsed with the actors well, but somehow, it didn’t happen. I felt so bad for gifting him nothing. I wish I could be my sister sometimes. Last year’s Oct 5 came under that ‘sometimes’. She painted around a betel leaf on an A4 sheet and gifted him. Why couldn’t I be simple? Why couldn’t I gift him something, which was common for my age? I always wanted to surprise him, with different approaches and perspectives. I wouldn’t say all of them are failures. But, failures were most of ‘em. I had always ended up complicating things for him. I would feel bad for my surprise ending badly. But all I could do is, experiment more. This letter to him is an experiment. I have written articles for others, but for Appa, it's different, right?
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Attention!

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“I’d like to thank the honorable Chief Guest Arputham, my department HOD Verona, my co-ordinator Jeyaraj, my best friend Deepan, the faculty, and fellow students who spent their valuable time being here!” Pavithra ended the event, which was followed by thundering applause. I was awestruck by her daring act of including my name in the Valedictory speech. Most of them didn’t seem to notice, but her HOD was stunned and confused by her sudden inclusion in their decades-old template. Pavithra winked from the stage and disappeared into the crowd that escorted the chief guest. Pavithra and I’ve been friends for almost three hundred days now, ever since she texted me after reading my blog. She was the first enthusiastic fan outside of my friends for my writing. She genuinely loved all my works and pointed out the few she didn’t. She had invited me to her college for a random workshop on “Girls and how they should be protected.” It was the most backward speech I’ve heard in years. But of co...
Read more