Once Again

The last drop of rainwater from the leaves...

The last ray of the setting sun...

The last hues of a fading rainbow...

The last notes of the final song...

...The last traces of my love lost...

Yet, it rains all over again,

Yet, the sun rises next day again,

Tomorrow, a new rainbow before long...

And, new melodies and rhythm in a new song...

...And, yet I love thee once again...

Dusk

I dreamed a strange dream last night...I saw my dusk walking away from me...not towards a brighter dawn, but towards a darker night.

I slept late last night, and I don't know when I so unknowingly entered the twilight of my dreams...

I saw my twilight walking hand-in-hand with the beautiful setting sun. The sun looked gorgeous, and it was spreading its red hues all over my twilight, making it look all the more dazzling and magnificent...

I could not help but keep looking at my dusk fading away into the night along with the sun...I remember, I ran after it for sometime...wanted to touch the fading horizon. But, horizon, they say is illusory or insubstantial, just like a mirage. So, the more I tried to go near my fading day, the more it went away from me...went away, basking in the glory of the setting sun.

I ran and ran, and then I dropped half way, panting and out of breath. The western horizon looked lovely now...the orange streaked sky and the homeward birds made the picture enchantingly delightful...

I sat there gaping at the glorious beauty...the horizon had traces of my twilight and all I could do was keep staring at it...all I could do was grope for the left-over pieces of a setting day, which will never come back...all I had were the sad left-overs of a twilight that left me fumbling in the dark...

I woke up perspiring all over...And, I realized that the night, that my passing twilight had left me with, was also over...

And, I knew, there's no end to nights...yet, all nights end in bright sunny mornings...preparing us to face all the twilights of our life...

I Know...

People say I talk a lot...I know I do...

People say I am over friendly...I know I am...

People say I can mix with others easily...I know I can…

...People say I am happy because I can share everything…but,I know I cannot...

There’s a big heap inside me...a huge load in my heart with which I don’t know what to do...

I have so many things to tell, so many things to share...so many things to cry for...I have no one to do so...

I search in vain for that person, knocking from door to door...I come back empty handed, vacant and all the more lost...

There aren’t many who can read my eloquent silence...not many who can feel the wetness of my dried up tears...not many who can hear the silent heartbeats of a heart...broken and re-broken by life...

I try in vain to understand everyone…all their sorrows...their sadness touches me, they do...’coz I feel myself through them...

But I know, I am no help to anyone...Some wrong perception in life...that I can bring happiness in people’s lives...No...I cannot...’coz I am such a no one...

I feel very lonely today...So, I am friends with my sadness now...It was unwanted in the beginning...but since it stayed on, I have become good friends with it...My sadness is like me, very lonely...very pensive...we two make a great pair...we belong to each other...

Our Story

I have always known that life is a struggle, a tough journey over hard rocky hills...and I have always taken pride in my ability to go on smiling and laughing even during my darkest hours. I have always hated sadness, tears and pains, and so, have always tried to avoid them, forget them, and squeeze them out of my life. I love being happy and making others happy...and yes, I succeeded...succeeded in smiling and laughing much more frequently than the others around me.

For the past two days, mamma-crow is busy building its nest. It's the mating season and the new-borns are expected to come soon. The nest looks really nice from my window. Set on the inner-most brunch of the mango tree, amidst a thick bower of green leaves, it seems a cozy place. Mamma-crow has not forgotten anything. Starting from sticks, twigs and dry leaves to hair-pins and colored papers, the cradle looks wonderful with all of them.

Sitting at my table by the window, I was looking at old photographs. A few years back, the gates of adulthood were still closed for me. I was then still a 'girl'...it was a time when I dreamt anything I felt like dreaming...a time when I never worried about my future, never looked back at my past. I lived only in the present then, a wonderful, joyous present where I loved everyone and everything and was equally loved by all. Life was then a pleasant journey for me, a glide over green pastures, soft stubble fields and under a bright, blue sky. I flew like the wild geese, danced like the proud peacock and sang like the vibrant nightingale. It was a time when I looked at life through tiny bits of colored glasses and thought that it was a wonderful thing to be born on this earth as a human being.

The golden sunrays fell through the leaves and shone on the new home of the crows. I could see five new eggs in the nest. All day long, now and then, mamma-crow swooped down over the eggs and kept a watch over them. The mother hopped around its nest with a tenderness that I never thought a crow can have...

Being a "little girl" was great...but one morning I found my colored bits of glasses gone. As I looked out through the window, I saw a strange, gray world outside. It was then that I realised that adulthood has grasped me and pulled me with its strong arms into the real world...I stepped out of my teenage into the real world where my dreams got shattered...I now belong to a whole world of reality where I have to seek for every bit of love I need, a world where all my love break into pieces by cruel harsh truths.

The eggs have been hatched and five baby crows are peeping out of the nest...Poor, little creatures, the bright sunshine dazzles them...balanced in the tree branch, they wait all day long for mamma to return with little tit-bits for them. It's nice to see the mother feeding her babies - beak -in -beak...

I am an adult now, a lady of 20 years. I am no longer aloud to speak out my heart...I have to measure every word I speak; one mistake and I lose ten points...ten points of love, ten points of care, ten points of concern, ten points of friendship, ten points of life...My emotions get crushed everyday under heavy, thick-soled shoes. I dare not hope for anything good; I dare not expect anything from anyone.

Mamma-crow remains very busy nowadays. Bringing food for the young, feeding them and for the past two days, teaching them to fly. The mamma-crow flies around its nest in little circles with fibe little dear ones behind her. One afternoon, a daring baby crow tried its steps alone when mom was away. It slid and fell down below...the tom-cat gave a dinner-party that evening...

I now dream of a wonderful, colorful past. I live in a bitter, unwanted present and die every second in fear of a worse future. Future is always dark...a tangle of dark flimsy cobwebs and black moths. Even the tiniest bit of happiness in the present is engulfed mercilessly by a cruel future. Life is no longer a glide over wide outstretched green plains...it is a struggle...a struggle with the darkness, sorrow and hatred...Everytime I want to fly out, I fall down terribly hard, break my wings and they bleed badly...Everytime I want to dance to the tune of raindrops pattering on the roof, some invisible shackles bind my feet and pull me down to the darkness of life. Everytime I wish to sing out loud, I choke and a great lump in my throat stops me from humming the tune of a happy life.

The dark little one was the quickest learner. It soon began to follow mamma-crow to the topmost branches of the tree and soon learnt to fly around the tree alone. One early morning, I saw the little crow perching on the window-sill of a nearby house. Confident and brave, with one flutter of its wings, the new crow flew out...up, up against the bright blue sky...far away from the secure little nest in the mango-tree...

Yes, this is the first time I am living life and living life to the fullest. And, this is the first time I am realising the true meaning of a full-fledged 'human-being'...the first time I'm learning to see life as it is and not through bits of colored glasses...

Bouts Of Life...Gusts Of Wind...

I have never liked jigsaw puzzles...somehow...I hated them when I was a kid! I still hate them...and life's jigsaw puzzle, I hate more than anything else! I often lose the pieces...and the pieces that I have never seem to fit in the right places!

My life's jigsaw puzzle seems to get horribly shuffled all the time...I not only lose my pieces, I get new ones which I just can't fit in anywhere...the more I try to arrange it, the more I lose...lose in the big game called life. I am a very bad player and I know none of the techniques...I learn nothing...and I unlearn all the things I thought I knew...It's a horrible feeling...and I hate it!

The cool breeze touched me yesterday...and, after a long time I could hear my heart beats...
It was a bit cloudy...but the windows and doors were tight shut...I never imagined that the breeze could be this strong...it broke past every barrier...right into my heart...making me shiver...
I was helpless...my hands seemed tied...I was weak...I couldn't stop the wind.

The breeze was gentle in the beginning...fondling me softly. It gradually took up speed...and made me quiver. It touched my veins, and slid down the depths of my heart...I gave in. Gave in to the harsh softness of the breeze as it caressed my hair and overpowered me...

Soon the sun tore through the flimsy curtain of the wind...and we fell apart. Refreshed as I was after the bout of fresh air...I was also a lot shattered, shaken and torn...

The sudden gust of wind rained over my heart, leaving me drenched in my pains...leaving a muddy whirlpool behind...

The breeze went away...the whirlpool stayed back with its ripples, waiting to get dried again...and the burrow to be evened out...

The breeze still blows, and even if the windows are open, it doesn't flow inside...it passes by my window, leaving me alone with the ripples of its memories...

Life It Is...

The eye liner rolled down under the bed…shit! Another 2 minutes gone. The cab’s waiting for the past 15 minutes now and the episode of rolling eye liners, smudged kajal, last hugs, tears and farewells doesn’t seem to end at all. We were waiting for the tears from last night, it never came! It seemed the usual “bye, see you” and then back again after two weeks. It’s only after Raju bhaiya had taken down all the suitcases down near the cab, the big black suitcase below the TV stand gone…the array of her shoes packed and her big fat blanket packed and stuffed back in its place, that we realized it’s over. Over and done with…one and a half years of staying together, laughing at the same PJs, sleeping at the same hour after turning off the same lights…watching the same TV soaps, ordering the same food and cleaning the same room. We shared a part of us with each other. My first roommate ever, Shreya’s leaving today...with some more dreams, a chalked out career plan and some fond memories.

We crawled under the bed and fished out the eye liner, wiped off the smudged part and did our eyes yet once again. Promised, no more tears! Hugs, “miss u”s and goodbye kisses…will we ever meet again? Locked our room and went down. A photo clicked, some more tears held back and a final hug…the cab was soon turning down the end of the road. And, I headed for my daily destination, my office. A heavy heart behind a pair of dry eyes...it’s not easy, I said!

The day passed away, just another day. A couple of extra calls…”Did u reach the station?”, “Take care of your stuff” and “Did you board the train?”

I returned home early, 7 in the evening. It was strange to unlock and enter. I suddenly realized that Shreya had always returned home before me, all through these one and a half years, saving me the trouble of hunting for my keys, unlocking the door, entering a dark room and switching on the lights and AC. I entered, switched on the lights, fan, AC, kept the lock in place, threw my bag on the bed…and I looked around…

Lesser jeans on the hook behind the door, two handbags gone…empty bathroom shelves…the red lifebuoy hand-wash gone, and the blue dove shampoo and the clothes brush and her body-wash which always used to fall off (so messy she was!)…Gosh! I couldn’t take this anymore…I sat on her bed and cried…for all that we were to each other…

Arya came late…was she dreading to come back? Dreading the emptiness that Shreya had left behind? We had been a family after all…We had been each others’ for so long now. When feeling low after a bad day at office, when we missed home, missed our siblings, missed our parents, missed our old friends, when we went all emotional about our ex-s…when we wanted to talk about our latest infatuation in office, our latest crush at the shopping mall…we were each others’!

A lovely picture of the three of us, Shreya, Arya and me, we roommates for the last one and a half years adorned my laptop wallpaper now. Arya and me stared at it, teary eyed…

…and, life it is…

Tattered Thoughts...

Life has always been a bunch of surprises for me...more than nice and pleasant ones, they have been ones of shocking surprises...that has actually left my thoughts tattered...my assumptions horribly wrong and my feelings crushed! Every moment I have lived life true, I have been shaken by its very truths...the mist before my eyes cleared and a crack in my trust on life...

I have never been a party animal...never been able to adapt myself to the corporate culture...never been able to belong to today...I often find myself sitting in a corner, away from the crowds, gaping at the crowds...every moment feeling myself to be so unfit, so lonely...

Still I stay back for the party...to know a bit more? Or to expect a bit more? I am yet to convince myself that dancing at an office party is not dancing during a college fest or at a Punjabi marriage...it's more about knowing people more...it's more about seeing a bit more of the real world of today where I would never belong to...

These parties are more about colorful lights, of smoky dancing floors...of the tinkling of wine glasses...smell of whiskey, rum and vodka...more from the people's mouths than from the glasses...of drunken boys hugging drunken girls (who are inevitably not their girlfriends)...of drunken "good" guys trying to be bad for the night...of girls in "awesome" minies...of loud music...and a lot of dance...and falling over and tripping over...of red eyes and more and more "fun"...

These are parties where you know the people a bit more...where you see your favorite manager getting drunk and dancing with pretty hot "chicks"...where you see the guy you adored and admired all the while getting high and behaving in the most "unmanly" way...where you see the one you die to talk with coming to you only to ask for a coupon for another peg...these are places where you get to know people more...learn to look down at people you usually look up to...

It's stupid not to be a part of all these "fun"...stupid to get a "pepsi" with the drinks coupon...stupid to be scared of drunken idiots...but then, it surely doesn't matter to me...

Yet somewhere it does...to see "fun" defined this way...it hurts somewhere to see how "stupidly" I differ...how lonely I am in today's world...pains to remember that I will not be able to change the world, as all these years I couldn't change myself...and I carry on with another crack and some more tattered thoughts...