"Hello. It's been a long time." Her phone flashed.

No sooner had she looked at her phone, than her heart skipped a beat. It was the same ringtone that she had assigned to his messages - keys.

Has this sensation been flowing throughout her body, dull all this time? Has it only just been magnified, like a negligent current amplified? Has she been impervious to how he actually made her feel?

A plethora of emotions assail her. She could feel her faculties rendered useless. The good, and the bad of lost connections, and the realization that - She doesn't own anyone. To reach out, or not. To give in, or not. Natural powers that perceive such sensations, flowing through her body, reveal a fact or two about what all of this meant.

She stretched herself over the turbulent waters, only wanting to cover the whole expanse of these emotions with her little body. She sat upright on her bed, contemplating, confounded, excited, awake - and alive. 

Wasn't it just yesterday?
What if I'd left everything as it was? What if I didn't bother to pick up the pieces?
Nobody would have said anything. People are always just silent spectators.

No one will ever compare to you - that was the magic of you. 

You made me a better person,

And now I'm struggling - to save our innocence, to save us from this cruel world.

So, the dismayed portrait stands still, collecting dust, while I feel the weight of it all.
My trust is broken.

I'm not a saint. You're not a sinner.
I'm a goddess. You're an atheist.
It was never supposed to work. 

When the world is sleeping,

yours is the only voice I hear,

explaining every note of the music to me,

I still cry listening to Roses,

thinking I'd be there again, saying I feel the same.

I miss you. But I don't want you. 

I still love you, because there will never be another you. 

I crave for the girl I was with you,

But I'm never getting her back either.

I miss you both terribly. So much today....that it hurts. 

I'll forever remember you, and perhaps, that's the only forever we're ever meant to have

একটা ছেলে মনের আঙিনাতে
ধীর পায়েতে এক্কা দোক্কা খেলে
বন পাহাড়ি ঝর্না খুঁজে
বৃষ্টি জলে একলা ভিজে...2
সেই ছেলেটা আমায় ছুঁয়ে ফেলে,
সেই ছেলেটা আমায় ছুঁয়ে ফেলে।

A Jogan is Leaving Her Country

 In this entire hullabaloo, a lot of words have been left unsaid, and unwritten. The white canvas that I would so lovingly paint with my emotions has been unable to contain my chaotic thoughts, all in one place. I kept on waiting, thinking that I’ll rue over it later, when I can make better sense of it all – but everything seemed to be kept on happening, without any certainty – at full speed. 

This was a pace I was never comfortable moving with, yet this is how, for a change – I went with the flow; because I had nothing to lose. While there is everything to “sacrifice” at one end, there’s everything to gain at the other.

As clichés go, today I paused; let the phone ring and let the flood of messages come.  Today I took no responsibility, and breathed, to write – so that I could comprehend everything.  So that I could finally let go and converse with the jogan (anchoress) that is my soul, the jogan that feeds my mind, keeps ME alive, and allows my kaya (body) to keep moving.

She has asked me a lot of questions lately; chiefly she asks if there can be no happiness, merely because a part of you doesn’t exist with you anymore? Do ghost of such happy moments then become melancholic inclinations, whose faded image you’ll call nostalgia? Why does distress seem so much more augmented upon addition of unnecessary worry and solicitude, why do I feel suppressed when that’s the case? Is it too harsh, to forget, and move on? If I remain hidden…will I wither and perish?

Of course, I have no answers to any of these questions. And of course, I do not want her to wither and perish. All I can tell her is that I’ll return, a better person – stable, balanced, passionate, and even more alive.

And this is where the jogan will always reside – between the present and the future; this is where she'll turn to, when she is ill-disposed to converse. She will live in another world, a world where she can hide, where all her fears and all her worries fade away as quickly as they had assailed her. I will not let her wither - ever. This is a part of me I will never let anybody touch. 

My Valentine.

My Valentine

 

Remember, when I was so happy,

Even the wind stayed as it caressed my shoulders,

Remember, how I was stuck in time,

With no rewind button,

But a future so carelessly imagined?

 

Remember, the books without any weight,

The nights without any fatigue,

And the light in my eyes, with my pupils dilated?

Remember, the little apartment in Paris,

And your scattered movie scripts

Mingled with my scattered designs?

 

Remember the fire, the passion, the thrill of being young,

The eyes that said too much, and the lips that moved on their own?

Remember when dreams were more important,

And acceptance was the dirt beneath our feet?

 

Remember…do you remember the love, the desire?

The soul that never wanted to settle…

…The wings that hadn’t been cut off?

 

Because I remember it all,

In my big room, with my big books,

I often fall,

On scattered and desolate dreams,

Of yours, of mine,

 

But I’m shining bright, alone,

Collecting the torn pieces of our identities,

My eyes still shine bright sometimes,

And the wind makes me laugh a lot,

The difference is that...no one is here to see it,

Not anymore

24.

If twenty-two was a hurricane, twenty-four is like a slowly rising wave, breaking up on the shore. And in this frothy blissfulness, I have found my present. I have found the neglected and abused pieces of my identity, the shattered and grief-stricken soul. Turgid, from being exposed to the constant palaver of the sea, the soul now lies in wait for all that could still be.

Being almost a quarter-century old, I am becoming more comfortable in my own skin. Not that I never was, but I’m realizing that I always was my own person. I was responsible, for my peculiar way of life, which I relinquished half-heartedly. Yet, I found many ways to tie my true identity to half of my heart.

Half of my heart now beats when no one is hovering over me; it is elated when no one is around. The passion within me burns brighter when I’m alone. And if this is the case, it doesn’t imply that the other case has to be true too – that I do not enjoy the company of other people.

Upon reading several articles on Introverts, I’ve found that there was never anything wrong with me, as I had always been made to feel. Clearly, I am a homebody – but not unadventurous. I simply care more about where I utilize my energy, after it has been half-drained by my work.

Ironically, I understood the power of being alone, when I moved away from home. I understood my limitations, and reaped the gifts of time. I understood that my friends, who enjoyed sticking together, were different from me. I realized that their anger towards my personality was not unjustified, but the guilt that arose in me was.

I realized how much I loved stillness, calmness, and silence, when I sat on a hill with another introvert.  And like a staccato arpeggio that lets the music breathe, our voices never disturbed the sound of nature. I understood then, how there was no such thing as awkward silence for me, because small-talk drained me.

And now I am 24. When in the past, these realizations might have casted shadow over everything that I did; this reflection is now my only strength. I was never angry, but I always was, and am, fearful of what people are capable of doing to my psyche. Like the guy I loved, who twisted my own personality for his own convenience. But I am stronger now, stronger than I had ever been before. I am alone now, but I’m never, ever, lonely.

Because the older I grow, the more I crave for myself, the more I crave for that small empty space with that one good person. The older I grow, the more I see myself taking a few steps back, the more I lose touch with reality, the more I want to un-settle, un-adjust.

I am looking at life through the rose tinted glasses of mine, I am growing old backwards. I am accepting myself. And making my world peculiar for everyone else again.  

Anthropomorphizing

It’s freezing, and it has been raining incessantly for the past three days. And even though the weather has been despairing and gloomy, I’ve happily found a reason to stay in bed. My eyes have become accustomed to the darkness. With the sun sequestered behind the clouds, my heart is oddly warm, and my mind, fuzzy.

And I’ve realized (1) how the sunlight streaming through my bedroom windows is always a blatant alarm. There were many times when I didn’t want to wake up, yet the light which would fill every corner in my room, diametrically reminded me of the fact that, I need to.

Now as the rain falls heavily on the pavement, I’ve realized that (2) the sun didn’t enliven me. It was the cold, the rain, the cliché romantic stories, and the plaintive clouds – that were all an inlet to a world of creativity. And, love. Because maybe, after all, that was my true aim in life – to fall in love with myself.  So with this temporary full stop, I feel closer to myself than I ever have. It has given me a reason to hide (underneath my warm blanket), slightly in pain and slightly because I don’t ever want to do something that makes me feel cold in the cold weather (both literally and metaphorically).

I have truly felt warm while flipping through the pages of a trite romantic novel, and pondering how utterly silly life is, and how utterly mundane everything else is, and how pathetically dramatic our lives are, aren’t they? As I did everything I could to entertain myself, and entertain the idea of love, it struck me, that it is not what happens to us that hurts. It’s not the heart that breaks. It’s only the mind playing tricks, receiving and transmitting what it wants to receive and transmit. And nobody ever wants to get hurt now, do they? Then why, I wonder, do we get hurt.

Anyway, it is pathetic fallacy that I’m drunk on. And I never want to stop reading. At least until the sun tarries awhile. Or until I find all the answers, played out in real time.

In the Arms of Nature

The carousel of time never stops turning. At this wonderful time of the year, I found myself surrounded by nature. This was the first place I wanted to go to, a place of Elysian beauty, a balm for my distrait and weary soul. A place where I knew that silence would wash over me like an analgesic, a place where my best crony, solitude, could accompany me too.

Stripped off of all responsibilities, and the anxiety which comes with the palaver of daily life - I could tell, this was where I was me, where I could be just by myself, stand tall without any guilt.

Consequently, away from the bedlam of a metropolitan city, these paradoxically disorderly spaces invigorated me. Every step I took in silence spoke to me, of a wonderful future. .  

Absolute silence, it is all I need. Solitude, awareness, happiness – are all that fill the void for me. Happily tangled up, in the myriad dreams I have for myself. :)

The Ice-Cream Date

She ordered some coffee and sat down at a table in her hotel room, it was already past five when she had left the conference. But she oddly felt more energetic now than she did in the morning. The scent of the room and the crepuscular scenery from her window were both, salubrious to her.

Her phone rings as she starts working on her laptop. She is indifferent at first, but after a moment’s hesitation, she picks it up.

“You left your pen with me.” The voice at the other end says.

“I lend you one? That’s unlike me.” She said, playing along, relaxing in her seat, her face slowly contorting into a smile.

“I’m happy to be an exception.” He said, in a calm mellifluous voice. She rolled her eyes when he said this, biting her lip. He was relaxing on his bed, with his laptop by his side. And the first thing that he did when he freshened up was call her. She imagined it all, and couldn’t help but feel important. And in thinking that, she felt that somewhere he was important too.

It was impossible for her to get out of the habit of attaching certain thoughts to everything, she was consistent. A part of her wanted to be polite, yet a part of her would always commensurate politeness with something else.

“I would need that back though.” She said, and got up from her seat when she heard that the waiter had brought her coffee.

“You’re at the hotel?” He asked when he heard the bell, sounding curious, as if she could be anywhere else than at the hotel.

“Of course I am, where else would I be?” carrying her coffee with her, she lay down on the bed. She was amused at herself, and shook her head in disbelief. This time, she rolled her eyes at herself.

“I thought you went to the ice cream shop you were telling me about, the one with the longest queue?” He chuckled.

Oh, she thought. She remembered that she did tell him that she wanted to go there, and might go right after the conference. She wondered if he had figured that she implicitly suggested that she wanted him to come with her. But he never said anything about it.

She felt her chest tighten, flushing at her irrational wish to spend her night with this man whom she lend her pen to. Truly an exception as he had realized.

“Did you think that’s why I left early?” She laughed, like it was not a big deal, trying to act cool, like she didn’t want to roam the streets of this strange city with him.

He laughed, running his hands through his hair, and turning on his stomach as he took the phone in his other hand. “No, I was wondering, um, if you want to go now?” He asked, biting his lip.

She smiled, but she was confused. She thought about why he hadn’t responded when she’d told him that she would go. So before she could answer him, she asked him.

“You never asked me. I didn’t want to force myself upon you.” He answered, sitting up on his bed, feeling a light abrasion from this friction, yet, feeling as if he was becoming a part of something.

“That’s right,” she laughed, of course that is why, she thought, “I’m in room number 203, you’ll come?” She asked him, getting up from her bed. She realized that she was still in the same clothes from the conference, an emerald green dress with a jacket. She looked at herself in the mirror as she waited for his answer.

“I’ll be outside of your door when you’re ready.” He said, as he got up from his bed, hastily running his hands through his hair, making a few strands to fall on his forehead.

She heard him rushing, as she said ok. And smiled at the thought of him being eager to meet her, when all this while it seemed as if he was the cool indifferent guy she’d never talk to. She eyed the conference brochure which sat on the side table, and wondered, what were the odds of her meeting all these people, just to feel a connection with one. It was a conditional probability of some sort.

He took his wallet and got out of the room. In his white crumpled shirt and Levi’s, he looked more like a teenage boy than a man of twenty seven.

She didn’t want him to wait, so she got rid of the jacket and washed her face. She put on some lip balm, took her wallet, and got out of the room as well.

“Hey.” He said. He was leaning on the wall opposite to her room, and sprang forwards when he saw her. His green eyes were glinting under the yellow light of the hotel corridor.

“Hey.” She said, smiling broadly at him, but nervous at seeing him outside of work. She felt reckless, and confused, at the sudden eruption of butterflies in her stomach. Not knowing whether it was out of fear, or something else, she thought that maybe he was slightly more than a crush. 

She only just noticed that he had green eyes, and that he oddly smelled like coffee. Like he had drunk enough to keep him awake all night.

He came forwards; his eyes never leaving her face, and then pulled something out of his pocket. She was confused at his sudden movements, and then laughed when she saw what was in his hands.

“Here’s your pen,” she took it from his hand, he smiled, leaning in to say thanks, then he motioned with his other hand, saying “Let’s go on our ice cream date.”

Shocked at his forwardness, she gave him a disapproving look. He shrugged his shoulders, scratching the back of his head, a sheepish grin forming across his face. But it was a date she had definitely said yes to, she thought, and then she smiled to herself.

 

A few lesson I've learnt

1.       

1.       Don’t trouble your mind with some knowledge that is based on assumptions.

2.       Don’t perplex others or dispute about things which are beyond your comprehension, let it go.

3.       Be cautious of meddling.

4.       Have knowledge of your capacity, and then don’t do anything which disturbs your peace.

5.       Remember that you can miss someone, and still not want them back in your life.

6.       Remember that you can love someone, and still part with them.

7.       Remember the good that others have done for you, not the good you have done for them.

8.       Don’t repeat patterns.

9.       The happy and good life are not one and the same, you can feel good without getting what you want.

10.   Making the best choice isn’t always about getting the best result.

11.   We can still love people, and not judge their moral presuppositions which contradict with ours.

12.   Always prioritize. Shift in one sphere, leads to shift in others.

13.   Take care of yourself first, then save the world. 

Our First Dance

Do you remember our first dance?

Far away from the bustling town,

Moving slowly, as if we were in a trance,

You lead me around.

You stretched your hand out in front of me,

Still moving backwards as if you couldn’t stop,

I remember turning bright red when I took your hand,

And you looked like a kid in a candy shop.

It all felt like a crime to me,

Yet the night, it seemed so grand,

We moved our feet to the sweet faint music,

While the ground beneath me sank.

Then you twirled me around in my little black dress,

And I gazed upward at the sky,

All the stars moved closer to our little space,

I was so happy I could die.

We just stood there under the unquiet sky,

While your eyes shimmered like a moonlit lake,

My heart was beating out of my chest,

So many miles to go, there was so much at stake.

Then we walked back around to your car,

You were smiling all the way,

So carefree, you taught me to be so unbound,

I’ll always remember that day.

When the Heart-Shaped box broke

Love stretched the fibers within me taut, pulling me back to the center of this fixed diameter circle. This feeling was a deep transcendental experience, for a girl for whom love was the principal desideratum to happiness. These emotions of fear and wonder were so often concomitant with my silence. Because I was unconsciously drowning where I couldn’t be heard, or saved.

It was like a pitiful boondoggle, its phantasmagorical vision being the cornerstone of my heart, the sole motivation for my mind to realize it. I played the game of choices, and it was like trying to solve a puzzle with all the pieces laid face down. No direction, no plan.

Incontrovertible to say, the vision obscured my rationality, and like mildew, it flourished where it couldn’t be touched. But then I felt its guise disintegrating within my veins, collecting at my heart as heavy dregs of a terrible drink. Its bitter after-taste left on my tongue being the only alarm to jolt me from my drowse.

It was as if a pianissimo had recrudesced into a fortissimo, so abrupt were these emotions. Yet, it was a passionate andante in the middle, and a largo in the end. Now, the heart-shaped box has broken. The music stopped playing a long time ago. My heart is swimming in the clear water, as the broken pieces settle on the ocean floor. 

My wings.

We try so hard, to fill the empty gulfs of our minds with something seemingly exemplary, something glorious. It’s as if the tiniest crack in the glass will never strain, as if the wax on my wounds will never melt, as if I’ll forget; and that you’ll let me, that I should?

Slow down, accept, transform.

Wondering if I should paint the glass; paint over my memories, some vivid, some dull? Or clean the dirt instead?  What should it be, an emotional color palette or a clear nightly sky?

We can never understand why we feel what we feel. They say that it’s all from experience, and that what we feel now has already been felt by us before; in tiny little droplets, of raging emotions. And now the feelings have become so nuanced and conflated that it’s hard not to feel anything.

So, get out of that pool of emotions, and append the opposite.

I wonder if the tangible can be commensurate with the intangible, meaning that I can always change the way I think about things, precisely because I can’t forget. Because it is the sheer physicality, the fact that my experience casts shadow on the earth, that makes emotions so well cemented and relevant. And it is this relevancy that I want to spurn.  

Stop being relevant, become.

That is why, I want to feel like the sea, calm and serene, in every sense of that word. It is so grand, reachable, yet unreachable. Accepting, yet rejecting, raging and transforming – it’s all I want to be. Listen closely; the wrath of the Sea is a crescendo of its silence, it is still calm, yet intractable. What a paradox the sea is, and how balanced. So, I want the calm to feel like the calm, and the heavy to sink and drown. Not the other way around.

Maybe human beings are not perfect, that is why we learn from the nature, to be as balanced yet never as much.

I want to feel like a sepia filter on a colorful picture, not hiding anything, nor subduing, and nor supplicating for anything. Just existing under the translucent mask of a wonderful reality, where I am living, and loving - in slow motion. Forever reaching, arching, curling up, laying down, standing up; not because I have to, but because every damn cell in my body is willing to.

These pages are slipping away from my fingers, whether I crave what had been or what would be, and what it is that I crave, I do not know.  All I know, is that at present, these fluttering pages are taking me somewhere, where, I do not know. But for the most part, there is satisfaction in simplicity, peace in purity, and dignity in walking away from trouble. Maybe the Sea has its own anodyne, and I may never know what. But this is one of mine. My wings. :) 

The Heart in Between

As I’m typing this, the rain is beating down steadily against the window panes. And the wind has invigorated my whole body with its nostalgic smell. I look over at James sitting on the floor in front of me. And notice how unaware he is of the pandemonium and felicity of my unobservable world. Engrossed in his work, his eyebrows furrowed at the laptop in his lap, he is unaffected by the wind that keeps coming back to touch him, caress him.

If I keep looking over at him for long, I’m afraid I’ll move far away from him, or worse, closer. The space between us is empty, and yet I can’t think about anything but that space. I feel confined somehow, and as rigid as a stool devoid of any attributes, except for the ones that other people bestow. Does he believe me to be so? I wanted to ask him this, but I didn’t want to perplex him about something that he won’t understand. Why trouble his mind with such knowledge? But I’m exhausted of resistance, and of being cautious of meddling with such topics. So I opened my diary to a bright orange page, and wrote –Remember, you’re not big enough to grasp everything. Content, I took my mind off of that thought.

But I have so many thoughts today, and no capacity to segregate them. One seeps into the other, like water through a diaphanous material, and gradually all I have is one big obscure and fundamentally transmuted idea. It’s a miracle that I’m writing, because lately I have had too much to talk about, and no patience to write a single word. Thoughts came with such a flurry that I could do nothing more than to be supine, and let them come over me.

Abandoning my train of thought though, I got up from James’ bed and walked over to one of the opened windows, where the sheer curtains hung soaring with the wind. James gave me a fleeting look, no smile though. He’s too busy saving the world. Had he given me a smile, I would have turned towards him without even wanting to glance at the beautiful view outside. But I took the path of least resistance

I pushed the curtains away. The trees swayed and swished, leaves falling to the ground like dust settling to rest forever. I stood there for a long time, inhaling the smell of the past, looking for something, left to right. As if another missing piece of this story will pop up to transform my nostalgia into reality. My eyes moved past the horizon, to the dark gray skies, it was nothing like I had seen before. I could feel my insides twisting at a perception which transcended my memory, and annexed anew the experience within me. I wanted to lie down in the rain, until the blanket of stars hovered above me, until the Moon reflected the light of the Sun, until the quiet music of the night found me and until…I found myself again. 

“I want to write a book.” I said this without taking my eyes off of the sky, as if the wish will become sacrosanct thenceforth. I can’t say what his expression became, but I could sense surprise, for he stopped typing furiously to pay heed to the passion developing inside of my gut. I’m sure he has heard this many times before. But this time it was different; I sounded more determined, almost forceful. And he was sure to be gentle, because when we came over to the window, he leaned on it, arms crossed, as if he was trying to decide what phase this was, what dream it was, and how important it was. I hated it when he did this, trying to calculate and anatomize his replies, qualifying his thoughts for mine.

“A book on what?” He said, in almost a whisper, impelling me towards him. I was facing him now, and no longer seeing him through my peripheral vision.

“Divorce.” I said, widening my eyes, so that if he does the same, it’s not displeasing.

“I thought we were just dating…for now.” He furrowed his eyebrows at me, relaxing a bit.

 “And everything has to be about us! No Jame.”

“Why do you have such an inclination, then?”

“It seems like the right one for me. Disconnect, divide, separation.”

“What about the sci-fi one? Don’t tell me you’re fantasizing about divorce.”

“Everybody knows the facts James. If space-time curved upon itself, time travel would be possible. If we were to travel to the center of the galaxy, it would take us 50,000 years. So, don't try that, unless you can warp space-time so much that you are able to create a hole in the galaxy! It’s all very interesting but conspicuous! And no, I’m not fantasizing about divorce. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”

“Write on Life, love. Write on happiness, divorce is unlike you.”

I felt frustrated, as much as I loved him, I hated his utilitarian spirit.

“Unlike me? I have this thought. We are not born with any knowledge. All that we know is from experience. So when we say that we have a fear of heights, it is just how we have come to interact with our environment at one point of time and then let it define our whole life to the point that we think that it is our innate fear! And for long we let this picture persist inside of our brains and believe that it is a part of us, that it makes us who we are. I do agree with that but I don’t agree with the fact that it becomes an irrefutable fact. Then why can’t I write about something as morbid as divorce? Will that change your perception of me? Why can’t I be what I’m not? All I’m saying is that it is ok to not be yourself sometimes, you should try it. Maybe you’ll relax a bit more.”

The second I said that, I regretted it. I know he was just trying to help, and I was too quick to attack. I didn’t look at him then, and averted my gaze to the skies, which accepted my wishes obediently. He was not it, and maybe I was not it for him too. How could I be? We were both imperfect human beings.

We can harm people in many ways; by getting them to think poorly of their own capacity was one of them. And expecting them to be ingratiating was another. We make one bitter remark, and it acts like a potent poison on all the other ideas that we have in our mind. We give in to procedures which give rise to such acts and thoughts, and soon, we develop a tendency. The justifications that we give are not tenable.

I could feel his hot breath on my bare shoulder, I don’t know if it was anger or just exhaustion. He took a step back, and then several, gradually vanishing from my periphery.

Silent tears pricked my eyes, and I made no efforts to control them. I repeated in my mind – remember, you are not big enough to grasp everything. I said it over and over again, until he came back, with a book in his hand.

“This is a book on Divorce and the Effects it has on Children. I required it for one of my law courses.  You should read it. It’s pretty interesting and will be very helpful.” He presented the book to me, without looking up at me. Surprised, I tried to take the book, mumbling thanks. Our hands touched, and he looked up at me, without letting go of the book. I don’t know how long we stood like that for, but I could feel my frustration waning, and my heart surrendering. I took the book from him, and hugged it to my chest, suddenly realizing what had transpired.

“It was such a nice weather today. You have been busy. I am going to go to my house now.” Absentmindedly, I did what I always did. I tried to make him feel guilty. Guilty, for having invited me over and letting the day go to a waste, for imposing his thoughts on something so sacrosanct to me, for feeding my fury, for making me cry, and then, for trying to appease me by handing me an old book that smelled like rotten eggs.

I hoped he had understood the implication. And so when I turned to leave, he grabbed my hand. I resisted, wanting to go home and get over our faulty personalities. And write, on divorce. But he held me in place, grabbing me by my shoulders.

“First, nothing is ever going to change my perception of you. I like how crazy, intractable and brave you are. I love that about you. Even if you were not you, I’d update myself with the new you because I know that there’s a part of you that knows, and will always know love. It doesn’t matter if you want to write on divorce, or even zombies. I just wanted the world to know about your heart. Guess I’ll keep that to myself.” I wanted so bad to leave his place, and not talk to him for a week so that he and I could both relax, but I kept forgetting, he doesn’t relax. Not even on his thoughts about me.

So I kissed him, holding the book tightly, my arms wrapped around his neck. And the skies witnessed divorce and harmony, divorce and unity. I learnt one thing. That making the best choice isn’t always about trying to get to the best possible outcome. It’s sometimes also about trying to minimize the chances of something disastrous happening. So I settled, with my imperfect feelings for him, and our imperfect lives; because if I am thunder, he is rain.

A letter from my Dad, I have been mollycoddled!

I have been pampered in generous amounts here. I hope you read this and know, that someone truly cares about you. And if like me, you have a proclivity for canned phrases, this is for you too. :)

Dearest Tanisha,

It is so heart warming to read your note for your mother. It is wonderful to know your deep rooted and crystal clear thoughts, these are a reflection of your persona which is evolving. It is so mesmerizing to fathom your eloquence, the incisive focus that you have exhibited through your words displays your approach. As the vernacular saying goes that successful people don't do different things; they just do things differently. How you approach a subject in a precision manner is the hallmark of a successful person.One thing that I have imbibed through my years is that a fine & illustrious person will certainly have passion, kindness and an eye for detail which makes him/her reach the goal of life in an accomplished manner.Yes, we realize that you are growing; by God's grace; the attributes that you possess will assist you to scale greater height in life.Keep moving; slowly and steadily; keep assimilating all the good things in life.The blessing of Almighty God (the invisible power that makes everything move in the universe including us ) and your mother, father and brother will always remain and we hope to see you rising like a star.Brave you should be; don't be afraid of failures; these are stepping stones to success. Somebody who has not tasted failure or defeat is unlucky since he has missed an opportunity to learn, to gain strength to cope up with failure, to gain the resolve to dodge the failures.Kind you should be, the strength that you gain by seeing the smile on somebody's face when he/she gets what he/she is longing for. It brings up positive vibes.Affectionate you should be- what you give comes back to you- is an old saying.We can only thank God for seeing our child blossom into a very fine human being.Keep going strong; Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

"Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop."

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.""Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible." "Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." -- Albert Einstein"

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." -- Charles Darwin"

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched -- they must be felt with the heart." -- Helen Keller"

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Failure is another steppingstone to greatness." -- Oprah Winfrey"

If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve." -- Jeff Bezos

"If you're going through hell, keep going." -- Winston Churchill

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." -- Oscar Wilde

There are lot of good things to learn in life; lot of things to unravel; keep going; the love of your family is eternal and will stay with you forever.God bless.

Pride and Prejudice, between the Sky and the Rose

Dear Elektrica,

I’ve been a bit too happy and optimistic lately, I wonder where that has come from.  I promise this is not pretense. More often than not, happiness is overlooked and misunderstood. But the scatter-brained child I knew has been peeking, at a boundless sea of ideas that happiness has allowed her to see; which indeed has cleared my horizon off of ambiguity. I hope that you’re keeping your happiness locked up tight if you haven’t already discarded it. In such times as these, what shall be left to the admiration of posterity?

As I took a leisurely stroll in the garden of such beauty, I was reminded of my own importance. I wanted to lay it all out, to be useful, and to be true. In all such misery, the beauty of the world will remain, then why can’t I foster mine? 

A few months back, I had thought that I would never feel again. But it must be an innate desire to experience all that is good in this world. And so the past doesn’t scare me anymore, but has uncomplicated my life to its basic algorithm. I have burned the code into my brain, though done reluctantly; I have reaped its benefits exuberantly.

And even though my spirit fluttered with such feelings, it wasn’t until I met Elizabeth and Jane that I realized the sovereignty of such emotions; and more so, the desire to master them.  Elizabeth’s brazen opinions, her intrepid and gallant attitude were not impertinent as she saw them to be. It is only because being a woman of such faculty is disagreeable. And though this shouldn’t be the case now, it is; why else would such a character as hers pull at my heartstrings? Elizabeth is not tractable, she would never settle for anything less, even if her circumstances go against such affairs.

So her resolve became my wish. Her conversations with Jane instilled a vicarious forbearance into me. Her laugh reminded me of how short life is, and how very scarce happiness can be in such uncertain times. And how very perverse bitterness and anger can be, if not addressed directly to what has pained you.  Elektrica, I pray that you hold on to your sanity and rationale, the world requires it, now more than ever. J

Oh look, how much they grow in just a day. :)

The Heroine. 

Freedom at a cost

This is a bizarre stupor to be in, with even bizarre palliatives to deal with an overbearing solitude. But I'm safe inside; where this extremely sensitive heart is trying hard to assimilate reason for the gratuitous suffering and misery of others- all is swirled together to betray a system which is anything but ideal.

All the pieces fit together, yet the heavy metal cells sway tumultuously right in my gut, tearing down the foundation. It's building up facts, where the poor have no security; and unnecessary emissions can always, and could have always been avoided. And almost everything can be done, without shaking up the planet; without hurting any animals, to put it more bluntly (pun intended).

And while I satiate myself with Jane Austen, and the lovely company of my forever friends, I'm aware. I know that some will perish in this fire that will miss me in its path, and has indeed lost me to my four bedroom walls; where I'm safe and sound. I wait, just like everybody else, for things to get better. Hoping that somewhere, someone, must be doing something. So I don't want to wax scientific jargon.

They say that the planet is healing itself, and some practical anorak might call it bullshit. But I do genuinely hope that it's true. For I can see it in the freedom of birds flying past my balcony, and the herd of cows which come to rest here everyday now. The skies seem to be clearing up too; at what cost, we all know.

Love

Love stories- the ones confined within four word sentences and the ones bound to be read between the lines, are the ones that pull you closer, the more you pull apart. The gentle denials closing in every time a remotely good thing happens, is the part and parcel of love stories. The fate of wilted red roses, fed to the yellow pages of pride and prejudice apparently speaks volumes. Feelings running amok in a beautiful cathedral should ultimately be collected in a glass jar, saved up; as fuel.
And oh, I believed all of it. I kept hitting the snooze button, wanting only to be swept off of my feet, to learn everything I know from this one person. And when I thought that he was there to guide me, I was blinded to the fact that he was only in my way.



"You make me second-guess myself, how did I ever manage to find you?" He said.

I laughed; he ran his fingers through his hair. A sarcastic comment was thrown here and there, my walls came down. Why was I being driven from what I couldn't control? Why was I speechless, nervous, shaky and drained? What was wrong with this so-called strong woman, taking every dumb shit, and putting it on a pedestal?

I wondered -after all had turned to ashes around which he solemnized his love to a stranger- how hero-worshiping someone had become my duty in disguise of loving someone. Anyway, that's all I remember, because time has healed everything. And now, all I see is a deceitful person, with beliefs that were ultimately south to mine.

And I want to tell her, that the red and pink glittered hearts on Valentine’s Day cards shouldn't oblige you to make a start. That gentle kisses on collarbone titillates, red backless dress with black high heels invigorates, I understand. But in your cathedral of love, there may not be a hot first date; there may not be a perfect cafe with a perfect view. There may be questions, several of them, touching upon subject after subject, made complex by complex love stories. And you'll begin to wonder, if the time and energy that goes in keeping a relationship tethered and together, is really after all worth it or not?

And when I didn’t want to answer that question, I turned; swiftly, with dignity. Paying heed to the exigency of the short time we spend in this world, I want nothing now but to be invariably happy, and unapologetically myself.

So, I found it all. I found love in my favorite hazelnut coffee. I found it in the yellow pages of a George Eliot book. I found love in the middle of a lonely street, in the cold winds that pacify the incubus of monotony. I found it in my sweat, in the ache in my bones, in the pain in my arms- in my main signs of progress. I found love in my plans - of skydiving in Argentina, writing a lengthy entry in my journal in a cafe in Amsterdam, holding a koala in Australia, crashing a wedding in Las Vegas.

Our whole lives, we search for the missing pieces of the puzzle that just refuses to come together. But you just make it work. Because that emptiness can ultimately be filled by something different, something more interesting. :)

Set me free

Alone, as the ire quells, I entangle myself from everyone around me. I take two steps back into my own world, to reflect upon words which were never meant. Everything was a lie, to fit best into the sleazy world, which will pass you by the minute you flounder. I thought you'd stand by me, but my one mistake- and you were gone as fast as you'd come into my life. My desire had gone from borne to a bane. 

I would have never thought that it would come to this, how the heart tends to saturate with everything after a few trials. In the transience of life, is nothing really permanent?

Because all that remains now are the words that he refused to speak. The pain is vivid still, and the disbelief is unrelenting. Segregate- dreams from reality, tears from laughter, hurt from salvation, love from hate - and my whole heart should be divided in two pieces; one, for how he made me feel, and the other, for how I feel.  

Take my hand,

Untangle me from you.

Set me free,

Don’t keep holding on,

Don’t hurt me.

For the raconteur once recited a nebulous story of love and hope to me, they turned out to be a dissembler, and I was a mere mirror - a pariah. So, these colorful images of the imagination must ultimately be dyed in colors of black and white, positive turning to negative, pixels turning to dust; and all of it, forever etched into my memory.

Unrequited love.

The veritable reality of the reasons that once clouded her judgement, and played her as easily as a game of cards, became as clear to her as a crystal; there is no yearning now, to get back what is gone. But there is a wish, to get back that mental peace, which tethered her to him. There is a vulnerability, which is not more than an effect of a humiliation, by the ignorance of a man she held in high regard and spurned the likelihood of him ever, ever hurting her. 

As she declared her feelings to him, she started to shake to the hysterical throb of her heart. It was an extremely cold feeling, of being abandoned by your own flesh and blood. The emotions were so overpowering, that she was stricken into a sobbing mess as he said "It's ok". 

"I just don't understand this", she said.

"I absolutely know how it feels." He said.

"I don't want to be a part of your life anymore." She said angrily, as she cried her heart out, but not meaning a word of it. 

And he abandoned her, just like that. 

Wasn't it the cruelest thing, to awaken so much love without any intention to do so? What a tragedy it was, she thought, to perceive things as they were. A bright conniving smile, tales of the memories that revived love and hope, and signs, that meant everything; yet, nothing. She wonders, if the language that he spoke had a different dialect than what she had interpreted. And if all along they were not only on two different pages, but also characters of two unquestionably antithetical stories. That love was never hers to keep. Because the girl he loves is not her. And this is a sublime echo of a past that lingers on for hours, the one that she wished to return from, but would not dither to get back to at the first gesture. 

And now she must live in a world where she would be triggered by the memories where he would tender the best advice, and cry sometimes, knowing that he is never going to be there ever again. All that she did now, is going to be...just different. 

It was in these moments that she learned what made her bleed, what tattered her soul, and what tainted her cheeks. She was not flushed this time or hardhearted as he called her. She was standing tall at the altar, engulfed in a funereal atmosphere, ready to sacrifice; yet again. It was in these moments, that denial pervaded every neuron, every cell of hers, that hope became inevitable. It was in these moments, that there was bewilderment so strong that no question matched its answer. 

She had been part of a movie for the better part of these 4 years, and the theater had been eerily empty all this while. Because who would watch Sisyphus rolling a huge rock up a steep hill? It wasn't worth it in the end. 

And now, two angels have fallen to the ground. 

But the thing she should remember is that, love just happens, and that loving someone is the most beautiful thing in the world. But sometimes, people part their ways. Their stories change. And eventually everything transforms. She longs to die, if only she could rise again, like a candle in a pouring rain, transformed, to a flickering lamp in a pouring rain. 

The music inside is still ringing; she is in disbelief, because things that mattered once, don't now. And she is sorry, for what was, and not is.