Blitzkrieg.

When we were born we all were handed over buckets, buckets of joy, buckets of tears and an empty bucket too where you can fill in all that you want to, the happiest of you, the brilliance and the beauty, the chuckle and the memory, the deepest and the scariest of who you could be. While the other buckets are necessities, this special one is an elixir. Just remember that. Now half way through your journey, what do you do when you realize that the Joy bucket, the bucket which kept you going has gone dry?

I have had sleepless nights, nights when I have stared through the ceiling fan not knowing which direction to go when its morning. I have had moments when all I could believe that there’s no sun. I have started loving stars precisely because the darkness never left. It had happened few years back and it has happened again and I know it will happen again.

That night too, I stared through the ceiling fan trying to understand which way to run. I had seen through a future which was not mine, and the crashing of it hurt me. Hurt the hell out of me. Not because something did not work, no. The future I was rooting for had holes through which rain poured and I knew it. From the beginning of time, I did not like the mindless pouring of rain, but I tried, I pushed through, I rummaged through the smoked glass and I started reveling in it. I enjoyed feeling the cold drops washing my identity. I started rooting harder while the tiny little drops slowly morphed into thunder and a storm built around me. A bottomless emotion, the one you feel when the whole world is dancing in madness and you experience a sudden peace. The irony of it is you don’t realize that you are not looking at the storm. You are the storm; you are the eye of the storm. I danced through the madness in silent reverie while the wind blew past me. I wasn't hurt because I did not realize being the eye of the storm; I was hurt because the rain stopped pouring.

"It won’t work". It was as simple as this that someone could tell me and there came crashing my rhythm. I shifted my center and hit the walls of my tempest. I fell over and turned into a violent whirlpool. I started going higher, higher and higher as the wind tossed and turned me. It was time my madness consumed me, time to tear apart the eye of the storm into a million pieces.

Next morning I see two people standing in front of my door, tears welled up in their eyes as soon as they saw me. Were they crying over my broken relationship? I don’t think so, they were looking at midnight’s destruction and they could not fathom the fury of this devastation. All that had happened till now, the scattered pieces of my bad memories started to feel as a breeze in wake of the present. This was different; this was supposed to be light at the end of tunnel. But the light never reached me.

My mother of 55 told me to gather myself and ask one last time to the man in concern if he would want to try a little harder, hoping that he would not want to let someone go so easily, that he might not want me to fade in oblivion. But the answer remained a no. A million shreds of me splattered across my wish wall, showing me what my eyes did not want to. Moments I have shared feelings, emotions, smiles, tears, and the entire clock of 120 days flash by flash as if I am on a carousel which won’t ever stop. A carousel of happy memories in negatives.

So how do you feel when you are trapped in your own wonderland? Does it still remain your wonderland? Let me tell you how it goes once you are in it. You run, you run directionless trying to figure a way out. You check every single pathway, you knock on every door, and you thump the earth you are standing at, you also scream to the sky staring at you. And then, when you realize there's nowhere to go. You stop and let madness consume the whole of you one last time. It’s like the pagan bird diving into the holy fire of death to attain redemption.

That storm had died. My silent reverie had collapsed. That bottomless emotion of falling into an abyss could successfully drown me. Do you still feel the rain pouring through? Yes, you do. Do you still enjoy the cold drops of water washing your identity? No, you don’t. It’s just you and your wonderland with the bucket of Joy gone dry.

I know they say, but believe me when I do, closed doors don’t lead to open doors. It’s a lie. So all you do is stop running and stand for a while, breathe, catch your pulse, throw away that illusion known as the bucket of joy, take the empty one and search for a hammer. Start breaking your walls around. Start breaking your wonderland with a hope that the world outside is still rooting for another utopia, where it doesn't rain, where there’s sunshine, where there’s hope and where there’s a park bench.

Where you can sit and gaze at your empty bucket, flick through what is in there, one by one, peacefully, the happiest of you, the brilliance and the beauty, the chuckle and the memory, the deepest and the scariest of who you could be. Lay down each one of them around you, carefully, piece by piece, like shields and swords, engulfing you in a glass house of life’s best and worst memories...

Till you wait for the rain to begin. Till you wait for another storm. The Blitzkrieg. 

Bombay Diary ~ Amertume

My father was a mercenary; he left me and my sister when we were 3 and 2. My mother being weak and incapable of pursuing education took to house work. We were conditioned to less of money, an everyday meal used to be bread, just bread. Cold weather was usual to remind us that the woolens are thinning and shortening day by day. Such was my life and I knew only one definition of life, that which was shown to me. I was content and satisfied with what I had seen. I and my little sister were untouched by the worldly vagaries till one night my mother came with a man. He looked kind, and so was his prudence. He sat looking towards me with glim eyes and said,

“I will take your mother with me to a new land. I have a child of your age she needs a mother too. But I can’t take you and your sister. Your father has been informed; as soon as he is aware he would come and take you both”

Words started confusing me; simple conversation seemed to be complex and unbelieving. I looked intensely and the only thing that I could utter in front of him was

“I need a mother too”

As I said those words, she looked at me with moist eyes trying to convey a million things in million seconds. She packed her bundle of clothes and left. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ are the two words that took the utmost predominance in my handful of words dictionary. I was 5, my sister 4. I couldn't move for as long as I could think. I sat in the middle of my 1 room house, my sister sleeping on the floor mat near to me. I cried. A million tears a million seconds.

The next morning Abbaji swung open the door. He was old, very old and the only other human contact other than mother and Sairi my sister since my birth. Yes we lived in a farm, a farm which was far away from the world where people existed. He scorned at me, spitting on the lemon tree outside our hut he said,

“Your father isn't coming. This is his reply.”

He slapped hard a piece of paper on the floor which resembled the same on which my mother used to scribble every night. It had two words of whose meaning I was unaware back then. I still have that letter!

Abbaji took me and my sister to the nearby town, the name I hardly remember. To what I presumed as an orphanage was a home, where I was been kept to do errands. My sister was taken away by someone else, I wish to believe to a better home, and I have not seen her since then. In less than 72 hours I had lost the only human I ever knew. I was not scared or hurt to realize that I was alone. I was in a state of comatose. I was inhuman as I felt like an animal. An animal like the farm dog, whose mother left him hungry and alone, whose father left him at birth and swore never to return. I felt like the minute hand of a clock I could see lying on the cold floor of the house, I couldn’t be fast enough to run with my father, I couldn’t be slow enough to dissolve in the absence of my mother. I was small, and I could have never comprehended my feeling of being un-wanted back then, but I knew how exactly I felt every minute of that passing night with a memory of a leaving mother and a two word letter father.

...

Today I am 34, that night I ran away from the house I was given to, ran as fast and as mad I could, I begged, borrowed and lived on the streets. I became a daily hire, a laborer for cheap and then I worked as a garbage dump assistant. I went on to become known for doing small wrong things for all wrong people, pick pocketing, knife handling, passing bags full of drugs to unknown people at railway station. After living my entire life on the streets of a crowded city, I also went to become a mercenary.

Years, weeks, days passed in killing people for money. I didn’t feel anything. Uprooting people’s family for small time goons, I didn’t feel anything. Leaving young children crying, angry and hurt, I didn’t feel anything. Burning homes, huts and palaces, I didn’t feel anything. Running, crushing people, I lived every day like an animal and I didn’t feel anything.

2 days back Rashid my employer came with a man. A man who looked kind and so was his prudence. It ripped open the day, the last one, I ever felt human. Yes, it was him.

“My wife was killed by my neighbor, over the ownership of land. And now my daughter is in threat. I would pay you to kill him.”

As he said these words, I knew that the wife used to be my mother, the daughter was his daughter and the Man was the one who made me what I was today. I lay bare once again open to the wounds of a past, cruel, vengeful and sad. But she was my mother, giver of my life, my existence. Someone killed her, brutally with an object people can’t describe. Someone wronged her. My job made my instincts boil my blood to kill the wrong for money. I got up in fury, my anger pulsating within the walls of my heart, throbbing my veins a million times in million seconds. Sweat dripped my forehead as I heard Rashid asking me to hand him the promissory note, agreeing to slaughter for money, my license to kill. Blinded by the humidity of the weather and my fate I took my wallet, a torn piece of paper and handed over to him.

“This shall be my reply to the justice for your dead wife”.

Rashid looked bloodshot as he faced eye to eye.  It was the same piece of paper my father replied to Abbaji

“No, never”

I walked out of the small room to a broken door into the scorching sun, heat piercing my skin and drying my lungs like a desert. I cried. After 27 years of being the farm dog I was made to be, this was my first human experience. That day I knew what was that I couldn’t define when I was 5. That suffocation, that feeling of being treated as non-existent, the feeling of disowning, the feeling of lost, the feeling of anger, the feeling of isolation, the feeling of grief.

Can suffering be so long? Is human brain capable of holding something so hurtful for such a long time? Yes and that is the reason I write this letter to you, because I know, like me you would have searched the feeling that has not let you sleep for days. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ are still the two most important words of my life and for you to find your answers I write this to you my little sister. Someday hope you find this.

The story of our life.

....

Bombay Diary holds my experiences from the city of memories. The Jahangir state museum holds a room full of memorabilia of those who drowned, suffered and lost their loved ones in Bombay floods. This piece of letter someone found corked in a bottle, Its significance unknown. This was written in Hindi and a part of it almost smudged off. Not being sure if it is still kept by the curators I have written to convey the feeling I felt when I first heard of it from a fellow traveler to my office. She works as a French translator for the museum. 

Time Warp

Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life….

There are experiences you promise never to re-live, but right on a perfect day, it will come, wash your life away and make insanity the synonym to anything you feel. Is there a perfect world? Where there are people who fight and live because of you? Where there are those who would defy death because of their people who need them. Is there a kingdom where law provides for one to live for others?

I was 17 and I saw a shattered heart, broken into pieces one would not dare to count.

Heartbreak, to me the most underrated word on this lonely planet and the only planet where love exists. She used to close the bathroom door, walk across the other side of the shower and wash away her tears. Was the pain too much to show? Was the pain for losing a loved one? Or was the pain of an entirely different emotion not been touched yet. That pain which breaks the extreme bone of your healthy living is not because a man, a son, a mother has left you… The pain is the experience of a person who holds the significance of a world to you, not fighting for you. That one moment which defines life, not being able to fight back and win you.

The women I stated she lost a son, to a time which would never return. For her it was the pack of cards called life which came falling apart on a sunny afternoon to a history which no one would care finding out. The lady with long hairs living next to my flat after 10 years of waking up to the same person lost him to someone else. The man who holds the key to my existence lost his father. Just like a maple tree I saw the leaves around me shattered, torn, pained not because they have lost someone but because that someone failed to fight for them. Failed to fight the living hell and survive. The reason be health, suffering or love. He failed… They failed.

8 years later, the leaf was me. The girl behind the shower was right in my room, the lost person was mine. Was I angry that I lost someone? Was I angry for an incomplete story? Or was I angry to be a lost fight.

I liked walking, walking miles on lonely roads with no end. I liked the smell of talcum. Like all I lived with an emotion that yes I would be saved, I would be fought for and won over any difficulty I lay bare.

When I was five, I had a man who fought for me. I still have him and as forever will come and go… I have come to believe he would be the only one I will ever have.

He would be my only perfect world.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world.
Forget what we are told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life.

                  – ‘Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol’

Atonement

I was travelling across the misty fields of water lotuses. wandering with random throughts that have been an inner world to a chaotic self, how else I would have taken my life just one year back. Amused, dazed, phlegmatic of almost everything. In a world which was an illusion for close to 21 years.

And then one friday night, changed everything.

Teleporting my self to 24th February 2011, I had worries of a broken friendship, a halted relationship. If that morning someone would have asked how do I feel, I would
have surely said "exhausted". With the dipping sun, the mist in my life settled.. my boat of a solitary traveller shored into a new land. A land where the first step seemed a million milestones far, where looking at a stranger with a hope of security defined insignificance. A place of knowledge or another animal farm right out from the unspoken words of Orwell's novel.

As I reached far across my hometown leaving a handful of folks who cared, for an education which promised to change me into anything but ordinary. for better or for worse is a question in a limbo, that night I lay watching the ceiling of my hostel room for as many number of hours as I cant count. Time seemed endless, life seemed empty, like a washed slate awaiting scribbles...

"Hey Hi, which room are you??"

That's how a sunny warm morning started, My first friend.. My neighbour..

Never had been room numbers so significant as the first few days of a hostel life. with time the jig started. The fight...of assignments, pre-reads, marks, friendship,
groups, partying, late nights, emotions and the entire of everything that one wants to experience on a road to freedom for the last time in his life. 100 days, 300 hours of sleep, 500 assignments, tests, grades, competitions; suddenly the meaning of life went simpler. No more moments were the memories of a happening past,no more they were of coping up, they were of survival, right in the middle of everything the animal farm nurtured itself into utopia. A utopia I call my second home; this very world, changed. Anything outside the four walls was a simile to an alien land and right here, withing the constructs of marketing strategies and financial ratios did I find comfort.

My comfort of great friendship, my comfort of support, of securities. My comfort of achievements, of goals I would have never dared dreaming, my comfort of care, of affection, my comfort of a second family where dreams were cherished, madness was rejoiced, anger was beheld, a comfort where all illusions broke lose.

No, Life did not stop being what it used to be, it had all its share, betrayal, unfaithful frindships, sadness, tears. Like everybody's from distress to glory this college life had all of it. but in all those mishappenings it did teach how to burn from your fading ashes. After a bitter discourse under a blanket of cold winter night did one of them spoke something which I would carry a long, long way

"A million year old friendship need not be one for the rest of your life, if aint realised, if aint respected, if aint deserved"

Another evening, another sky full of a silver moon, an amphitheater running amok with prospective mentors, CEOs, entrepreneurs. Emphatic it would sound, but never one would find a story from rags to riches so close to see. Never one would see so many unemployed turning millionaires over night. Never one would feel the angst, agony, passion, fight and glory unless one gets to be a part of it.

"Right in the middle of desert, one finds an oasis.. The traveler is just a passing moment.. That which realizes the glory of it is the desert" - Rumi

Today, after exactly one year I feel, Iv grown a million years, wised a million times, and redefined my understanding of how far can I pull myself before to call it
quits. For good or for bad, would tell the test of time. But this animal farm has rebelled and morphed into genuinity which was somewhere lost midst the long blinding beliefs. Amazingly the difference is only self realised.

"Remember, the beauty of intellect is never observed but only realised" - Harvard Business Review :)

Long Time..

"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....

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

"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

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

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....

....
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!

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....

“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!!

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

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....

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.

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.