Category Archives: Uncategorized

mom

how have you been

we are in the same house 

a floor away

but i can feel myself distancing from you

because i’m afraid 

i’m afraid you would recognize i’m not the person you raised 

i’m afraid that you will see through these carefully concealed scars

i’m afraid the smoke lingering on me would catch you

and im sorry.

i’m sorry,

i was supposed to be the strong one

i was supposed to have the soul of an angel but the hands of a fighter

but mom, i couldn’t fight.

i wanted to but i didn’t.

couldn’t.

i grieve for the woman you wanted to raise

for the fighter, you wanted to raise 

but how do i tell you

that existing every day like this

feels like a battle in itself 

how do i tell you that every breath i take comes with a warning sign 

i know you didn’t want to see me like this

trust me neither did i

i wanted the picture-perfect life

you and i envisioned on the first day of kindergarten

the one i was destined for;

but i am not tall enough to climb those heights anymore

and i don’t know what my destiny beholds now.

all i want right now is to breathe.

-Avni Jain

i could never colour within the lines

i felt freedom outside them

and as i grew up

i took every path except the safe ones

now that i sit here across the dining table from the people i’ve known my entire life

i realise they don’t know me.

and im still peeling that skin beside my nails

like the day i told them i couldn’t get an A

i had been trying to let that skin grow lately- well, i don’t know anymore.

i spent years crafting these wings to reach my first grade teacher’s prophecy,

but now i just stand under the sun

to feel my skin burning,

to feel anything except this fear;

this fear of not belonging,

this fear that was once curiosity,

this fear that was once butterflies in my stomach,

the fear that made the nine-year-old me lock myself in the washroom and strangle her neck.

the same fear that made the fourteen-year-old me carve hate on my skin,

the fear that stitches my lips everytime i try to speak up,

the fear that i can never escape.

so, i let myself burn.

i’ve found a home here.

i don’t like this place but there’s comfort here.

how does a numb soul win a burning skin?

-Avni Jain

I recently started Conversations with Friends and, fortunately, it took me out of my reading slump. I was hooked from the first page and all the credit goes to Sally Rooney’s compelling writing because I can’t say much about the characters. I didn’t feel the characters were the most remarkable people or “flawed”. I felt they were real. You liked them, you hated them, you followed them through a thrilling journey- a journey of new adulthood.

“Was I kind to others? It was hard to nail down an answer. I worried that if I did turn out to have a personality, it would be one of the unkind ones. Did I only worry about this question because as a woman I felt required to put the needs of others before my own? Was “kindness” just another term for submission in the face of conflict? These were the kind of things I wrote about in my diary as a teenager: as a feminist I have the right not to love anyone.”

The book takes the reader through the protagonist, Frances’, life after she and her best friend/ex-girlfriend, Bobbi, befriend a couple, Nick and Mellisa. As Frances and Nick have an affair, we learn about the characters’ vulnerabilities, interpersonal dynamics, insecurities, and fear and they are much like the vulnerabilities of every other person we meet in our lives. The first half of the book felt like a fever dream from a wattpad novel or a fake reddit story in Sally Rooney’s impeccable writing.

Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through

The reason I am completely taken aback by Sally Rooney’s writing is that her writing is simple yet surprisingly effective. The conversations feel real, (except for the abundant use of e-mails), which humanizes the narcissistic characters, explains their actions, connects the reader to the protagonist ,and mainly the title “Conversations with Friends”. Also, the tiny details are incorporated so carefully which makes up the book to the masterpiece it is.

“Standing in his house was like watching someone familiar smile at me, but with missing teeth. I wanted to hurt myself again, in order to feel returned to the safety of my own physical body. Instead I turned around and walked out. I pulled my sleeve over my hand to shut the door.”

“I am normal, I thought. I have a body like anyone else. Then I scratched my arm open until it bled, just a faint spot of blood, widening into a droplet. I counted to three and afterwards opened the bandage, placed it carefully over my arm, and disposed of the plastic wrap.”

One major drawback for me was the lack of growth for the protagonist, we see her go through emotional and physical turmoil but the lack of better understanding at the end left me a bit dissatisfied. I also felt Frances character remained pretty one-dimensional- a rebel with a disturbed home. I would have loved to delve more into her character.

Also. I am pretty excited about the upcoming series based on this book. Personally, I feel Nick and Mellisa’s casting is perfect!

3.5/5

after i escaped hell

my fingers didn’t feel soft enough,

my voice didn’t feel sweet enough

i had camphor all over my feet,

but my soul felt free;

from the chains, you imprisoned me in.

i didn’t realize when holding your hands,

chained my soul.

when loving you

turned into the poison i kept treasuring

in the jewel of my heart.

it poisoned my heart

till

my own heartbeat was unsettling;

and even on my deathbed,

i wanted you to whole my hand

and

palliate my heart.

for love is stronger than death,

and i want to lay under the lush green grass and soft brown earth,

knowing

the melody of my heartbeat

-Avni Jain

The Paris Fashion Week ended on October 5 with a Louis Vuitton show. A climate activist broke into the show with a sign saying “overconsumption = extinction.” She was wrestled to the ground by guards dressed in all black. Even though the show was just slightly disturbed and the models walking down remained uninterrupted, this needs to be talked about. There have been conversations around overconsumption and sustainability in fashion, but right now it is at its worst with brands like SHEIN and Urbanic being in their prime. In 2020, SHEIN had 10 billion sales rising from 4.5 billion sales in 2019. So, what do sustainability and overconsumption mean? Sustainability was first described in 1972 by EF Schumacher “Nothing makes economic sense unless its continuance for a long time can be projected without running into absurdities.” however sustainability has a lot greater than simply a monetary aspect. Mainly it includes 3 aspects: economy, society and the environment”. Here I am mainly going to try and discuss all of society and the environment.

So, how grave is the situation? 1 cotton t-shirt takes 2700 litres of water and in one year over 2 billion cotton t-shirts are produced. This is simply ONE instance to offer you a difficult concept, there are masses of billions of apparel objects produced each year. Therefore, currently, fashion is the second biggest polluter after oil and gas and contributes to 10% of global greenhouse emissions. The major reason is fast fashion which further leads to overconsumption.
Ideally, producing fashion items may take at most 21 months including designing, sourcing, manufacturing then finally distributing. Therefore, maximum manufacturers produce big quantities of garments instances a year, which are then displayed on the runway. In H&M, as opposed to 2 seasons, they have got fifty-two seasons, with the concept that a big quantity of garments is produced each week. The clothing item that takes high fashion brands at least 6 months to produce, SHEIN produces it in 3 days. Brands like SHEIN, H&M and Zara are pretty useful for the ones who can not afford high fashion brands however those purchasers aren’t those feeding those manufacturers their growth, it’s those who purchase from them in bulks. Society and social media play a big element withinside the question “why overconsumption”.
When I talk about society in fashion, there’s a huge range from high fashion designers to the privileged influencers to the exploited workers working 14 hours a day. Trend cycles used to last 20-30 years in the 20th and 21st century but in the 22nd-century trend cycles usually last 2-3 months. A trend is composed 5 levels the introduction, the rise, the culmination, the decline then finally the obsolescence but with the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels including fashion hauls, styling challenges and much more, the trend cycle simply consists of 3 stages, the introduction, the rise then the obsolescence. Social media creates a taboo for “repeating clothes” and specifically whilst you are a fashion influencer, you need to live updated with developments in trends and purchase a huge quantity of apparel often when trends last just for a month or two. Also, to keep creating content where you can’t repeat the clothes you wore once and post on your socials. When you need to continuously purchase a big quantity of apparel, you may be searching out the maximum reasonably-priced choice for yourself and that’s fast fashion brands.
But how are thousands of clothing items produced in a week? There are garment workers in emerging countries like Bangladesh, India and China working 14-16 hours 7 days a week. They have to breathe toxic substances and inhale fibre dust and are usually paid minimum wage. They are working 5 times the money they are paid. When they are unable to meet the deadlines caused by overconsumption, they are victims of abuse, women usually face gender-based violence. Many people in these emerging countries are victims of forced labour, again to meet deadlines. Most consumers don’t realize the effects of every single purchase. Fashion reaches beyond the boundaries of individual companies and supply chains and each purchase influences thousands of people and the environment.

i remember being 13

and full of rage

with

feelings i never found names for

and anxiety burning me 

from the pit of my stomach 

until all that’s left in me

are the nameless ugly feelings 

creeping into my trembling hands

i remember being 13 

and

breaking pencils with my trembling hands

my fingers clawing their way 

into ripping off my skin

trying to rescue myself from the nameless ugly feelings.

you told me i was your beautiful muse,

your beautiful broken muse.

that you wanted to immortalise me

but you kill me every day.

and i wonder every day how do you immortalise someone already dead

until the sting of the antiseptic 

on my ripped off skin

wakes me up 

and you tell me

to forget all of it

the way i forget a dream

wake up and let it fade away

you tell me 

forget it with the love between us

and i scream

it isn’t love between us

it is my worst nightmare.

and dreams fade but nightmares stay.

so, i remember being 13

but not innocence.

-Avni Jain

Over the past few weeks, I have been receiving tons of messages with questions about freelancing and I can not sum it all up in one text message so, here’s my journey of freelancing and how you can start your journey too!

(Also, this blog focuses mainly on freelance writing, please let me know if you have any questions on bookstagram and book blogging too. I will be happy to write about it!)

I started freelance writing when I was 13 as a side hustle because I loved researching and learning about things that were new to me. I had a little experience and knack for writing both non-fiction and fiction. To get an idea about what I was getting into, I started reading freelancers’ experiences and stalking their profiles on Fiverr. I researched how to present myself as the perfect fit for the client. After I had made up my mind, I went on looking for courses.

COURSES!!

Courses can help you so much if you are just getting started. I took a course on digital marketing and learnt how to promote myself and open my small biz. The course I took isn’t available now but while researching for this blog, I found some amazing courses to refer to-

•https://alison.com/course/introduction-to-journalism-revised (A free course on journalism to help you improve your writing skills!)

•https://alison.com/course/introduction-to-online-marketing-strategies (A free course on digital marketing and strategies!)

•https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-freelance-writing-course/ (This freelance course will guide you through the whole process! It’s originally costed at ₹6,400 but for today it’s ₹385. Go Check It Out!)

•https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-digital-marketing-course/ (Another digital marketing course to help you start from scratch! It is originally costed at ₹8640 but for today ₹385. Go Check It Out!

Once you understand how freelancing works, you are going to need a portfolio. For your portfolio, write a sample on every genre to show your clients the diversity of your content, to let them know you can write what they want. REUSE THOSE ARTICLES!!

Now that you have your portfolio ready, create a Fiverr or UpWork account. Post your services, your qualifications and your experience. It is difficult to get clients at first, I posted an offer saying I would do the first 5 articles for free. It helped me gain little traffic and I spent more than 3 hours writing those articles, I wanted to make them as perfect as possible then I asked the clients for reviews which helped me gain more attraction.

INCREASING YOUR AUDIENCE

Make a blog to show your clients your consistency! Post those articles on sites and apps promoting writers to increase your audience! I started posting at various apps like Medium, We Heart It, etc. There are tons of freelancers out there, you need something that would make you stand out to the client.

Another way to increase your audience and learn about freelancing is NETWORKING. Networking works wonders, you can learn from experienced freelancers, have them review your portfolio and profile. To increase your network, connect with freelancers on LinkedIn and join Facebook Groups!

WORK ON THE PROJECT REGARDLESS OF THE DEADLINE. I can not stress this enough, there have been so many times, I had slacked off because of the deadline and later it costed the quality of the project.

All The Best for your Freelancing Journey. Let me know if you have any more questions!