Do we all have two sides of us... are we all the same?? .. Or are we all very very different.. And the only similarity between us is just that.. The difference!!
Long back when I was young.... I knew a man who taught me how to whistle...curling my lips with a jaggy smile.. he used to hum tunes of old country songs while me on his shoulders.... across the roads of my old home we used to walk....miles after miles... feeling the cool breeze..one of my oldest friends...I used to call him my whistling Partner.
I don’t own a vehicle in this city of mine... and just like the old times my leisure turns out to be only walking..Miles after miles... yes sometimes.. When it’s a little cold... I call my “once in a blue moon” friend ... my brother... and go for a bike drive... I love that cold wind blowing over me.... between the strands of my hair... carelessly ... un- inhibited... there’s something about people who talk less... something magical... you happen to enjoy the moments more with them... than the distractions... Yes this bike ride I’m talking about is my feast ... A feast that lasts long!
I have always seen myself as two different people... the one that people know... and the one who I am.. n no this is not split personality... it’s just a defence mechanism to protect yourself from everything that’s alien to you... a kind of firewall... or the kind of forest fire...long back aborigines in Australia used to burn their boundaries... to create new boundaries for their existence ... and all those who wished to join them... those who were strangers and wished to be a part of them couldn’t get through without crossing that burning line... a line which burns a part of their soul and a part of everything that’s impure. That was faith. But we all have this burning line....
The line of fire which divides the two sides of us... which divides the fake and the real of us... the known and the unknown territory of our hidden hearts.. Where no matter how much u try.. You can’t step the other side without taking the heat of the burn.
......
It’s a story about 3 people.. Two guys and a girl.... Three friends, who happen to live in a city where traditions followed generations after generations.... yet they were not from the old school of thoughts... liberal yet a bit scared..Educated yet a bit insecure.. May be the time was so... or maybe they were so...
Late one 2nd of December 1970, the eldest of the guy desired to marry the girl... out in a shady road under the lights of a lamppost he proposed... he proposed a life to that girl. Her mind started racing... racing hard... for this was the time for her to cross that line of fire.... for she was human where love was concerned... she was human to know with whom she is suppose to hold hands with whom to leave. One was her best friend and the other an ideal she always dreamt to be with... and she was different to both of them.. Just like any of us... she was like a caged butterfly who kept on looking towards the flowers blooming out of those glass walls and waited for that one person to un-cage her.. So she could fly and behold the smell of those flowers.... To the other she was a fighter... like moth to flame... her hate and love both were of extremes... she could neither love him... nor hate him... he was her “no man’s land” ... where no matter how much she tried.. She couldn’t pretend... couldn’t react... he was her friend.. The best she ever had and could ever have...
That evening standing under the dim yellow light... she was being offered to get un-caged... to fly out of the glass bottle and blush in the hue of those flowers... the ones she adored always...her knight with a shining armour was right there .. Offering a world of happiness.... but he also knew he is asking her to cross the unforgiving line... where once if she steps this side.... That “No Man’s land” will be forbidden to her... that feeling of selflessness.. Uncontrolled emotion will be lost forever...he asked her to burn the part of her soul which belonged to someone else.
And she did. Amidst of a lonely street, beneath a halogen glow she said yes.... the forest was burnt... A part of her soul was lost... where nobody knew...
Three of them kept on meeting ... for getto’s .. Parties..Puja’s and for just casual coffee’s.. even after the two got married. And every time she sees him coming through the door of her lobby... those eyes seek that freedom in his eyes.... those eyes scream to open the door of that forbidden land which belonged to her... the lost friendship... the feeling where she could feel anything and nothing. But all that she found was a hollow man..With just nothing to offer anymore.
He became an inert piece of rock... who neither reacted.. Nor observed the loneliness in her eyes... the moment she crossed the line that one surreal evening.... he too did and chose to be the other side of him... the one everybody knew except her... the one that was inconsequential.... disturbed and alcoholic.... the one that no more lived... may be just breathed for survival.
30 years ..3 people... like three parts of a broken chain... which could never be fixed.... each an island in itself... closed...suffocated and inhibited....
An early dawn of the year 2009... One out of three passes out of time... alcohol takes the last breath of his lungs... an empty heart which simply breathed nothing.... with no one aside and no one to follow... no family...no neighbours.... he dies with an empty bottle and an open window facing a long stretch of land... with no boundaries.... barren and rough ... miles after miles.. he simply died.
After he was gone, the girl who was now more than 50 returned with a heart of 20 into the same house.. Where he spent all his life, which was now closed for nothing. Looking through the panes of a closed window facing the vast stretch of land...She opened the Chester that stood beneath the window sill and kept an envelope....An envelope dated one 2nd of December 1970.... An unacknowledged love letter written by an alcoholic to a girl.... who walked away.... far away... leaving him burning in the forest for 30 years.
.....
My skin gets cold and my feet’s start shivering and i have this feeling of flying.... slowly gliding over the lonely roads of my city... hovering over the closed doors of sleepy lovers... untold love stories and unresolved fights....that wind which tickles my skin kept on blowing.... closing my eyes... far from somewhere i hear a humming of “country roads take me home”....in a flash I remember his face... his ever dishevelled beard...his lonely alcoholic eyes...visiting our home often with a bottle of rum........ Who sat for hours sometimes talking ... sometimes listening...and sometimes simply gazing... watching me n my sisters play clay..... My dad’s old mate....
And my whistling partner ... my ever so dear whistling partner!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Blind Sight
"The feeling of love!
what is it? can you express it if you haven't experienced?"
...
Long time back someone asked me this question, and I said no. But the truth is you can.Its the only feeling you can express without feeling it yourself. You can define it, you can feel it for no reason and you can share it. And the strangest part is, it is beyond pain, sorrow, fun, anger any feeling that ever existed in your mind and that is because it can over come all of them at any age. Shelf them into a soft numbing cocoon, where you have the liberty to feel what you want to feel.
I had met him, cause he lived across my old home.Weird, intelligent and a bit intolerable and that is because we were two people very much alike.very different in capabilities yet similar in reactions. we never liked the same subjects, we never liked same people... but when hurt we were like sea turtles, hurdle down into our own warm space. We liked sports, he cricket, I football. We liked books, He non-fiction I fiction. We liked travelling, he on bikes and I on foot.You name it and you wont find a match. Sometimes when we were young we used to play together, as our friends used to be common. Never on the same team. With all, we used to fight like hell, never to support another. He was a scorer in maths, I was never. He liked chemical reactions, and i almost puked over it :).He hated poetry, I loved poetry. He was the quite one and I a riot.
Trust me,
If there had to be a tree, and i be the bloom, he would be the last leaf flying over the fall. Probably if you ask me, I would answer I know him better than myself :) and yet I have spoken to him only once in my life...
It was December 10th at a common friends birthday party. I was 16, he 17. I was sitting in porch and in middle of 40 people wishing birthday to one of our common friends. he came and sat in the seat next to me. I had a weird feeling... because though we knew everything about each other, we never wished to talk... we went on knowing about each other probably just cause we wanted to know why we hated each other so much... we were young the reason was beyond our understanding...and we kept on nudging ourselves.. stretching an extra arm to know.. whats thats so different in us and in nobody else. It was like that mad race.. where nobody is a winner.. but everybody ran just to know whats at the other end.. our mad race was a short one.. where he came to know whats at the end way before that December night than i ever did.
I gave him a hollow gaze with my mouth full of home baked cake... He waited... I started looking here and there.. finished my food.. drank water..spoke about a million things to a million people... He still waited.. Gave him an obnoxious look... ignored him royally but he still waited... I wonder if I loathed him so much why din I walk out... may be even that was an ego of "why should I go first" ... But he still waited....the party grew thinner and thinner... when it was time for all the girls to leave... I gave him a final look of "whats happening" ... and he said
"stop hating me for 5 minutes and answer me this...
why people like each other?"
I almost nauseated listening to this... I was bad as most of the times i used to be.. gave him a very dirty look.. stood up and said
"I dont know"
He stood up too, almost freezing in the December cold
"can you express it if you havent experienced?"
I was red hot with anger by listening to his guts.
.....
That was the last day I saw him, I learnt that he left for his college soon. I breathed a sigh.. but an uncomfortable one..I was ashamed of my behavior... I tried reasoning that his question was inappropriate at such a young age, that too to a girl next door... but at the core of my heart I knew, that he was different... different than all of us...
and he knew that I knew his difference!
After 7 years, and all that I fathom... I remember every single thing about him.. may be he was the only one I ever put any effort to know about... Today, I dont know where he is, what is he doing.. probably we wont even know each other even if we cross. But if someday he happens to read this.. he would know that it took me seven years to know whats at the end of the road, which he did that December night.
That surreal hate was because of the liking towards differences, That anger was to forget the underlying emotion..an emotion that maybe he liked me and I did not... and he knew that I did not. That soft numbing feeling, he could feel even at the age of 17 without experiencing any affection himself.
And of all the things I know about him... I know exactly how he would have felt the moment I walked out from there...Humiliated, lonely and broken ... broken not because of what i said... but maybe because he knew i missed a chance to grow up.. be tolerant to emotions.. be strong..way before than I can actually uncover myself.
....
"Il stop saying, if that would make u less sad" was the last thing he said when I rushed out of that party... I wish i could turn back and tell him... "only if you could know what made me sad"
what is it? can you express it if you haven't experienced?"
...
Long time back someone asked me this question, and I said no. But the truth is you can.Its the only feeling you can express without feeling it yourself. You can define it, you can feel it for no reason and you can share it. And the strangest part is, it is beyond pain, sorrow, fun, anger any feeling that ever existed in your mind and that is because it can over come all of them at any age. Shelf them into a soft numbing cocoon, where you have the liberty to feel what you want to feel.
I had met him, cause he lived across my old home.Weird, intelligent and a bit intolerable and that is because we were two people very much alike.very different in capabilities yet similar in reactions. we never liked the same subjects, we never liked same people... but when hurt we were like sea turtles, hurdle down into our own warm space. We liked sports, he cricket, I football. We liked books, He non-fiction I fiction. We liked travelling, he on bikes and I on foot.You name it and you wont find a match. Sometimes when we were young we used to play together, as our friends used to be common. Never on the same team. With all, we used to fight like hell, never to support another. He was a scorer in maths, I was never. He liked chemical reactions, and i almost puked over it :).He hated poetry, I loved poetry. He was the quite one and I a riot.
Trust me,
If there had to be a tree, and i be the bloom, he would be the last leaf flying over the fall. Probably if you ask me, I would answer I know him better than myself :) and yet I have spoken to him only once in my life...
It was December 10th at a common friends birthday party. I was 16, he 17. I was sitting in porch and in middle of 40 people wishing birthday to one of our common friends. he came and sat in the seat next to me. I had a weird feeling... because though we knew everything about each other, we never wished to talk... we went on knowing about each other probably just cause we wanted to know why we hated each other so much... we were young the reason was beyond our understanding...and we kept on nudging ourselves.. stretching an extra arm to know.. whats thats so different in us and in nobody else. It was like that mad race.. where nobody is a winner.. but everybody ran just to know whats at the other end.. our mad race was a short one.. where he came to know whats at the end way before that December night than i ever did.
I gave him a hollow gaze with my mouth full of home baked cake... He waited... I started looking here and there.. finished my food.. drank water..spoke about a million things to a million people... He still waited.. Gave him an obnoxious look... ignored him royally but he still waited... I wonder if I loathed him so much why din I walk out... may be even that was an ego of "why should I go first" ... But he still waited....the party grew thinner and thinner... when it was time for all the girls to leave... I gave him a final look of "whats happening" ... and he said
"stop hating me for 5 minutes and answer me this...
why people like each other?"
I almost nauseated listening to this... I was bad as most of the times i used to be.. gave him a very dirty look.. stood up and said
"I dont know"
He stood up too, almost freezing in the December cold
"can you express it if you havent experienced?"
I was red hot with anger by listening to his guts.
.....
That was the last day I saw him, I learnt that he left for his college soon. I breathed a sigh.. but an uncomfortable one..I was ashamed of my behavior... I tried reasoning that his question was inappropriate at such a young age, that too to a girl next door... but at the core of my heart I knew, that he was different... different than all of us...
and he knew that I knew his difference!
After 7 years, and all that I fathom... I remember every single thing about him.. may be he was the only one I ever put any effort to know about... Today, I dont know where he is, what is he doing.. probably we wont even know each other even if we cross. But if someday he happens to read this.. he would know that it took me seven years to know whats at the end of the road, which he did that December night.
That surreal hate was because of the liking towards differences, That anger was to forget the underlying emotion..an emotion that maybe he liked me and I did not... and he knew that I did not. That soft numbing feeling, he could feel even at the age of 17 without experiencing any affection himself.
And of all the things I know about him... I know exactly how he would have felt the moment I walked out from there...Humiliated, lonely and broken ... broken not because of what i said... but maybe because he knew i missed a chance to grow up.. be tolerant to emotions.. be strong..way before than I can actually uncover myself.
....
"Il stop saying, if that would make u less sad" was the last thing he said when I rushed out of that party... I wish i could turn back and tell him... "only if you could know what made me sad"
Monday, July 5, 2010
Lucifer
For those who have braved the odds and their fears.
"A godsent bird will take me home
up on its feathers...I glide
No tears to shed, on my fears that followed
Back home is wher Il fly.
A hollow cloud and thunder began
fearful heart...I sigh
A million strength will hold those feathers
A storm they braved all night
whimpering bones, a flaggering feet
so cold its body...I cried
I clenched,I feared,I shivered all long
I flew with my God...so high
A godsent bird will take me home
no fears no more...I shy
up on its feathers to a land so far
back home is wher Il fly."
"A godsent bird will take me home
up on its feathers...I glide
No tears to shed, on my fears that followed
Back home is wher Il fly.
A hollow cloud and thunder began
fearful heart...I sigh
A million strength will hold those feathers
A storm they braved all night
whimpering bones, a flaggering feet
so cold its body...I cried
I clenched,I feared,I shivered all long
I flew with my God...so high
A godsent bird will take me home
no fears no more...I shy
up on its feathers to a land so far
back home is wher Il fly."
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Heart.Beats
Dreams and aspirations go hand in hand...people say that your dreams turn into aspirations once you start working towards it...but i have a question what if our aspirations break fall...do we stop dreaming as well? does that illusion stop reminding you every day that you could have done it...or is it this way...dreams...turn into aspirations...if accomplished milestones...if not then regrets!!
i was never too much over the top lovey dovey person...i respect love..its emotions but being young i knew myself for good and never vent my emotions for the over top oogling feelings...frankly even today i dont understand them much...i comprehend them sometimes when i see people around me...listen to them...sometimes over phone...sometimes on a coffee shop...but there, right at the coffee table i leave those stories..may be im totally incapable of handling them after a certain point...
but does that stop me from dreaming my picture perfect..i know this topic is tricky and touchy...we being the general Indian women do not talk about our love lives or expected picture perfect life so openly...and the reason being we are a set of genetically diagram ed people who are to the core of their heart are conservative of their feelings...specially if the feeling is love bound.....For that matter i have never seen my mom being vocal about her care for my dad in front of us...I have never seen my friends mother controlling her extreme urge to cry while her husband was unwell...may be on that hospital bed she would have desired to hug him close to her right till he gets all well...but she sat composed and restricted...or for that matter neither have i could ever express my deep emotions towards anybody quite well..
I understand that writing these stuff in the age of "show love" and PDA's (Public Display of Affection)might be little unsuitable...but where as im concerned...to me a kiss and tell love story is just that .. first kiss..then tell and then forget that you did either of the two...Im neither against PDA's infact my whole intention of writing this piece of whatever is to question .. why Indian women restrict their mode of expression when it comes to serious love....mark my words "serious" and not the 'every friday' change ones..mind you more importantly we are talking about not so platonic love.
...
In a government hospital...the out patient door was jam packed...thats how it is on a usual day...thats the only place....where a rich, a poor and a beggar..all sit on the same bench waiting for the one pseudo God who can..or rather makes us believe he can fix our troubles...right across the bench is the general ward....I see a lady sitting across an empty bed and waiting...may be her patient went for some tests...my checkup was over and i was scheduled after next three days......and as i was due for some injections....i was being asked to show to the general ward nurse....
same time ...another day
and i went across the same bed....she, still sitting as if in waiting...after a lot of 'needle in me' melodrama....my check up went over and i ask my nurse...
"unko parso bhi dekha tha..roz aati hai kya?" (i saw her day before yesterday to..does she comes daily?)
she replied
"haan pichle 2 saal se aati hai.....uska pati admit tha....jisdin vo shant hua...us din se roz ati hai" (she is visiting since last 2 years...right from the day her husband died)
i dont know what made me inquisitive ..but i wanted to know why..she was an old parsi woman..very fair and probably belonged to a middle class family. I asked the chit chatty nurse more...and she told that the day her husband died she was not allowed to see his body leave apart come near...as she is doomed to carry bad omen.
A sudden feeling of sadness engulfed both of us...me n the nurse...may be even she was feeling the same what i was feeling...
A woman shares her extreme personal relations with just one man in her life..she might remarry..she might be with five different men but those intimate true feelings...is of such serious nature that she doesnt even trust her other members of family close enough to talk about him...if anything a word like dedication and sacrifice exists..possible a woman's love would be its apt meaning...but all this and more ..she is not allowed to even see him when he is in his death bed?
is it a dirty face of humanity or is it the boundaries we Indian women have defined for ourselves that those very boundaries of controlled emotions are now being slapped right on our faces as just a set of rules...
for a second i just shut my brain and i think of the person who is most special to me...and god forbid if that has to be his last day....when i know he would be no more to talk..to feel..to walk with...and im not allowed to even have a look...my needle prick suddenly pained harder and i opened my eyes...and i saw my nurse looking at the woman with moist eyes...
assuming her composure she looked at me and said...
"jitna bhi kisi ke liye jiyo..utna kam padta hai"
(no matter how much you live for a person ... its less)
my throat was heavy...and my head thronging inside. i came out of the ward....and while i was returning..the first thing that came into my mind was my mom dad's courtship pic....their wedding pics...my dad's pic holding me when i was a day old....my 5th birthday me sitting on my dad' lap n my mom feeding me cake...my first day at college....my placement day..my dad standing at the door at night 12 waiting for my return..and the day i joined my job and dad left me on the training school gates..
the rickshaw halted..i payed him i guess and i walked inside my apartment so blank that for a sec i forgot my flat number..right there standing in front of my door i suddenly realised what if im not there with the person i love most when he/she needs me most...mom dad sis anybody...my feet went cold...i have no idea why i thought about those moments...in most of them my mom n dad both were there....probably i stood froze for few more seconds before stumbling on to my keys for the door.
May be....i just realise how happily people dedicate their lives to one another....my birthday becomes our child's birthday....my room becomes our room...my sadness becomes our sadness ...my joy our joy...and my life transforms into our life....
and still after changing every single aspect of our life...we women fail to express our emotions for that one person.....in front of everybody...is it because people lack respect for a woman's desire and feelings....or is it because we have risen those feelings to such an extent that we dont feel the society...this world worthy enough to understand them the way we want..
The parsi lady might come and sit and keep on waiting till the end of her life.....cz the irony is ..... what she lost was her life...and what she is left with is also her life....neither can she take it or leave it.
.....
The truth is....we are a bunch of in-tolerant social animals...who lose respect very easily for others affection and love...for such a long time till today her emotions have been looked through a coloured glass of impure nature...her identity as a social individual who has her needs and desires is practically non-existent..
she is expected to work till late but she is not expected to say "i do" before the guy does...she is expected to bear children...but she is not expected to name them.....she is expected to take care of her soul mate ..till what remains is just the soul....but not expected to torch her husband's funeral pyre...
What is this?
and even after this realisation if my hesitation remains intact.....I just have one answer...purity of ones relationship cannot be judged by society....which constantly I and the plenty like me are trying to justify.
..an in-expression of ones desires...will not increase the quotient of purity by any measure....what will diminish is our expectations from the person who completes our picture perfect....or else we all will be some parsi woman...sitting on a bench...waiting for our finality.
....
Nothing.. absolutely nothing can dilute our dreams....just like a ray of light..it can neither be created nor destroyed....but can transformed..across ages...across lives...and across souls..emerging from the same source..
A beating Heart.
i was never too much over the top lovey dovey person...i respect love..its emotions but being young i knew myself for good and never vent my emotions for the over top oogling feelings...frankly even today i dont understand them much...i comprehend them sometimes when i see people around me...listen to them...sometimes over phone...sometimes on a coffee shop...but there, right at the coffee table i leave those stories..may be im totally incapable of handling them after a certain point...
but does that stop me from dreaming my picture perfect..i know this topic is tricky and touchy...we being the general Indian women do not talk about our love lives or expected picture perfect life so openly...and the reason being we are a set of genetically diagram ed people who are to the core of their heart are conservative of their feelings...specially if the feeling is love bound.....For that matter i have never seen my mom being vocal about her care for my dad in front of us...I have never seen my friends mother controlling her extreme urge to cry while her husband was unwell...may be on that hospital bed she would have desired to hug him close to her right till he gets all well...but she sat composed and restricted...or for that matter neither have i could ever express my deep emotions towards anybody quite well..
I understand that writing these stuff in the age of "show love" and PDA's (Public Display of Affection)might be little unsuitable...but where as im concerned...to me a kiss and tell love story is just that .. first kiss..then tell and then forget that you did either of the two...Im neither against PDA's infact my whole intention of writing this piece of whatever is to question .. why Indian women restrict their mode of expression when it comes to serious love....mark my words "serious" and not the 'every friday' change ones..mind you more importantly we are talking about not so platonic love.
...
In a government hospital...the out patient door was jam packed...thats how it is on a usual day...thats the only place....where a rich, a poor and a beggar..all sit on the same bench waiting for the one pseudo God who can..or rather makes us believe he can fix our troubles...right across the bench is the general ward....I see a lady sitting across an empty bed and waiting...may be her patient went for some tests...my checkup was over and i was scheduled after next three days......and as i was due for some injections....i was being asked to show to the general ward nurse....
same time ...another day
and i went across the same bed....she, still sitting as if in waiting...after a lot of 'needle in me' melodrama....my check up went over and i ask my nurse...
"unko parso bhi dekha tha..roz aati hai kya?" (i saw her day before yesterday to..does she comes daily?)
she replied
"haan pichle 2 saal se aati hai.....uska pati admit tha....jisdin vo shant hua...us din se roz ati hai" (she is visiting since last 2 years...right from the day her husband died)
i dont know what made me inquisitive ..but i wanted to know why..she was an old parsi woman..very fair and probably belonged to a middle class family. I asked the chit chatty nurse more...and she told that the day her husband died she was not allowed to see his body leave apart come near...as she is doomed to carry bad omen.
A sudden feeling of sadness engulfed both of us...me n the nurse...may be even she was feeling the same what i was feeling...
A woman shares her extreme personal relations with just one man in her life..she might remarry..she might be with five different men but those intimate true feelings...is of such serious nature that she doesnt even trust her other members of family close enough to talk about him...if anything a word like dedication and sacrifice exists..possible a woman's love would be its apt meaning...but all this and more ..she is not allowed to even see him when he is in his death bed?
is it a dirty face of humanity or is it the boundaries we Indian women have defined for ourselves that those very boundaries of controlled emotions are now being slapped right on our faces as just a set of rules...
for a second i just shut my brain and i think of the person who is most special to me...and god forbid if that has to be his last day....when i know he would be no more to talk..to feel..to walk with...and im not allowed to even have a look...my needle prick suddenly pained harder and i opened my eyes...and i saw my nurse looking at the woman with moist eyes...
assuming her composure she looked at me and said...
"jitna bhi kisi ke liye jiyo..utna kam padta hai"
(no matter how much you live for a person ... its less)
my throat was heavy...and my head thronging inside. i came out of the ward....and while i was returning..the first thing that came into my mind was my mom dad's courtship pic....their wedding pics...my dad's pic holding me when i was a day old....my 5th birthday me sitting on my dad' lap n my mom feeding me cake...my first day at college....my placement day..my dad standing at the door at night 12 waiting for my return..and the day i joined my job and dad left me on the training school gates..
the rickshaw halted..i payed him i guess and i walked inside my apartment so blank that for a sec i forgot my flat number..right there standing in front of my door i suddenly realised what if im not there with the person i love most when he/she needs me most...mom dad sis anybody...my feet went cold...i have no idea why i thought about those moments...in most of them my mom n dad both were there....probably i stood froze for few more seconds before stumbling on to my keys for the door.
May be....i just realise how happily people dedicate their lives to one another....my birthday becomes our child's birthday....my room becomes our room...my sadness becomes our sadness ...my joy our joy...and my life transforms into our life....
and still after changing every single aspect of our life...we women fail to express our emotions for that one person.....in front of everybody...is it because people lack respect for a woman's desire and feelings....or is it because we have risen those feelings to such an extent that we dont feel the society...this world worthy enough to understand them the way we want..
The parsi lady might come and sit and keep on waiting till the end of her life.....cz the irony is ..... what she lost was her life...and what she is left with is also her life....neither can she take it or leave it.
.....
The truth is....we are a bunch of in-tolerant social animals...who lose respect very easily for others affection and love...for such a long time till today her emotions have been looked through a coloured glass of impure nature...her identity as a social individual who has her needs and desires is practically non-existent..
she is expected to work till late but she is not expected to say "i do" before the guy does...she is expected to bear children...but she is not expected to name them.....she is expected to take care of her soul mate ..till what remains is just the soul....but not expected to torch her husband's funeral pyre...
What is this?
and even after this realisation if my hesitation remains intact.....I just have one answer...purity of ones relationship cannot be judged by society....which constantly I and the plenty like me are trying to justify.
..an in-expression of ones desires...will not increase the quotient of purity by any measure....what will diminish is our expectations from the person who completes our picture perfect....or else we all will be some parsi woman...sitting on a bench...waiting for our finality.
....
Nothing.. absolutely nothing can dilute our dreams....just like a ray of light..it can neither be created nor destroyed....but can transformed..across ages...across lives...and across souls..emerging from the same source..
A beating Heart.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Free Falling....
....
This blog is for all those...who know not how to return emotions as they have
received....who are confused to show affection...for whom love has just one definition in one life..and that means to just "one person"...."their person" or as referred in this blog "your person"..for those who would probably be themselves to that one mortal...and can keep on being a second of themselves to the whole world.....Not by choice ...but by the way they are born....
Its difficult to know somebody so much to realise this abstract nature of them..and In my life I have known not many but three people of being this way..two men who by the fortune of their souls are this way...One being my father...and the other i cannot name....a third being in making is me....this piece of text might not be so comprehensible...but to those who find a part of themselves in these...happy to know...that we are not alone...as again fortunate or not ..I dont know...but to those this world refers as heartless...this blog is just an analogy of their restless mind...curious yet ignorant...an island of their own.........
....
***
"Underwater swimming..chill on ur spine and tickle on ur toes .. a wrinkled deep blue sky as if few hazy stars on blue blue satin...and as you rise up slowly and calmly..swimming towards the surface..bubbles gushing around you...half out of breath...adrenalines' high and you see the sky getting bluer than blue and each hazy star shining brighter than bright....u jump out of water..with no beats in heart...breath a new life... and touch the sky.. !!"
***
Have you ever got that sinking feeling?...or more to be the free falling feeling..a feeling which you can’t explain...something which you have been feeling often but yet quite unnerved by its existence...you might be travelling to some place...you stop at your destination and you suddenly look back..finding no reason to be there.....someplace of ritual...some wedding...lots of people and you find yourself lost....or simply waiting for someone and for a fraction of second the excitement to meet that someone for the first time elevates your heart beat and yet again you find no reason...
I might not know anything about how it feels to be on top of the world....but i have
certainly been closer to realise a feeling called free falling.....it happens on days when everything around you falls flat and also when you hold an infant crying for the first time...just into life...it happens when for no reason you be a bully...and also when you have just too much love to receive and hardly to share...
***
"Bike racing...you don’t see the lights ahead...you just see their glow...you don’t see the cause after breaking every bone into a miniscule of grain if that low flying happens to crash land...its just that pumping blood faster than the speedometer of the metal on wheels..and the madness...the madness to win the race..the madness to cross that red line and tell yourself...yes i conquered...what? not known!...and as the brightness of the light reduces and wind feels lighter n lighter...you know the feeling of speed biking...probably a ray of light escaping the darkness of entrapment....and reaching for that peak of all that’s green in you...just to find freedom at the other side of the red!"
***
That day i ran as far as i could...i did not read my personal trainer how much it read...i did not count kilometres....i kept on running...and a little more i would have been out of my city...i know it sounds funny but not when uv been the doer!!...
As you move out of your first world, by which i mean your close family..best
friends..nanny..granpa..that circle of old school chums......you step into an another world...a lot different and least to be similar... where you would meet a pauper..a beggar..few rich men...plenty of living ghosts and a handful of humans...and you would realise that out of all these people the only ever mattered to you were the handful of humans....they may be your mentor...your professor at college...your colleague at work...or a single working woman living next door...you might have been just a blob of clay when you would have met them but slowly as you start living each day.. each moment under their spell...they help you take your shape ..like a potter shapes the finest china...they carve you with patience and assertion into a mould unique in this world......and probably one day they change you to that perfect person you have always wanted to be...
you have always known that you have nothing to give them back....you strive hard thinking that perfect gift for them..that perfect moment to say thanks...that perfect request to gather for dinner .... that priceless smile to make them feel at the top of the world....and one fine morning you gather all that you have in yourself...all of that emotion or feeling to return what you have received..you knock at their door just to know they have managed to vanish away without letting you feel the pain....that professor at college has walked away unknown...that woman next door must be walking for some walk-in’s somewhere...or that colleague at work might now be the mentor to someone else...
True that we meet many and keep few...true that distance between two people is never by choice but by destiny and also true that Its a deep cut inside when you know that you have lots of love to receive and none to give at all...not because you don’t want to...not because that quotient of emotion is non-existent in u...but only because love, care, affection...name it anything...but the feeling of oneness in you can only be shown to that one person....'your person'.
***
"you wake up from a deep sleep...and you see your mom sitting at the porch cutting
vegetables...watching you wake up she comes to you....embraces you into comfort....strokes those few strands of hair standing on your head...and whispers a good morning....that softness...that fragrance of the after bath talcum and that warmth .....you feel..the world stopping..if only this moment could have been with me forever.....every boy into a man...and every girl into a woman...knows the smell of her saree....moms saree from that fraction of affection.....a trans unbelievable and irrevocable"
***
No matter how much one has shared the world with you...that feeling to feel can be shared with one........the cut grows deeper...and pulls you into a melancholy to feel nothing....it takes you the highest high and drops you.....free falling...all the way down...down n down....no emotions no hurt....you keep on falling into an abysmal ditch of human mess...where you meet plenty of heartless and plenty of good-men...you fall hurtling down like crazy..you run for hours and gasp for breath like anything...still you keep falling...you dance in high....you work like a zombie...you study for hours...not knowing why.....but still you hurdle down.....not knowing how bad the fall will be.....
That underwater swim....that highway bike race at 70 miles per hour...mothers warmth and that breathless running for miles together....are few that takes you to your lowest low and the highest high..the ever you can get....and leaves you......free falling
somewhere deep into your soul you know that this free falling has a fair side....it gives 'your person' a chance...to catch you before you hit the end....one miss and your gone..it lets him/her...pull you away from this endless confusion of not knowing to give back...of not knowing the hurt and the sad...of the madness of no returns...just to let you know...that yes you too have a person to return....
***
You too have the power to love!
***
This blog is for all those...who know not how to return emotions as they have
received....who are confused to show affection...for whom love has just one definition in one life..and that means to just "one person"...."their person" or as referred in this blog "your person"..for those who would probably be themselves to that one mortal...and can keep on being a second of themselves to the whole world.....Not by choice ...but by the way they are born....
Its difficult to know somebody so much to realise this abstract nature of them..and In my life I have known not many but three people of being this way..two men who by the fortune of their souls are this way...One being my father...and the other i cannot name....a third being in making is me....this piece of text might not be so comprehensible...but to those who find a part of themselves in these...happy to know...that we are not alone...as again fortunate or not ..I dont know...but to those this world refers as heartless...this blog is just an analogy of their restless mind...curious yet ignorant...an island of their own.........
....
***
"Underwater swimming..chill on ur spine and tickle on ur toes .. a wrinkled deep blue sky as if few hazy stars on blue blue satin...and as you rise up slowly and calmly..swimming towards the surface..bubbles gushing around you...half out of breath...adrenalines' high and you see the sky getting bluer than blue and each hazy star shining brighter than bright....u jump out of water..with no beats in heart...breath a new life... and touch the sky.. !!"
***
Have you ever got that sinking feeling?...or more to be the free falling feeling..a feeling which you can’t explain...something which you have been feeling often but yet quite unnerved by its existence...you might be travelling to some place...you stop at your destination and you suddenly look back..finding no reason to be there.....someplace of ritual...some wedding...lots of people and you find yourself lost....or simply waiting for someone and for a fraction of second the excitement to meet that someone for the first time elevates your heart beat and yet again you find no reason...
I might not know anything about how it feels to be on top of the world....but i have
certainly been closer to realise a feeling called free falling.....it happens on days when everything around you falls flat and also when you hold an infant crying for the first time...just into life...it happens when for no reason you be a bully...and also when you have just too much love to receive and hardly to share...
***
"Bike racing...you don’t see the lights ahead...you just see their glow...you don’t see the cause after breaking every bone into a miniscule of grain if that low flying happens to crash land...its just that pumping blood faster than the speedometer of the metal on wheels..and the madness...the madness to win the race..the madness to cross that red line and tell yourself...yes i conquered...what? not known!...and as the brightness of the light reduces and wind feels lighter n lighter...you know the feeling of speed biking...probably a ray of light escaping the darkness of entrapment....and reaching for that peak of all that’s green in you...just to find freedom at the other side of the red!"
***
That day i ran as far as i could...i did not read my personal trainer how much it read...i did not count kilometres....i kept on running...and a little more i would have been out of my city...i know it sounds funny but not when uv been the doer!!...
As you move out of your first world, by which i mean your close family..best
friends..nanny..granpa..that circle of old school chums......you step into an another world...a lot different and least to be similar... where you would meet a pauper..a beggar..few rich men...plenty of living ghosts and a handful of humans...and you would realise that out of all these people the only ever mattered to you were the handful of humans....they may be your mentor...your professor at college...your colleague at work...or a single working woman living next door...you might have been just a blob of clay when you would have met them but slowly as you start living each day.. each moment under their spell...they help you take your shape ..like a potter shapes the finest china...they carve you with patience and assertion into a mould unique in this world......and probably one day they change you to that perfect person you have always wanted to be...
you have always known that you have nothing to give them back....you strive hard thinking that perfect gift for them..that perfect moment to say thanks...that perfect request to gather for dinner .... that priceless smile to make them feel at the top of the world....and one fine morning you gather all that you have in yourself...all of that emotion or feeling to return what you have received..you knock at their door just to know they have managed to vanish away without letting you feel the pain....that professor at college has walked away unknown...that woman next door must be walking for some walk-in’s somewhere...or that colleague at work might now be the mentor to someone else...
True that we meet many and keep few...true that distance between two people is never by choice but by destiny and also true that Its a deep cut inside when you know that you have lots of love to receive and none to give at all...not because you don’t want to...not because that quotient of emotion is non-existent in u...but only because love, care, affection...name it anything...but the feeling of oneness in you can only be shown to that one person....'your person'.
***
"you wake up from a deep sleep...and you see your mom sitting at the porch cutting
vegetables...watching you wake up she comes to you....embraces you into comfort....strokes those few strands of hair standing on your head...and whispers a good morning....that softness...that fragrance of the after bath talcum and that warmth .....you feel..the world stopping..if only this moment could have been with me forever.....every boy into a man...and every girl into a woman...knows the smell of her saree....moms saree from that fraction of affection.....a trans unbelievable and irrevocable"
***
No matter how much one has shared the world with you...that feeling to feel can be shared with one........the cut grows deeper...and pulls you into a melancholy to feel nothing....it takes you the highest high and drops you.....free falling...all the way down...down n down....no emotions no hurt....you keep on falling into an abysmal ditch of human mess...where you meet plenty of heartless and plenty of good-men...you fall hurtling down like crazy..you run for hours and gasp for breath like anything...still you keep falling...you dance in high....you work like a zombie...you study for hours...not knowing why.....but still you hurdle down.....not knowing how bad the fall will be.....
That underwater swim....that highway bike race at 70 miles per hour...mothers warmth and that breathless running for miles together....are few that takes you to your lowest low and the highest high..the ever you can get....and leaves you......free falling
somewhere deep into your soul you know that this free falling has a fair side....it gives 'your person' a chance...to catch you before you hit the end....one miss and your gone..it lets him/her...pull you away from this endless confusion of not knowing to give back...of not knowing the hurt and the sad...of the madness of no returns...just to let you know...that yes you too have a person to return....
***
You too have the power to love!
***
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Straight From the Heart!
This is a story about a girl named "lonely".. who has a hand full of friends and wishes to make her feel better...and this piece of story is about her life for fourteen months...the best and the worst she had..."
She daily walks through a construction site near her flat...a cute chubby boy keeps the bricks in place..one by one.......one day she askes his mom
"School jata hai ye?" (he goes to school??)
"Raghav is a small boy..didi he cant read much, im trying to send him to school. but i dont think he will be able to make it. didi aap padha doge kya...aap hi ki tarah ek din jayega office"
***************
Its one year and two months that she has been staying out of home, and possible that there are innumerable memories that she lived which she hasnt for past many many years...she was corky and lonely for joining ahmedabad as her training centre, not knowing who will she meet..how will everything be....this is how it goes...
***************
It wasnt a cake walk...we were drilled to the maximum we can...there were night outs not for fun but for studies..there were movies till 11 pm and studies from 11:05. There were fights, there were hatred...there were commotions to win over others and also there were tears...both for loss and gain.There were love affairs...and we had enemies for ever.....We cried, being desperate to pass our exams to save that so called "face" of ours from being thrown out..we laughed unstoppable at the corner juice shop 'cool point' so that we dont taste the salt in our tears....we worried for if one fell sick ... no one to take care and still we danced on hi-fi with desi hindi music at night 3 p.m.....we ate a piece of bread and half cup milk...we lived 75 hours on liquids for studies to kill...we listened to Rehman in Tamil.....we fainted not knowing what went wrong ..and we smiled to see others make it through the border line...we jived with every possible thing which can be called as party... we cried while we were leaving all this and shooting back to the world we came from...unbelievable but true...such is the story when u join ur first job in high money meltdown..such is the fear when u have hardly a thing to gain and a lot to lose...and such is the emotion when you make two such friends who dont know your language but still love you for what you are....
26th March...Last day at training...
"Lonely: hey where are you guys?? remember our last coffee??
P and L: yeah yeah we do, now u go wait into that ccd..we will be right there!!"
After 10 minutes
"lonely" waiting at the coffee shop and see's a big poster size red greeting card walking towards her
Lonely: hey card for what?
L:we are celebrating our friends birthday today.
and as i open I see two people who i have met 2 months back celebrating my birthday in march which actually comes on July...just because we might never get to celebrate it again together!!
...And we went far away from each other...no more words...no more commotions...the story of "lonely" "P" and "L" was over..
..
Just like a wave being thrown out on the beach to find its way back to the sea..my posting was something similar. Mumbai...sounds big....noises Big and is Big. BEST, Locals, Rikshaws...you name it and suddenly all seems unfimiliar..all seems strange...stranger than fiction and wonder what one said
"the more you hope, the more it is hopeless"
My first day, and i see a blank air all around me...I came from a land where people hated each other but knew never to leave one alone and i was standing where people hardly knew each other and knew nothing but to leave alone...work..assignments...comparisons..constant judgement...jealousy...envy... you name it and we had it...I say we for like me there were many from my so called training camp in the same rigmaroll...I wonder those who have a cordial welcome....as we didnot even have a casual one....even before being physically present you turn into a virtual competition...such is what they say as Job....beat the bush...run for the mill...make the kill...or in no minute you will be the kill...then again such is the irony for proving oneself umpteenth time when you enter into the meltdown puddle....its hard to relate...but truth is not so easy to wind....
And then one day I see a funny little guy standing in front of my cubicle with a face being a question mark..
Funny: you dont need to stay so late....go have fun !!
and a funnier chuckle....First words of care...first hand for friendship....and havent you heard "a havoc in action" :)
just another friend...from another land..talking another language..
We laughed...we roamed around mumbai like junkies at free...coffee shops..pizzas..bandra worli sea link....chai n mumbai rain...few of the bests that i ever had into the land of no mercy.... this funny guy who came long way from a funnier looking land way down south of coconut trees and back waters knew that being alone is not so easy at it looks...needless to say Rehman's Tamil songs were changed into Mallu lingo with Mallu food..in a few days a beautiful pent house was converted to my home and every night as the forest in front of my house used to sleep...i used to close my eyes and thank for the pinch of joys i had..
For a funky... dorky room mate who used to work 20 hours in action and cook awesome masala curry..For a paradise house...where clouds used to whisper in my ears...For "A" one of my training chums who could make me wet like hell in rain and offer a mug full of coffee...and For that funny looking friend...and letting him make this world a better place..and for the few scatterd around the country like "P" n "L" who would somewhere someplace just think of me and say...yes we had a nutty Bong friend!!
But happiness is limited...We laughed for watching funny movies...and cried for people talking filth about us...we shared the hottest coffee and fought for the toughest misunderstanding...we prayed for peace.. and we longed for joy.....and in this push and pull...we became the best of friends we can....The story of that funny guy n me shallowed when another big splash came with yet another change in city....
Once again as i could find my way out of the mess...i could find myself in a lesser crowded ..placid city of schools...where there were no more locals to run cross country at night 12...where there were no more leopolds where "A" can take me drenching in the rain...where there were no more beach sides..where i can sit for endless hours with a quite friend..n where there were no more people helping u to cross the road....My difficult pretty city 'Mumbai' was left somewhere behind..leaving me in this townish city they call Pune....
New office...new places....new stations..new house....change of houses....no place to sleep at night....empty rooms....hollow heart....no friends....no coffee's ..... everything that was over revisited all over again... and bet anybody knows better than me the meaning of deja vu.... but life has its own way to make you realise the better part of living...
I changed rooms faster than a bus changes oil....and i made friends faster than a fly passes by...once again the jig started....morning bus...daily shift.... return bus...coffee with new found friends..get togethers....dinner parties....shopping...movies....roaming the whole world around up on a bike.....walking...walking long roads with funny and others....washing....cooking.....fishing.....and then again sitting on a park bench with a "stranger" experiencing the world over and no words to say....
My sleepy child within...suddenly grew up aeons at a stretch....not knowing how did she become one...which she never wanted to be.....in this city of maps and arrows how could she manage to get lost...and dont they say ... "reality is stranger than fiction"
...
And so the "lonely" to ahmedabad was with bag full of people....some who love her...many who hate....with hindi bengoli english and tamil songs on her cell fone...she often walks ..... long walks ..when she returns from office....trying to find out the meaning of last fourteen months...was it the drill and joy where she found "P" and "L" the best of friends one could get.or was it the mumbai rains where she met like "funny" and "A" ..or was it the park bench where she sat with "stranger" and not talking a single word...or is it her cuisine which ranges from andhra mess...to appam to bong fish to vada pao to sindhi kadi.......or is it those half torn photographs in her wallet..of her mom. dad n sister...who she left somewhere behind....fourteen months back.....
And suddenly her phone buzzez to number reading "home"...the same one..from which she has been receieving a call sharp at ten at night ... no matter which place..which room...which club....which rain...and which city she was......that number called just to ask.....
"everything is fine?...are you happy?"
And she knew "The reason for last fourteen months"..... its the chase..... living each moment...experiencing faith distrust love hatered agony pain sorrow joy..everything...just everything on earth....and at the end knowing..that at some far land there is a home....her home....where she can go back even when this chaos around her is messier than ever...her peace...her faith...is intact where she left and is safe gaurded...till she finds her new home.....where she can find the same peace for the rest of her life.....that phone call is just to remind her that she has still miles to go....and so till she finds it ... it is the chase to find...her Home far from Home.....A chase worth a lifetime!
************************************
Raghav and her mom stood in expectation.....for "lonely's" reply...and a mild rain started pouring
"didi, paise nahi denge...chalega kya??"
"chalega.....kal se shuru karte hai Raghav"
..
Another one up for chase!
..
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