On Practice— % &Earlier, when I won't practise regularly, every time I'd sit to play an instrument, I'd feel this deep desire to record myself play and share on Instagram. My playing would be rugged, missing rhythm or notes—most times both, hints of the melody scattered within like cement behind peeled walls. I didn't care. Because I didn't practise at all, this was the best of me. I wanted to show off what all instruments I could play, albeit badly, than how well I could play. Some kind friends liked the effort.— % &Ever since I started learning and practising religiously, something changed in me. The desire to record went away at first. Then the desire to play songs vanished. Today, I sat with the sitar for four hours, immersed in just perfecting a particular palta (or a sargam). By the end of it, I'd played the melody so many times that its hum continued to ring in my ears for hours later, even now. As if the melody quietly sneaked into me. Not once did I feel like slipping into a song. Or got bored, which surprised me, because it's difficult for me to not get bored. My playing kept getting faster, it kept becoming more accurate. It felt like a journey, an advancement than an unending loop which such repetitions seemed from outside. What seemed a redundant riyaz earlier became
a familiar friend I came to deeply know.— % &My desire shifted from recording to asking my guru for the next lesson soon. I felt ready, for a change—something I never felt before because I never practised enough. This was why I'd only pick the instrument to play popular songs. It came easy to me thanks to the ear developed because of growing up in a house filled with instruments, since father used to sing. I could play any song on a guitar or keyboard,
so sitar or sax didn't take much time.— % &It's not that the desire to play songs is gone now. I play songs whenever I take a break from playing the lessons. It has become a filler than the primary thing I'd earlier pick my sitar for. And the intent to record? Well, that's gone for good. Every time the vain me wishes to record, the pragmatic student in me screams, "Record tomorrow, you'll be better at it." I concur and go back to the riyaz. The date changes
but tomorrow? Tomorrow never comes.— % &-
Hot mornings.
Rainy afternoons.
Cool nights.
The unsure weather
whispers, "it may"
in May.-
Me: "Log shaadi karke kitne boring ho jaate hain."
One minute later, me to older me: "Ho jaate hain?"-
On Learning & Breathing— % &The year was 2016, the month April. I was living on campus at Ashoka University in Sonipat as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
The university had a lavish swimming pool. For the entire month, I kept showing up at the pool every evening, trying little by little to keep afloat, to not sink, to swim, only to run out of breath or have water slither into my nostrils like an eel—wet and irritable.— % &On the 31st day, I didn't try to swim. I had almost given up and I just lay down in the pool—head up, back on the water, my feet on the pool bed, ready to be swallowed by the water for one last time before I quit. But lo! I didn't sink. I trusted the water and it somehow trusted me back. The water cradled my head and no matter what I did, even when I lifted my legs, my torso wouldn't sink. When I realised I could backfloat and won't drown, it unlocked swimming almost instantly for me.
I'd try freestyle or breaststroke and whenever I ran out of breath, I'd flip 180° and start backfloating, completing my laps, unhurried, breathing normally. Slowly, I started completing laps properly without needing flips, as I learnt to breathe while swimming. — % &Observing my breath was quite explicit while learning to swim. It has become subtler while learning instruments. I have been learning sitar for the past five months since I came home. And today for the first time, I could play a complicated sargam my guru taught me without erring. The more I played, the more I realised what was happening. I wasn't holding my breath anymore. My breath was normal for a change, and my fingers moved on their own. My newfound muscle memory had taken over after months of unsuccessfully trying, failing and trying again. The breath seemed intricately linked to the muscle, which on second thought was obvious. I used to hold breath to provide oxygen to those very muscles—tense with all the work—as I played the notes consciously, from the mind, than subconsciously from the body (should I romanticise it by calling it heart?).— % &Like my time spent at pool for one month straight, I have been sitting for two hours with my sitar every midnight—sometimes to put my mom to sleep, sometimes to wake my neighbours up. The result: my breathing has become normal again. In my head, I'm not sitting with a sitar anymore but just sitting. The novelty of a sitar, and the resulting anxiety of a complicated lesson, is gone. Of course, more complicated lessons and more erratic breaths will follow as I advance as a learner, but this understanding provides me with the 180° backflip to complete my laps without giving up, as I did earlier when I lacked the consistency and discipline for riyaz.— % &Here's the simple truth: at the heart of it, learning anything new is a journey of breath—from panic to calm, from stress to rest, from doubt to trust. Much like we train our muscles by familiarising it with the same thing on repeat, we familiarise our breath by trying every new activity over and over again. That this sequence of notes, this underwater exhalation and overwater inhalation, that this new person who's making my heart flutter is going to be a part of my everyday life and the breath needs to chill the fuck out. Breath doesn't say okay right away. It waits. For that trusting surrender, that free fall into the medium with your eyes closed, and most importantly, for your persisting presence with everything that makes your breath race until it doesn't.
It is there, in that modicum of rest after holding one's breath for long, that the fundamental joy of pursuit resides. If you listen closely, you can hear that one last sigh.— % &-
MY APRIL GHAZAL
It is getting a little hot in April.
The year feels distraught in April.
Returning home in a drenched shirt.
Was it summer you just fought in April?
Sit under a fan and take out your pen.
Give this ghazal a good shot this April.
One-third of 2025 gone. Are resolutions
still fresh, or do you smell rot this April?
Enough! Tell one good thing now, Harsh.
Mango season is here, or not in April.-
April Ghazal
It’s getting a little hot in April.
The year feels distraught in April.-
We are the last thing we create.
An IIT graduate mentioning IIT in their bio. An employee highlighting the workplace in their bio. Or in simple terms, one gloating about their past achievement—immediate past or from childhood—often implies one didn't do or create anything worth speaking about after that juncture. That's why, I like people who simply put writer or artist in their bio. Away from all the other kinds of labels to define themselves, they identify as one who writes. By using a word like writer or artist or poet, without adding adjectives like prolific or award-winning to it, one frees oneself from the external validation cycle. It turns one inwards. From being one who was defined by last thing they created, it becomes about creating everyday, every moment.
We are the last thing we create. Unless we keep creating.-
Social media kindness is reacting ❤️ or 🤣 even to the 100th sender of a meme, without revealing you have seen it a thousand times, and thanking them for sharing it with you.
You know it isn't about you or the meme, but them remembering you upon seeing it—
which is so sweet.-