The Open-Close: ISSUE 2

ISSUE 2 fbgtny

CONTRIBUTORS

Antara Mandal Priyanshi Shah

Yash Pandit Zarah Noorani Leilani Chee-A-Kwai

CONTIBUTORS

Shrena D’Souza Bhavya Mistry

Manthan Rane Shashwat Bulusu Elizabeth Ryan

TABLE OF CONTENTS Two Girls in a Crowd…………………………………………………………… 3-4 Photos by Antara Mandal…………………………………………………… 5-6 Art by Priyanshi Shah……………………………………………………… 7-12 Shrena D’souza……………………………………………………………………… 12-22 Love? Who’s that………………………………………………………………… 22-24 Yash Pandit……………………………………………………………………………… 25-30 A poem by Abhinav Srivastav………………………………… 31-32 Beauty by Leilani Chee-a-kwai……………………………… 33-38 A poem by MAnthan Rane………………………………………………… 41-41 Illustrations by Elizabeth Ryan………………………… 42-43 Art by Bhavya Mistry……………………………………………………… 43-43 Music your years will thank you for……………… 45-45 Shashwat Bulusu…………………………………………………………………… 46-50 One week without friends…………………………………………… 50-54

Hello readers, Phew… the second issue. It’s here, you are reading it, finally. The past three months have been long. Boy, have they been long. With college and a still building social life, I have found the everlasting inspiration to write and to curate content for you. This issue is nothing special. Really, I am not even going to try to persuade you to think otherwise. This is the truth. Apart from that, this issue is only the sweet, sweet, continuation of what we all started back in August with the first issue. I don’t know how to go about this editor’s note, not because I am not feeling anything. It’s not that at all. Hah! I’m just… feeling a little too much for me to put it in words. Its crazy how all you contributors put your trust in this stupid teenager. Man, you guys. Without the people who contributed, read or even supported, and I know I say this always, but really, man. You guys are… shit! I love you guys for taking out the time and actually putting effort into this crazy idea I had on a sunny may afternoon.

You see, I’m lazy and I think I can take on any amount of work I can get. I have had a lot going on, at college and in life in general. I just performed a play this morning- still coming off that electric high as I write this. I am very passionate about this magazine and I want the world to see it. Which is basically what it is about. To bridge that gap between you and the world. This issue is the product of another three months of hard work. What really sets this issue apart from the last one is that this time, when I sat down and composed the first draft, the only thing I could think about was “wow, I’m really doing this. People are really liking this and this isn’t what I feared it would be”.

During the past one month, I have talked to my closest friends about my doubts with this publication and every single one of them have told me that it will be ok.

I know it will all be ok, but as a kid, still quite unaware about most things in life, I will always have my doubts.

To conclude this super-duper long letter, I’d like to tell you that I hope this issue does as well as the first one did, better even! I hope you like this issue and I hope you feel as great reading this as I did making this.

Until next time, Zarah Noorani, Editor-in-chief.

Two girls in a crowd. A crowd that doesn’t get them. A crowd that they don’t get. A crowd they have to be with for the next four years, years that are meant to be their ‘most memorable’ ones.

Three months in, they sit on the benches of this crowded, grass clad place, crying their hearts out. Talking about how much they miss home. One how much she regrets not being home enough, and one who wishes for the home she dreams of to be real.

I believe that in these four years, these two little kid chicks will continue to cry their hearts out, they will continue to rant about boys on a daily, weekly, or even hourly basis. I believe in these two girls, who know for a fact that they can take on the world. They have already convinced a certain amount of people that they can, will and have already carved their marks on not only school property, but also several lives, and most importantly, the world as we know it. These girls don’t need your validation your opinion, although, they are perennially curious; or even your help. They can do it, they will do it, as now they know, and they have got the crowd.

Photos by Antara Mandal (@antaramandal on instagram)

Priyanshi shah

Shrena D’Souza Poet and Bestie

By Zarah Noorani.

Shrena D’Souza is an 18 year old, adult with a PAN card. She is a cool chick, mostly because she is my best friend, but also because she truly is awesome. Shrena is wise beyond her years- No, decades. Every day, I learn something from her. She is my mother away from home, yeah, no- really.

Every time she comes to my room, my house or even looks at my stuff at hers, she will start cleaning.

Initially, I used to hate it but now I let her do her own thing. Apart from that, she moms me constantly. She

will tell me if the boys I like or go out with are worthy or approved by her. It’s a crazy journey we have both been on, these past few months.

I met Shrena on my second day at college and now, halfway through the year, we are still joint at the hip. Now, the wardens know us to be together always too. Hah! Now that I look back at the crazy shit we have done, all the stuff we have been through and all the people we have fought. Oh man.

Fun. Although, when it comes to other people, people who like us and people who strictly don’t, one thing I am really glad about is that they like us BOTH, and the same goes for not.

Everyone we know here, we both know. It’s crazy, man. It really is.

“Every time she comes to my room, my house or even looks at my stuff at hers, she will start cleaning.”

We have SO MANY crazy stories, CRAZY FUN. I can’t tell you enough how lucky I feel to have someone like her with me. I know this sounds very naïve of me. Speaking of someone I met four months ago with such high regard. But you have to know her, man. You just have to know her to understand me. She is not just anyone. She is someone. In a world like ours, it is quite difficult to be your own person, but this girl… This crab lookalike has done it. I consider myself to have been always doused in individuality, you know, always my own person. But that is me, this is her, and you are you. she has her flaws, and she has her vices. Sometimes I get tired of her squealing all the time too, but you learn to live with it.

Every good thing has to have its vices, right?

If you happen to have our numbers, talk to her, she will show you what it is like to have stars flying above your head. If you don’t, just take my word for it. But please don’t go on an obsessive number frenzy or stalk us. PLS.

“Dear friend who's now family,

I'm writing this to you just so you know I think our friendship is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. I really, really mean it. As I'm out to fight my weaknesses, I can't go on without you coming to mind. Right from the start you've been this huge source of positive energy that helped me stand up every time.

I'm writing this letter to you as an ode to friendship in the purest andtruest sense because there's so much in my life which I couldn't do without you and I'm so grateful for all of it.

It's just a matter of time before we're out to build our own lives in different cities, maybe even countries. Maybe we'll meet up every yearfor Christmas or maybe we won't speak all year apart from birthdays. Maybe we'll have huge families that we'll be part of or maybe we'll just end up living together alone but not lonely. Just know that I'll be there. Just like you have. Always.

And remember, that just like age, distance is just a number.

You're treasure.

Love, Your weird, talkative midnight crank.”

Diwali Break, Hostel Room.

Saturday, cafĂŠ hopping/ waffle ehunting

Love? Who’s that?

You’re not in love with me.

I know it sounds very pretentious, It sounds terribly clichéd, But if you think about it…

It’s true.

You’re not in love with me.

You’re in love with the memories you have made with me, The fun we’ve had, The life we thought we’d have together.

It is all in your head.

This thing, love, is a very dangerous object.

It should be used in war, a weapon of that much intensity.

You are in love with what you think I am, And what I made you think I was.

That beautiful façade I subconsciously put up, Every smile, Every wink, all closely observed in the mirror first, And then displayed only for your eyes.

But well, that doesn’t mean I’m in love with you.

The following content is a series of photographs taken by Yash Pandit of his best friend, Isha, along with some of his original poetry.

Yash Pandit

`

"7:35 Andheri Local."

What really causes this rift between us is the inability to talk about it. You cannot, for instance, tell me about the times you kissed me and felt no love, and I cannot tell you about the times you held me, when I was not there. I remember now, how the first time we met I hid my watch to ask you the time, just to talk to you. And soon our conversations slipped to railway schedules, to Irani cafes, to the inane profundity of everyday objects, fifth dimensional physics and ice cream, and to Saturday night cartoons.

About how newspaper headlines on paper plates reminded you of your longlost love, and the flickering lights in 502 that a 5yearold you thought were burglars or aliens.

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In a matter of months each fact, idea, generous anecdote you shared contrived in making your ghost symmetrical. Your lips rose and fell and eyes illuminated, as you stammered trying to find the perfect balance between revealing and concealing parts of yourself every time we kissed, and murmured a half-hearted apology for this honesty that you thought was inundating. I tasted the salt of your summer on your lips and the warmth of your winter. Vulnerability is a blessing and a curse in its own ways. And in time, with this intimacy comes a fear that no measure can fathom.

Fear, that a sudden absence would crater something so sinister that it would never fill.

And so we move to and fro, like needles poking the fabric of us each time we grow distant.

So really, there is no language whose words will not elude us as we try to frame sentences that limit the damage, as we try to leave no broken hearts but ours, barring the one in which we dream a dream, where I pull the little knob on the side of my grandfather’s watch and turn back time to a place where you were nothing more than a face in the train.

Perhaps it was better that way; or perhaps I would hide the watch again, walk up to you in the 7:35 Andheri Local to ask you the time and talk about railway schedules, and unexpected things.

Grandfather For R.J Pandit.

Herein lies the difference-

And of phone calls announcing departure

Aajoba had known me for 18 years, I knew him my entire life.

leaving empty beds, eyes heavy with weeping, shirts with now no arms

So, when his bed was replaced

to sheath and words that would

with one that had 7 machines

remain unspoken, forever.

holding onto his heart, like a fielder And so when I met him, the most who caught an apparent sixer

honourable man I will ever know chose

that begun its stooping trajectory

silence to clothe his resilience.

when no one noticed, I could not We both searched for corners to heave in bear to see him. I had already started my descent, slipping backwards in time

vain; "I will speak to you Once I get home" he said.

into the mind of the 8-year-old The evening he arrived, even the clouds terrified of scouting endless hospital lobbies,

refused to move. The crimson sunset dust

of doors opening into new doors, of sullen

stood absolutely still above his shoulders,

rooms breathing antiseptics, saline bottles, and disease.

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And neither of us had tears.

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Photo by Antara Mandal 34

You don't really need to be talking I can make out words From the ardour in your eyes That I close upon As I close my eyesBrisking my hands through your hair Spiralling as the liar's lair Like a drop of dew on the bark of a tree Influenced by lust and gravity I steer my hands along your satiny Lose me in your ecstasy.

Abhinav Srivastav 35

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HolidSeason nd Beauty ay Looks a Saviours

By Leilani Chee-A-Kwai

As Andy Williams sang “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” and it could not be further from the truth. I love the holiday season for many reasons – everyone is that little bit nicer, the new year is just around the corner and there is lots of yummy going around!

For me I like to keep my makeup an elegant glam taking inspiration from red carpet looks and colours on display during this time of year. In this article I will be sharing with you my favourite low key glam looks along with my holy grail products to keep my natural glow during this busy time.

Look one is probably a look I would go for during a NYE party, it is bright and positive suiting almost any dress or outfit you are rocking on the night. The empahsis for this look is on the eyes so you could go foundation free and add another dimension to it if you were blessed with freckles or were looking for that minimalist chic.

I started with my normal base consisting of foundation and a light contour, I focused all my efforts on to my eyes using a yellow tone gold eyeshadow across my eyelid and then blended a dark brown from my outer corner to almost the middle of my eye. Then I created a strong wing in liquid black eyeliner, on the bottom of my eyes I lined a sky blue in my waterline and across my lash line completing the look with lashings of mascara.

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This is my favourite look for Christmas Day! I channel some 1950’s Hollywood glam and inject it with some modern day festivity. For this look I make sure that my base is flawless, working with a full coverage foundation and concealer and a good contour with bronzer, blush and highlight.

On my eyes I like to keep eyeshadow neutral using soft browns blended smoothly across my eyelid with a little bit of a bronze based gold eyeshadow (Urban Decay Half Baked is perfect for this!) in the corner of my eyelids just to bring that pop of festive colour in to it and sweep a wing of black eyeliner across my eyelid.

For my lips I like to use a matte red liquid lipstick, moreso than any other days you will be eating and drinking to excess so you need something on your lips that has some longevity.

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For my final look I like to go for a natural look, this is usually during that awkward week between Christmas and New Year when you have lost track of which day it is, you’re craving normal food that doesn’t involve cranberry sauce and your skin is screaming from all the bad dietary choices you have made. I like to even out my base with a BB cream, nothing too heavy but it makes me glow, on my eyes I usually go for a minimal eyeshadow and make up for it with light false eyelashes just to make me look more awake.

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If I could choose 5 things that keep me going through these busy seven days then I would recommend the following: A hydrating face mask – one containing aloe vera or rose water is really hydrating and brings some life back to sallow skin.

Lipbalm – I think this is a staple throughout winter, even moreso during this time when you become run down and keep going outside, chapped and cracked lips are frustrating so prevention is better than cure.

Zinc tablets – Clinical studies have shown that zinc can reduce cold symptoms by a couple of days so I like to get in before the cold does and take zinc tablets (which is also really good for your hair) and I have noticed a reduction in the intensity of my cold symptoms.

Dry shampoo – During the season you are more than likely over-processing your hair with heated styling tools, extend the look of your style and reach for the dry shampoo to save your parched hair.

Face moisturiser - Usually I don’t have a problem with my combination skin but because I have a lot of days of full makeup then I like to use a rich night moistur iser on my face before I go to bed so that I can soothe and reset my skin while I sleep.

I hope you enjoyed my looks for the holiday season and my saviour products are of some use to you, don’t forget to switch up the looks and make them YOURS – add false lashes, use a burgundy lipstick.

Now more than any other time is your chance to express yourself and embrace it with open arms, the new year is upon you ready for the taking you just have to get out there and claim it.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and an amazing 2018 full of enlightenment, love and laughter

Love and (high)light, Leilani @macquillagewithleilani

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Photo by Antara Mandal.

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Water dripping through ceilings, turns red.

All the things that I held upon, slips swiftly.

Was I anxious or crazy to live life like a fairy tale, not true.

I see truth and despair All the 'cries' and the 'cares' "Peekaboo's" get you scared.

Seek some truth if your spare.

For what is life when all you lived for was limelight.

Nice faces get you crying, Sometimes the ugly ones bring out the smile.

Because what you see is what you look for, and what you seek you shall find.

Disgust yourself with your judgements and judge an angel for his life.

Because that’s what you look for, Some place to get all your dark fictions inside, Someone to discourage the living hell out of your mind, Someone to make you cry till your hands are numb and eyes dried.

Like all the tears dripping are red now.

But I still often smile, Laugh till I get tears in my eyes, But its all, Exiled in my Loneliness.

Manthan Rane 44

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MUSIC YOUR EARS WILL THANK YOU FOR no good – kaleo crack the sutters – snow patrol crazy – aerosmith daddy issues – the neighbourhood new rules – dua lipa I gave it all – aquilo lonely – ryan beatty be there – seafret dizzy – aubrie pache oceans away – Arizona homeward bound

–

simon,

Garfunkel feels like we only go backwards – tame impala I love you so – the walters One is glad to be of service – river rain Don’t you love her madly – the doors 49

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shashwat bulusu

Instagram: @bullu.frog 52

1 When did you first start making music?

I started writing music when I ended up in a School Band which played Metal music. We only played cover songs. And I just wanted to write originals, because I genuinely thought that originals are cool. We used to play cover songs about death, desolation, despair and one day I walked in with a Hindi acoustic song with lyrics like "bandishei khwahishei" and what not.

Surprisingly, the guys in the band took it well and said let's do it. I wrote 2-3 songs for the band. But as a Singer/ Songwriter the first song I wrote was "Baawra". I actually felt that there was a change in the vocabulary and lyrics were slightly mature compared to the previous stuff.

Most importantly they were true to me. If you have to put it in a time frame. Writing my own legit songs happened with the band in 10th and 11th grade. As a singer/ songwriter it started sometime in 12th grade when I quit the band for..erm.. Board Exams.

2. What was your first live show like? When and where was it?

My first live show was when I was 4. It was a Tabla recital that I played all alone. I don't really remember much from that show except for the fact fff that I refused to speak on the mic because, I was shitting bricks. There

is some camcorder footage from that show.

3. What do you like most about writing and composing your own music?

I tried covering songs but I was genuinely terrible at it and I could never remember the lyrics. So, writing my own stuff was the easy way out. However, when I was writing songs earlier they didn't hold up much with me but when I actually started writing songs about things true to me and about stuff that I would want to listen to as a fan of music, is when I really started having a ball. What I've enjoyed about writing is that I write fictional stories about childhood and monsters and stuff like that. Basically, ever since I've started writing narrative stories, where there is story telling and not just lyrics is what I enjoy off late. As of now I love to write about things we did as children and hope to work on an album+ children's book thingamajig.

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4 .What was your best show yet? and why?

Every time I come back from a show my mom asks about how it went and I respond with "This was the best show". I've started enjoying and interacting with the crowd and hence every show is fun.

But yes I do have a bunch of favourite shows. the first one is this Invites Only Terrace Gig I organized for myself last November where I wanted to play every song i've ever written. I enjoyed it so much because I performed live for the first time after one and half year of loathing because I lost my job as a writer and writing new songs. It was so much fun to just put forward whatever I've ever written. The second one would be the NOWON Street Gig in Baroda on the New Year's Eve, which helped me and got me some recognition among the Local Musicians who were way senior to me. Thirdly, every show I've ever done with Fangirl. It's because of them have I been able to travel around for gigs and record my EP with some badass musicians in Delhi.

5. What is your favourite song to perform?

My favorite songs that I've written are Chaand and Gulnava. But favorite song to perform live is probably this song called Tarrantino.

6. Lastly, what’s next for Shashwat Bulusu?

Shashwat Bulusu is soon going to release his Debut EP that he recorded with Siddharth Shastri and Rishi Nair at Ghar Ka Studios in Delhi with Ritwik De and Krishna Rao. And hopefully new and better songs.

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One week without

friends 55

Let’s all do this, let us all take out one week out of the million we’d get in life and ive. Live not like we used to, but live outside of a metal box. Or boxes, to each his own. Let us all take one week off social media, one week off memes, off pretentious “hot” comments, off updates and off followers. I don’t ask you to quit it forever. Just a week, try it and write to me, tell me how it is.

Delete instagram, delete facebook, snapchat, twitter, tumblr, flickr, saraha, ask.fm. For this one week, you’re prescribed to time to yourself, to time with quality company. I wanting you to go out, talk to people, talk to them about the weather and the current refugee crisis. Whatever that comes to you, talk to people, talk to your friends, talk to your family during dinner, tell people about your day and tell people about how you feel.

Talk to the boy you’ve always wanted to talk to, I know he’s standing right there, go. Now, you have no escape. There is no social media to pass time on, trying to look busy when he looks at you.

Take a walk, walk around campus, walk around the vicinity, walk around the city. Look around, draw, sketch people, make music, and write music. Poetry, write it and read it. Realise how beautiful words can really be, only if you’d let them. Watch all those films you’ve been putting in your watch lists, watch ‘em all. You have a week. Listen to music. So much fucking music, man. Listen to it all. Go from rock n roll to Bollywood music.

Think about stuff, read the newspaper, trust me, you’d love it.

Think about yourself, think about yourself some more. Write about how you feel. Run out of things to write about? Write about that.

Write about this one week, write about the things you like, write about the people you like. Have conversations. Watch the sun set anf then watch it rise. Sleep under the light of the stars and not your phone looming over your face, ready to fall at any moment. Reminisce over old jokes, jokes your closest friends made 56

two years ago, and still laugh the same way you did then. Man, cuz that was funny! Spend time by yourself, in the process of getting to know your and learning how to live yourself.

I call this segment ‘a week without “friends”’ because we always think social media essentially means ‘making friends’ and making memories and being this millennial everyone dreams to be. Sometimes, social media is not enough. Social media is not the end of all our troubles and sadness, and more importantly, not a place you dump all your excitement. I ask you today, to take a break from wanting to check if you’ve got a new follower or not, whether you hit the ‘100 likes’ target or not, whether it is that time of the day to post or not. I’ll admit it, it is very exciting when you first post a photo of yourself or your food, valued alike. When the likes start flooding in, with comments from old friends that make you feel all fuzzy inside. It does feel very nice to get so much attention, but it feels even better to have a real conversation with eye contact, intimacy, laughter and smiles that aren’t restricted to common variables.

Meet people, make real time friends, and make memories that don’t only live in your computer hard drive.

If, after reading this, your mind yearns to do all of this... I think you could you use a week without friends.

Written By Zarah Noorani

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Thank You.

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