Oracle

Long Time..

2011-07-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

"What day is it? And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive
I can't keep up and I can't back down
I've been losing so much time

'Cause it's you and me and all of the people with nothing to do
Nothing to lose
And it's you and me and all other people
And I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you

- Life house (You & Me)"

“This song, reminded a part of my life… and I am sure we all have shared plenty of such in ours. Sometimes music… novel or just a walk reminds you of an eternity… My pick… read it as you listen to the song : )“

Long back somebody told me over a phone call that he would want to meet me on a railway station. I thought that was crazy… Who would want to meet someone at a crazy railway platform where all probably you see are busy people running off and that too after 6 years!

But I did go, I went to meet him after so many years, after all my agitations and heartburn were at rest ... I went and sat in the bustling platform no 3 of a busy metro station and I waited... I waited

Long time…

----------

I waited to see a mom fidgeting her palms, sitting over a luggage for two and with every passing minute checking her wrist watch... Checking if the moments are passing by…

I waited to see two kids, holding hands and waiting alone at the far end of the platform with a pair of hollow eyes… watching every old man.. Shrugging at passers by offering them chocolates…

I waited to see, a girl of 30 wearing a deep neck thin blouse with dark red lipstick, checking out a pocket mirror and petite she sat cross with her trousered legs… and I wondered how easily all those walking around would label anything flamboyant with sleaze when I saw how men watched her…. Her anxious eyes were roaming with a bubbly with all the men who walked across with sky bags… some smiled … some winked…

I waited… to watch an old guy with his walking stick…almost leaning over the pillar and smoking a Marlboro… the chai wala behind ran up to offer him a tea… and with a bunch of newsletters under his arm… I saw the void in his search… a search for a life time….

I waited … to see “waiting” in all of them….

And then came a swoosh of cold December wind, a train from north came to a halt…
A split seconds that doors opened…

I could see a boy of 20 jumping off in his officer’s suit and crashing to hug his mom… closing a mothers wait... Thunder her heart beat… peace he sooths

And I see a man of 40 with lots of small packets de-boarding with a doll in his hand and worriedly gazing at anything running across… a sudden thud and two kids leaping all over him…. Tears in their eyes… tears in his eyes….

Far distance, a man in formals with a sky bag… watching a beautiful lady in red… waiting for him… thinking “does waiting enhances beauty?”... And as their eyes crossed.. That red lipstick… blushed her face with a hue of charm… and she just stood… watching him walk to her… turning every second into an eternity….

I see, an old lady with shivering legs, helping herself in a wheel chair… and just as she trips off… a man of 70 with a bunch of news papers and a smoke … Holds her hand and shares a smile…. A smile for an endless mile : )

--------

Probably… I waited … to feel the end of waiting,

And I knew why he wanted me to meet him on a railway station for the first time after so long…
After all what else could be a better place to believe in that tiny little space between meeting and departing…
my eyes filled with tears for knowing that he is still the same… who would have a reason for everything in life…. Those of the thinking sorts….

I just stood up and turned back …
to see him watching me and I smiled… could hardly say…

“Long time”

From Another World....

2010-10-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

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!

Blind Sight

2010-09-17T14:43:00.001-07:00

"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"

Lucifer

2010-07-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

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."

Heart.Beats

2010-05-29T10:43:00.001-07:00

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.

Free Falling....

2010-04-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

....
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!

***

Straight From the Heart!

2010-03-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

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!

The Lover in me....

2009-06-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

“I wonder how at peace I am in a forest...with mist all over my jacket…huge trees who let me just walk…walk miles after miles…no questions no bondages…”

My living room faces the only forest in the city...often I have pulled up a chair on to my balcony watching those thunderous clouds calmly cover it with a blanket of dew drops....no aggression...no fidget. Just pure love and I call it love as I associate emotions to everything that’s beyond my understanding. And nothing so beautiful as a cloud pouring over a forest can define love. Unconditional love!
Nature is our elixir to living.. we have all read it some place…some where but today as I sit, open arms embracing it in me I know why it is said so…
I usually walk back home from my office...not tired but neither upbeat...and I feel this cool breeze flowing all over me…the same I feel when Its night 2 and the forest wind wishes to blow...it has a magic to soothe you…those who haven’t lived near a forest will never know the feeling of flying…slowly and calmly…

I was morbid that day…walking back home wasn’t that great either as I was preoccupied with my ever restless mind, asusual... I slammed the door as I entered…and I wonder how “coming back home to someone” seems entirely out of place when u start living alone…sometimes you are happy to find the solace of living out of the human mess that runs around you day in and day out. My living room has glass walls. So when it rains we pull those glass walls over and let the coolness come in, that day I just lay still.. lying on the floor of my drawing cum balcony, drops of rain wetting me mildly… and I lay still…
I closed my eyes and like a movie reel everything ever happy to me flashed around me .

I saw me along with my two other girl friends playing football in the middle of the night with mud all over us...I saw my mom brewing coffee and me getting wet endlessly in my garden. I see swooshing all over the city up on a racer bike with my best buddy on the wheels…I see my dad painting intensely a snowfall in Russia…I see driving…driving farther and farther alone in an empty road when its 5 in the morning.
I see standing alone in a white sand beach with a boat sailing far east…I see walking and talking the world over with my sister…I see looking into the eyes of serendipity standing in the fields of my college…I see love holding a hand in pain…I see hope in a drop of tear for the unsaid affection…I see two mad friends bike racing….I see floating in the pool with night being bluest of blue and stars shining all over me….I see running … running behind a bus madly to follow it….I see anger for not forgetting the loss…I see passion to find Cassiopeia, the cluster of stars….I see faith in losing loved ones…I see me dancing in the high in trance…I see friendship beyond boundations…

And then I see me standing at the end of a road, my dad at the other end urging me to walk towards him…when I was less than three …. The earliest memory I ever had and the happiest I’ll ever have.
I open my eyes…

And I see nothing…no hope...no love...no fantasy...no fear…..

How beautifully my life has come to a fraction still…to a stillness that has no answer even to an anguish as deep as losing heart beats…to a stillness which is as black as a forest in the night. And how I wonder nature is elixir to us…

I know loneliness is surreal…it’s difficult to define. But it exists in love and hate…it co-exists till our existence diminishes into the sands of time. and there’s just one reason for it to survive within us to let us know what we are worth of…to let us know why we would still get up and walk back home every single night just to ‘hope’ that tomorrow we might live just another moment which we will never forget for the rest of our lives…which we would see when we close our eyes …no inhibitions…no regrets!

“And when I reach at the end of the forest, looking at the joy of following trees after trees...just like kids...counting berries and feeling the wing beneath my feet I know my walk Is done and I know that the walk was worth to remember all my life…”

Ideology of an Im-perfectionist!!

2008-12-06T02:43:00.000-08:00

This was long due, as in I had the idea long back…right the day I decided to leave my first job within fifteen days of my joining :) and certainly I’m sure there’s nothing to boast about….

This is just a point of view or to be more just my perception….and on no account I believe that people would agree, accept and relate to me… as I said… it’s just an Idea and that’s it!

…….

My previous employer was an extremely generous man… he gave me a trial ground to try everything unconventional and happening…be it a sauna bath in the middle of the night or slogging 12 hours at a stretch and the wonderful part was that he even paid me for all my hits and misses, so this isn’t an obituary to his HR policies and neither a back bighting trick on his “hard core” “grueling” “unjust” training schedules (by the way these adjectives aren’t mine…these are a gift from my colleague of what she thought). So as I go about I would certainly draw instances from my short stint at his “training camp” but this piece of writing is strictly not about him.

I was looking at the tall oxford replica library which is constructed for all the trainees to sit and study when I first thought about how the first civil engineer would have thought of something like this magnificent……oh sure that this one was a copy cat but then what about the one who did build it at the first place…. I mean something would have struck him right, an inspiration to motivate him…long Gothic style towers and rims of glasses to beautify it, and then suddenly….. The very next second another thought struck me

“Why the whole thing doesn’t just crumble down to nothing” …

well I did not want to get inside and study so obviously this thing came up to me… but this is just a small instant of my reaction to tough things….or u can say an im-perfectionists reaction to anything that’s “not her kind”

I am not a sadist and I am not a pessimist but trust me this is how an im-perfectionist thinks every Sunday night when he knows he will have to get up the very next day and slog…this is usually his reaction when his day goes bad and suddenly everything becomes irritating and disgusting…this is how he believes that the world is made off….mostly of dislikes dotted with few likings.

But my point is who merits over whom? Is an im-perfectionist better than a perfectionist or vice versa? Drawing parallel thoughts about each I have a strong belief that a person is not satisfied because he or she thinks that he hasn’t yet achieved what he deserves. And contrary to this theory a perfectionist though after lots and lots of strikes comes to it that yes he has achieved to his optimum. One perfectionist might have thought about how to start a business with information technology but it’s the im-perfectionist like me who is helping it to run day after day. May be he is not satisfied, may be he is a timid creature and maybe he is just not the kind to think something big but whosoever has the capability to think big can only make it big when the im-perfectionist comes to help.

I may sound communist but this isn’t a communist approach… neither am I boasting of my thinking, all I am saying is when the perfectionist stops at a halt it’s the im-perfectionist who keeps the wheel turning in hope that someday he will reach where he wishes too.

I was reading to Richard DeVos and he was talking of some difference between stubbornness and perseverance, well I think it is equally applicable to those who believe in perfection and are incapable of the flexibility that the either has. He is dissatisfied till he achieves his goal…Good… but the unfortunate thing is he sets goal that are achievable.

On the other hand an Im-perfectionist has his goals too…they are just too far to achieve and this pulls him farther and farther and farther of his capabilities.

I had looked up to so many of them who are perfectionists, idolized them, wanted to become like them but unfortunately each of them failed to inspire me to become someone who I can respect. They did fuel me with faith and confidence, they did teach me to persevere…to hang on till the last minute but they never taught me to cut the cord and experience uncertainty for the good.

They never taught me how to simply wander sometimes, aimless searching for ones desire and still not being lost.

…….

That night I was at the cafeteria Coffee shop when I sat on the empty mess of 2000 chairs alone and watching a glass cased elevator go up and down as employees ended there days work and were returning home… it would have been 1 in the night and while back at my home all were in deep slumber my city was still in the middle of its jog….Every day thousands of aspirations take there flight when they first take up the elevator to the training school and every night hundreds of aspirations come crashing down when they realize this isn’t where they want to be, and I say hundred because certainly for few this is the place that they want to be….but trust me they are just handful rest all want to be perfectionists by doing something everybody wants them to, ditto as they want them to …. Run the mill…reach the destination and stop…never knowing how much they could have done if just some im-perfectionist would have taught them how to cut the cord and let lose….

Two years back I was listening to a video conference by Prof. John Nash, although he was distractive and very often he would jump off to irrelevant topics due to his disease unless someone again pointed him to the topic of discussion, he made a beautiful statement by the end of his lecture and I’m sure of the 500 of us who got the chance to be seated into the lecture theater of the Indian institute of technology while the rest thousands could not as there were no seats available, 90 percent of us would never forget what he said… referring to his research that has supported theories of operational research and that he being a genius, he looked at all of us and said

“I am on the wrong side of the fence…We are making products of each human child whose brain is capable of creation beyond the boundaries of this universe…We are justifying our misdeed by the name of education and employment….We have build a saddening system where we just make fine clones….I’m not a genius If I would have been I would have found a system to help God in preserving individuality of each mind and not support the system to build just products”

I’m sure all of us would have thought what “a beautiful mind”.

It isn’t justifying the incapability of an average human being, neither exemplifying gloriously running away of an average Indian from tough things, Its just an Idea that sometimes Beauty lies in imperfection, sometimes it is better to take a U turn if the road isn’t leading you to the right destination, sometimes it is better to be fearless and go ahead into something which is unexplored and unadvised.

…….

Tomorrow I might go and join another of an IT firm same like my previous employer just because so deep is the perfectionist theory embedded in me that I find it difficult to shake it and throw it out. I am no maverick, but what I have learnt is that a change is provoked if not realized in me….I have learnt that a change is not that difficult as it seems…a change is not that fearsome as it is made to be and that me being an imperfect creation can achieve farther miles than me running behind bottle neck perfections.

In my previous blogs I have written about my past life…mostly about relations that I have cherished…

That day as I sat looking at the elevator I realized that what I cherish is not perfection….no body has been perfect in my past life, they have just known and realized their dreams….My father, mother, sister, friends all have been im-perfectionists within themselves if not to the world because they still desire to achieve so much more…that civil engineer who would have built Gothic structures was also an Im-perfectionist because he desired to build taller buildings may be thats why today sky scrapers exist..

and right there I walked the line because I knew I desire for more and not just perfection.

…….

p.s. the word "im-perfectionist" is devised...just to explain the idea.

.....And they say, You have it all

2008-09-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

There are two sets of world to each of us, One which is determined by people around us and the other which connects to ourselves. Our soul. Few have the strength to live equally in these two parallel worlds. and few carry the incubus of living both these dimensions into one. In my capability I dont know how people can live parallel lives for as far as I know I'v been on the other side of the fence always.

Today Im writting this blog about this person in my life. because he has been the only one to teach me how it is when every single thing around you changes to opposite. To teach not by classes, but by examples. To teach not whether its bad or good but that its just a change.

Flashback....

I was five years old and we were supposed to change our home, my favourite time of the day used to be when he used to bring me back from school. I used to stand in front of his scooter feeling the wind blow my face... as soon as the scooter halted I used to jump and run to the backyard of my then house, to see how many unripe mangoes fell from the huge mango tree we had. someday he used to come with me to see how many i get, someday he used to get inside do his chores till i return with my collection.
That day as i returned with a handful of mangoes all sweaty and smiley he took all of them putting them in our mango jar and said

"Lets go out and collect few more"

I was more than happy to do so.
as we searched for me he kept talking of how other trees than mango are better since they can be well maintained... and after each of his sentence I repeated
"but my mango tree is the best"

after collecting almost a bagful, he called me and said

"that from tomorrow there would be no mango tree. from tomorrow we will live in a new place. but it would be better since il have many friends their to play with"

after listening to all the good things il have there, it was okay for me to go and live at this new place. next afternoon we were scheduled to pack finally and leave.
from morning till the last doors were closed i was in my backyard collecting mango's and he didnt stop me. as we were going i asked him if we can take this mango tree with us.....

"we will plant another mango tree there, if we take this tree...all other tree's will cry"
I know its kiddish, but he said this because iv never been very intelligent about understanding logic when it comes to my favourite things. and he knew it.

He knew how difficult it was for me to leave the best part of my day all together. It might have meant nothing to my sister or to my mother, but it meant it to me and at no point he disrespected it or made a mockery of it. he just showed me the better things ahead keeping the good old memories alive.

That was the first change of my life as I remember. and he made me learn that change has no definition of good or bad. no matter how exciting it seems... you will always feel bad for your memories of the past.

Sometime back...

My sister just got married and we all went to say our final goodbyes to her at the station. It was okay for me till the train pulled on. as I saw her waving at all of us, I waved back rigorously so that she could see me till very far off. and I kept watching, slowly the crowd around us scattered and after sometime I could no more see that train.

for 5 seconds my world stopped. standing right there my eyes filled with tears and i started crying. for just one reason. that the person who right from the day i was born took all my faults on her so that i dont get the scolding, who invariably was the first person to say "take mine" when i was short of things and she equally needed, who without even a second thought always offered the bigger portion of the chocolate was gone far away. I dont know what made me think that never will we be together again.

seeing me crying, he held my shoulders and said
"she isnt going too far, you both will be together in the same place... dont worry"

not knowing what other hundreds standing in the station would be thinking of me i just turned looking at him without saying a word and my tears didnt stop for a long long time.

This was the second biggest change of my life and he was just the same as he was when i was five. letting me know how it is to have faith in ones unknown future. more than me, he was heartbroken to see my sister go, but I was incapable of judging its weight at that time. Today when i recollect that day, I know its never easy to let go your people just as it is never easy to forget your favourites. all you have to do is to hope that with all that you are left with you can create the same world that you cherished.

Today...

After two days I would be leaving this city. I would be leaving everything that was my life for the past 22 years of my life. and more than that I would be leaving that man, who no matter what came and went was always there to make my change better for me. Be it my mango tree, My school, My college or My sister leaving. He was always there to take all that burden, that pain far away from me.
he knew I'm incapable of living that parallel life. I'm incapable of separating things with people, I'm incapable of accepting change fast but at no point of time he made me realize that I'm the less fortunate one than those who can accept change, think positive and embrace future. At no point of time he made me realize that sometimes all you have got is yourself and nobody else. because everything that changed with time, everything that needed a definition of good or bad, everything that left me with no support was never there in my life. He was the pseudo self i had to take all these things upon himself and let me be free.

Im being free again. but such is the irony that this freedom is the least i ever wanted because that "pseudo self" of mine would be no more with me. By now you all would have known that he is my father. and no matter how less fortunate I have been I feel the biggest blessing I ever had is to have him to be my morpheous.

I Know everybody's father is a mentor, everybody's father is the one who distinguishes between good or bad, everybody's father is a support
but not every father would have cared for something as insignificant as a backyard mango tree. not every father would have known how to comfort when you have done the worst blunder of your life and you cannot confess. not every father would have cared enough to say when you are about to go for your job

"always remember Im here, i wont mind if you return without earning a penny"

Maybe I have gone overboard to write about him, but this is it. since it would be long time when il write another one i guess i just wish to end it for the near future with the best i ever had. Although teaching me every big lesson in my life, he never taught me to live the way usually people do. how to separate things and situations from people and emotions.I dont know why,

may be with all the dynamic change that happens in one life, he never wished to change me the way I am.

Maybe he knew the biggest gift he can give me is to let me be 'me'....

One amongst Us....

2008-08-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

There was a huge crowd..the one that Iv never seen anywhere. People were bustling like anything..here and there. since it was all very new for me, all this over the top enthusiasm. I was getting uncomfortable. seeing me that way. she came up,

"So why you getting all this nervous?"

I: "nervous| who me?, No way"( the conversation was in Bengali and certainly with a very kiddish tone)

Still she not being so convinced, sat besides me. and right from the beginning till then end, when finally everyone was damn tired and very ready to get back to their homes she was there. Must say her patience....Whoof!

But then nobody expected me to behave like her. as I was way younger than her. and she was like Oprah, the perfect hostess anytime and anywhere :)

Well, this was my 5th Birthday, and I start by this since its the farthest memory i share with her. Anyway, as far as I remember, Iv always been very irritative with people who are not of my kind. so one fine morning

This guy turns up at my place, wanting to play with me since he was our neighbor. as usual, a born snob I was. I horridly declined stating something like

"I don't play with those, whose skin is of darker shade than mine :P"

He ran, as fast as he could right back to his home, crying all the way.

and there she was eying me like a dinosaur about to eat his pray ( Im sure i must have thought a better comparison, since in no way i would know the word dinosaur when i was 5). slowly i dared walking towards her

"Sorry :P"

She stared for 5 minutes, so bad that I should have buried myself right under the floor where I was standing, but then as I was a born snob, I was also a born "I don't care for your anger" girl too :P. somehow she managed to control her anger and moved to her studies,

Yes she was studying at that time, and she used to be funny when she studied..sometimes she even barged into my cerelac cookies when she used be hungry :) without even considering that the stuff is supposed to be eaten only by kids till 6.

anyway, we were on even terms..she used to ignore my snobbish attitude, my morning wake up tantrums and yah sometimes the 'Im the queen' attitude too, but then I also okayed her, eating up my cookies, sleeping on sofa and showing anger by staring attitude.

Life was cool for us, ya sometimes she had the upper hand for being elder to me, but then she was okay if I instructed how I want my bread with honey and how she should not put on weight stuff.

Then after few years, I could see her getting tired, as she used to help my dad in building our house, she used to wake at 5, do some of her work and return home late. I used to get real angry for she had no time for playing checkers and watching tom and jerry. so I befriended that "dark skinned boy from my neighborhood"
I must have said something like

"I have changed my mind about you, you still want to play"

and boy he was game :P

Now all that playing checkers and watching tom and jerry changed for cricket, football and carom. Life changed, I changed. And I changed a lot. now I no more used to get angry as she wasn't around me, I started caring less for her.... every night when dad used to switch off our bedroom light, she used to come close to me and ask me abt how I spent my day, did I still call that boy as dark skinned?? and my answer was always yes. ... she waited long enough to listen to me but she used to be so tired that almost every night while i used to be in the middle of my conversation she used to doze off...and I used to be like...

"what a friend..cant even listen to me properly"

But then I knew, she promised me that she would go and keep an eye on dad whether he is keeping my bedroom of pink colour or not.....so as I said, we used to be on even terms....but just till few years back when she scored more points than me.

I was in my high school... I had flunked badly in one of my maths paper for the day before the exam I and that dark skinned boy ( who turned out to be my best friend till then) were playing finals for a football tournament. By then we were in our new house, my room was repainted from pink to blue, She joined as a teacher in some school for some handy cash so we had lesser time to spend together, a lot many things changed along with our night chatting rituals too, in which she invariably used to fall asleep while I used to be in the middle of my day story...
but then she used to get me anything I wanted with her earned money so as said "even terms".
That day, I returned from my school, she was sleeping on sofa i woke her up and dared to mumble

" I flunked, I flunked my maths paper"

she was barely awake...she sat down, absorbing what i said, then saying

" but I thought I taught u everything didn't I?"

I was sure she will blast out like a furnace anytime or in the least will grave me with her disastrous eying ritual, but she dint. In fact she didn't even look at me, she looked on to the floor, may be searching for some words and said

" I must have left few things which came into ur paper, Im sorry"

I stood staring point blank at her for a long long time, tears rolled down my eyes
I started crying, mumbling things like its not her fault in fact its my fault that i did not study and that i played. But I knew the damage was done, My best friend was hurt. that evening i didnt have the nerves to go to play, so my best friend no.2 (the dark skinned boy) came to look up.....looking at me he knew something has gone damn wrong.

as he stood staring weirdly at me I asked

"did u fail in any of ur papers anytime?"

He: "ya once i did, dad was like a house on fire...he screamed on me like anything"

and i cried more, maybe i wanted her to react the same way. but she dint. she simply took everything on herself, all the guilt, all the carelessness and the irresponsibility.
Just everything.

From high school I went to college, she went on to be more tired because of her busy working schedule. but the day she scored more points than me, i pledged that i want back our lives to be on "even terms" again. So after she used to finish all her work....we used to often go for drives, coffee shops, movies, book stores everywhere that we relaxed the most. sometimes we even chatted long hours about stuffs like career, future and guys. One of these very chats led me to ask her

" why do you spend all you money on me, don't you wanna shop for yourself, anytime?"

I don't know what was so funny in that question, she just laughed for a long time and said....

" May be I just like it"

that night I thought that right from the moment I was 5 she did everything that made me happy...be it sitting by my side for 4 hours just because I don like crowds when I was just five, or looking after my desire to make my room pink, from getting me every single stuff on earth ... to sit back and take all my guilt. Be it maths paper or heart breaks. She did it. and "Simply" because she liked it?

No she did all of this so that not even for a single day, I regret my life.

And of all these 22 years of my life I could hardly remember once or twice that I did anything for her, that made her feel special.

I wonder how many of us have such friends for lifetime, how many of us can learn to know that some people live for others all their lives.

and as I said, We love to be on "even terms", so this blog is for her, My first best friend for my life. this may not be that good, since i didn't have the guts to write all those horrible things i did in my life to make her miserable, but this is from my heart. and I hope if someday, she learns to love surfing internet she would know....that I would still love to watch tom and jerry for hours with her, I would still love if she won playing checkers with me, I would still love to chat nonstop every night, even if she dozed real early

and someday just like her I would love to be a best friend for life first and a mom later.

The day I learnt its Independence Day.

2008-08-20T02:21:00.000-07:00

It was the year of 1991, I was in my KG. We were more than hundred buzzing in for our 19th annual day celebration which coincidentally fell on the 15th of august as well. I was in a group song, not because i did sing well, in fact i still sing pathetic. but just because my best friend was also in the same group( fortunately she is an ace singer). so all through the practice i was more interested for the fun part than singing part. finally the D day arrived and it was the performance time. we had to make a flag standing up on the benches wearing tri coloured uniforms. as i was being dressed up i asked my mom, who i'm sure would have been equally excited for my life's first stage performance.

I : "I don't want to wear that orange dress i want to wear white"
Ma : No orange is good, see you'll make the top part of our country flag. Feel proud.
I : Why feel proud?
Ma : Because its Independence Day

and just when i wanted to throw the next set of questions to her, we were hurried towards the back stage for next was our turn. by then i was a guru for all my folks. I knew three big big things. A word like "independence day", something for which i should be very proud and that il stand at the top floor. Why, well I din bother much abt it till the end of my performance.

We stood still, the stage would be enlightened in a short while and then the music will start, since we were the last to perform we had to sing two songs. one which was very happy and rhythmic and the other which we used to call national anthem. but that wasn't interesting to me as we had to stand straight and sing very stiff. suddenly the stage glowed bright and we started, I started enjoying all the celebrity sort of moment. a huge crowed looking at us, flood lights focused on us and being on the top, i felt i have something special. I could see even the last row of the crowd. we finished, the whole crowed bursted into clapping, By then that celebrity feeling turned out to be a Diva feeling, as if rest 40 kids were invisible and I was the only one who has sung the whole song. My smiley face was not coming to its normalcy when my best friend poked me from side..

Meenal: Stop smiling Dumbo, next we have to sing the national anthem. stand straight.
I: (Still in my euphoria), Yaya I know, don't worry I wont mess it up. But why do we have to sing national anthem at all?
Meenal: thats because today is independence day and we will show our respect to our country by singing it.

Ooops!! My guru feeling and Diva feeling suddenly collapsed. Now even she knew something called Independence day and more disastrous she knew the reason why we sing the National anthem. anyhow with wounded ego i sang Jana Gana Mana.
but right in the middle of this confusion of singing it, not liking it and not being a guru anymore. I had one question. Why do we have to celebrate Independence day at all, or for that matter why do we have to sing anthem for our country. I was clueless. just as we finished.
there was a shower of confetti on, more than 50 fire crackers bursted outside, every single person stood cheering and clapping for us. that "Diva" feeling was magnified n number of times.I felt as if I was on the top of the world and I have sung the National anthem on behalf of the whole country.

To me all that happy happy feel, that lighting, those thunderous applause and that standing ovation, was my definition of being proud, my definition of Independence day. Thats how it went on 15th august 1991, the day I learnt its independence day.

Since then every year 15th august to me was the day when i could feel proud of me for no reason, for just being an Indian. how easily God gives us a reason to feel proud for belonging to ones country. Years rolled by, with each year life gave me much more stronger reason to feel proud, and with each reason there came innumerable responsibilities that i was being given for my country. from keeping it clean to doing good in sports to studies to everything. beyond everything there was one basic reason that was fortunately imbibed into me on that very day in the year of 1991. that whatever I'm doing, somewhere I'm doing it to make my country proud.

......

Its the year 2008, the first msg i read on my cell fone is a congratulations from my friend for Bindra winning the gold in Olympics. for that instant no extraordinary feeling grappled me. I was happy but pretty easy with it.
To me nothing changed, the whole day i was oscillating from writing articles to my java classes. I returned home late and after dinner felt like surfing on to TV channels.
My parents were already asleep, so its volume was pretty low. Olympics being on roll, i stilled on to some sports channel which was showing Bindra shooting his 10m range. although i wasn't that interested into his accuracy and clicking technique i left it running. At the end of 5 minutes, he was declared the recipient of gold in Olympics. I increased my TV volume to a little more, thinking if it would wake my parents. as the ceremony proceeded

The TV channel showed the victory ceremony.after the runners up being sang for it was my country's turn

" And now for the 10m shooting range, Gold, India. The Indian national anthem"
the moment those words were said. i increased my TV volume to 15 and I stood up. My national anthem was being sung, My flag was being hosted and across the globe at least a million people were giving a standing ovation to my country. just because one amongst us did achieve to accomplish his responsibility.

That same responsibility which i felt year after year every independence day, that same responsibility for which more than 10,000 soldiers die, that responsibility which first triggered my inquisitiveness to know how it feels to be proud when i was just 5. I could see the same glitter in Bindra's eyes, may be a million times more in magnitude of what i felt 17 years back.

everything done, the sports channel came back to its routine telecast. and I realized. probably my house was the loudest on my street, my parents sleeping inside and I'm standing in the middle of my dining room. With no confetti shower, no beaming lights, no thunderous applause I felt the feeling of being proud. The same one, which I felt years back, kiddish and unknown that I belong to my country. I turned off the television and went to sleep.

I just couldn't stop smiling.I text msgd my best friend

"Bindra won gold. watched the victory ceremony. felt same like standing on the top floor making the orange of our flag :)"

after few minutes her reply was

"Same here :)"

P.s. In the picture I'm fourth from top left, with my head swinging the most I'm sure I enjoyed like hell :P, Meenal is just left to me.

BlindFolded

2008-07-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a long road reminds me of my past, my good times, my bad times. Times where iv lost hope, times where hope was the only thing that kept me hanging. and just when i start my walk back home, I feel I'm turning my back to everything that life offered me.

One of my school chums dad gotta new car recently, so after loads of "no's" and "il see's" I got hold of it for a short morning drive. fortunately there are roads in my city which are completely empty in wee hours. which are just half hour drive, you stop, stand in front of your car look at the long road and just think. I know not many of us do that and I'm pretty okay if you say I'm nuts and I have lots of time for this "stuff".

Agreed. Iv always had lots of time for myself. So this time no packed coffees, no November rain and no friends to hang along. it was just me and the nothingness in me that i was carrying. Have you ever realised that when you look at something which has no finish line, you just want to move a little ahead and see where it is.

during your school days we all used to cross that extra line to see how our friends scored in their paper, during college who's with whom...who is going for which company...who is in for the new project,presentations, everything. we have always wished to cross that extra line for no reason. I could not see the end of that road, but unlike all other times I didn't wish to drive a little bit ahead and find out. I just stood still and felt bad. how can someone describe a certain feeling which hasn't been named. I was feeling bad for my short lived good time. times when I used to stand up for my friends....time when I used to stand up for myself. Have I become so ordinary?

This was sometime exactly one year at past. It was my birthday. everyone I wished to be was there at my place celebrating my birthday. only i wasn't there

I was in my coaching class...preparing for an exam which I wasn't sure to appear for. as my class got over I confessed to my friend my disliking of being somewhere half hearted

"see you've got to sacrifice somethings" was her answer

I just shook my head in disgrace knowing that I wasn't sure how badly i need any sacrifice, I reached home...all were banging on me with everything that they had, wished me all the good things and the party started. me and one of my very close friend sat on the front porch and the conversation went something like this

Him: so where were you all this time??

I: class yaar, for MBA.

Him: MBA? but i thought you were ...( I dint let him complete)

I: yaya, now don't start that again....see lets face the fact, I'm no genius that any auto maker will just invite me to work for them. and more so less opportunities....blah blah..u know na...MBA will be okay for me i guess

Him: nodded his head

( we sat silently for a long time...or guess to me the time was longer)

Him: You know what...May be you are right.., you should do MBA, You know after all managerial job....good money...a comfortable life and yah most importantly you would plan everything..you know like say if you get into HR you'll manage people..you will hire them throw them out..or for say in marketing...making business plans...market surveys...whats right whats wrong...money building.....great...it will be a good job for you...after all every second guy is doing it.

And he walked inside. I was silent, for i know this is exactly what i never wanted to do. this is exactly what I never felt like doing. I never wanted to be the one to know which car is economical or which car sells better, I just wanted to make one, I just wanted to design one, see it flying into a straight long road with its perfect air fleet body and just the right kind of wheels. I just wanted to feel how it feels to get into something that is completely yours.

A loud noise thronged inside my ear to rip me apart, I jerked up only to see. I'm standing in the middle of the road, doing nothing. a truck pulled aside and honked his horns I don't know for how many times. I pulled my wheels a little aside and sat watching the truck pass by, may be the same way all those important moments which would have changed me passed by and i failed to see them.

I saw that empty road for the last time, this time no memories, no flash back just one question.....Am i really that ordinary? Am i just like another second guy??

I drove back, with that very feeling multiplying innumerable times.so many times that i lost count. A feeling of guilt, a feeling of failure, a feeling of loosing something. i came back home, punched hard my computer and wrote an email to my friend telling him, that yes he was right, may be this is what i am just like any other second guy, doing what others doing and not what iv dreamt off. But how possibly you could know that there might be bigger problems which led me to chose this as an option. but thanks for making me feel that I'm no good.

I did not realise one thing, that may be by now he would have forgotten that conversation and would find no clue as to why I'm writing him such a pathetic mail. Two days passed and he replied. as i read his name in my inbox name folder, i was uncomfortable, I knew he would be angry for iv written it real bad. fortunately or unfortunately it read something like this

"I know for everybody things don't turn up the right way, but didn't we see it this way when we were young to fight back when the ball isn't with our defender. Football, yes but no joke this time. You might have priorities which compelled you to chose your options. but tomorrow when things would be fine I want to see you flying in your so called "wheels". regardless of what you are, how you age and what you do. trust me, you can be anything but ordinary."

I sat shocked. How could he know me that much, how could he chose to write the right words. But then again, that's what friends are for. May be he was waiting for this email of mine so that he could tel me, that time never runs out for all those who wish to reach for the finish line.

"It has to be something in the shade of grey, a particular grey, neither too flashy not too subdue. It will have a perfect A lined, air fleet body with wheel propellers and yah important important disk brakes. just wish they come into production line till then, then yah....bubble tyres, fin lines just the way it is with the Mustang Shelby. A perfect speed convertible"

That is how I used to talk, when I used to believe in my dreams. just like every time I hope one day il drive to some long road, halt, sit back and believe that I'm anything but ordinary.

A Lifetime Of Serendipty....

2008-06-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

“Note: for all those who haven’t seen the movie “the lake house”. It’s a movie about a beautiful house where time stops, where the owner of the house has the liberty to live with people from future and past. To some whom he hasn’t met. It’s a house where one person waits for years, just to find his love from future come to him at the lake house”

Have you seen The Lake house, it’s a movie about time lap, two people who love each other, but who live apart because of time. One lives in the year of 98 and the other in the year of 2000. But they finally meet when one waits for the other. I don’t know if anything like that exists, but every time I watch that movie I feel a connection, to what I’m still amused. May be that I believe in serendipity. May be that someday, I believe, that I’ll see the magic of abstract destiny.

It happened so many times with me, I’ve been places for the first time and I feel that I’ve been here before. And every time I try and explain it to somebody. I know their strange giggles behind their “it happens, sometimes”. Yes it does and how else can I explain that one has to believe in it to make it happen. On 30th of April this year, I was standing at the backside of my college building, vast lands of yellowed grasses and mountains all over. A small muddy road stretched between those grasses. Where, I don’t know, But as I was watching just the sky and the nothingness around. I had the feeling that may be someday I’ll come back, stand right at this place and watch the sky. I was frantically looking for one clue around that gave me this feeling. But guess I couldn’t find any, I wanted to walk that disheveled road that went behind somewhere and as I started to walk, I was called up

“Hey come back, we gotta go…baad me dekhlena(see it later)”

I turned back looking at my friend for a long time and I smiled. As I looked at that road, probably for the last time in my near future. I knew that I’ll come back. And I have no answer why.

Not this time, my old home, my school canteen, my best friend’s farmhouse, and the last metro station at Calcutta are all those places which gave me the same feeling. The feeling of serendipity as it gave me sheer happiness with no reason, that one feeling that maybe I’ll return here one day long after I’ve left this place. As was it with the lake house, few walls of glasses that separated time… I feel these places are separated from me with those invisible walls of glasses. I’ve read that sometimes the most insignificant person in your life is the most important one, and that you never really come to know unless you believe that each have some motive to be with you.

That summer I was traveling from my hometown to Bombay, the first time I was traveling alone. My friends dropped me to the station as my parents were at someplace else as they bid me goodbye I see an old man coming towards my coupe, he took his seat in front of me. Surprisingly there weren’t anybody else to share the rest three births. As the journey is long and me being a first timer, it took me sometime to be okay with traveling alone. Slowly I and uncle started talking; he told me how he traveled to far places when he was young, to his expeditions at various army bases where he was stationed as a medical officer. He told me how sun shines orange at rohtangpass and the same sun shines dull golden at the Calcutta docks. I smiled, for just like people of our age he was excited to tell me where he went what he did. He was excited to show me the world from his eyes. He told me how does Lake Geneva looks before the morning sun and more interestingly how does an aurora feel. I jumped up

“Aurora??? You have seen an aurora??”

And with dim eyes he said

“It’s not a thing to see kid; it’s a thing to feel”

I was super excited. As everything that he told was new and interesting to me. As time passed he took a small pic from his wallet in which he and his younger son were standing on a bark in between a lake. And proudly he said

“That’s Dal Lake where my son was posted few years back”

We kept on talking of things that I’ve never heard. Of things like why the Cambridge national park is so beautiful and how does in northern California, all park benches are a memorial to some or the other martyr. He told me that when u take a boat ride at lake placid and sail to its middle and sit there till middle of the night u see electric fishes gathering near your boat, just to make you believe that you are not alone.
I smiled again, all he said I had never heard before. We spoke till it was almost 11 in the night and then went to sleep for he was old and couldn’t sit anymore.
I lay awake and I dreamt of everything he has just told, suddenly I wished to see everything what he said…at that time it would have been just another fantasy dream of a teenaged girl…but till today, I dream of all those places, I dream of watching the constellation Orion right in the middle of an ice skating rink.
It was morning 7 and I’d just woken up with all the hustle around. Uncle was packing all his stuff, his station arrived … as I managed to open up my groggy eyes he said with a glint

“So kid, morning (typical army style)

I smiled and said “you leaving uncle?”

He stood with his baggage turned around and said

“Don’t forget to watch lake placid” and he de-boarded the train

I kept watching him through the window, his family came to receive him and he went. And I had the same feeling, feeling that iv known this person way before than yesterday.
Train moved and I kept thinking of all that he said.

I realized in those few hours, a complete stranger, way much older than me and whose name I hardly remember… made me realize that how much I would like to find park benches, how much I would love to travel.

How at eleven in the night, when the world was busy sleeping I met a person who gifted my dream of a life time.

And till today, whenever the day goes bad. Or something happens which I’d never wanted to. I dream the same dream, me sitting on a boat right in the middle of a lake with electric fishes around me…suddenly the water glows the colour of light blue, I look up and I see… the aurora. I see god turn on his lamp shed J

“That happens when god turns on his lamp shed” that was his definition to aurora with a grand smile.

There might be nobody waiting for me to meet him someday, there might be no more places where I’ll feel that I’ve been here before, there might be no more serendipities and there might be no another dream like that. But of all that I’ve experienced I’ve learnt that I’ll never stop believing in a magic.

May be someday someone will prove me right and make me believe that the very Lake Geneva is waiting for me. May be someday, long after I’ve left my hometown, I’ll come back to my college stand at the same place and watch the sky. May be someday I’ll get to see behind that invisible glass wall.

And how I wish, my life to be my lake house… where time stops, where magic comes true.

How I wish to meet a life time of serendipity.

The good, The better and The best

2008-06-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Note: Some of it fiction, Most of it real.with love and affection for one of my best friend.

"I had just learnt cycling, wheels used to facinate me, she was holding my seat and I was shouting almost screaming...

"chodna mat...chodna mat I'l fall, I'l fall"

she was equally excited, screaming louder "tu dar mat, im not leaving it, you wont fall"

I tried balancing, and she was running behind me holding my cycle... i cycled more and more, and slowly i could hear her no more. I kept cycling harder and harder, so far so good. and then when I was done with my excitement of cycling for the first time, I realised iv comedown to some different lane, I suddenly stopped, hanking and sweltering knowing that I'm lost. I looked back...to see if she is still coming, I left her behind...somwhere in my own happiness I forgot that she was running all behind me....I kept looking at the empty road .barren. lonely for a long time and there I see... with long hairs almost toggling her waist, there she was running at full blast... waving her hand shouting "wait..Im coming, Im coming" ...... ""

Well that was monai. yes indeed the name is enough for all those who knw her, but all those who dont letme introduce...

It is said, there are three parts to every soul. one that lives within you, one which is owned by your life partner and one which is with that unknown person, whom you may or may not meet in your lifetime. but whose every prayer, every luck, every success has your share. I'm not sure how many of you have had the luck to meet ur third share, but letme tel you how it is when you actually do.

our school busses used to gather around a big mahogany tree, since we both were frm different schools our timings never clashed, while she was somehow making it to the bus stop, i used to enjoy the freedom to sleep till ten for being in the aftrenoon shift. our interests, choice of food, choice of dresses, almost choice of everything on this planet earth somehow differed or rather more decently were diametrically opposite :) so one fineday I was supposed to go for my school picninc and thats why had to slogup at 7 in the morning. as i somehow reached the busstop i saw monai with her morning slumber waving me a sweet simple hi, and then with a sudden strange reaction turned exactly opposite took up a stone(as if she will throw at me), started carving something at the mahogany bark. everytime i went close to see what the hell she intended to do, with a disgusting look she pushed me back and poor me already half asleep used to fly so back from her push that hardly could maki it the second time to see what she was doing, im sure i would have said

"poor mahogany, had to deal with this mad girl that too 7 in the morning"

her bus arrived she threw the stone and without looking once at me boarded the bus.

"whatta snob(certainly sure was my reaction)"

since she was no where in sight, i went close to see what she did and i read

"jui's first moarning bus... goodmoarning goodmoarning.....7 septembur"

well that was her when she was 4, weird and unpredictable!

I laughed and laughed, and i even saw that while i was returning from my picninc that day. something made me happy, may be just the feeling that you were important to someone. may be just to know that someone bothered to know ur firsts and lasts. time rolled on... we grew up, as like the mahagony tree, our dosti went stronger and stronger. even when we were not sure that we are something called "friends" we knew, that we had to be together when we are scared, why was not our problem neither we thought of it. we simply knew it!

this was 2nd december 1992 during the babri masjid riots, since we used to live at the corner most bhel quarter, we were suggested to stay with some other family those who are more inside the colony, our first choice was with monai's family....We both sat still not knowing what is happening, why people are being killed...as we were dressing up our barbies she being her looked strange at me and asked

"jui muslims are killing kisko?"

I being the better nerd answered

"i think muslims are killing muslims only (i dint knw the word hindu existed then :))"

she looked at me for a long time, then took up her barbie and started weeping. I kept on asking "what happend? telme telme"

and there she was

"if my barbie would have been a muslim they would kill her also?"

and i sighed feeling sorry for the great theory of "muslims killing muslims" which i deviced...

but that was monai when she was 6, sensitive and caring"

life moved on, with innumerable memories of us being together. we had fights, sometimes such that really worried me whether we will talk again or not, but with all the faith in my heart i somehow realised that even if i get lowest in my math class, even if say a million "katti's", even if i break her kitchen set...she will always remain my friend.....these very questions changed with time and today with all the faith in my heart i knw that even if i fail to achieve what i want, even if i do things that are unforgivable, even when il sound the most unrealistic person on the earth...she will always be with me...she will always believe in my dreams...she being her will always say "im there"

In no time she would be moving to a differnt city, to make her dream a reality and as the time falls short we decided that today we will sit and just talk. our time passed like anything...with evry single word i wanted to tell her that she was my second sister or rather god friend...just like people have god mothers and fathers...guess I was blessed with one extra god friend who being the most practical person still understands how it feels when heart breaks...who just calls to ask

"tu theek to hai aaj"

who out of nowhere will bang into your house with a big Hiiiiiiii..... and will gift you with little little gifts just to see your expression to surpises :)

who will at 3 in the night with droopy eyes, will cook awesome food just to see if you aint hungry

who at every step, whether you are wrong or right...whether you are good or bad...whether you are sad or happy will stand by you and say

"im there, im always there"

well that was monai at 20, charming and emotional, practical and strong. daring and happy. yes that was her a bundle of extreme opposites, just like how u bunch a million multicoloured flowers together with one big red ribbon.

as we met somewhere out for our so called last treat together, time swooshed away like anything...i could see the glitter in her eyes for she is moving out.....to a brand new city, a brand new college....for she was finally going to achieve her dream...i wanted to talk and talk and talk...but it came to an end.....just like everything our "fun" had to end...and today was its begining...as she drove off...i felt like running behind her ...just like she did behind my cycle......keeping the hope that she might go into unknown places...bigger cities...empty roads and find no one....if she turns back .... she would see me..,,,guess i just wanted to tell her that if someday she is lost her best friend is there.

as she went today I questioned probably for the first time to God...why did you send her that day running after my bycycle....for i knw.....evrytime il be lost.....il turn back just to see if she is there.....and il find no one.

well thats how you feel when u meet your third part .....way before you actually knw... you misplace it into the lost crowds.

"kahe senti, chal yaar this time had to come, and more so just think it will be so fun when we will tapofy guys those who are not bhopalis....soch to zara kitna fun hoga and baaki sabka load mat le...im there na"

will this is monai at 21.... the good,the better ...the best dosti one can ever share :)

P.s. Cheers to the night out at ur roof top, our aish at my sisters wedding...our tapofy frustations after all those "ahem ahem" objectionable disasters..and finally to that citycenter potato whatever that was :P ...cheers to everything.....cheers to our life budy :)

Jealous of the Jordan in me......

2008-05-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Note: “‘Jealous of the Jordan in me’ is a usual caption used by basket ball players, a mockery to demoralize the opposite team by signifying as if the spirit of Michael Jordan has been bestowed on the speaker, as basket ball being the game more of high spirits and tricks than rules. The language of this blog is rough, as it is unedited on certain circumstances”

Never Lose!!
This was the long forgotten Tee shirt caption, one of my uncles used to wear and as like always I perked up

"Never lose what??"
"Never lose on your self" :) his anytime and anywhere ready made chuckle....all that I did see then...and did not realize what he said!

I was so young that school, fights, basket ball practice and bike rides made my life complete. Guess I didn’t desire for anything more...as I hardly could find time for doing anything else, life moved on from ground floor to the roof top and while I was at the threshold to cross each staircase I had an interaction with what one calls as "Never Lose" or to be more precise "Never Lose on yourself"

“That Game”
2002 New Delhi, at the south Delhi stadium (Carmel)

We were scheduled for the first match with chandigarh...

“Those fat holes...Gawd they don just slam-dunk they literally slam bunk, bunk and bunk!!!!...as in these guys are worth all the space on earth for cheese, butter and every damn fattening thing. How can they play and that too so damn good"

I exactly remember the conversation coz one weirdo desired to record it with her being the only cell phone on board :)"

"That game" started.....with 5 of chandigarh girls equating each one of them to two, we were like those small insignificant bumble bee's who can hardly breathe...anyway...."that game" where we were badly losing to (8,0).....pathetic was the word for us....since hardly any of us could perform...after the second better half we were lagging 2 behind...all tired of their missed bangs and mis-tackling the wrong person we were short of those two damned shots. Anshi the corner defender missed one precious shot and I howled...

"What the heck yar...u think that bloody clock would stop for us"
She infuriated
"Okay u damn....u try this time ...as if these aces are all waiting for my slam dunk"

Coaches called for immediate time out (while basket ball matches...one avoids all kind of breakouts coz they usually tend to be bad mouthing and time wastage"
As I reached, our captain was almost bloating on me, throwing ten better slang’s each time I dared open my mouth.....and not to forget Anshi was brutally quarantined for she missed it...every one was high on their own anger quotients....30 seconds left to start of the last 5 minutes of "that game" and our captain looks down....breathing.

“You know what your problem is; each of u has lost on yourself. You guys have accepted defeat, you guys are those set of good for nothing girls who are ready to shout...hey u all there look we have lost coz we were playing with fat lions and we are no more than chipmunks...but listen, I'm not ready. If I lose, I won’t show my face for tomorrows match. I give a damn for what u think, so you better get your a****s right on place and play coz if we lose. Il be the worst for u guys. So you either choose to walk off right away. Or you choose never to lose...take your call. Period."

We all went, she replaced Anshi, blowed two pretty point blank slams...I kept on watching....we were equal now, Roshi defended the chandigarh shooter.....played the ball way well than what she does and slammed again...I kept watching.....ball banged on to the chandigarh 7 number she dribbled at the speed of light, Anshi screamed from out fields..."u bloody, take that ball thing", I somehow managed to snatch and pass, somehow shooted off....slammed!! Life at peace...I kept watching…..

While we were returning our captain screamed thank you for saving my *** hope u guys do the same tomorrow...and I kept watching….

Down there Anshi was waiting for my grand welcome, I wonder how with such fluidity she can blutter out slang’s at one go....blah blah blah and blah and then with a 100 watt chuckle mutters

“Good that u did listen to me for once saved from losing your self :)"

May be that one stint was worth to know that losing is relative and is an illusion, when u know that you don’t have an option to lose out you wont! And by this I don’t mean equating losing out with failures, certainly failures do occur. But what is needed is that strength to fight back again, that strength which calls never to lose.

“Rewind”
2008 New Delhi, Apollo hospital.

Anshi was admitted for liver infection, she breathed practically every air of infection ever available on earth, so few merciful docs hoped to save her from the difficulty to breath and put her on ventilation. She survived three disgusting months to ventilate in and out of that tube which stayed stuck into thin long damnd looking throat of hers, she puked and threw every filth of her body right there where she was lying down for she did not have the time to "damn anybody", she did not have the energy to scream on top of her voice " u bloody, u damn just make me all right"....she did not have the senses to know that she was alive and vegetating on liquids. After all those innumerable pills, antibiotics, sleepless nights of her family. She woke up one morning, just to find that she has slipped into some state of body where one cannot talk, walk or eat due to extra sensitivity of her organs…..She kept watching.....her peers were worried, her mom cried whenever she looked at the lean looking figure that "just" breathed......She kept watching......doctors
made her drink through injections, inserted n number of pipes at disgusting parts of her body....she "just" kept watching.....for she could do nothing else.
But she fought, for she knew she had missed one golden chance long back at some certain match, and she did not want to miss it again.

Guess once a sport...is always a sport. To people outside living the world of sports it might sound weird or more precisely crap, but as much Iv known myself and as much I have seen when u have that adrenaline pumping your body for just one shot, you feel your own power. Not all of us do that, one being the president of any country under no circumstances can feel the power of his success just by sitting on to his chare or passing on to some ace proposals. But a warrior, a sportsman and those who live on the edge can "feel" their power to success...and the feeling is amazing....you experience it once and u crave for it for the rest of your lives.

Anshi craved for it while she lay on that hospital bed, while all of us were losing hope, she chose never to lose on herself, miraculously Anshi returned to normalcy, now she could at least sit and talk, her body weighed 28 from 21 at least more than her age of 22.

Since I was not in Delhi, I called her up…

"So you damnd, how the hell u got yourself right"

Anshi with her usual list of unmentionable slang’s at last spoke

“Thought of getting my *** at the right place, you remember that never lose 30 seconds lecture. Just thought about rewinding that again and again....and you know what, it worked…hehe....I chose never to lose :)”

This lady who barely breathed few weeks back...talked about setting life's score right, talked about choosing never to lose!! Or rather just not talked but actually she knew how, never to lose.

For you or for that person who walks by your mind as you read this losing up might be different, it’s relative for all of us. But may be someday, we all will realize that not losing up is nothing but just being the best you can at your extremes….by knowing the worst and hoping the best....and if nothing just for one moment ....dare to be yourself and you would know that its instinctive that you always chose to put your best fight when needed, its just that you never give yourself that chance to live on the edge...

Because all these people who have had near death experiences (NDE) ....all those who have done the impossible and every single woman who gives birth to a child, believes that even God chooses never to lose….So why should you!

P.s. the names are changed as desired.

A Generation Within!

2008-04-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

Note: This article is about publishing W.A.Y.S. a college magazine, and about those people who worked for it.

"Desire is relative, Iv seen changing them into passion for some and for others it plain dries up being just another kind of a dream... A dream which never meets its reality. But when it turns into passion, it turns in to be your morpheous, it shapes you the way you should be and not the way you want to be. And in the whole process it finds what is your golden key...what is that one thing, that only you have and nobody else. Slowly, it makes you fall in love with yourself. "

Flashback :)

Someday in march, 2005

This was our first meeting, after a lot of commotion somehow all could make up for the time that was given we were four from the first year and rest all our seniors, although we all were pretty uncomfortable with all that was going on, I was on the better side for atleast I was given something do (to list all that has to be done in the next meeting) than the rest of firsties who were just suppose to sit and listen. Anyway as it went, I could hardly find anything worth "interesting" that would make me work for W.A.Y.S., my college editorial board.

somehow as days passed we(the firsties) were being called at ungodly hours to do the errands, write fix and match stuff such as one liners, fillers and all that was not important or which people hardly read. We hardly being selected, somehow realised that we were not so "important" in this league of people, who by some lable were tagged as elite. may be cz they could just make through campus selections or good B schools or may be they were the only worthwhile lot that our college had. anyway I wasnt sure off, untill the day arrived!

the day which fueld something in me...which lasts till date. something which for the first time made me realise that "may be" this is where I belong. On a sunday afternoon mid 3'0 clock i was being called up at the infamous "sky computers" where the so called Ed-board used to eat, sleep and drink. being that "faithfull" firstie i went running and slogging to reach at the exact time I was given. As I entered I could see two of my seniors looking morbidly into one PC which did something called as "typesetting" (had hardly heard of that word till then :)) as I walked in the scene went...

Adit sir: Debashree, WAYS ke liye poem likhni hai (have to write a poem for the mag) okay?

Debashree: Okay sir, il try and will give you

Adit sir (looking as if its normal) : Now, in ten minutes!

Debashree: what!!!now?? a poem? just like that?

..all looking weirdly at each other..

Any how I sat writing something, which even I wasnt sure of what it would turn out to be. and melting everything I had inside I wrote something which I was very proud off (thinking Iv masterd being an editor) proudly as I went showing it to my seniors.... the reply was...

"this is really bad, really really bad" with all the effort I could muster up, I sat again trying my so called writing skills at high....second try...another failure!

And then one amongst those two seniors comes and says something like this, "see we are all passionate about this thing. I hope you understand that. we work for it because we believe in it. and writing something for it means taking out that feeling which stays in all of us. so while you write, make sure you dont write it for yourself, write it for all of "us", write it for the edboard!"

I dont know what struck me that day, was it those words "writing it for the ed board" or was it the way that one of those eddies said it to me... Im still confused, but something in me was awakend. although W.A.Y.S. was not something created by me, neither I was a hardcore editor till then. But right in between those words and the way it was said I realised that one day I would want to have that same passion in me when I would talk about "ed-board". May be an Insignificant spark was born.

Years passed, from being a firstie... we four went to become thirdies. Where no more we were said to listen to something, we were asked of how would we like it to be. Where we did not work at ungodly hours because we were being called up, but we worked at those hours because rest all were occupied by our coachings, classes and all that stood important second to our magazine. Till then that small, insignificant spark did catch up being a fire in itself.

This was another evening at the "sky computers", the whole edboard was buzzing with something or the other as the mag was about to go for prints.... one of the then fourthies was jogging round the room, all to pacify his anxiety for the mag to go for prints...and then suddenly turning towards me speaks:

Prakhar sir: Debashree, we have to write an ending for our mag. something which would define evrything!

Debashree: (reading in mind "something which would define everything") Okay sir, Il try.

Once agian I was in a fix, to write something that has to be good and practically with no time to think...I took up one corner and for five seconds my brain was shutoff and I questioned "what if it would have been my magazine?" I got my answer, the same that I had the day when I was told to write "for the ed-board" and not just for me. I realised that this dream is just not mine, it was of somebody... it is of somebody and one day it will be mine. I wrote something and 2007 mag went for a roll....I could still see those tears of our then senior while that mag was being released. Something that made me realise that may be its time that the insignificant fire in me starts burning, so that one day I can feel and fathom the same.

Now, 26th april 2008

The time has come, that small fire was burning so bright that each passing day as our team worked, I could feel that same passion being shared by all four of us. Evry single night that boys of our team spent working at prints, Everysingle fight, heated arguments over articles and not meeting deadlines, differences over opinions, workloads, over the top fund raising crunch and not to forget working, working day in day out just for the sake that the fire that burns in all of us dosnt fades out, almost evry single damn thing that can happen in this world of publishing a magazine took over us. Working for mag went about being a synonym to sleeping and drinking...

I could feel the same commotion on the last days at the prints that I felt three years back on my first meeting, we forthies and two of the thirdies were working on the final stuffs, last moment editions, typesetting, coral draw mal functions, PC's getting over loaded and not working(almost dieing), few hot samosas, one big bottle of fanta( as Prateek dosnt take anything thats black ;)), laughing at Yash for his arbit nonsensical jokes, laughing at abhijeet and vivek for creating W.A.Y.S. 'incorporation', offering Almaas( the little boy at prints who was a dude at type setting) to drink from the same bottle of fanta as we were drinking......almost evrything that was a crap to the outer world was the last burning flame of the passion named Ed-board to me, yash, sonal and prateek. we were living its last, our desire to publish a magazine which was ignited by few of our seniors and slowly passed on to us had turned out to be a dream that was meeting its reality for the first time.

we were lucky for we could live our own dream, not many of us are that lucky. We were lucky for beyond all odds, WAYS 2008 was on roll.

One evening 7:30 pm GEC, as I and vivek( one of the thirdies) were waiting for some magazine work, I spoke something about how one should feel for mag...and while I was speaking...I realised that I was passing on the same passion that someone did to me....I was silently passing on the dream of W.A.Y.S. 2009 to the future of tomorrow.

The magazine still awating to be printed, today I realise that may be someday, four of us would be passionate in the same way for something else... I realised that may be Edboard was the best thing that could have happend to few us in the past four years. For its not me nor you, nor any one person who has made this reality, true to its name its we and you together that we have made it a success.

A success to awaken the sleeping generation in all of us!

P.s. Ed-Board 2004-2005 Adit Sharma sir, Ritwick sir, Nimkee mam

Ed-Board 2005-2006 Abhinav Sharma sir, Suniel sir, Vibhaas sir

Ed-Board 2006-2007 Prakhar sir, Kartikey sir, Shailja mam, Teena mam, Shweta mam

Ed- Board 2007-2008 Akshat, Debashree, Prateek, Sonal, Sania, Yash, Abhijeet, Devansh, Vivek, Poorna, Dhananjai, Kalyani, Abhilasha, Aditya, Ankit, Kartik, Shubha, Shruti, Navtej, Neelabh, Shashank, Rashmi, Ankita, Priyanka and all those who were a part of us!

In the temple of my heart...

2008-04-04T12:12:00.001-07:00

Something happened two days back, something which I can call as one of the biggest days of my life. No, I didn’t achieve any thing neither did I lose. May be I just realized few things or may be I just lived myself for that day!

I went for an interview for one of the MBA colleges. No, that wasn’t big enough to make that day great. It was usual, I was anxious as everybody else was, I was nervous for somehow I did not “fit” in there. But I guess nobody “fitted” there, everybody just tried to fix in. so all the while I waited for my interview call, a girl sat beside me for she was slated to go right after me in the same panel. And we had a conversation, something like this…

Girl: Hi, you look nervous!
I: Do I? But I don’t feel so J (A fake smile)
Girl: so are you prepared?
I: well (pause), No
Girl: (looking absurdly) okay, but then I guess you must be confident J
I: well (pause), No
Girl: (could hardly fake a smile) I hope you make it!
I: You do? Really? (God knows why the hell I asked that question)
Girl: (just a smile this time)
I: I don’t thing anybody out here wants anybody else to “make in”
Girl: (as if watching a deaf man talking), All the best!
I: Thank you (I forgot to wish her back, didn’t know whether I really wanted to!!)

I was called in, was thrown up with few uncomfortable questions or rather few questions which I couldn’t answer. I messed up, for all the time I wasn’t given the time for answering. I wished if I could somehow tell that person that I have come here to show you what I’m made off, my parents back thousand miles pray for me, my close friends are worried about me and here I am losing my chance just to talk! My interview was over and I walked out. For the first time I was walking out of something demoralized, weird and coy.

As I picked up my bag, my cell buzzed…
An old friend of mine (with whom I had practically no contact since past four years after school) messaged me

“Hey miss sunshine, how’s you. I came to know that this is your the big day
So just go and do it babe… show them what you are made up off.
Yours
Tichchy”

I kept my cell back, started walking off the corridor and I realized that since this morning, there was no single time that I was pretentious. I didn’t fake; I didn’t try and act smart. I realized that when I didn’t wish that girl sitting by my side good luck it was because I didn’t want to. I realized that my interview was not good, because may be I’m not that good.
And may be its time I realize that all those people who prayed for me, wished me from far lands just so that I make it big. I might actually not deserve it. I was feeling low and was being intolerant. I called back at that number from which tichchy messaged me.
After a long time someone picked up
She was over enthusiastic when she heard me; she hoped that I did perform real good…
Since we were talking almost after 4 years, it was something great for both of us. I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I messed it up. I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I may not be that good. So I kept the phone down and messaged her…

“yar I tried telling you…that I didn’t perform well inside. Thanks that you took the initiative to know about me, what I’m doing, where I am…after such a long time. But I guess I’ll have to let u guys down. I just didn’t do well. I wasn’t that smart to fake out answers which I could easily do at some place else. I just didn’t try to be somebody else and may be that’s why it didn’t go well”

She didn’t call back, may be coz she knew me better than I did myself…she just wrote

“Babe, you know what’s best. That you had the courage to face something which you did know is going wrong…and I’m sure just like our old days… you come down to your real self when things go harder. Don’t worry babes. You were great, may be not for those guys but for yourself, for us. Because you, were just you. And don’t you worry about us. We were. We are and we will be proud of you. Not because some certain interview you messed up, but because you were strong to learn that you were not good”

I was walking with my friend back to the outside gates and I was watching all those people, who were trying to be somebody else, trying to be their best, trying to outsmart the person sitting right besides them. They all were ‘trying’ to dig deep inside and find their own sunshine. And when they realize that they don’t have it, they tried faking it. Every single person around me was masking something or the other, my friend did, that girl out there did and may be I did till the moment I stepped inside that corridor and now I was walking out of it. But for the first time I dared to be myself, no matter how much weird, rude, illogical or dumb I was. I was just myself.
I might have lost the chance to be somebody and win the bet. I didn’t and I don’t know why.
Something struck me, that of everything I’m made off; I won’t be a farce like the rest hundred. I won’t be jealous of someone for she can fake better than me. I won’t be a pseudo namesake. I’ll be what I am and may be someday I’ll win the game just being who I am. May be someday I wont have to “think” of an answer when I would be asked what I want to be. May be someday I wont have to be a floated balloon which will burst into its miniscule with just a pin prick. May be someday I’ll be my own god.

I don’t know whether I’ll pass or fail that interview test. But I certainly know that I can be myself even when I’ll be dead because of it. I certainly know that deep down south of my heart I have that burning sunshine.

Somewhere I read

“To be visible, just burn your self”

Now I certainly know that I’m proud of myself for what I am, beyond success…beyond failures!

My Story!

2008-02-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was running ...we were playing "catch me if u can" ..... we were
supposed to catch the ten PM metro....i kept running....as i scuffled
inside the station...i cud see the train standing....i ran inside and
the door closed behind me....i was short of breath...for a while i
stood still catching up my breath...as the train started to move...i
looked behind..he was nowhere to be found....i watched out of the metro
window....he was running on the station all laughing....as he ran
towards the closed train.....i ran towards the last coupe.....as the
train sped up....it went all black...he was no where to be found.....i
was alone...lost into the blackness of the tunnel....going far away
from him....my heart skipped few beats....my breath still trying to
make me peace....the blackness all around over-roomed the light inside
the train...his face was all that i saw each time my eyes closed....i
kept on watching his face..and as i drew apart my eyes i could see the
faint light coming from the next station....the train stopped....the
doors opened again...i did not turn...for i knew he would be
there...there wud be nothing that could stop him frm being there...he
stepped in catching up with himself ... looked into my eyes and said
"Im there"....and i realised i can not live without him!

I could never imagine a self of mine reliant and dependent...i was
proud that i would never need a support of an opposite
gender....something which i felt an elixir to my living....my strength
was my soul....each time i felt that im alone....i knew that the inner
strength of mine is there to make me strong....make me as hard as a
rock so that nothing could effect me...but hardly i knew that Il
change...not for somebody but for something.....as always iv been proud
of my past..my childhood...my school days....my friends...my
family...and when i stepped out of that small shell of mine...i could
see all that...that i was protected from.."protected" a big
word....indeed, i know..i was lucky for i had never seen relations
breaking..i had never seen sadness in the eyes of a lost soul....i had
never seen empty beings banging floors to make them heard by
someone.....for i was in a make belief of goodness....a utopia of my
own..where love was not a feeling of life..but life itself.
I changed not to have my past back...but i changed to save my utopia
from all the harsh reality around.....evrynight as i walked back my
room ... i had seen women waiting at the bus stations from
brothels...no i din loath them rather i saw the sadness ...which im
sure that visitor of hers wud also see...i had seen street children
eating left overs.....we all see...but we dont wait and think.....they
gave me a sullen look...as if i was there to debar them frm there piece
of small happiness....i had seen big luxury cars sweeping by my
side...so many of them going back to empty rooms...so many would find
no one to talk too.and as i reached to unlock my door...i felt all of
that and more....when u are overstuffed of affection...you loath urself
for not receiving the minutest of it....all of us who live alone must
have missed that unshared laughter after late night dinner...that "adda"
over a cup of coffee...and that love for simply being yourself....if i
changed...i changed to save all these for me...i changed for i was
selfish of my own happiness....but no matter how you adapt to the
change..this world is far bigger to adapt it....

He left me...I could see him drifting away from all that we were...his
ambitions were bigger than mine...his dreams were no more suitable of
mine....i was that daffodil that grew older with the age and no more
bloomed in the midnight for the only moon....this time no one
spoke...no one laughed...as we met at the national park....it was night
and just like our first meet...we stood at the corner parkbench...from
where we could see the ice skating rink....for the first time i read
what was written on the park bench...."for sherly.... where ever you
are"....i felt as if i was the one to have written it for some shirly
whom iv lost somewhere.....we din speak...whn it was 9:30 we started
walking towards the metro for my ten PM metro....we din ran...we just
walked...for both of us knew that each step meant crossing a million
hurdles....as i reached the station....my train was standing....as i
stepped in, the door closed....i again ran back to the last coupe...but
he did not run towards the closed train...he did not run towards
me...and yet again the blackness over roomed me.....his face flashed
each time i closed my eyes...i kept my eyes closed not because i wanted
to keep on looking at his face...but becoz i knew that it was my last
piece of happiness...because the next time i open my eyes i would see
that sadness..that lonliness..and that unfaithful air that would leave
me naked to all the badness around.....and as i opend my eyes....i cud
see the light coming from next station...the more i loved the
darkness..more the light grew brighter.....the train stopped ...doors
opened and doors closed...but there was no one to say "Im there".

Chapter one!

2008-02-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

I was hogging on to Chinese in a 'no disturbance' mode...when I suddenly realized a fork entering my domain and trying to sneak in some of my "chow-chow" (noodles :) )... with a freaky smile I said "dare not" and with a more freakier one he was ready to sneak out some more....but then it was our last day together so I let him have his day....well he might not remember this fraction of a second fun game...but that happened some four years back when one of my bestest friends left for his job!.....

and no this blog is not on him( he hasn’t done anything worth a whole blog :))...this blog is for all those moments iv shared with him ....

so I’m sure you must be thinking again...another of the same kind....clichéd blogs of pain and joy...but can't help it. I am so badly obsessed with all of these people around me that I just cant imagine to foray into writing something different unless I have something for all of them :) .... but yah the list is not never ending so all those who visit my blogs and do not comment...waiting for that different blog ill write someday. I say...be patient...for few more are left and they are special...so I might just take time to write about them :)

As I was mentioning about that dude who belongs to be one of my closest friends lemme say...he is no James Bond...rather he is a little messed up guy with his hair and mind never on one place....so all these years while I tried to figure out one special thing that he has so that I can feel proud of him....unfortunately I din find any....be it those cheeky video games or a game as stupid as 'bagadully' (I’m sure most of you haven’t even heard its name)....we used to end up fighting ....more clearly me shouting on him....

so one fine day I was sitting on my porch and he dropped in....for the first time we were not playing something....we were chatting(trust me its a task to get something out of him....cz the more he pretends to be open...the more he is a shut mug!)...talking all nonsense that one could do...slowly as time passed I realized that its not he who is telling me all his secrets but rather its me who is blurting out everything to him.....and finally when he left...I could fathom that although he has been one of the most naughtiest brother I ever had he was also the best friend ill ever have...be it my math problems....my marks.... my friends....on that 3 hour chat i hd practically told him everything that was preoccupying me.....

time passed from days to years...my problems were not that big...I knew....but for whatever I had no solution, I just had one answer...dial him!Coming back to his last few days...and by that I don mean...we dint meet after that...rather recently we had real fun together...but by last I mean those days when "everyday" meets would be no more....

i went to pack his bag....he was thrilled to step into a different city...meet different people....so all the while as i was shouting on him....getting angry as to why he hasn't ironed his clothes and why is he not helping me in packing his stuff....i had my clock ticking....the more i wanted to share things with him....the more the clock went faster....and my time ran out .... He went ...on his way to a new world!

that day I was walking back home....all those memories of him teaching me math...helping me to keep guys at bay...making me learn simple rules....playing video games...drinking coffee.....and so much more... I realized that though god din give me my own brother he sent me him.....My soul saver went away....and I failed to tell him that he was one of those best things in my life that happened till then..... not that he sat with me four hours banging his head to make me pass my exams...neither that he was fun to be with....rather he is fun to everybody...its just those 17 years that we were together...since childhood.... that flashed my memory making me feel that he was that untold brother whome i can confide...find trust and feel secure...

last month we had our old school of friends to gather up while his sister got married....after a long time I could be all that i was....i could shout without any reason and no body got angry :) ... i could ask for innumerable ice creams....i could grab everything and anything that belonged to him .... small fights...small talks...made me remember all those days when I was a kid...and now that iv grown up and there are innumerable things that I can't share with him....I feel over stuffed...overstuffed of all those bigger problems in my life that he might not understand...overstuffed of all the badness in me that has accumulated and thers no one i can share.......not that i dont have people to share things. I have and they are special too...its just that they belong to another part of me...just like theirs...his place is irreplaceable, for call it my incapability, I cant accept new people to help me out of problems...as i dont trust anybody other than few....my clock stopped that day when he went away four years back...

time flies and its true....those few days went by like anything...and once again the game was over... and now in a short span of time as we would live thousand miles away in different cities....where meetings would turn out to be very rare...I would not wait to say that he was precious to me ....he was the brother i never had...and the friend who i can never replace...yes its true he din have any 'one' special thing to mention...rather he was irritating....naughty and weird....but in everything he was...he made all of us complete!

and today even after knowing that in the coming years how less we might talk or share.....I would say that I’m proud of him.... with all the lessons Iv learnt yet......unknowingly he has taught me the best one.......to live life fullest!

"Crying and cribbing wont get you anywhere...be responsible and follow your dreams"....someday I wish I could follow what he said to me..

cheers to you and your success!

Another World!

2008-01-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

It’s an old song...that she was listening again at this hour of another January morning...one of kishore's best and the one which many (from the road side Romeo to her life partner) died to dedicate her..."pal
pal dil ke pas" and she smiled her infamous smile as she watched her daughter getting married!

Few years back....and I say few as by the hands of history such a time span is definitely 'few'...

Hot jalebi’s were her favorite...her birthday and the whole house used to buzz with the fragrance of hot 'garam' jalebi’s and ‘Chingdi (lobster) fry’. Both being the lip smacking delicacy of a typical bangali 'badi' (Bengali home), as its with every bangla family apart from having family doctors and lawyers each of them are associated with a family 'mishti'r dokan' (sweet shop) and a family 'macher bajar' (a fish market)....same like her family was associated with ghosh babu's mishti house....so a family function(not to forget cricket matches, hockey matches, 'phootbal'(football) matches...and many to be considered just as equal as functions) and no sweets from ghosh babu....impossible!

As usual, soon as she used to wake up the whole family ran to stuff her with sweets and assurances that her favorite delicacy is on the list for today’s lunch. College on birthdays was a dream come true...as everybody from the peon to the boyfriend had the liberty to gift her roses and flowers...but that day he didn’t turn up...dodging all the 'Looove' and affection from her family, she kept waiting and waiting at the station for him to return from his job. He didn’t!

Upset she came back home before the sun set...it’s the first time in two years that he dint turn up. Instead as she landed back home...the whole of her clan kept waiting for her grand arrival, but unlike usual not to greet her or gift her...but to question a "letter".

Her baba 'father' never turned red unless the guilt was unforgivable...this time he sat motionless with a blind look holding a piece of envelop....on entering she was sure something was wrong....for no one spoke a word!
A quite mum (the best weapon a bangali babu has when his daughter is being wronged for a guy) and then the head of the family spoke in a morbid tone...."eta ke? (Who is he?)" Showing the envelope which she hoped had the tragic letter from her boyfriend.

Her best friend ditched her....as past two years all his letters were addressed to her friend shyama's home and were then hand delivered to her secretly...but this fine morning the game was done...shyama's brother caught hold of the letter and instead of her. It was handed over to her father.

Flustered "sen babu" asked again...."eta ke bol...nahole thik hobena (Either tell who he is or face the consequences)" That simple bengoli girl, whose entire world revolved around the dream to have her own little home with a small garden flashed a fearful look and spoke "amar bondhu (my friend)"....who is such a friend to write such unreadable letters....screamed sen babu. She ran upstairs...to save from the embarrassment she had to face in front of her practically whole clan...evening crossed with no one to knock...crying over her pillow she remembers the fragrance of hot jalebi’s which the whole family stuffed into her the very morning. She felt like a traitor cheating her family...a stranger on a known domain...that simple love of hers was making her pay its price a lot more than she deserved...for she knew....in her days...a staunch bangali badi'r me (a bengali family girl) never married with her choice....

That single night changed her for the rest of her life....she sat beside the window watching the dust settle down...watching the city which never sleeps to slow its pace and as in her town rikshaw wala's were the first to honker early morning...she realized with the sound of it that this day is not going to be the same...that she has to answer all the unanswered questions....that like the slow mist which settles down on the earth beneath, even she would have to settle down on her beliefs.

Another hour and the door knocked....it was tubulda (in east every man other than one’s suitor and defined relations is addressed with a 'da' which means dada) ....the door was not locked...so he came inside...Sat in front of her and asked for the first time...(and she knew for the last as well)...

"Will u forget him?"

She kept looking at the morning sun for a long time...its reflections on the backyard 'pukur (a pond attached with the home...very usual in West Bengal)'...and with a shallow tone she replied

"No"

He kept staring at the shy twenty year old girl ...who used to hide behind curtains just the other day...who’s appearance at functions were as few as nothing for she was scared to meet new people and talk...who’s favorite pass time was to fish at the backyard pond....who in a fist of time overnight grew to be a fearless strong woman.

As he started to walk out...there was a meek sound strong enough to be heard by the air around her... Voicing

"tubulda...I wont marry anyone else"

He turned back ...watching her small face glowing bright as the sun shone bright orange....the first rays painting her face red...fragile yet confident

Days passed...Sen babu.... still avoiding social gatherings....Sen baudi(her mother) ... pursuing her hobby as usual, crying and feeding rest of the family members...after a month or so...a suitor was to be shown to her...for she was supposed to marry her fathers choice...As everybody sat waiting for her at the drawing room...she locked her self upstairs, denying to comedown....that was the end of all!

Her father agreed of her choice but only on a condition that he won’t be present at the marriage. Three months later she was married....to the man she wanted to...both scared and unprepared to get into a serious business ... that too so soon. As the wedding ceremony ended...he looked into her eyes and said..."don’t cry if we are short of money"
She laughed away...Knowing that the entire she had, won’t stand by her anymore....knowing that the man she trusted her life earns just 600 rupees per month....knowing that she might never be the same girl...to whom the world was as small as her backyard 'pukur'.

She left her birth land for a place which was thousand miles far off...unknown and unfamiliar...as she stood at the station reading “city of lakes”...unable to understand a single word...for she knew only Bengali and a little bit of English...she clenched his hand...pointing him to a door...so that he could read that for her...she didn’t know how to read 'toilet' in Hindi.....he laughed the same way as she did while they got married...."don’t worry...I’ll make u learn everything"

There small world was a paradise to her, she made her own home...her own friends...her own life, but only till her child was born....
She was 21...as she stepped into her empty house holding her new born daughter...for no one from her family arrived till then...she realized that life would no more be simple....she knew there would be hardships as by then...money was not so easy.

It was another of a morning he came back from his office and worded the much awaited statement

"You might have to find a job...or else we will have to compromise on her schooling" looking straight at his 3 year old daughter like a dead man feeling guilty.

Without knowing a word of Hindi she enrolled to finish her degree at the university...that night was stormy as both sat beside their beds...deciding that now the time has come that they both have to fight with everything that they have in them to be the best...so that they can give their children everything that they did not have.
Every morning with the child running for her nursery, one left for his job the other to the university...although he was an engineer from one of the good institutes, salary was not proportional to ones qualification it was proportional to ones promotion. He worked day in day out...at two shifts....having lunch or dinner together was something that they both didn’t remember anymore.

But who was a bigger fighter. One who slogged like an animal to meet ends or the other who faced criticism for her incapability to understand Hindi...for fighting odds and translating her bangal into english to pass exams and as well to tender for a three year old child...for them...having each to other was more than a family and a moral support. They happened to be each others life support...as the existence of one was not possible without the other.

Years passed. After 3 years of finishing her graduation and as well post graduation she found a job at a local school and he, still climbing the ladder one by one...with no contacts and no godfather...to achieve his promotion all he had was to show his work...and the people above him knew it very well...turning no stone unturned to make him slog. It was a long run for both of them her child’s first day at school...her first prize....her first letter she could write, everything went into a miss...for all that she could see is her daughter studying in one of the best schools of the city...that was their dream...and they made it true...their first success!

Since then there have been many....after seven years of machine work...he achieved one of the higher positions in the organization....she felt proud of him...That night she was the happiest ever...for she was expecting her second child and also for the day has come where the man she had trusted ... finally proved himself...as they sat watching their daughter sleep.. A tear rolled her eyes down...past eight years of her marriage she cried for the first time...that drop of tear was her own celebration...from being a conventional bengali girl...she came out to be a winner...she watched that night dawning into a hue of pink...as the first rays painted her face red. Her essence of past flashed her memory...those looks which dejected her for she choose her own suitor...that man who had been everything to her since childhood, leaving her at the edge...that train to the city of lakes and her first steps at the university....her every step, that would have been next to nothing for anybody of us...was as big as miles to walk...for she was not one of us...She belonged to a world where a woman’s destination was marked, where she wasn’t allowed to speak unless questioned…as that was how a traditional, conservative Bengali family used to be…still she loved...still she fought and still she won...no matter how small her dreams might seem to us...she made it true. She fought selflessly for her family, her children. For a better tomorrow...forgetting every bit of her share of happiness.....her face was glowing as the bright sun was shining ...the same way as it did which changed her years back. After a while...he came down to her and said...

"I’m proud of you"
Her life was lived complete in a single moment!

That very night I was born...

Colours of the night!

2007-12-25T22:53:00.000-08:00

You search for your space..and not by physicality but the inner space of your mind...unconquerd and inane.you travel..you read...you discover your inside out but still u fail to find that "space"...that nothingness in you ... the one which might kill you and at the same time keep u breathing...the one which is your strength as well your broken spine...the one which is both you and your alter ego....you try and search for it...and at the end u realise that all your life what you'v been searching is nothing but your real "self"...the energy that makes you and as well breaks you!
here one's "self" is discovered by the emptyness of many kinds...as a fathomless "space", a nondescriptive "thing"...as the literal meaning of "none" and by anything as casually described by an "it".
Its one's journey to discover himself!

...
Through an empty road
I look in for some space
funnier it may seem ...
as I try and find it "none"!

and I find myself in the sunshine
in the woods.. in the rain
in the morning glow of sun
till the midnight dawning lane

from the heavens to the earth
as i seek through the ends undone
funnier it may seem ...
as I try and find that 'none'!

In an empty room
I look in for some space
the nothingness crowds me deep in vain
as the lonesome falls again

from the church ... to the temple
from one sorrow... to another fun
funnier it may seem...
as I try and find that "none"

and how I sometimes fly like an eagle....
sometimes like a dove ..slow and fine
sometimes I swim deep in the ocean
all to look for that "thing" of mine.....

and how I drive the highways accross...
NYC via chicago ...to our own dilli roads
from the lightless lane..to that half echoed sound
that thing of mine ....is still nowhere to be found...

that last bus..and locals at night
that corner bar where no one fights
that scorching summer ... and winter nights
on empty sheets i search for my space.

in empty class rooms..on vacant chairs
in morning metros...to the last of few stairs
on flightless runways..to the hollow stares
at the ends of all... still I search for my space.

from the nothingness of the soul...to the holloring of my mind
from the lonely mornings ..to all the pleasures I dont find
from the earth beneath my feet...to the end of my vision
I search for the only.. the only space of mine.

....
and as I lie down
all perished and jaded
I search no more...for my time has come
and right amidst the half lived years
the half spent joys..and the incomplete selves
I see "it" mourning...for I failed to find
....for I failed to find the "self" of mine

In its enigma it holds me tight...
walks me careful, quite and safe
with an honour to my soul..and tears for my death
I see it walking me ...right till my grave!
....
...

Airtight!

2007-12-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

A mamoth, a squirell , a tiger save a human child to its destiny......a plestanian boy calls the other to play football at the no mans land....a boyfriend jumps high enough to reach a bus window to hand his girlfriend a chocolate....a mother salutes to her dead son's martyr....and so many more.
yes we all have seen these "emotions"...again and again...some on television ... some in our lives...and we wonder...what makes our brain go suddenly for such a "brainless" activity, and i say brainless cause on all aspects one wouldnt do something like that on a normal given day.
hers again a story...like my other one's, something which may happen to many...its just that my emotions led me see them more deeply, and i share...so that you dont loose your last chance...as i did!

"why do u look like that?...as if ul kill me" i was questioned for i had the habit to look straight into the eyes of the person in context...I dont know if its with everybody..but if u really know a person i feel one has the power to look deeper than one wants to.....i actually damn cared to kill or to leave half dead, i never changed the way i looked untill i'd once seen which i never wanted to!
call me lucky but i always had people to sit and listen to me, it was always me who chose the one's i wanted to say something....my set of friends...my school...my network...and hopefully some fine day my work place as well....so i and jay were once sitting on the backyard of his old house and playing checkers....though we were not that kid....but we just happen to love that game since we were four. he was about to leave for his job or what should i say serving the country...it was pretty casual for me as by then..almost all my friends have moved out...i had the habit of realising the fact that now the time has come to walk "alone"....after the game we decided to have some coffee...fortunately he being the one to brew it....since filter was not my game!
his time was nearing up to leave for the station...after a two hours delay from the indian railways we were pretty much sure that after half and hour he'l be all set to go.....as we sat drinking that black "something".... he said something to himself with a chuckle
"mind talking?" i said
"nah, just feeling weird"... he had just one exclamation for evrythin on this planet...whatever din suit him was supposed to be weird! but he kept talking...and i let him...for i was sure we wont sit like this anymore and drink coffee...me still being in teens....he wont comeback for a longer time.
"you see this coffee...it tastes this good cause it has been worked upon for a longer time....zada mehenat lagi (more efforts were put)...and as u drink it slowly u realise that sooner or later the mug is going to be empty"
"so you having this empty mug feeling" by the look i knew it was a bad timing for a pathetic pj
"noh...im not feeling empty...im feeling overstuffed..overstuffed of everything that i havent let out till now.....theres so much to say...to so many people...but i aint got time...to baba...to ma...to evrybody"

it was time....we went outside...took a taxi and went to the station..since his parents were outstation i accompanied him....for something in me, told me...that he is really going to take a long time before i see him next .....
as he boarded the train he stood at the door looking below.. what?....i din know
"zada hero mat ban, go and take ur seat...il get back home safely" i joked
he kept standing at the door
the train started and he looked straight into my eyes "u remm i told u not to look like that...to people.....it was coz i was scared that someday you could read my mind"
he kept staring at me till the train moved off faster......."theres so much to stay" these words kept ringing in my ears again and again.....
since we shared a childhood friendship..there was no question that he tried conveying a deeper meaning or whatsoever...coz i being me...knew almost everything of him...his first smoke...drink...girl...and even dope!...there was no secret that he din share...it was different...there was something more...a void!
for the first time i was ashamed.....for i failed to read my best friends mind.....the train moved faster and faster..and he blurred into the thin air.... i failed to know him for the first and the last time!

jay never cameback....he got lost somewhere...into the crowds....for reasons which even those high profile military guys din tell us. we all waited for him for 4 years....untill i was sure that i knew what that look in his eyes meant! i realised that "something" in him knew that he wont get another chance to say how he felt for all of us.......it was the look which told me that he wont be there to sit and stare!............its just that i din want myself to believe....a loss was something which became more casual than i could take...by then i had lost on many and i din want to loose him.....but as i said...u never know with emotions...unless uv faced them death hard!

that was another of a summer morning ....when i went to his ma .... she was bussy with her home nitty grities when suddenly something punched me hard deep inside and i blurted..
"aunty, jay loved u very much" ...as i stared at her...i could see the same look...that same stare....that same void, that jay had....right on those stairs! and with all my trust..i know...that at that very moment she could read me of what i felt!

after that day we waited no more! ... coz we knew...jay was inside all of us.....weather he be dead or alive....he will be with us always! .... as love is something that we share, even when we do not exist!

that palestanian boy....that mother of a dead child and those innumerable people who want to convey the feeling of love through different emotions...have it in them...the feeling of unknown bonding..... way before they know themselves!

and now .... when i stare at masses...i see all those....who dont realise that they have the power to read millions even without listening once....i search for that single eye...which would stare back at me and give me my second chance...the one which i lost 5 years back!
the one which would never comeback!

P.s. the names are changed for reasons well known!

A Falcon's Fly

2007-12-14T02:33:00.000-08:00

My sister was in class second when she was told to speak something about me…a school elocution competition…where she hardly managed to spurt out a single sentence…reason she din sleep for the past 48 hours, as I was born … but managed to receive the loudest applause amongst all other competitors….

“my sister is a treasure box, with lots and lots of “nice nice” things for me”

The whole crowd first laughed at her for 15 minutes when the teacher announced her failure to continue the speech as she din have any idea of what to speak about “something” which is few hours old… and then clapped for the rest of the 15 minutes.
Why’d they laughed she still fails to understand and why’d they clapped ..well, guess she has come to know about it after 21 years.

When my dad asked her , from where did she managed to say something which has dropped her into an overnight fame; her reply was…. ”papa you only said she is a gift to me, aint she?”

Well she was right for at least one thing. I am a treasure box stuffed with many precious “things”, and she being one.

But this isn’t about her, this is about someone else who equally belongs to the same league of stuffs…we cal her fondly mad!

I remember I was overtly fused up with my eleventh standard school exams when she dashed into my home with a loud noise….”happy birthday darling” … well I surely din find any big gift following her so I was pretty sure she had just come to wish me “without a gift”…anyway, in a morbid tone I managed to fake a thank you smile…for I being very much drowned into my math paper!....she sat, chatted with the other people and in between sighed a sympathetic smile for I had to study on my birthday…as she was about to leave she bumped into my room…went to my mirror and stuck something right on top of it…a paper note…and said “isko nikalna nai, samjhi”..(don’t take it off.okay)…I was relieved when she finally took leave…for then I could study peacefully…surely when I was young “we din gel well”…so I hardly bothered to read what she stuck at that mirror of mine. As the next day I was rushing for school for my exams …I saw what she stuck ...it was written bold and clear with a red ink.

“No matter where u are...or what u do…il be always there for u”

A sudden rush of guilt plunged through me, as soon as I came back from school I rushed to see her…but she was already gone…to join her new job as an economist at one of the biggest banks in India”…I felt ashamed and sad…for something in me knew that what she had written write at that piece of paper…she actually meant it.

Years passed… I grew up to be in college and due to some work I had to rush to Bombay for some family deeds…. It was again she helping me…to let me stayed at her place… as I entered I could see the same glowing face welcoming me as if I was the only sister..only friend…only guest she ever had. We went for midnight buffets… stop-at-snack-bar luncheons….home delivered pizzas and long long hours chats…suddenly there was a different dimension of relation that we shared…way more than that of a little sister and an elder one…something of being friends…and mostly like what a woman shares to a woman… may be I grew up. On the day I was about to return we went for a morning drive….fortunately the day was way different from usual Bombay days…clouds were lowering…we went to bandstand….walked…felt the cold mist …listened to good music. and had coffee at barista…when I was about to get up for the car…she held my hand and said…

”u know baby…I came to see you when u were born…I was there when ur sister blurted out that infamous line about you….and today I see that you are actually a treasure box to us…coz not only u are the little sister I never had… but one of my best friends I will ever have”

For a second I felt like crying…as of my 20 years I din think of her anything more than my best friends elder sister….she always came "after" somebody….after her brother..after her mother…as they were more important to me “till then”…but as I stood that day in the middle of cold winter morning that same guilt of mine…hugged me hard.

The feeling was same…as yesterday I stood all decked up to attend her wedding…clouds enveloped my city and the mist same as that day….almost one can feel it!...at the end of all's I returned from her wedding the next morning…I stepped inside my room and I saw the loosely hanged paper note from the top of my mirror…
I stood reading it for almost half an hour…realizing all that I had never told her…and would never get a chance again….
Realizing that there might not be another person to hold my hand and say that Im special.
Realizing that I might never get to say that “no matter where you are, what you do…il be there for you”

Realizing that she was one of the most important keys to my treasure box.

“Sometimes you realize what u had when u actually seize to have it”.
And today when she flew off to some far lands….happy, more than she ever was…here are the innumerable fragments of me that went away with her…that guilt which I felt five years back…that friendship that we shared at bandstand…and that unknown bonding that we had till date!

Maybe one fine day…I’l get to tell her that all her home made cakes….her drives..her cares…have shaped me what I am today…and made me another of her part…an another of a “mad”.

Cheers to her and her happy life!

Faith!

2007-11-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

"Faith is stronger than ur conviction"

Long back I had an argument with somone as to why don't I trust people..certainly even I wasn't sure why? for as far as trust is concerned I believe i had it on just 7 people in these 20 years and amongst those 7, the first one was me on any day. I retaliated "I do trust people..its just that I dont have faith on them"...."so whats the difference anyway?"..My addled brain went more flopsy... and I decided to be on a no trust mode untill i'd found what is faith!

yes there is a difference and a stark one. yesterday one of my colleagues at the newspaper agency called up and we spoke about the confusion thats presently hangling around nandigram. We decided we'l meet over a coffee and discuss about the article that has to be on print.
As we sat over a coffee...she narrated a clip scene from nandigram over which my article was to be writen.
"An eight year old girl(bali)...was trapped behind a burning bus..the local commotionist were on a random scurrage to burn and kill people, neverthless of their age and gender....(anybody above twelve was handed a gun to patrol...cause- he should be a localite and he should be a male..and any girl below twelve was either massacred along with her family or if she is over twelve she is raped and then murdered!) ...a local boy(16 years) watching from a distance ran to help the girl ... he was her neighbour... as he stood over the bus top..shoved away the gun and gave the girl his right hand so that she can hold it.....the girl replied "ab bharosa nai hai" (I dont have faith in you)...the boy not being able to decide what to do bent down to the possiblity of gripping her....the girl backed off...as soon as the boy jumped behind to pull her out...the state transport bus blew into pieces...burning them to ashes." all of this was filmed accidently by a fallen camera ..which presently happens to be the red witness for nandigram genocide.

I felt heavy.... for after i watched the almost blurred retaped vedio, that too half of it... I went speechless. balefully i asked her..."why the hell she did not trust him"... since my colleague being quite senior to me....she said somthing after which all came to one fix.... as if the pieces of my puzzle were all set. "she did trust him girl.....its just that she lost faith in him.....she wasnt scared of he being a non-conformist....she was scared of he beinge a human at all. she was scared of inhumanity"

You are born...you have sibblings...you love someone...you marry...you have kids....but even after all of these..at the age of 90 when u face a near death experience you first crave for ur mother...not because u did not trust all these people .... but the first person , you ever had complete faith on this earth is your mother. Be it 9/11 massacre or bhuj earthquake...people helped people not coz they trusted each other...or for that matter no body trusted anybody...it was one human faith that made a stranger ur life saviour.

when victims of beslan school massacre(russia) were treated at the JFK traumatic child caution centre...few unimaginable manuscripts came to define humanity...
amongst the two kids who were trapped at the school gym one being a grade 6 girl(rejevak) and another grade 4 boy (leo) ... who were sacked at the corner in a space of one school bag, they were almost one over the other....the scripts read..."he was on top of me...he wanted to pee...but he was scared for we were not allowed to talk....he looked into my eyes...without saying anythin i nodded.. he pee'd over me...the boy near me puked....and they killed leo"
when asked how did she find at all what leo wanted to say...rejavek herself did not know.
this was human faith....no body trusted anyboy.....all they did was to look at each other....they played upon what is known as emotional trasfix.

when Your human brain cannot act, by using senses...it shuts its receptors and switches on the emotional brain (Amygdala) ... and then its the work of amygdala to reciprocate..it can be a negetive response (as in the case of bali) or a positve one (as in rejaveks case)..but without the use of any physical response...since amygdala is in no connection with the rational brain(neocortex)...u actually never come to know how did u respond at all....it is this amygdala or the emotional brain that responds faith....and it is this neocortex or the rational brain that responds trust.
When u face death...when u feel love...when u act on the spurr of a blink then it is this emotional brain that makes u respond. This is magical indeed..for theres an instinct to kill one another for no reason and theres the other to stop it as well .. all in a sigle unit called human brain...

and we finaly came to consensus that trust is something which u can control....and faith in all reasons in uncontrolable...instinctive and gifted by god
you might trust a person for 40 years and then one fine day...he may walk over you. whereas you may havent even met each other before...but at the first sight u might feel a sense of belonging....i asked ... "is that what we call love at first sight"...we both laughed..but we both knew that of all the people we have met and we will meet, we ourselves were not sure who are our faith keepers..for till date all we bothered about was to win this trust game!

"unlike what u may realise it has got no connections with the number of years You have spent with each other.... its how many years you desire to spend more... that decides faith" - Helen Keller

Comatose!

2007-11-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

This is about two people iv known for sometime of my life....and for quite a long time i was in a limbo as to whther i should write about them or shouldn't I..but eventually as things stand today I don't feel any privacy attack even if I pen them down....so I start..I'v used nick names for the story is true and few are very much alive and living.

she was 5 when she had an acute asthamatic attack.. I saw her falling on the hard cemented floor of my school indore play room...she sweated badly...of the 64 of us who stood there not knowing what exactly to do...I cried as loud as I could...cause she was my best friend...and for that fraction of time I thought she is goind to die....my junior school principle came running....took her into her lap and then we all were sent to our respective classes.....As i started walking out of the class..i turned for the last time to see her...but was unable...i went back to KG II B. She returned the next week...all happy..more fatter...and honkering bashing to all the other desks as she reached mine ..almost shouting.." oye, Im back"... I was happy! this is the only scene that i remember of my kinder garten days! Me and "Tichhi" as we all fondly used to call her.

We have done almost everything together from knowing whats inside a room where all senior "didi's" from higher secondary used to go...where we being kids were prohibitted and which read something like "GCR" whose full form we didn't know at that time and eventually could find nothing interesting as it was just another "Girls common room"...to.... laughing and asking weird questions at human anatomy classes...we were great together!
Growing up was never a process to us..coz we never came to knw how we grew up so fast...right from famous five to GnR...from fancy dress competitions to walking at farewell ramps...it was fun..and by that i certainly don 't mean we never had a fight...we had...and sometimes bad ones too..but yes, they were never bigger than our yaari-dosti :)

Then on a sunday morning she called me to say she found a guy of 'her kind' with whome she likes just to be with or to be more precisely "faalen in love" with.....that night we partied like anything....played football till 2 in the night...got wet.....went for a drive...ducked parents while returning home in the morning....we'd done evry crazy stuff that was available to us...just to celebrate that one amongst us is no more single!!!
His name was CJ or thats what we used to call him....I'd met him once when we all partied again as CJ cracked AIIMS...was a real time brainy kid....yes, we were happy then for tichhi for CJ and for our dosti....two months passed after CJ went to med school...he used to be upset for not being able to cope up with his studies...and so we all used to cheer him and buck him we knew this was just a passing phase....but things turned out worse....CJ turned out to be a doper...we tried pulling him back from that "mess" of his life...but as fate wanted ..he went deeper and deeper into it....he lost it!
we realised that tichchi shouldnt be with him anymore for he was abusive...irrational and on top of it he was a druggist...

Another sunday morning and another call...it was from tichchy's mom.....that tichchi is hospitalised...i knew what she tried...its just that i din want me to believe that she has actually done what she said to me the night before "babe.. i think il kill myself"....i was sure she was kidding for i knew her not be a fool head....but yes i also knew she was damn into CJ...i went running...saw her resembling the exact color of a white bed sheet she was lying in....when she was up from the comatose...she told me Cj has been caught by police and she was scared!

"scared of what tichchy?" i did ask
"nothing babes..Im just scared"

she returned home ... all friends of ours planned for a trip to mumbai....we went.....had fun...we walked through bandstand...listening to november rain...went to cafe shops....movies theatres....we were the same as we were when CJ wasnt there.

we came back and another downpour waited to wet us all ...... we heard Cj got into an accident and was no more....

for sometime tichchy went blank....she started smoking... doping? I was'nt sure...but yes she wasn't stable.....all our night stays turned out to be a strike process for me and few more of my friends to pull her back from the "mess".....the more we tried ... the more she lost it....somehow we felt she wasnt the same one....or if im not wrong i just failed to understand her anymore...19 years of friendship came crashing in front of me...as she said "You know whats your problem....You are too much practical and too insensitive to understand even your best friend"
those words still shake me like anything....that night i came back at 2 and cried the rest of it in front of my dad...for all i knew that friendship is somthing that i'd never compromised!

another morning...another call.....her second attempt! I'd seen the room where she tried spilitting whatever she wanted...
5 days after, her dad took her someplace out of india..to her masi's place...for she needed treatment....of what.. even i din know.
it was 5th of june when i went to the airport to see her off....as she was checking in she held my hand and said "sorry babes....and..oye,I'll be back"......and she walked.
I couldnt stand there.. for the only person i ever cry to is my dad...as i was walking back to my car ...I turned back just to see her for the last time...but i was unable to...my school indoor games room came flashing into my memory..i ran back!
She did not return till date....occasional call's to uncle and aunty came to seize as i realised for them anything that associated tichchy was not to be kept in touch with....in an age where emails, Im's and fone calls are synonymous to existences..here we are...way far into different worlds. with no connections at all!
Even today when i look at my school ..I see the best of what I had and the worst of what i lost!
but life goes on..maybe someday..somewhere....as we said "right on the roof tops of empire state...we will party...boooz all night and look at the stars".

"Be a writer yaar...what fun is there in driving a car if u compare it to the power of moving emotions".... when i'd taken up engineering ticchy in her casual tone sounded something like that...and so not a whole novel but just a blog for her!

Crash

2007-11-11T04:55:00.000-08:00

my first drive..my first crash...my first loss...somethings cant be defined by words....this was few seconds before a crash!..though all escaped unhurt...but my first 'hello' to fear was then.....and each time i look at this...im speechless....write what u feel when u see this pic....let it be anything...and by that i really dont mind when u write 'whatta crap'. just post it as a comment!

Ashes

2007-10-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

"Im leaving on a jet plane ... dont knw when il be back again..Oh
babe..I hate to go......"

May be my umpteenth listen to this song...still i feel the same as i
had felt the first time ever when i heard this song.....A fathomless
feeling...far and unkempt..no matter how much u try..u just cant get
over this feeling...the feeling of missing!
and i leave it to that...coz the substance of missing is too hard to
categorize...

I have heard my late grandma saying she missed the old
banyan tree of her first home, my uncle missing his old broadset
radio, my friend missing her boyfriend....and many more to miss.I too miss to share these songs with someone...miss to share my closet
anymore with my kid friend...miss to play hide and seek with my
brothers....miss so much with so many people...I miss all thats not
mine and all that wont be mine!

I might sound selfish..but deep down inside u will realise that even you
are a part of this bluff game..when u listen to an old song...when u write something for the first
time..when u see something that uv never seen before...or just when u
sit silent...u miss all those with whome you want to share all these
moments..even in a crowded room, u just might feel 'god, why isnt she
here'...
I feel..I miss and then I cry....and today if Iv accepted the void in me...i realise that unlike every
secong 'girl' i dont miss a 'boyfriend'..rather i miss a companion just
'my kind'....I dont miss branded stuff, cd's and coffee shops....I
miss my school library....On speeding cars .. i dont miss to pull
brakes, but what i do miss is to drive ahead with a friend, on a long
road, with John Denver playing...just as it was 2 years back!
and by all these im no philosopher or an old school girl...I am what exactly you are...cause a patient thought will make u believe that all that uv been thinkin that ur missing are not the ones actually you do...
if its words that u think u miss...then trust me its the spaces between them that ur actually missing!

Incomprehensible? .. yes i can be...cause even i took 2 complete years to find what do i exactly miss! or rather what do people call void? and what id found is that.. what id never imagined!
If it was my old life that i missed...i was wrong....its just that the absence of those people in my present life is what i missed!

I woke up today morning and after 8 years i heard mom in the kitchen...as past 8 years she walked to her work before i used to wake..and if someday she used to be on leave it used to be my turn to walk before...You might not feel what i felt...as you might have never known to wake up alone...munch a peice of something cold and insignificant....wash, pack
and run all that when u were 14 and officially living in a home full of people...

Letme tell u...no matter how much u reason and how much u get into the understanding mode..u feel 'damn..why isnt there anybody to feed me
somethin better'....but then u walk off..as u know "if ur mom's working
she is working for u" and if not that then theres nothin better you can cook for urself.

As i said its too large to categorize....but each day..while u drive...u work...listen...eat...walk..or sleep u do feel a void...for something or somebody thats relative....but at the end uv got nothing
better to do than just ignore and work on...as iv been doing till date....and if by chance u dont feel the space...just halt and thank God for ur amongst the few..who are blessed to be complete..
for the rest of us...the world is still incomplete!

Find your 'missing link' before it vanishes into the ashes of time!

Wanderer!

2007-10-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

And I close my eyes….walking back to the boulevard of broken mirrors. “And yet again” some one says. “Few lines on life?” and I say “no, this time I’m writing not about life but things which are beyond one’s life”
On Sundays my dad prefers not to drive, and since we don’t have a driver it’s usually me who drives him to his destination, to the trust of which he is a member. I finish of my work till he gets over with his. Someday we drive back home over a coffee at local cafés, on other’s if nothing, some jalebi’s are for sure in my kitty. Usually I wait if he happens to take long with his, but this time I preferred a drive towards the old township where I spent my first few years, towards the reminiscence of my childhood.

My father is a government employee, and we spent our early days at the township where he was allotted one of many quarters. A simple two bedroom built up and a shabby porch ‘where our old jalopy used to stay’ was all that we managed with. Neither desired nor required any bit of extra space beyond what we had. Since television wasn’t that big when I was four and with all the more internet being in its nascent stage, most of the colony kids used to spent their post school hours hanging on to the cricket grounds and to each others backyards collecting peaches and mango’s. Sunday Maggie parties, picnics on two wheelers ‘with a bunch of wooden sticks somehow being managed to be tied around the stepney’, cake making and hogging sessions, cycle races around the fence were few of our monthly rituals. One’s birthday party was worth a year awaited! We didn’t have much and we neither craved for, because we all had equal shares. Maybe that’s what we did. We lived equal lives. Nobody bothered to purchase anything that they did not see at their neighbor’s place. More so, nobody had anything worth a showpiece! And there was my first lesson ...”To be happy, money is the least you’ll ever need”

As I drive onto the other side, I see a shattered window, grills already being stolen, a yellowed piece of land that once stood to be a small garden and a half tethered porch, all at a place that used to be my home. “19/A” was all that I could see being repainted in black; rest all seemed to be brutally shaken. I drove a bit farther to my friends place and I see the huge mango tree where we, along with our brothers and sisters used to collect half groomed mango’s... now, it gives nothing but a spooky feeling. Though I won’t say collecting mangos was the thing that taught us to be friends but it taught us something beyond friendship a feeling called togetherness. We used to burn our backs in the scorching heat of April summer, bending on to the grounds in search of the unripe ones and a day’s collection went to the owner’s dining table. Cleaned, washed and eaten later on. No one stole, no one fought. As all knew there’s nothing in them that will differentiate there share. They were equals beyond sex, height, shape and size; they all were children and a true companion to one another, and nothing beyond that. I learnt my second lesson “We don’t need friends, we need true companionship…we bond not to friendship, but we bond to togetherness and to the sense of security”

Today when I see my sister lamenting for her childhood friend, who unknowingly went missing into this big bad world and who also happened to be my childhood big brother, I don’t see friendship and emotions; I just see the innocent longing for togetherness, where one does not think twice to speak her heart out. A desire for that another world where rule one ‘still’ stands to be no pretension, where we belonged together as a team and where we all knew that our team has a broader definition, far from religious bondages it stood for those who desired to be together through thick and thin.
I drove alongside to our play ground, one more of my pal’s place whose main door was stolen and through which I could see the remains of her then living room, to my kinder garten bus stop and simply to the old roads...as I drive in to these half asleep yesteryears, I see each shattered room glowing bright into a different life that I was a part of. “All wanderers aren’t lost”, I fondly remember Tolkein as I take to be one myself. All these bricks stood past 14 years when I was there. No matter how bad they look, these broken windows teach me my last lesson “blood isn’t a necessary requirement for bonding, a past, barren grounds, broken wall’s and a little bit of faith is enough to let one feel the living bond all over again”

On holi day’s iv seen my uncles watering others from roof tops and hogging on to sweets, “durga pujo’s” were something which is inexplicable through words…from howling on to football and cricket world cups at 2 in the night to crying over lost children till the morning light. I’ve seen it all and now after all that I’ve grown to be, I can feel them more. When I drive back leaving my born connections, I take leave from things which I’ll remember all through the coming years… things which will mean beyond my whole life.

I never wished to be there where I was when I was a day old, my old life was a gift from God. Today as I wish a million things ‘almost all being fulfilled’… now that I have more than 2 of everything…. Now, that I no more need to collect mangos. I realize that I had the best gift when I was born and at the end of all’s, I’ll cherish this gift as the gift of my life!

Care is non quantifiable. And if you can, then it’s the least you have ever received.
Its what I learned from everybody, I say everybody as I wasn’t bought up just by my parents, I’m a part of many living souls…some, who no longer come to me with vanilla candies and some who still quiz me fondly with tricky math questions. It wasn’t a lesson, for me, it was an elixir to living….sometimes as deep and intense as an abyss… most of the times an unknown comfort. Even for the dead, I feel remembrance is care. And for the living…It’s what you feel right now!

P.s. some of it is factual. Most of it real….with love and respect for all of them who were a part of it!