Gaze with Shades

I'm so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I go.
-Al Pacino



What's in the eyes?

A dark moon in a white river.
Sometimes there's a drizzle of hope,
But mostly it's a draught.

When they are tired of seeing,

they get busy dreaming

of things that will be forgotten,

Washed away with the dawn of caffeine.

Open, blink, darkness, light.
Swaying in zig-zag patterns of time,

Consistently shifty, constantly curious

Every person loved at a high shutter speed

If they blink, you simply miss.

What do the eyes see?  They ask.

If only they could listen to the eyes talk.

So in the dead of night, they see what they hear.
Texts that'll never reach,

Heartbeat, whimpers, colours and a smile.

In the mornings, made of dewy puzzles
The eyes seek that smile
A smile from a stranger,
A stranger to everyone but them.
Only an image of poignant warmth
Piercing the coy cornea, a pining tear drops.

The eyes seek no more, beauty skulked forever more

What's in the eyes now? They ask.

A picture mayhap, a story? Never to be known again

They got their shades on.

Inspiration:
Inspired by my favourite Sun glasses of the season by an online store called PropShop24.
Check them out, they most definitely are the curators of all things cool.

Also, featuring Hippie Fringe bag and leather wrist band from my Paharganj Haul.
I can never grow out of that place. Leather bags, belts, wallets, footwear, books, and other things that shouldn't be named but inhaled, you will find it all in the bustling lanes of Central Delhi's Paharganj.

College is just around the corner for a lot of you lovelies, make sure to step in with the perfect pair of shades, bags and accessories.  It's not about looking perfect, it all about looking perfectly 'YOU'.

I am Wearing:

Nave New Age Sunnies:       PropShop24

Parrot Green Crop top:                    Zara

White Cut-Out skirt:         Naf Naf 

Leather Fringe Bag:    Paharganj

Leather Wrist band:    Paharganj

Follow me on Instagram for daily dose of Mad poetic affair with fashion.
@The_Burbak_Gypsy

 Photographer: Himanshu Rai

Work it Boss

"Don't play the odds.
  Play the man."
               - Gabriel Macht aka Harvey Specter



I have been working for several years now. Working for a living I mean.
The transition from being a person to a professional wasn't an easy one.

There was this one person I always feared.
That person was around me constantly; at presentations, interviews, reviews, conference room, quite possibly everywhere I was trying to break a professional sweat.

She was an uninvited shadow, always bigger than myself, always daunting and commanding.
I would instantaneously feel weak in her presence, reduced to meek efforts to redeem myself.

I was never myself around her, she was like my professional step-sister. Never on my side.
She made sure to turn work into an insipid job, I felt like a slave to her.

You know that feeling when your boss suggests something that will lead to a 'meteoric' rise on the success graph but is actually a plan set to doom, and your insides want to just shout out a 'No' with wild fervour?
She made sure my head would only nod in agreement along with the room full of sycophants with shifting loyalties. People so manufactured and fake, that if I replaced them with blow-up dolls, the office would function perfectly for a year without anyone ever finding out!

I don't know, what was it about her, but I was subjugated by her invisible strength.
From there on, saying yes to my seniors when I really want to scream out a vehement 'no', complying to baseless rules that have no place in the bay, sharing my point of view which was really the managers view, became normal place.

I'd be lying if I said that I din't gain anything out of it.
She had her ways to compensate.
I received the occasional pats on the back, and the seniors would offer the idea of packaged dreams during reviews.

But this was short-lived. I had become 'them'.
My ability to remain undeflected in purpose and unswayed by criticism was giving up on me.
The individual of integrity that i once knew myself to be had now become a furniture in the corporate living room.
Before i realised, i was drinking out of their palms.
Caving in to the disgusting cocktails my managers loved at office parties, announcing my betrayal to my beloved Ballentine's!
This had to be the last straw.

I had to put an end to this.
I had to confront her and ask her to leave me alone.
I couldn't possibly let her rule me and take away my spark.
She needed to go.

I took her to the restroom, the perfect place for confrontations. You know it. We have seen Suits and Ally Mcbeal.
I stood across the mirror, my hands pressed on the the basin slab.
I stared at my reflection. My professional tormentor was none other than my fear of rejection and my inhibition.
She was me and I was her.
There were no words spoken, just a silent gaze of agreement.
An agreement to not be a sheep in the herd any more.

And so it all changed.
I walk in to work everyday now, fearless and sure.
My integrity and my passion is my Suit, and I always dress to kill.
I am the boss of me now. And so should you be.
Stay True. Leave an impression.

*Inspired by Gabriel Macht's character in Suits and his recent campaign for Ballantine's.
Both exquisitely fine! :P

I am Wearing:

Oval Shades: Faballey

White top: Forever21

Metallic Neck Piece: Sarojini Nagar
Stole: Goa flee market

Palazzo: Sarojini Nagar

Watch: Cartier

Slip-on Flats: Forever21

Photographer: Sangit Ghorpade/ThinkFreak

A Shape-shift Tale

"I paint with shapes"                 
   -Alexander Calder

She was not made of desire, saccharine kisses or mid-summer dreams.

She wasn’t a thing of beauty, because she did not know what ugly was.

 She was free within the periphery of her dreams.


She was lost, said some.
But that didn’t worry her because freedom was not her concern.

She was a prism, and their voices would permeate through her and take shape into colourful patterns which lit up her imagination and her ceiling in the stillness of a dark night.


 She trapped everything that didn’t make sense and turned it into abstract art.

She wasn’t the sky, she was the stars that tessellated it.
 Her spirit was so massive that it had to be fragmented into zillion, relatively smaller, but still massive, pieces of shiny trinkets.


She became the softness in the moonlight, she was the peak of a hill.

She had angles, one too many. It was difficult to fit her into anything.

So she started fitting things around herself instead. She was God’s interior decorator.

She was unfazed, unchallenged, and absolutely amorphous. 

Ironically, she was geometry.

I am Wearing:

Geometric Neck Piece

Off-shoulder top with piping: The PinkCandyCloset

High Waist Cotton Pants: KOOVS

Platform Candy Color Shoes: DoneByNone

Photographer: Himanshu Rai

Editing: Rashi Kalra

Winter My Muse

Winter is to the heart what gravity is to the tree. It keeps you rooted. It keeps you free.
                                                                                                           -TheBurbakGypsy

When you walk the streets on a gloomy, sun-deprived morning, nose deep-freezed, and a gust of silken chill brushes against your bare cheeks, what do you think?

I think of a lover from a past life left out in the cold for centuries trying to remind me of his/her existence. A sweeping kiss stolen under the stealth of a winter breeze.

Sometimes I wonder why every year, almost always around the same time, earth leaves a part of itself out in the cold?

Imagine the earth a teenage lady, and summer as "that time of the month". Winter becomes her only chance to feel the wind beneath her wings.
To feel like she can glide and sway and jump and collide like the whisper ads, to breathe without consequence.
The sun no longer the least of her worries.
The icy breeze merely doesn't  ruffle her hair and make her nose all crinkly and cold, it's everything else under the surface that becomes aware of their existence.

Coming back to why winters make me ridiculously happy. It seems to me like summer was the unwanted, unexpected guest that overstayed it's welcome and has finally left.
And i am left to my glory and books and quilt and woollen cuddles to spend the next few months like an indigenous from Greenland.
When an over-worked, overcharged laptop whispers and whirs, inviting you to share some warmth, you know it's winters.
When you don't need too much make-up or blusher to look fresh. When the holes in the sweater gives way to lovers to fill it with warmth.
When coffee, hugs and holding hands equals to love. Winter is like walking in a hollywood rom-com from the 90's. Sometimes i wonder how the West has the monopoly on all things cool. Winters, snow, James Dean, Charlie Sheen, Jesus, Miss Gaga, Christmas, you name it! Anyway.. :P

 Everything is more alive in winters. Summers just makes everything settle deep into the sediments. Winters shakes things up, like your 'cool' cousin from the states who introduced the concept of 'blunt' , 'double dips' and 'push-up bra'.
Winter makes you more aware of the body you live in, the soul you want to dive in and the boots you want to walk in. 

Everything is beautiful is layered is free is winter. 
Winter is earth's magic trick.
It gets as cold as you can conjure.
And like every magic trick, it will leave you gasping, wanting to witness the show again, knowing all too well, it's all but a trick.

I went to Mcleod-Dharamkot-Triund and i experienced snow.
And now winters will end, like all things ever really do.
With a fleeting silence, longing and photographs.

Winter Grub manifesting itself onto my cheeks.

leader of the pack. Mmmkay

Trek isn't over until your furry friend says so.

Che Grrrera of Swach Bharat Abhiyan

Not so tough after all, eh buddy? Proceeds to play tug.

This Maggi! #yummiez

Sit. Stare. Grasp. Wonder. Let go.

The 'Sweater'. Them Paws.

My Lana Del Ray moment

Enter the Void

I am Wearing:

Grey Overcoat

Faux Leather Pants- Only

Tribal Knit Cardigan

Gum Boots- FreeCultr

Tan Colour Suede Boots

Worn Out Levis

Neon Round Sunnies- Koovs

Photographer: Himanshu Rai

Skirt. Love. Woof.

"I'd give you my last slice of bacon. It's true love bebeh."
                                                                         -ME

It's all about love. *Yawn*
Just kidding.
I love love. I love how love means different things to different people.
Love is the only feeling that has no logical explanation.
Like the daily progression from night to day, the rotation of the earth, love propels us. Love moves us towards infinity everyday. 

Is the butterfly in love with the cocoon?  No. But the caterpillar is. Always will be. Much after it ceases to exist.

My love gifted me a tiny ball of fur a few months back. My love thinks i can be responsible for the life of another. I had my doubts. He din't.
I call him Dexter. A golden retriever.
He changed me.

He taught me the following things i was too selfish to fathom otherwise:

-Love can bite you. It won't know that it's hurting you. But it will bite you all the same. It will leave you with a clot in your heart. To play is to love is to hurt is to love.

-Love may not always agree with you, love will try to pull away from you with surging passion. And at that moment, don't tighten your grip or the leash. Trust and let go and walk in the  other direction. Love will come home to you, wiser.

-Love never changes. Love does not depreciate with time. You do.
And love does not need to balance out. Love is no balance sheet.

-Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When you can be alone, you can be with others without using them as an escape.

 -When love comes running to you and tugs at your skirt, believe that it is love and it will always be. Even though it  might just be the scent of the burger in your bag.

 Because one day, the burgers will not come home, you will. And love will still come running  to you.
Unconditional. Unwavering. Slobbering.

I am wearing:

Sequinned Black and white skirt

Off-shoulder Black Zipper Top

 Floral Printed Jacket
Antic stone Neck piece from Kashmir

Semi-precious Stone ring

Combat Boots

Featuring : DEXTER <3

Photographer: Himanshu Rai

Koop - Strange Love from Anthony Semler on Vimeo.