The Storm

Writen when Arya was 8 years old

Shivering and cold I lay in bed with three blankets on me
At 10:00, the sky was as dark as fresh ink on paper
All alone I was while my mother slept
I heard the jealous rain pattering on the roof,
Trying to share the warmth in the house.
I saw the lightning flash, illuminating a tree.
The thunder and lightning were in a competition to see who was scarier
I shivered, seeing the lightning off a tree branch with a boom! Crash!
I ducked under my covers at the speed of light
I gripped my stuffed animal so tightly that my knuckles turned white
What could I do?
I was too scared to go to Mom’s room and I was too scared in bed.
I couldn’t tell anyone because they would say I am a scaredy-cat
Scare of a storm they would laugh
As I shut my eyes tight,
I thought about what my friend, Sasha had told me about storms
The thunder, lightning and rain were only the sky gods scaring demons away
The thunder was just drums that they banged onto Earth,
and the lightning was the torch the sky gods held.
“The sky gods are just trying to scare the demons away”
I told myself.
I took a deep breath and realized I was being silly
Storms aren’t scary I thought
I closed my eyes and relaxed
Before I knew it, I was snoring.

Arya L. Subramanian

Madhav Commandur

Sahana Sundar

Realization during isolation

What a strange time to live through
Where normality seems to have disappeared
And the idea of it is to be feared
It feels as if all hope is lost
It feels as if every joy comes at a cost
Stuck at home
Stuck on what to do
Finding yourself all alone
With nothing to do
The streets are empty
Shops are closed
The silence surrounds us
No matter how much we make a fuss
Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious
Always being told to be cautious
Wondering what has life come to?
Asking ourselves what we can do?
It’s okay to cry
It’s okay to let go of those fearful emotions
It’s okay to feel as if you are unable to cope
That is the steps we must take in order to come out the other side
And remember there is always hope
We are all in this together
Everyone is affected in some way
Everyone is suffering
While we are self-isolating
We have to be a stronger team than ever
And understand this won’t last forever
You may think life’s become so narrow
Being unable to meet your friends
Being unable to sunbathe on the beach
Being unable to make adventurous summer plans
It is an opportunity to open your mind
And make the most of what you can find
We have access to so many means of communication
To feel connected to family and friends
So life doesn’t seems like such a cage
In this day and age
“Oh I don’t have time”
An excuse at the tip of our tongues
Now time stretches out in front of us like an ocean
While many are working hard to find a solution
To learn an instrumentTo learn a new language
To perfect a skill
Take this time for YOU
To be a better version of yourself
To be someone you're proud of
To feel good in yourself
You don’t have to be doing something all the time
Just stop. Think. Pause.Relax.
Watch your favourite TV programmes
Soak in the nature around you.
Read those books that always appeared in your to-be-read list
Or simply learn how to just exist
Do what you want to do.
Do what makes you happy.
Be positive, as hard as it may seem and
If you are feeling down,remember we are all a team!
What a strange time to live through
Where normality seems to have disappeared
But really the idea of the ‘old normal’ is to be feared
It’s time to improve ourselves
To protect our planet
And not be pulled towards destruction like a magnet
To reduce our mass consumption
And stop living under a false assumption
That our actions don’t matter
As it is time to realise it is quite the latter
We will come out of this
Until then
Stay home,stay well
And be hopeful
That this soon will be just a story to tell

Shreya Srinivasan

Madhu Balasubramanian

Janani Krishnakanth

Sanjana Narayanan

Siddarth Iyer Sridhar

Shruthi Murali

Vidula Natarajan

Vrishabh Parthasarathy Kausikan

Reyansh Avinash