Annwesha

No familiar voices, no mishti waiting at the table. Just holding onto memories softer than this skyline. Shubho Noboborsho (Happy Bengali New Year) to everyone, may this new year bring you a little closer to where your heart still lives! Credits: Actor: Priya Banerjee Producer: Srishti Dhameja DOP, colourist and editor: Om Patel Edit supervisor: Annwesha (Geeta) Guha Concept, writer, director: Annwesha (Geeta) Guha Voice Over: Geeta Guha Mukherjee

To waking up before the world, chasing sunrises, dreams, and finish lines. To running through pain, through doubt, and still choosing to move forward. May we all keep running- not just for the race, but for the journey it becomes. Wishing everyone a happy World Athlete Day! In frame and voice: @mishtikhatri Producer: @srishti.is.buffering DOP: @ompatel.dop Editor: @_.chaudhary__ Concept, writer, director: @annaloged

Indian Coffee House in May with @beer.bong_ Shimla’ 22.

2nd Nov’25 Love. Leftovers. Shah Rukh. It’s been days since the breakup. The fridge still holds a half-finished bowl of pasta they made together. She can’t bring herself to throw it away not because of the food, but because of what it held. The laughter, the music playing in the background with the generous pour of wine. The twirl, the pause, that split second right before the kiss. The kind of moment when the kitchen turned into a movie scene and for once, their eyes were playing the lead. Right when he says, “your eyes are a love letter I don’t want to stop reading”. To me, leftovers are what love looks like when the moment has passed, but the feeling hasn’t. They remind me that love doesn’t always vanish - sometimes, it just waits quietly in the fridge for you to warm it up again. And maybe that’s what Shah Rukh Khan has been telling all along - that love isn’t always new or grand. Sometimes it’s reheated, revived, remembered. It’s in the way Raj still waits at the station, or how Rahul still believes ‘kuch kuch hota hai’ even when the world has moved on. How Veer keeps a promise across years and borders - holding on to a love the world forgot, but his heart never did. And how Aman, knowing his days are numbered, still chooses to love so selflessly that it outlives him - reminding that some loves aren’t meant to be had, only felt, deeply. He’s been serving us the same emotion for decades - love that lingers, love that refuses to expire. And I’m all for it. In a world obsessed with the next best thing, he’s been reminding a generation that the truest kind of love is like leftovers - it may lose its heat, but never its heart. Maybe that’s why no one falls in love with me because what I’ve been holding onto all along is a little bit of reheated romance and a whole lot of Shah Rukh Khan. Kyuki agar aap Shah Rukh se pyaar nahi karte... toh mujhse kaise karoge?

3:30 am, 15th October. Of mornings, flags and becoming yellow. Mornings and I have never had a steady relationship. Some days we meet over eggs, coffee, a good read and sunlight; on others, I rush past them, hungry for something I can’t name. Making breakfast feels like a quiet act of love, the simplest way of saying, I still care enough to begin. But lately, I’ve been skipping it, and I can feel the distance grow between my body and my mind. Unable to make myself a toast, unable to finish writing a script - maybe the words are hiding behind clouds since the sun hasn’t been out fully (sure, as always, let’s blame it on the sun!). The page glares back, blank and accusing, and the morning hangs heavy above me. And yet it’s strange that I thrive on morning light, but feel unsettled by the brightness of artificial evenings, wrapped in celebration nowadays. Perhaps that’s my red flag - I flinch at too much brightness, at too much noise, at everything that tries too hard to be seen. Coming to red flags, the other day, in the middle of a conversation, someone said, “You deserve a green flag. Stop chasing the reds.” And I couldn’t bring myself to agree. It felt wrong to pin people down like that, to reduce them to colors, as if love could be labeled. But if at all, how do we forget about yellow like that? Yellow- the slow becoming, like the yolk breaking through an egg, morning rays spilling across a page- highlighting words that were waiting to be read, like two sunflowers bending toward each other in a field, leaning, growing, reaching for the same light. It’s the space where hearts can meet halfway, hesitate, stumble, and still choose each other without rules. That’s where connection blooms: honest, unguarded, and real. Also, it’s odd though, how the language of colors travels across contexts- how one part of the world debates red and green flags as metaphors for relationships, while in another, those same colours stand for identity, land, and life.

Enjoy your Diwali anthem song this season with Bajaj Almond drops! Brand: Bajaj Almond Drops Agency: Collective Artists Network Brand Team: Darshana Jhajharia @darshana_j Shweta Adatia Prashant Marut Music Team: Vedansh Shashvat Mishra @donvsm Executive Producer: Mariyam Gangardiwala @basically.drama Producers: Annwesha (Geeta) Guha @annaloged , Hariom Verma @lazyom Line Producer: Akil Ansari Creative Director and Director: Annwesha (Geeta) Guha @annaloged Chief Assistant Director: Chaitanya Jain @imchaitanyajain Director’s Assistant and 2nd AD: Shalin Sharma @shalinsharmaaa Third AD: Kashish Advani Direction of Photography: Om Patel @ompatel.dop 1st Assistant Camera: Gyanti Vijan @shotbygyan 2nd Assistant Camera: Alden Fernandes @thealdenfernandes Focus Puller: Nagendar Yadav @nagendr.yadav.927 Gaffer: Shiraz Production Designer: Aayushi Agarwal @aayushi2311 Art Assistant: Chahat @chahattttt_12 Costume Stylist: Rizilia @riziliakinny Associate Stylist: Harshada @hrsu.10 Dressman: Guddu Yadav and Team Choreographer: Dhanraj Panchal @imdhanraj Assistant choreographer: Pawan @paw__one Hair and Make Up: Karan Singh Artists Shalmali Kholgade @shalmiaow Shreyas Sagvekar @sagvekar.shreyas Composed and Produced by Tanishq Seth Mixed and Mastered at Fresh Lime Studios, Delhi Dancers: Lucky, Mrityunjay, Isha, Sakshi, Malti, Vihena, Samar Edit Supervisor: Annwesha (Geeta) Guha @annaloged Editor: Om Patel @ompatel.dop Graphic Designer: Yukta khedkar Colourist: Uday @colorkaar Special thanks for being our support system: Sam Pareek @sam_pareek Khanak @khanaknedo #Diwali #Diwali2025 #abhyangasnan #bajaj #diwalisong #festive #shalmalikholgade #shreyassagvekar

15th Sept’25. Excerpts from my essay, Alone with Autumn. I know Pujo is near when Maa sends a good morning message with me in a saree. She won’t say “I miss you,” but will ask, “Are you coming home for Pujo?”
This year too, I said no; caught between studios and a city where autumn doesn’t smell like shiuli. “At least visit one pandal,” she says.
After all these Bombay years, where no dhaak beats loud enough to echo past these high-rises, I still don’t know how to celebrate without feeling like a glitch in a string of festive lights. I am visible, almost part of the celebration, but always a beat behind the joy.
 Maybe someday, when this city learns my name, spells it without pause or stumble. I’ll walk into a pandal, not just to see the lights, but to let them see me too, even if I am like a glitch in their glow- a little off, a little out of rhythm. 
Maybe then, I’ll feel a little less lost.
A little more home.

19th Aug’25 Silent. Santa. Dates. At a house party not long ago, someone asked, “What’s your ideal date place in Bombay?” Years back, I would have fumbled because dating itself often felt like that: fumbling. Most people don’t think twice about where to meet, who to see, how much of themselves to reveal. But then, when was I ever most people? It’s not that I haven’t had places or people. There’s Café Irani in Mahim, where Ipsita and I have sat through multiple New Year’s dinners, unwrapping our dukh and dard over dhansak. There were places much like dates- fleeting, fond, leaving behind warmth without permanence. Pleasant encounters, yes, but none I could truly call mine. And maybe it’s also the Delhiite in me- slightly uptight, fiercely opinionated about food, about where the heart settles. Dating, too, often felt the same- tasting too many menus, yet never finding the one flavour that stayed. This time, though, without hesitation, I said Santa Maria. Tucked away in Bandra’s lanes, where talk often drifts on edamame and elitism, Santa Maria felt like meeting someone who asks for nothing but presence, who lets silence breathe without the burden of noise. It felt like wearing a chikankari kurta in the monsoon- delicate, unafraid with kolhapuris that don’t care if the rain stains them. Like kohl-lined eyes that wait, steady with hope, as Rahman’s music plays softly in the backdrop. I even asked if I could work there part-time, since I’d always wanted to try my hand at hospitality in a café or bar back when I was in Europe. Now, as its doors close on the 24th, Santa Maria feels like a brief, beautiful date- the kind that ends too soon, yet lingers like a song you can’t stop humming. And so I’ll wait for the signboard that says ‘Santa Maria Opening Soon’, the way I would wait for a message from a special someone that says, ‘See you at Santa Maria, soon.’

15th Aug’ 25 Postmarked freedom I was reading an article in The Statesman that said, “A simple envelope with a red and blue striped seal carried dreams, fears, and truths across the length and breadth of India. It was called a Registered Post.” My father’s journalism school acceptance came by telegram. My first birthday telegram was from him- he wasn’t there the day I was born. My first letter was to Dadai, my paternal grandfather. So many firsts, tucked between lines that smelled of ink, hope, and longing. Soon, I started writing to friends- about the green of leaves, the sparrow by my window, the ache of first love. In those letters, I emptied my pockets of feelings and sent them off, trusting the wind and the postman. Writing postcards loosened a knot inside me. It felt like freedom- at least, the kind you can fold and send. But what is freedom? A place? A pulse? A privilege? Can you ever truly hold it as a woman? Did the displaced of 1947 ever hold it in their hands? Sometimes I think freedom is a letter already written- truth inked, voice sealed- dropped into a post box. Out of your control, not yet arrived. You wait for the postmaster to open the iron door, knowing your words are no longer yours, yet haven’t reached where they belong. You live in that gap, between release and arrival, well, technically “free,” yet still contained. Perhaps this is the freedom many of us know: freedom breathing inside a locked box, waiting for someone else to decide when it will be delivered. Now, the lock will rust, the hinges give way, and the letters- creased, worn, unafraid- will spill into the streets like monsoon rain, carrying our voices wherever the wind dares. Much like freedom. I often think about what Asif Noorani sahab wrote for Dawn years ago, where he stood at the Radcliff Line at Wagah and watched the birds fly from one side to the other, for there existed no border in the sky. He watched the trees that grew from here to there, the single field, separated by barbed wire, the wind that blew from this side to that, the sun that set uniformly on both, and thought to himself what the nationality of the natural world was.

27th July 1996. Anniversary, Ache, Again. This morning over coffee (chaa for Maa), she said, “Twenty-nine years ago, just like today, a day before getting married, we were uncertain about so many things.” I asked, “Then why did you go ahead?” She smiled, “We had dreams. But one thing we knew for sure- we wanted a daughter, and to raise her our way.” That sip of coffee lingered, like something unsaid. My father was the first to call me a thinker. I was just a curious kid asking too many questions. He said it- not as praise, just as truth. Later, my sociology teacher said it. Then my feminism professor, mid-lecture, “You’re saying this because you’re a thinker.” I do think a lot- not always clearly or deeply, but constantly. It’s how I make sense of things. Some days, it aches; most days, I try. Thought is where I hide when the world is too loud. It’s strange how one word becomes part of who you are. Thinker became mine. When I first watched Fleabag, I didn’t expect one line to undo me. Her father says, “I think you know how to love better than any of us. That’s why you find it all so painful.” I paused the episode and just sat there. Because my mother’s been telling me that for years- in her own quiet way. She says I feel too much, give too much. That I carry love like it’s both a gift and a wound. That I notice what others miss, write messages I never send, hold space even when it breaks me. That line gave words to the ache I’ve always known: love that hurts because it runs deep. But maybe that ache makes us softer, more human and the courage to try again. And somewhere between all their stories, I realized- that was their dream for me. A daughter who thinks deeply, loves fiercely, and still chooses kindness. Am I there yet? Almost. Maybe not. But I’ll try again. “Khaali e banera shook da oye, aaunda nahi jawaab koyi, ohde aasamaana vichon, ajje teek meri hook da...” This song hasn’t left me since I first heard it. I play it every day- not just in my ears, but in my chest. I would’ve shared my parents’ song (if you know, you know). But this came from an almost. And almosts- they stay longer than the real thing. Oh, happy anniversary to mismatched match!🥃

2:30 am, Bombay. Dreams. Ex-es. Galleries. I just got off a call with my mom. Today she told me it’s been a while since I have sent her one of my ‘third-wheeling my friends’ pictures. I have this habit of sending her photos, even of the most random moments- a half-eaten sandwich, a quiet street, someone’s shoes by the door, little windows so she can feel near to a life she’s too far to hold. Anyway. So I scrolled back through our chat, through the photos of all the borrowed lives I’ve witnessed, and relived my friends’ ex-relationships. Moments when they were in love with someone they believed they could share their dreams with. One photo reminded a friend’s ex-girlfriend of saying, “I wish we could watch the sunset from in Dal Lake with your friend”, while we all watched the sunset slip through a tiny window of their rented room in Delhi. Another one reminded me, “I wish to have a ristorante in Rome one day with her,” while we sat in his parked car, sharing roadside pav bhaji that dripped onto our jeans. Some other photo whispered, “I just want to spend one Christmas with her in the hills, under the stars, sipping Spanish wine,” while we were drinking beer, sitting on the floor of my tiny apartment, the sky hidden behind the thick December smog. Stars, like so many other dreams, were out of reach. Another one reminded me of how a friend spoke of getting drunk and booking concert tickets in Japan. Dreams. I often find myself wondering what dreams truly are. Because from what I’ve seen in all these years of being alive, dreams always seem to live somewhere in the future- a place I’ve never learned how to belong to. And if I’ve never been one to live for tomorrows, I wonder, quietly, do I even have dreams at all? Let alone share them with someone? I didn’t realize how much of other people’s loves and dreams I’ve carried quietly in these pictures I send to my mom. Now that they are not together, what do I do with those pictures, with their dreams? (…Continued below)

1:30 am
Circa June’13, Delhi The fan was on speed 3. Monsoon air thickened with the scent of damp books and ageing paper. I stood at the door of his study, quiet. Paper cut-outs lay scattered across his table - newsprint curling like tired petals. His fingertips were smudged blue with ink. “What are you doing?” I asked. He didn’t look up. “Preserving the last few editions of The Statesman,” he said, “written by women.” “Why?” I asked, genuinely. He looked at me, and said, “So it doesn’t lose its human essence.” I didn’t understand. I was too young. Too Delhi. 
“Who teaches you that?” I asked. “The city,” he said simply. “Calcutta taught me.” He always talk about taking me back to every place that shaped him- the narrow lanes, the bookshops under tarpaulins, tram rides that rattled past time and politics. The city taught him that equality isn’t a modern idea. It’s an old, worn truth buried in every hand-written letter by a woman who loved too loudly, in every underlined line of a book passed from mother to daughter. That feminism doesn’t start in textbooks, it starts in margins. 1:30 pm June’ 25, Calcutta Before leaving your city, I walked it. Like you did. I watched the world from the window of an old tram, sat in the back row of Coffee House and listened to debates that smelled of cigarettes and change.