One year of
theopenclose Cover by Saaz JS Instagram:@01010011_01001010_01010011
Editor’s Note Hello Hello, It has been a hot minute. Three months to be exact. I know I always go on and on about how the past few months have been, but I guess that’s just standard ‘Editor’ protocol. You know what? I think I’m gonna make this one very candid, or as candid as I can. Help me god, if I can’t. For the last three months, since Issue 4 came out for you to read, I’ve been swarmed with opportunities (but weirdly enough, not really.) and I’ve desperately scavenged for the motivation to take them up. Summer happened, and lest I leave it to that. The hot months came and went, I passed one year of college, learnt how to drive, discovered my love for chocofills, aaaand so it goes. This issue is a good one. Better than the rest. Sounds extremely phony when I say it like that, I know. However, that is a fact. This issue had SO many entries for submission and it was beyond overwhelming… in the best way possible. It’s amazing how things grow. Take right now for example, I’m growing, and I’m going to take this very moment as an instance for future reference. You’re growing, you might just look back at this very moment. That is what I think is growth. After all, change is the only constant. The (mind-blowing) pieces of art, literature and photography are all YOU! it’s amazing to be able to work with all of you, who prove time and time again that this is happening! Your constant support and enthusiasm is what keeps the Open Close magazine going. Thank you. From all I have in me, and more. (does that sound weird? Omg)
Zarah Noorani, Editor-in- Chief The Open Close magazine.
You can find Gourab on Instagram: @sha.shin_
A series of poems by Isha Joshi
“getting dressed”
forgetting the face of a man i didn’t want like the endless putting-on of a tight shirt over wet skin. how the fabric drags and refuses to help. how my wrists protest and i half-stumble, half-suffocate and pace around my bedroom headless. the over and over again of getting dressed every single day. i wonder if anyone else has it easy and dread looking at my legs, knowing it will be so much worse when i get to them. i still think about him and choke mid-breath; how my back lost its defiance and my feet exchanged places forever how my age scattered away into the hallway with the cockroaches and didn’t return- how all clothes always itch in some places no matter how expensive, how new. how his hands seem larger in memory each time I remember; and to forget means to remember. how he says he loves his daughter. how the room smells damp, and the body always seems to be begging for something or the other.
“the air traffic control tower”
there are no stars to point at so you point at the air traffic control tower, every single time we go up on this roof. and we only ever come here to be alone and to kiss and to have epiphanies. i had one tonight but when i started to tell you about it i had another, and another after thatthat being with you is like one long epiphany that i think my glasses slip down my nose on purpose because they know you’ll push them up that when i look at this air traffic control tower i don’t know how it could mean different things to you every time that we are only maybe five stories high and can see only a few miles away but it looks like a world of distances and neighbourhoods and cities and systems sometimes when we are here, our hands increasingly vagrant, my fingers slurring as if they’d spent the day in a swimming pool i imagine you going home and craning your neck away from your mother and the next time i’d get to walk underneath the shadows of worli with you and when your eyes grow heavy, your tongue falls into its habit of pressing against the back of your teeth in one-twos and one-two-threes as if to music only you have heard of; your head sinks into my lap your eyebrows scrunch so impossibly stubborn as if you could will Sleep herself awayto go someplace she’d be welcome to not bother returning if she couldn’t have both of us at the same time.
“the covers”
it gets increasingly harder as you grow older to lift a body off of yours every morning. the torso is most of the work the legs give way easy the eyes tear apart from yours and it hurts at the seams most days, but this is not about whether or not it hurts. you do it because it is the only way you can stand up move off the bed. brush your teeth, and pee. and sink back into bed it climbs back on again, and you’ve never needed a blanket but you pull one over anyway so it looks like two people making love under the covers and not just you and your tumor begging each other for it.
Sincerely, Confused. What does it mean to be a youth in today’s world? Is it studying until the night sky resembles the bags under your eyes? Or is it puffing out a plume that can pass as a cloud? Or is it both? Or is it neither? This sounds as confused as today’s youth is. We are living in a time when old thoughts are being replaced with ‘new-fangled’ ideas which is really just logic finally being shown the light of day. Even as I write this my thoughts are so chaotic, I have no idea how to put forth what I want to say because the next few paragraphs is going to outline exactly what goes on in my mind in one way or the other. I speak for myself when I say I haven’t a clue in hell about what to do about my traditions and so-called value systems. Because really what does a ‘perfect’ set of values mean? A generation ago, being a ‘good’ girl meant not being out late, not having male friends, no tattoos, no smoking, no alcohol, and no doing the horizontal tango. Don’t indulge in the very things that give life a little extra kick and you were on the right track. Now things have changed. Sure, there are articles galore about girls, women, creating their identities, having their voices heard, shattering the glass ceiling, etc. but what about the little voices that question us? My entire life I’ve been surrounded by a mom who has told me what is good behavior and what is bad behavior. Now don’t get me wrong, my mother loves me dearly and would want nothing more than to see me succeed and become a bold, strong woman who takes shit from no one. But between those lines are the soft whispers of age old sayings that, frankly I feel, hold no relevance today. Girls from respectable families don’t get tattoos; they don’t smoke or drink, etc etc. I’ve had a talk regarding this with my mom during one of our heartto-heart sessions and while she says she won’t tell me no and will allow me to live life on my own terms, I can’t ignore the undertone of disapproval. What I’m trying to say is, we – I – am caught up in knowing what to do. If I go ahead with what makes sense to me, am I somehow letting my family down? But at the same time, I am exposed to countless forms of media that tell me to live life the way I see fit. They say the youth today is caught up in ‘finding themselves’. This sounds like a load of dirty laundry to our parent’s generation but really if you think about it, it’s not. We are placed in a time when things are changing but not fast enough to be black and white clear. We are in a grey time. Perhaps when some of us have children of our own, the grey will have passed or maybe there will be another girl sitting at her laptop writing about how she doesn’t know what to do.
Vishwa Shah
Awoken at 3 Am, tears rolling down my cheeks, body drenched with perspiration You’ve invaded my dreams, you’re in my mind and it seems like an eternal suffocation I ask myself what reminds me of you. Is it the apology I never got, and it’s long overdue Is it the nightmares? Or is it glancing at my swollen hand every now and then? Is it the cut inside my lip Or the scar on my hip You are incessantly present in my thoughts Unconsented kisses in parking lots Insidiously, you make your way to my mind Just the way you made your way to my body, to my lips I feel helpless beyond measure After all it's my body that I treasure Intoxicated, I couldn't walk, I could merely consent Somehow you were unable to comprehend So why should I suffer in silence While you roam around gloating, repeating your acts of sexual violence Shaina Nagpal
The only day of my life I wish I could erase The woman on the floor was lifeless. My heart started pounding as I saw my mother’s unnaturally, lean, stick like body lying on the floor. Tears escaped from my helpless eyes as I saw my mother’s lips that were once soft and pink were now, chapped. My eyes began examining every part of her, as my heart started beating faster than ever. I could not feel anything around me. Paralyzed with fear, I felt as though my breath was being taken away from me. Then I began crying again – slowly and then all at once. I began crying like a little child whose candy has been snatched away. I cried until there was nothing left on the inside – just a raw emptiness that kept nibbling me like a hungry cat. Within minutes my house was filled with a sea of people. Each and every one of them spoke quickly and quietly in furious whispers. Their mixed perfumed smells encircled around my mother’s corpse. I stood there quietly, as a mannequin unknown to my very own surroundings. I stood there for a while as the magnitude of my mother loss swept over me. My mother was in the autumn of her life. No amount of the copious makeup that she did could hide her deep wrinkle lines. Or, no amount of the extravagant and lavish clothes that she attired herself into could help her in looking young. Still, there was strength and wisdom in those emerald eyes of hers. A torrent of memories hit me as I saw people picking up her body from my house. My dad signalled me to have a look at my mother’s body for the last time and then pushed me away from her. I kissed her forehead for the last time, still hoping for her to get up. They say that apart from holding arteries and veins the human heart holds lots and lots of hope. However, that day, no matter how hard I tried, not even a single spark of hope appeared. My hands ran across her cold body as I went crazy in remembering all the times with her. I remembered how I used to wrap my rather frail body around her and pull her close, gently. I remembered our constant chitter chatter and the endless bickering sessions I had with her. Indeed, I was grateful for every bit of her, from the warmth of her tender hands till the smell of her freshly laundered clothes. Apart from all of this, I was mostly grateful for her breath-taking and beautiful smile. It seemed as though her smile pierced through all the negativity of my life. I remember the way her teeth were perfectly aligned, the way her dimples crinkled and the way her lips lifted upwards when she smiled. I fell down to the hard, wooden, ground as the constant memories ceased me completely. I started screaming like never before. The loss of my mother’s death had reached every part of my body. I started questioning her photo frames that were on the wall as to where has she left me? I asked her about the promise she made to me on my last birthday. The promise that I thought was eternal and a present from her that I’d never forget. She told me “I’ll take care of you. Not materialistically, but take care of your soul, your wellbeing, your heart and everything that’s you.” So where was that promise today? Why is she not fulfilling that promise? She left me that day with all the golden memories. Alongside that, she left a bit of her everywhere in the house and that still keeps haunting me every now and then. Now that I look back at all of this, I feel like I was grateful. I was grateful to have had such a loving mother. When I see other women of my age with their moms, shopping and laughing, I feel a pang for what it would be like if she were alive. All my ups and downs are left incomplete without her presence. Even though a lot of years have passed, I still love my mother for being there for me for the time she was alive. And I don't think I will ever be able to return her kindness and affection but I will live this life peacefully. I will live this life both for her and for me.
Chahna Baksani
\ Outsider \ Jahnavi Singh Sure, I've chaperoned my share of them. Tasteful palaver that the English call small talk. (Glasses clinking.) Finding meaning in the misery of nocturnal encounters. (You're no stranger to the flesh) Standing about, periodically revived by whatever malt burns their livers enough to elicit some sign of life. Dabbling in a constant flurry of smiles and frowns and doubts and pouts. I tear myself away from the circus of the macabre. Until I realise I can't. Am I one of them?
Let me tell you a funny story of how I came out to my dad, and how I got there. My dad and I bond the best over a number of beer bottles. So, like any generic Saturday night we cracked open a few (ha.) With each of us three bottles down, my dad notices pictures of me at this year's Pride Walk on my laptop. He then proceeds to tell me about his gay-dar and how he's always known if someone swung the other way. Then he asked, "You like girls too, don't you?" My face was enough of an answer. In August 2015, before I could make sense of it myself, I came out bisexual to three of my closest friends at the time. At a time where I had just gotten out of school and was ready to take everything headfirst, my decision was to tell them something which had been the cause of mental conflict for a long, long time. And I was only 15. One of them, shamelessly, told everyone I came out because it was a trend. Back to the future; I attended my second Pride Walk in February 2018. It's a bittersweet experience to be a part of something this huge, something that is done in a fun and friendly way to make a statement and as a means to fight, just the same. You stop, took a look, and realised there is a canopy of people with alarmingly different stories. Every single one of them had had their own flight of stairs to topple from, and they gathered here to show off their bruises and how they healed. The people I surrounded myself with earlier this year were vastly different than the ones I was with when I was starting to come out of my shell. I wear my sexual label (which, by the way, I'm still not sure of) on my sleeve. How thankful I am to have them be indifferent to my sexuality, cannot be put into words. It's good to have friends who think no less or no more of you because of a label you give yourself.
Maybe pride is something I can finally embrace instead of cowering away from, and I hope everyone out there can do the same.
-Shruti.
Article and Photos by Shruti.
Art by Isha Joshi, a college student, poet, illustrator and daughter. She writes about her world and how she revolves around it. She picked up a pencil before she ever picked up a toothbrush, and hasn't put it down since. She likes to draw faces and eyes and homes.
“Who am I?� I asked myself Or am I someone else Why am I so muddled? I feel the presence of two consciousness inside me Speaking two different dialects to me One says to hate the world for its cruelty While the other says there are many things to love in this world One says action speaks louder than words But the other says words cut deeper than anything One says that deception is the only way to survive But the other says mitigating others is the only surviving instinct One says being a miser helps you see the world clearly, While the other says being altruistic will help the world to see you clearly It's like a conflict raging inside me Forcing me to play for both the sides Will this battle annihilate me? Or bring out the true self within me.
Abhishek Rasane
So raw your existence is So unfiltered your muse is Like a thorn in the rose That I want to get pinched by Always imagined what you really look like The mystery of your anatomy A labyrinth of your illusions I explore Never seem to get out But it’s a thrill I enjoy A wallflower I become When your words appear Touching my vulnerable self than any physical experience Takes me to the back of that truck with Bowie in my ears And you, Sam keep steering me across that tunnel
Abhishek Rasane
Instagram : @openclosemag Facebook : @whatisopenclose https://openclosemag.wordpress.com