Cue.

Anklet on her left foot. Silver, like a snake. Curled, cold. His lips froze when he kissed it. Luscious curves of her feet. He ran his fingers across. Warm fingers on cold feet. Shy feet. The right one, anklet-less. Ignored to begin with, lay quietly, fuming. Then later toyed with, blushed pink. The anklet on the left made stray noises. Clinking noises. That pierced the silence of hours past midnight.

Toe rings with black dots. Dot like stones, studded in the center. Shone in the dark of the room. The trapezoid nail on the big toe. The longer middle toe. Swayed in drunken haze. Like crazy in love. The other three. Stood fixed like three tiny spheres of lust. The night skipped a phase when he took the ring off and looked up.

At her face. A melange of emotion. Stricken in lovelessness, the past had left lines below her eyes. In the protrusion of her chin. There was a question in the arch of her eyebrows. Which asked, now what? To him. Who couldn't hold his heart from thumping out loud, still awed at her feet.Her eyes were sinking in ecstasy, though. Ecstasy. Taking a cue from them, he moved up. Up. 

Etc.

When we have lost our initial brush of awkwardness. And have outgrown that shy silence of first love. When we are talking until we are constantly running out of things to talk about. And travelling into and out of each other's minds. There would come a time, and phase when we wouldn't know how to toy around with so much love.
We would play around with forks at the end of dinner dates and wonder if it's over already or should we order dessert. Strike a rhythm with our nails on coffee cups, or break into a tune not understanding what to do with the next five minutes of time. We might face a silence between ourselves which may not necessarily be awkward. That silence will make us feel that may be. May be we are not ready to take the leap.
May be we need some more time. A few days, weeks or years. Or may be we are not right for each other. Was it some ex we left behind. Or someone else who we were about to meet in the future. But never did, because we met you. And other such imaginary doubts.
But honey. You know this. And I know this. No matter how far we run away to, how many others we try to create this love with. None will be as raw as the love we have. Here now. Wondering what to do with this silence that has creeped in without a warning, between us.
No matter what we think say or do, we are going to find our way back to each other. Tomorrow or the day after.
..

Phonebook

I was in the mall picking up groceries. I got a text. Someone thought we shouldn't see each other again. That's called breaking up over whatsapp. I choked. Couldn't breathe for a span of a few seconds. A paralytic pain took over. I walked out for air. From that groceries section to the hall where children played games. Clutching my bags in one hand, I took out the phone from my pocket with the other. Then took it out of the cover with my teeth. That part was always the trouble. Read that text again. It went all hazy over my head. Was choking still. Deleted it, that text. Breathed in two three deep breaths of air conditioned mall air. Told the friend who I was with. She asked me why I hadn't told her inside. Like that would've helped.

Nothing helps. Nothing could. The worst happens, invariably. We had been talking in spells. In an on and off fragile acquaintance that ran across years of our adult lives. Between other fragile such acquaintances, with other people who cared the same or less. Whenever we talked, was good. Nothing extraordinary, but good. Sometimes it even felt just about alrite, tending towards the meant-to-be category. 

The moment I got that text, I assumed he was getting married. He must have been getting into something very committed and serious. And honestly, I even felt happy for him. He had been wanting to settle down for quite sometime. He used to tell me about it. And what was the cheapest alternative for love but marriage. I totally got that. Yet I was shocked.

I got over him with time. Over long walks. Unfinished blog posts. Most of him when someone else happened. 

But now, I stare at my Phonebook. I am yet to delete his number. It isn't synced with anything else though. Just his name and number. And a black and white picture of his. I like that picture. I love the look in his eyes. I wonder if he got married. I wonder if I am ever going to delete this contact. I stare at my Phonebook. Blank.

The Horse Shoe Pandemonium

Where is the U-turn. U has nothing to do with you. A U-turn is a silent belief that life comes in the shape of a horse-shoe. Like the magnet, you know. The magnet. And we are gonna have to travel in the opposite direction of now. Wherever it is that we are headed. And come back to each of those milestones. Undo it all. Erase every single memory, by reliving it.

But the problem is, I can't see our U-turn coming. Rather, I can't see us getting any closer to it. I am so sure that it's somewhere around the corner. And we will be there in a while or two. But still can't figure out when. It's like driving across a busy highway at night and waiting for the spot where the road divider splits for a stretch for you to take a U-turn if you have to. But there's  head lights of cars blinding your eyes. Flashing on your face from the opposite direction and you can't say where exactly that divider will split and when you will be asked to pull the brakes and rush back, undoing everything.

For us, though we have come some distance, now, I believe there is a U-turn just about to encounter us. We are driving past, staring out the windshield, our hair flowing in waves in the strong wind. And I couldn't care any less. But still, there's this fear that I hold on to, sometimes for comfort, sometimes for reassurance of my fatelesness. That there's a U-turn about to come across sometime now. Just about now. But it's not here yet.


Where do we go. Either we keep going in circles and end up where we began. Or we are stuck at only one point, suffering the illusion of motion. We begin and finish in our minds. Rather, we never finish.

Being Discreet

Funny coincidences. Accidents. Good ones. Beat you up. When you are alone. Over worked. Coffee. Sans sugar. Staring. At the screen of your laptop. Unusually bright. For your dark room. The light almost bites your eyes. Then at the window. At the moon. A faint one. Behind the swaying bough of coconut. Seriously. Seriously. Planned holiday. Ticked on calender. Pending approvals for offs at work. Tickets on waiting. Indian Railways. Time. Sluggish. Lazily inching toward dawn. Seems like, the night wouldn't end. Plans made and unmade. To scrape off broken nail paint. From on toe-nails. That grow like they had minds of their own. In all unwanted directions. Thinking about half heard love stories. Of girl-friends who have moved away. Into cardinal cities. But have still stayed put. And who had to disconnect. The call. Because, something/someone turned up. Thinking about the sheer variety in guys. One encounters. Day in and out. Taken and un-taken. Taken and yet to be taken. How they laugh. How they appear on the surface. On first meets. Delighted and fresh. And one doesn't delve into. The untold histories. Buried deep inside them. Somehow. That doesn't matter. Not right now. Because all that does, is right here. Now. Inching toward dawn. Me. And the moon that has moved up higher than the boughs of the coconut now. Somehow a strange adjective comes to my head whenever I feel for the moon. Fucking. I look at the moon and say. The fucking moon. The fucking moon. Don't really know why. Could be the profound angst. I have. I treasure. Anyway. Period. Period. 

Color of Longing

The color of longing, is far from purple. It's the color that forms when skin folds on and above skin. It must be a bloody tint of pink. Longing must be the mild chocolate of his lower lip. The tiny shadows that form between its creases. Longing must be the color of palms, and the lines of fortune and misfortune that criss cross across.
Longing must be the color of the edges of fire. Yellowish orange, with the same burnt of ache. Longing is also the white sheath of the moon, of a pearl.
Longing is the outline of waiting. Longing is also the hopeless aftermath of crazy writing. Black on white. Staunch. Relentless. Like this. Like this. Babeh, like this.

Sedentary

Our tremendously sedentary lives
Filled with hundreds of pauses a day
Feels like, sometimes that the
Whole thing is a pause
Between the past life & the future one
This one is quiet and
Full of waiting.

Our nervous pretenses
Cracking finger knuckles
Neck aches
Day in and out
Stolen yawns, in our corners
Migraines, to top it up

Makes me want to ask
How is it that
That we do nothing,
Absolutely nothing worthwhile
And yet, we have no time
I mean no fucking time
To indulge in what we really deeply want inside.

Such stark irony.

Feels wasted,
To be anywhere other than where I would be
If I were to give myself one chance.
Also, not knowing what stops me from doing so
Is yet another

..

Walks To Remember

The ash from his cigarette hadn't died, when he flicked it off, it burnt a hole in my shawl. Of the exact girth of my index finger. And I kept fingering it for the length of the conversation.

There was a chill in the air, unusual for mid November. And a translucent fog hung from the trees. May be it was just us. Having missed the last few winters here, made everything look unusually new with a raw touch of nostalgia.

Like we were here sometime, when things were so different. And now, we are in the precise place, the very two same people, only older by a few years. And yet, the situation is the exact antithesis of what it was. The irony of life is never understated.

I had begun my writing here, there was something in the absolute quiet that had driven me to it. He had begun reading me here, admiring from a distance to begin with, then inched closer with well guarded steps.  Our individual spaces remained, however, we almost fused into one being. He would reiterate, how he was reborn in his mind, during that phase. We thought in parallels. In the exact same lines, it was unnerving. In what I wrote, I felt his invisible hand behind my mind.

Do you realize the kind of sync. Too good to be real, ain't it.

But no infatuation is timeless. Everything wears off, if you give it a few days. This shrewdness of life can never be understated. Either.

Everything comes a circle. We did too. By going back to the place to break it up, where we first met, we did too.

A lot has been said, already. So this is the last of the Walks To Remember, to the best of my belief.

Year

How long could be a year?

As long as the pain in the breath lasts. 

As long as memory doesn't fade away. 

As long as the scathe of the ridiculous mistake of love,

lasts. 

A year feels like one complete cycle of life. 

One run of each season.

Summer, winter.

Monsoon, mother of them all. 

A year loops across all the days that we remember 

To celebrate.

Festivals.

One birthday.

New year. 

Days of love.

Fake anniversaries of confessions of affection.

Approximate memories of first kisses. 

A year also marks those numerous insignificant days.

Hundreds of them.

Sundays you sat on the balcony, 

and watched time pass under your nose.

Weeks of meaningless slogging. 

Nights of realizing how real this deadlock was. 

Accidental discoveries of favorite songs.

Pictures taken and forgotten about.

Mugs and mugs of coffee.

Stolen glasses of wine. 

And other cheap intoxication.

Whining of being unread,

Being unheard of.

Moving toward death,

undiscovered. 

Unknown. 

Such other nuances of life.

One whole year. 

Do you care?

How long a year could be. 

It could pass in a jiffy.

But this one, just doesn't go. 

Bitcch 

Pictures often limit imagination. So, don't let this one tie you down for one. 

Now Playing: Chhodo More Baiyyan-~Zubeidaa

Debaucherie

I am gonna have to quit my job.

'Silence.' He's surprised that I don't feature my quintessential longish awe.

I am gonna figure things out.

'Figure what out?'

Like, what is it that I want. For now, I am gonna travel. Hands me over a map.

'This is like zigzag across the country!'

Yeah, at least this trip is something I've figured out. Laughs. Pauses. Looks at me. The traffic from down here felt coy. There was a mild breeze. I looked at him back.

'Are we taking the Revolutionary Road?'

May be, only if it doesn't end that sad. 

'Okay' Not once did I utter my favorite and oft-repeated-over-used-to-death punchline-Are you kidding me? That I have picked up from my compulsive binging of American sitcoms over the years. Nobody in my land used it yet, that much. The land that he was so set to criss-cross.

I looked up at what was in front of me. It wasn't the horizon. Just some half-built-left-alone-concrete-skeletons, that someone thought would be buildings someday. But got stuck in litigation, I guess.

Come along, be my side-kick.

At that point, I laughed uncontrollably. For no such reason. And got up to leave.

Mirror

The feverish half sleep shrunk into which I lay on the couch and watch a film that must someday be a sleeper hit. Flapping my fevered eye lids, to keep eyes from burning more. And brooding over the hint of common cold in nostrils, oiled knotted hair wrapped in a shawl fished out of a bucket of done away woolens of last year.

Between the couch and the bed, as I loiter back and forth. Way past midnight. I halt in-front of the mirror. To look at me. And recapitulate my lack of belief in make-up. Making faces. Pretty faces and ugly faces. Disentangling knots of hair. Curling up and straightening down. Feeling the cracks on lips with fingertips. Languishing in the first few days of an early winter.

The sudden change in weather.

Hence the cold. And the fever.

Also, the hallucinations of feverish half sleep. Parts of the supposed sleeper hit film mingling with my reality and smoothening out the way into a state wherein truths don't play that much of a role. And one can survive with the sole support of imagination.

That imagination makes me suppose, that this mirror is a one way see through sheet of glass. From the other side. From inside the wall on which it is hung. And you are staring at me from in there. You, my love trapped in the mirror. Looking at me and my various faces. Blushes. The fire in the eyes. Their swollen lids. Hopes & dreams. Understanding how skin deep beauty could be. Only as deep as the eyes could fathom.

But you would be looking at my soul. And I wouldn't know. Falling for me, bit by bit. The way I did for you. And would want to keep me, as I would tip-toe the rest of my way to the bed. 

Pang

Strips of sand slipping from between my toes;
Wet sand.
Waves in my hair
Entangled
Glistening silver on fingers
That contain the shroud of a black sky
My sandals float away.
I laugh, let go
He laughs too
Urchins fish em back
He fiddles for change in his pocket
Doesn't any
Quitens them with ten buck notes
We're alone again
Stalled in time and space
I look to my side
He'sn't here anymore.
Anymore.
There's not a thing that catches up with the stab of lost love.
Nothing has, nor will

Design

If we obeyed design, the body would have three centers. Collinear. Running across, its central axis. Making us fall apart into symmetrical halves.

The first center would be where our eyebrows meet. Like lovers tilting toward each other, gradually inclining and then secretly meeting behind the camouflage of scarce shoots of hair. But meeting nevertheless. And giving birth to the sanest of thoughts and ideas. Intellect. This must be the brightest spot in the body.

The second  would be where the clavicles meet the sternum. The exact center of the chest. From which emotions arise. Into which I collapse when the world doesn't stop chasing me. This point is the mother of all longing.

The third  would be the navel. Which is the center of being. Which sometimes makes us see in black and white. And sometimes in such myriad shades, that we go insane. It reverses all the science that is. And makes us sway to the whims of a quest that could never be quenched.

But we do not obey design. Any design. There are no symmetrical halves, we are falling apart into. We are mashed up, very twisted. Every vibe that arises, we don't know where it comes from. From the center of intellect, longing or being?

Every atypical mood swing, each pang to binge on food, every sudden depression and random elation, the mellow shades of romance and the utter stabs of heartbreak. Like literal stabs in the chest. And the warmth of tears on cheeks. We don't know what's leading us where. What's leading me where, and why.

Dead-end/Stale-mate

The  stillness of this room is stirring. Stirring deep insides. So, now is not the time for silence.

I do quite a few things right lately. For instance, I apply conditioner except on the roots of my hair. I do not day dream when I drive. I clean my phone-book on a monthly basis. I pray. Plead, beg, complain, rebel, abandon. I appreciate only the things that matter. Try to. Use the eff word more inside my head than out loud. I write often. Talk to friends. Reply to mails. Texts. Use smileys. I also persevere to be happy for others. Keep peer pressure out of the way. Smoke less often. Be more patient.

But, even though it's not falling apart yet, the person I dreamed of constructing from myself, is no where in sight. She isn't expected either. There was never a plan. Only a rough outline. That outline is now blotched. Like ink on soaked paper.

There is this trance I get lost in. When I try to weigh reality against illusion. Either everything is real. Or everything is an illusion.

Lately, like since last night, I have begun to believe that I've been cursed by the spite of innocent love. For I must have broken someone irreversibly. Do you believe me when I say that?

There is this sense of despair. Perennial loss. Though nothing much is lost. Then is my corrupt perspective. A constant air of gloom. Also this inability to even want to alter myself. Like some drugged complacency.

Also, there is a lack of focus in writing. You should know, if you've come this far.

Wist

Whatever happened to the guy, who defined him-self as Pi. Irrational & Infinite.

Haven't flipped through those timeless definitions in a long time. Haven't rested to shed this cyclic chronic fatigue. Haven't meandered back and forth in a flea market. Or fiddled for loose change in a clumsy wallet. Put on capris, and chosen steamed momos very particularly over fried ones. And reminded the waiter twice, as if a plateful of the latter was pure terror.

Haven't kept track of who owed who, how much money. Haven't dyed finger-nails in crushed petals. Nor shopped for worthless trinkets. Toe-rings and anklets. Which would be lost on the way back home. Of cycling through tortuous roads, and then hands-free when one touched the highway, giggling into an endless horizon.

Haven't been infinite. For a long time now.

Haven't figured, in my imagination, the longish awe on his maid's face, when she found a strand of my hair lying on his pillow and asked. Was there a girl here, last night.

Haven't lined my sleep-less eyes with kohl, suddenly in the middle of the night, for no reason at all, tousled my hair and took crazy pictures. And saved them in forgotten folders. Pictures, never to be looked at again. Pictures, found again, accidentally, on another tireless night, years later. And stared at.

The smoothness of that skin, the fancy in those eyes, envied.

What exactly is amiss.

City lights don't consume the fireflies. A sky dotted with stars appears to end in the horizon, miles away from here. The endless night seems to be ours entirely.

Mornings. Circles of smoke rise from our mouths, peacefully. We watch them merge and diverge. Play little games, between themselves. And form shadows on our naked thighs. Even smoke isn't see through. We gape at its translucence. And then, at each other. Our immaculately complicated opaque selves.

We aren't see through either. You've no idea what I am. And vice versa. Yet, we are here. Now. Our endless nights and translucent mornings.

This must be love. Because all I want ever, is to do apart what's real from that all encompassing illusion. And in that chaos, this love feels real, despite its many tempting tendencies to merge with a parallel dream. It feels rock-solid.

I've got tonite.

Tonite is moist with the memories of another night. Another night, on which I wanted to elope with you. Gasp, and leave everything and everyone behind. I was almost toying with the idea, flirting with it, tempting it. The idea. Of giving up the all the notions I grew up with and take a huge leap. Because I had fallen for your faults. And for the beauty in those. I had fallen and probably must have hit my head and was delirious. And saw things that weren't ever there. Like your familiar silhouette on the wall opposite. Like love for me in your eyes. Both of your eyes. Like a non-existent future, wherein we would embrace each other in entirety and honesty, by getting past what seemed like some stretched list of childish differences. By getting past the many notions we were brought up with. Exactly like how I had wished I would, on some night I now both miss and regret.
I wished to chase you in and out of the shadows on the streets. And then corner you and laugh with you till the day broke.
But, seriously, what was I thinking. What was I thinking.

Glitch

Sitting on different corners of different tables, nibbling a polite lunch, she let her glance stretch on him for that first time, making its way through an array of un-required fancy crockery. And returned to eating again once she settled with the idea that he was in fact, cute. Not the quintessential cute, with a goatee or product in his hair. But cute in the category of his bracket may be. In a slightly more suave, mature way. She told mother about it. And got asked a bunch of questions like how much does he earn, what car does he drive. And she blushed. Secretly. Then openly.

Thoughts made way. Hung around. Why does he have to love color on his everyday shirts. I mean, give me a break, red? Violet? Orange! What must he be like? What must his home look like? Does he do his bed every morning? Does he have girl friends over? Does he drink? Doesn't smoke, she was pretty sure. She began to believe he was another of those who excelled at impression management. Her eyes followed him. Her eyes curiously held on to the whim, that if he ever responded. He didn't. She knew it.

Age seasons us all. Seasons us to being used to who we are. Age, more importantly, makes us realize, who we are not. And can't ever be. She was the woman, who he would never turn to. Like that. But.

A couple of smooth conversations flowed in. Hi, how was everything. Oh, we have common friends. Small world. Work too bad? Work too good? This and that. Us and them. How does time pass? How does it? Time is an invisible bitch. They laugh. She adores, the sound of his rippling laughter. So loud, it reaches the roof. People look. And that's the glitch. That, in this whole uncaring, insanely self conscious universe, is the only glitch.

After a couple of more accidentally exchanged uncomfortable glances that didn't end in smiles, she has moved on. Away. Enough away, to come back home, not tell anybody, and be able to put it down.

October

October is a tricky month. Because it has that feeble hint that winter has arrived. But only in the evenings. When it gets dark earlier than before. And the streets light up surprising you every other day. Because you tend to forget that time has moved on, from the other end of the year, from the neater months of March and May to this month that seems to play all the tricks.

There is a faintly irritating fragrance in the air, that gave a migraine to some woman in a book you read long ago. That irritating fragrance is of a certain bloom in a certain tree that we never could trace. But every October, there is this smell. Hovering over the nostrils. You sometimes wonder if you should go looking for the tree. But nay. It just makes you remember, how in that book, they had cut down the tree so that woman saved herself a dozen more migraines, or two.

And marigold is yet to flower. In a month and a half. The mild wintry feeling, this delay that keeps the mercury from dropping, makes you warm. Warm and regretful. About why you don't use those blazers anymore. And rainbow scarves. Suddenly you miss zero degree Celsius. And icy feet. The warmth does feel worthless.

On this side of the Ghats, there is a wildflower that grows to welcome the feet of Durga. This time of the year. And if I were a wildflower, I could only be it. I don't think it has a name. And I wouldn't want you to see it because I don't want to be seen either.

October is a tricky month, because it separates the month of my birth from the month of your birth. This month stretches between the month in which I wished you were with me to the month in which I wish I were with you. And in this crazy sinusoidal fluctuation of longing, each day is an episode that underlines another waiting winter. 

Loose Ends

It's actually nice to see life forming right for the people I know. Taking shape. For people I have known for some time and then lost touch with. It's nice for a change, because I am surprised I am not jealous. I am not not jealous because I am happy or anything. Just that after everything, I am just too fatigued to entertain the petty fangs of envy. So I am just relieved for you people. You stare out of my Facebook page. Celebrating birthdays, weddings, fancy honeymoons, dream jobs, living in cute houses, taking warm pictures with your soul mates, being happy. And I am relieved partly for you and partly for my belief system. That pours into my ears, slightly louder than a whisper that, the happy ending or rather the happy new beginning saga is true for atleast a lucky few, besides me.

It's amazing, how the size of my dreams has shrunk with age. When I was a little girl, I believed in fairies and in magic. As a confused teenager, I believed that there would come a time which would be mine. That rhymes awfully, but it's true. When I touched twenty, ah I couldn't imagine how I was going to prosper in joy in the next couple years. And live the unshackled dream of a life.

Now, I am as stuck as I have never been. Each day is a horrifying reminder of what I am missing. What trains I couldn't catch. What numerous ways i failed absolutely average average standards. I am embarrassed.

At the rate at which I am deteriorating, my only wish is to slow it down. I don't want to even wish to move up, i know that is ridiculously impossible. I just want to try hard to continue to be this semi damaged shadow of the little girl who believed in fairies and in magic. Amen!

And btw, happy people, I am happy for you. I mean really. Happy. No sarcasm there. None at all.

Saudade

They say that putting our rules down in written keeps us from faltering. So, here goes.

Anecdotes. Stories, that we tell people we want to start conversations with. Honestly, in this shabby world of ours there are very very few people worth having a conversation with. And for them, we keep a set of anecdotes to be narrated. Such that we are perceived as interesting. Sometimes, we say those just for the sake of saying them out loud. Even when they make no sense.

I have this story I tell people. Not all people. Some people. Who I like. In the midst of a bustling chat, I would fill in an awkward pause with this. How as a little girl, my kid brother and I were locked asleep in a hotel room in a strange country, and my parents thought we were drugged or something, or we had fainted or something. And had the hotel staff screaming our names and poking at us through a stick from under the door until I woke up and opened the door to see my parents standing among dozens of strangers. How I thought it was a dream and went back to sleep like nothing had happened. The next morning, everyone knew our names.

I don't know what's with this incident. I realized I must have said it to quite a few people who don't matter anymore. Just for the sake of filling in that awkward pause, and unintentionally letting them peel off one layer off me. I told this to you too. I am sure you wouldn't remember. And the odds are slim that you are even reading this. But I told this to you. Too. And in return, you had responded. With one of your stories. Which you must have told to a few girls before me. About how out of dumb curiosity you had mistakenly seen one of  your dad's endoscopys as a child. And ended up puking. And puking. And.. you continued till I couldn't stop laughing anymore. I am sure you're going to be telling this story to a lot of girls after me. But I won't tell mine to anyone ever again.

It's a crazy whim. But I lay to rest this story here, now. Amen! I won't falter. Because I have it in written here that I won't. Repeat this story. I won't.

Dear Eve-teaser

Dear Eve-teaser,

I understand breasts are beautiful things. I also agree that they call out to you. Or so you imagine. But what sexual gratification do you derive from brushing your hand across some random woman's, in the evening traffic rush or in a railway station bustle? Is that public property? How can you? And dare you?

Besides the fact that the random woman has already had the worst day, and is trying to get past all that, get home and get ready for a harder day tomorrow, you decide that it wasn't enough. And do what you do.

The next time around, she will find you and skin you. Blind you with pepper-spray. Scream into your eardrums, the most unspeakable of adjectives about your mother and your sister. Mark her words.

You moronic fucktard. Mark her words.

Cheers
Random Woman

Home

The odor of Quicklime. Dampness of naivety. Empty walls; not a nail dug in. Sandpaper polished floors of mosaic. Ladders leaning on walls, stood on to paint the upper reaches. Stools toppled. The fresh varnish on window grille.


I saw a home today, since then I have been pining to write this. The window ledge is wide enough for me to sit on and write. Unrestrained. There would be just about enough space for your books & beanbag, after we have spread out the couch. I am not imagining all this, as I stand in that empty living room, I can see it like it were real. That close.

The smell of shampoo in the shower, my lotions, creams crammed on the bathroom shelves jostling against your shaving kit. Clothes dumped on our floor. I can even hear your voice, shrill and loving, calling out my name. My faint response, a headnod, not realising that you're not in the same room and cant't see me nod. All that.

All this, standing here now, staring at the pond that begins where out portico ends. Lilly buds in its dark water. The mild forest air. Dozens of eucalyptuses. Our windows, facing east, south east. The coarse touch of the curtains. My fingers can almost feel.

The bedroom, keeper our secrets, witness of intimacies traded in faint lit long nights. Closets, worn clothes stuffed in the bottom shelf. Our smells caged inside. Breaths counted, kisses stolen. And sighs. And sighs interrupted by broken laughter.

I saw our new home today. And I needn't write anymore.

Null Hypothesis

I am force-writing this. You know how it's a custom to blog on my birthday. So here goes.

I am a cynic. I may not be good at anything I do. But I make a good cynic. I do not believe in anything. Or at least I try to believe that I do not believe in anything. And that somehow doesn't nullify my null hypothesis. But you didn't get the joke. So anyway.

Either, I,  from within am an innocent believer. But try to pretend that am a cynic. Because being a cynic comes cheaper. Nothing is at stake when you don't believe. Because you're not putting yourself out there and blah.

Or, I really am the hard core non believer that I should be. And I just pretend to look like someone who holds on to the nascent possibility that good things happen, and happen indeed. Because that way I am convincing myself that there still is at least one good reason to live.

And turn a year older on similar nights like tonite. Ta da..25!

Knowing.

His trapezoid toenails. The bush of hair just behind them. I focused on those as the rest of everything happened. Nothing else mattered as much as my incessant desire. To pluck each one of those strands of hair, from his toe knuckles. And see him swell up in pain. I so knew lust.

A rusty nameplate hung from a grille where a creeper of moneyplant flourished someday. Both the names on that plate, no more. Grown children fluttering around in the funereal home. Impending grandchildren. I so knew the unseemly futility of life.

Sitting on a mountain top. Staring into a deep deep valley. Wearing a crazy hat. Sombrero. Watching a shamless sun shedding itself on the canopy below, uncovering a dozen shades of green. Cold wind hitting my face, I understood life's unconquerable ability to make us forget. Move on. I so knew that liberty could be. And is.

Trying to decipher illegible writing, my very own, from cheap ruled notebooks. On penulitmate exam nights. Mouths raw from insomnia, as I fell off from the edge of my bed, I realised. Whatever we do, we get nowhere else. Except where we are here, now. I so knew truth.

......

Asterisk

Do you not get it? Is it that hard? And the anatomy of my affection so inconceivably difficult to unravel? It isn't. 

It's rather simple. Honest and uncomplicated. And you're not naive yourself. So don't flatter yourself yet. Not now, not ever. 

Don't flatter yourself with the sole assumption that I am in love with you. I am not. Can never be. 

I busy my mind with your thoughts, force feed the imaginative future that I may come to live in with you someday, because, baby, I am only trying to run away from myself. Yeah.

You see, I am this obnoxiously obsessed woman who cannot stop thinking and constantly needs something for her mind to feed on. Anything, at all. Like they say gastric acids eat up the stomach walls if there's no food, a similar force of self-destruction is my underlying. And if I don't think about you, proxima centauri, some extinct mesozoic reptile, or you, nothing would stop me from thinking about myself. 

And thinking about myself, is fatal. That's why I pretend to love you. To convince myself that it's not yet time to take the self seriously. So don't just flatter yourself. And boast about getting me off your back. Hah! You've no idea. 

Mundane

We are mundane. Infact, very very. Our mouths smell of the gums we chewed last, no respite from that. Our nails are undone, broken edges, scraped paint. Hair is an obnoxious bunch of callous curls. Fashion, we don't know thee. No offence, we are just too busy. Busy losing our minds and how?

We are busy losing our minds, by falling for the undeserving. We are losing our minds, choosing birthday gifts for besties and swallowing the courier charges. We are busy making note, keeping track. Of people, things etcetera. Of checking our phones oftener than we should, trying to respond to the faintest of beeps, and sometimes even imagining them. We are actually pretty occupied going all cheek bones about unreal TV characters, and watching our favorite movies again and again until we remember every single word uttered. We are content in hugging a book to sleep every night, and revelling in our incapacity to wind up the last couple of pages. We are busy feeling the smooth finish of celebrity magazines, on lush waiting room couches. And in sitting there and trying to gauge, why we are however we are.

Off late, StumbleUpon seems to have discovered my secret love for dressing up and keeps making me visit pages full of shoes, skirts, and whatnot. Good to look at, but we are not made for that. I mean, really no! We are happy with kohl that lasts years because we just don't stay focused enough to wear it everyday, or a lipbalm that always feels too deep a shade. You know the story, lets skip it, shall we.

So there we go, no time for fashion. No time to be a doll. We are just so earthy, so real. More real than real. And reality doesn't get any better than mundane. Or does it?

Earthy. She has characteristics of the earth. Don't imagine there is an adjective more exact than this. She is more real than real, if anything. Her skin is the same tone as soil. Moist clay; porous and breathing. Her hair is the roots of those numerous trees of thought that grow out of her head. She flourishes like redundant flora; into a woman whose presence was never desired. Like weed. Boundless creeper, spreading arms and legs; on walls and trees; for support; like on numerous men. And then moves on, outgrows, abandons this support, the men, those walls that only constrained. Like a snake sheds skin, she sheds memories, and leaves a serpentine trail of history; unwritten, and somehow never capricious enough. Sometimes she sits though, still like a mountain. Stares at the night sky, and reflects. Cries, sometimes a river emulates the tears emerging from the corner of her eye. A mighty masculine river that floods and washes away everything. Sometimes even herself. After the storm, she is the layer dust that settles on leaves. Also, she is the withered leaf that falls off, to decay and become the earth again.

Lost & Found

The weekly horoscope, comes Sunday morning with the faint fragrance of newsprint. Layered between matrimonial classifieds and steals of second rate paparazzi. One quiet paragraph, beside the logo of a lone girl with wings. I try to focus; on every written word, and on each unwritten parallel, that could possibly be drawn between some silly astrologer's drunken babble and my life.

As predicted, I ensure that I cut short on all long term financial investments, which by the way are fictitious, and steer clear of backstabbers at work, and wear green on most days, and gather confidence for that turning point of my career that has kept me waiting long. I also wonder which of those past flames is going to make a peaceful retreat into my life. Before realizing the joke is on me, I actually, look up from the paper, ponder for a moment, which one could it be. Which one may have that slight possibility of pausing long enough to even consider. I shove the paper under the bed, where its ancestors have been, accumulating the hopelessness of a future that wouldn't be.

Then I take to a strange fancy. I should find something to contradict my turquoise nail paint. And go around looking. To come across this ancient-smelling market, which I could never imagine would be, stuck in a lost little place down-town. With dusty clay pots. Shiny silver toe rings. And anklets. Numerous other trinkets to appease the tumultuous effeminate swings of my mood. Pastel work on wrap-around skirts, and embroidered ponchos.

That neatly cultivated old world charm sunk into me, as we sat by a pond, pool of black scattering faint moonlight. Later I noticed a ring on my finger. The string of diamonds that never shone in the day and sat pale as a stone from every possible angle; now glittered. Glittered like a diamond should.

Later, I murmured, my ring shines in the dark. Just like me. 

Bloke!

My love for arrogant blokes just doesn't subside.  I love the one who seems to have ways of his own. Not the subtle man of heartwarming banality. Not the man who chats with me over coffee. And asks me how I was. But he, who is beyond capture. He, who is, both incapable and undeserving of love. And is doubtlessly proud of it.

His eyes that have sure shades of grey and shine in tinted sunshine. His hair curls over his crazy head, with his own idiosyncratic callousness. His palms are cold with the lack of emotion. And I adore, just helplessly adore his inability to empathize.

It could be my complex that's fuelling my utter craving. That I believe that I am so lowly, my only salvation lies in being crushed beneath him. And I see my meagre existence being wiped off by his inability to see me. That particularly makes me happy, and become an irrevocable victim of his. Or may be I just want to be punished, the way they do in S&M.

Whatever it be. I have begun to believe that I have just had my umpteenth impossible infatuation. And with just a few days left before I turn 25, I can't fathom the silliness of this.

The Fear of Writing.

Besides my loathing for pulp fiction, there is one other reason why I haven't dared ever to write a story. And though there is no way I could filter one particular reason from a body of unwillingness and outright lethargy and exhaustion, here's how I would like to try.

Every man and woman has a center of their being. It sounds rather idealistic, but there is one idea, one solo thing, that makes you who are, binds bone to bone in your body and makes you walk around on your two legs, be the phenomenon that you should be. And that idea, is beyond everything, almost everything, indomitable, uncrushable. It only has to rise, like a snake from your navel to your head.

Every damn story that has been written, that I have found and read, has reflected with honesty, its writer's intricate bonding with her this idea. The process of writing a story is like an endothermic reaction in which the writer comes to be, this person that she should ideally be, doing justice to the words she is scribbling across pages, leaving her footprint in every single stanza, every comma pushed between words, every semi colon inserted to space out one thought from another.

And I have no such idea, haven't discovered mine yet. Or may be I never would. Because I am constantly looking. I begin a paragraph by writing about a couple that lives in the middle of the forest, an unknown bird that sits by their window every night, a girl that's waiting for her roommate, how the wind blows today, how the clouds are strewn across the sky and likewise. And then, after a few hundred words, I am drained. Exhausted. I run out. Of thoughts. Of all conceivable fiction. Of all routes, that could lead me to become the person I should ideally be. The person my story wants me to be.

I am cowed down by embarrassment, humiliation of not being worthy of my own reading. And I tear apart the papers, roll them into a ball and dump them in trash.

I have seen the noble ideas that make people write, drive them to finish pages after pages. But in my case, there is no such.There is no spiritual snake rising from my navel to my head. I am blank, except for the empty center of my being. Which is soaked, soaked with lovelessness. And a terrifying solitude, which began as a disappointment, soon became a sorrow and has now turned into a writhing anger.

If I ever write a story, only this lovelessness will be scattered across my pages. And therefore, I shall not. 

Poise & Untruth

Just asking. Is there anything, material or immaterial, in some corner of the brain, that moderates. Some secret gland, that releases a notorious secretion and makes us more-man-and-less-animal. Is there? Isn't there?

Because if I slammed every door I felt like slamming, there would be lots of fractured doors in my world today. If I told every fucktard, that he was indeed, one of those, I would have lots of enemies. If I had opposed every idea I thought was foolish, I would have become a rebel, Che type. If I had told every pretty lass, that she was one pathetic attention seeker, I would have no pretty friends. And If I would have blamed the ugly ones for being ugly, I wouldn't have the ugly ones either.

If I had revealed the gargantuan truth, that almost all of us are bloody hypocrites, then where would I find that single place to hide my shameless little ass. If I had told those dangerously self obsessed narcissists that that's what they really were, they would set my tail on fire. If I had a tail, i.e.

There are dozens of other things I would have said and done. But I didn't. Couldn't. Because of that secret secretion inside of my head, that fucking moderates me. Calms me down. Relaxes. Sometimes it makes me see that my saying anything at all, wouldn't make any difference to the course of things in the long run. Sometimes it makes me want to save my energy; lie down on the couch and watch all the drama. Sometimes it makes me believe that, it all merely seems to be, but it's not. It does just about anything to keep me from reacting in my natural flair and showing my true color.

And thanks to that secret secretion, I have become the one that I have come to be. Lazying around, writing when she feels like, opinion-less, neutral about even the most vehement of phenomenons, struggling with a rigid inability to believe, to believe in anything, anything at all.

And what did I get? Did the pluses and minuses cancel out to give me something positive that adds to make me look a teeny-weeny better in my own tired eyes? No. Nothing. This poise earned me zilch. Zilch. 

City

This city. Of whose mediocrity I am so ashamed. Has paused and gone off to sleep; though I have stayed up to write. About; about my obligatory affections that it has come to deserve-with time-by destiny.

Its dim street lamps, merge with the cloudy evening sky. Somehow I had never noticed that mundane symphony. I had never taken a walk alone and stopped for thirty seconds before crossing the road; to stare at the damn street lamps. And their rust-ridden lamp shades. Corroded by years of rain.

Capricious thunderstorms. In misty afternoons. Pools of slush. Choked drains. Flooded by-lanes. I never cared enough to cluck my tongue and say Ah- how this thing goes on- how resilient.

How the homeless lived under flyovers. And their dark stunted children; made a life out of rolling cycle tires with a stick. How the gods in old forgotten temples, slept beneath layers of moss. And hyacinth grew aplenty in the backyard temple ponds.

School kids waited at bus stops; for their particularly nauseating bus rides; hoping against hope that it be declared a rainy day and they would run back home, tight ties loosened, shirts tucked out, tunics out of place.

I do not how or why, but I consider it my misfortune that I still live in the city; where my conscious was born; when almost everyone else has flown away. I am ashamed because, it makes me feel stuck in time; it makes me realise how sluggish my life has become. Despite my efforts to break this leash; I somehow can't.

I am embarrassed because probably; I have always been trying to run away; escape; forget; deny the existence of my roots. Because roots keep me so grounded; and I wish to fly; wild & free. This city knows the child I was. It's like a mate; which saw me puke for the only two times in my life, for instance.

First, as that nauseated school kid in a sweaty breathless school bus. And then, years and years later, as some wretch; overdosed with nicotine.

Shame

There was once a woman. In a book. Not a real one. Or she may have been. No one knows. If she lived between the flaps of its pages, or was for real. But there was a woman. 

Mundane-faced. Except somedays; invisible; until much later. Until she became a part of the book. The book talks about her past; in recollection. She was brought up within four walls of inhibition. Behind thick rimmed glasses. Upright pony tails. Hair oil. Long skirts. Half shoes. Velvety half shoes. Bitten nails. Novels hidden between school books. Every year in school remembered by the boy she was infatuated with in that year. Sometimes, a boy lasted years. Sometimes years wore out, but the boy stood steady. Love poems in secret personal diaries. Leaves pressed and preserved between its pages. Leaving grey-green impressions of their veins and vein-lets. 

College. Hours in libraries. Watching couples cuddle. Laboratories. Among chemicals and on aching toes. Long walks. Belly fat. Face packs. Straightening of wavy hair. And failing at it. Getting drenched. Watching rain. Not knowing a thing about where she was headed. Wondering if she would ever look back. Love songs blowing out of speakers, day long. Night long. First stories given a try. Ended unfinished. Due to the dearth of another character, besides the one who was invariably her. End of imagination. Fear of future. Yet a yelling freedom cry within. Wanting to break free; Come out; shy no more; Unleashed; become un-held. But couldn't. She waited for the right moment. Which hardly ever came. 

Later, she moved out. Into a far away city. In another continent. Became what is commonly understood to be a slut. Drank alone in bars. And slept with strange men. Another man; every night. Became what she truly was. Truly was. Or so she understood. Uninhibited. Letting out stifled feelings, of loveless years. She reveled in her anonymity. Celebrated the lack of shame.

Tired of seeking the answer; she fell in love with the question itself. 

And then she came back. Entered; center-stage. As a character in this book. As the lover of the protagonist.

Exiting my bookish fantasies; however; sometimes, she appears in front of me; like she were real. And talks to me. Just like now. Just like now.     

Looking

I am my opiate, in the making.

I am a chemical. I am a ticking bomb.

A half said sentence; I am the dust on shoes. Like a settled thought. Also, I could be a fleeting moment. Transitory. Between existence and non-existence. I am a lot of could be's. But most of all, I am a chemical. Constituted in weird mind boggling concoctions. Or whatever.   

I must be opium. Because I am driven to insanity by default. By birth. This defect is congenital. Being possessed by the want of what not. Of being ignorant of what is it, what is it, that could, begin to, quieten this deafening noise inside me. 

I am ignorant of all causes and consequences of my being. And I am swaying, between drunken footsteps. Walking this way, that way, and then walking away. Away. 

But, nevertheless, I am looking. Unaware of what it is. The elixir that could cure, quieten, put to sleep. This chaos. Decompose the concocted elements that make me. The chemical I am. I am still looking. 

Someday, hope bless me, that the end point of this quest be me itself. And I end up where I had begun. My journey comes a full circle. Keeping in line with my love for circles. 

And I ultimately accept that I was the opiate. Am the opiate. I am the one person I was looking for. And not anyone else. No one else. Just I.

Maya

I am told this world is a dream. Brahma's illusion. It's funny to even imagine, why the fuck am I being screwed so bad in someone else's illusion.

I used to dwell on the truth that everything I see is the sum of everything I imagine I see. I was shut off. There was a distinction between what was me, and what wasn't me. My four walls defined me. Protected me from diluting in my obsession, my cure-less narcissism. 

And I sometimes, in wildest dreams, I tried even to distillate whatever truth there was, however minuscule that may be, from enormous proportions of what everything just seemed to be.  

But now, with time, I have begun to live outside myself. That's the cost we pay. I'll tell you how. 

I am a lose summation what everyone imagines that I am. That I should be. Losing out on breath, I am aimlessly trying to become that one person that I ought to be. To get a better life. 

That notional ideal, is not the one thing I wished to be. Be-come. In fact, I didn't wish to become anyone. Anyone other than what I absofuckinglutely was. Not one trait more or less. No metaphor. No nothing. 

But look, now I live via others. Evaluate every moment of existence by how much I tended to become some tired-of-life-end-of-the-world-frustrated-tireless-moron. And I can't help myself. 

'What is truth? What is sanity? Did Jesus rise up from the grave? Do Hindus not accept that the world is a kind of dream; that Brahma dreamed, is dreaming the universe, that we only see dimly through that dream-web, which is Maya. Maya, may be defined as all that is illusory; as trickery, artifice and deceit. Apparitions, phantasms, mirages, sleight-of-hand, the seeming form of things: all these are parts of Maya. If I say that certain things took place which you, lost in Brahma's dream, find hard to believe, then which of us is right?'

-Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children)

With-in

There is this room, where souls bond. Floors of mosaic, tip toed upon, lazy feet pushed, fingers slid between fingers and seduced. There is this room, with no windows. No skylights. Just four walls. Four walls that cage as much as they free. That let ignominy swallow you as much as they enlighten. This is where contradictions coexist.

From the outside, it is hard even merely to imagine that such a place could come to be.

It's like some encapsulated reality, in a capsule, which exists from the inside and other crazy things like that. Threads of connections between beings, are formed, nurtured, and shattered. Irrational, unexplainable bonds rooted in raw needs. The honesty in those bonds is almost sacred. There is no pretension in those chords that tie. And untie. Almost as immediately as that thirst is quenched, the knots are opened up. Disentangled. Free to go.

But for as long as there is that inseparability, there is no questions asked. No answers sought.

Again, did somebody ever say, there was more honesty in lust than in love itself. Or did I just imagine. Being told so.

Men in my life-X!

It took me longer than usual to understand his curious glances. That would sometime stretch into stares. Until I happened to look back at him and disturb his concentration. Then obviously I would notice a subtle expression on his face that you can suppose to be a smile. Or the making known of a mild amount of interest. An inclination to understand about what kept me so so perturbed that I was going nuts every alternate moment of the day. Gasping for breath. And not even having the common courtesy to spare a moment to acknowledge and appreciate his stare.
And when I had that one moment to spare, he must have been a flight to what could be a zillion miles away.

With age, love gets deeper. I mean, but of course. Whatother way could it be. I may be talking about the sentiment towards one man in particular. Or towards many, in a destined chronological order. One man after another. But the love gets deeper. I suppose.
I hope I am making myself clear. Or, let me come again. You love the man you loved at twenty-six more over the man you desired at twenty-two. Is this true? Does love have something to do with age? Or is it just my self pity and consistent estrangement making it appear so. I could harbor a self- bias, but still I think. I believe, it gets harder to deal with heart-break with age. What's appaling is that, the contrary seems to be true.
Because you are expected to become more mature, thick-skinned, self-obsessed, pragmatic, faithless and blah with age. It's only natural. And hence, the loss of love, isn't techincally expected to affect you as much as it did when you were young. But no..
Somewhere inside, the hurt is getting deeper. The cut is reaching for your insides, as you speak. The ghosts of those x-s and y-s and z-s live inside your head now. Because, probably because, he was the one, who you had caught up with so late in life, who you were desperately clinging to for your happyness, and then shockingly it all broke down. Suddenly, there seem to be less fish in the sea. And desperate clinging feels criminal.
Also sometimes, you feel the man you are going love when you get twenty-six is the same as the man you were crazy about at twenty-two. This is exactly when you realise that that SOB has made a home inside of your skull. And that you're doomed. Amen!

How slim are the odds?

The odds are very slim. The odds of something that you want to happen, for it to actually happen, in flesh and blood, the odds are very very slim. Almost non existent. Almost ridiculous. Believing in those odds, makes me feel like some practical joke inside of a pessimist's mind. And I realize this, time and again, whenever I close my eyes and make a wish. Because, everywhere deep down I know. I know, my guts know, that it's not going to happen. The thin threads of my prayer, are entangled, amidst the concocted realities of life. So the wish is killed.

But there is another way. It's an escapists', pardon me. But nevertheless. When you wish for something, anything, close your eyes, such that, no light of truth dares to enter inside. And imagine. Imagine like you're living it. Live it, like you are not imagining it anymore. Like one life inside another, contradictory though, but fantastically co-existent. Whatever it is that you wanted to happen. Give in to it. Believe what you see is real, for whatever minutes you're cut off. Don't let guilt or cowardice scare you away.

I did. And then I saw him everywhere. At bus stops. In airports. In shopping malls. Book stores. Yeah, most particularly book stores. In the rain, sun, biting cold, whatever. Whereever. I saw him, with shut eyes. Heard him when he was nowhere around. He wasn't. He couldn't be. But I did.

..And suddenly, the odds weren't slim anymore.

High

High. I am so high I can't kiss you back enough.
And no matter what I do, my feet wouldn't touch the ground.
The way we are perched on the parapet. Honey. Toes dangling in mid air. Seven floors above ground.
Or is it eight.
I want to jump off, as much as I want to stay put.
And I don't want to have to explain a thing. Any-thing. I choose to be ignorant. And wallow in this bliss, longer.
Till this high sustains me. Till I survive this high, just about right, to kiss you back enough. And return the favor. So that nothing is left un-bought. Such that I should feel I deserved it enough.
And such that I can get off from here, and walk back into my room. Feet waivering though, but still touching ground. Into my bed. And back to sleep.

Day

There is. A crumpled shirt at the bottom of the wardrobe that nobody's gonna wear again. Shoes that gave unbearable shoe bites the first time and won't be touched again. Nail paint that weren't worth what they cost. Amongst other things bought and sold. There also is a guy. Man. Person. And one or two more inside the phone. Who don't just suffice. None of them make it to the mark. There's a few unread and worthy books. There's food. Frozen in the oven. And dark chocolate wrapped in scrap shiny paper. Purchased with money. For relief from some biting heartache. Just like lingerie. There is a lot of stories inside of my head. That should be read out aloud. Some day. Also a wild rage, a madness, insanity like nothing before strangled within. There is also the innocence. An innocence of not knowing the reason behind having everything. And yet having nothing at all.

There is everything. Yet nothing makes me want to be alive more than be dead. U understand.

I can feel a point where my clavicles meet the sternum. That's where this emptiness hurts the most. And when I close my eyes I can. I can feel my flesh collapsing into that solo point. And then the whole entire world following past.

Things we wouldn't do.

We wouldn't have to chase time all the time, squeeze our schedules to meet each other; we wouldn't have to wait for texts saying the other got home fine; we wouldn't have to pretend that we can bear shopping or that we believe in retail therapy just because the other thought we should; we wouldn't have to wear thin engagement rings on little fingers instead of the ring fingers and hide that we are engaged; or take bumpy cab rides together; or make un realistic plans to watch our favorite tv shows together; or make friends with each other's friends because now we would become part of a bigger circle apparently; nor would we have to tell our parents about us; and reveal the story from the beginning; or scream that we are going on some packaged honeymoon with nauseous bus rides that has a cash back offer on some hotel room; we don't have to keep the cards, or imagine what we could gift on the dates we would never remember
Those are things that lovers do. And we just have to do them anymore.
We wouldn't have to do so much now. That is a lot of burden off our chests. A long list off our to-do lists.

Underachievers' Anonymous-2

Life isn't perfect. Anything but that. Sometimes, all the imperfections, team up, look me in the eye, and ask. What have I done. Rebuke and ridicule. My minuscule existence. What have I done. I am certain years of age. And what have I accomplished in these certain years. Nothing much. Zilch.

I have gained on only one scale, I suppose, that of shamelessness. The shamelessness that makes me just about enough able to look at myself in the mirror. Day after day, everyday. All these years. And there's nothing else. All other scales I have lost on, I have been on this never ending nose-dive ever since. Ever since I can remember, since the beginning of memory, I have been a loser. No offence. I just have been.

The definition of an underachiever is like carved out for me. Like destiny has crafted me, to be some lab sample of an underachiever to be shown off. Such that others could know, find out about themselves too.

I am the last in line. The last one. The one too lazy to move on. Too tired to go get it. Incapable of practically everything. Fucking unbelievable, huh?

Except this unending wrath for myself and self destructive self hatred & disgust, what have I got. I'll tell you. Two useless degrees. Love handles. Scars on my face. Scars on my soul. Perfect understanding of all the sitcom characters that I adore. Wisdom of the wisdom-less books I have read. And forgotten. Bitten nails. A wardrobe of unloved dresses. An unloved heart. My share of sickness. A decent share, I swear. The work I do. The work that gets me nowhere. Hidden packs of cigarettes in the last shelves of drawers. Bitches, I am jealous of. And a few friends. Very few friends. And their undying & blemish-less love. And anger, my dormant anger. Plain undiluted unquenchable wrath. On life. Destiny, if that is. For giving me nothing I wanted. I also have my fears.

Sometimes I wish, if I despise life so much, then I must have nothing to lose. So let me, in the very least, be fearless. But no. Like icing on the freakin' cake, on top of all this, I am a coward.

And, now I am done.

Years ago, here. 

Pulse

A pulse. Like a heart beat. A beep that ensures a life. Just one pulse, between myraid stretches of time. My thought behaves like a pulse. It's ridiculous, or may be it's even a disorder. Sentiment visits me for one instant of time. Or rather, sometimes a fraction of that instant. It's so gone in the next instant, its hard to believe it was even here. Right inside my heart. Making me break down and shatter into shards. 


It's like an unbearable moment of pain & recollection. Between droughts of any feeling at all, complete sanity.  I don't know what's tricking me, or I am tricking what. But I don't know how to deal with this anymore. How can I, tell me, how can I understand why. In the middle of a perfectly monotonously healthy day, for one fucking crazy moment, for no reason in particular, I would miss him. And want him so bad, that it would make me cry. But the next moment, I would fail to understand why. And move on even before my heart skipped one complete beat. I fail to understand this phenomenon of a pulse.


One moment I am working, typing away, switching windows, engrossed, sane, checking time, looking at my watch. And stuck in that moment, I remember a peck. Not the dozens of kisses, or the things said & unsaid, or the lines on his face. But just that peck. Out of the blue, in the middle of nowhere, the warmth of that moment shoots back to me. That sorrow, paralyzes me. For once. It's hard not to want to cry. Then I begin to remember the periphery of that moment in the past. But something happens. Something distracting happens, and I don't recognize the lapse I just had. 


Anymore.


The pulse is gone. And has ensured that I am so alive, all over again. 

Getting Past

Let me be. Stuck in this limbo, that I am. Unmoving. Let me just oscillate about my center of gravity. Just don't let that center be you. Leave me. Divorce me. Tear me away. Discard. Throw away. Abandon. Forget me.  Me. Believe that I never was. Believe, in your heart, that I am not, not even now. I don't exist. Our pasts don't exist. And my present is in its entirety a separate entity from yours. We are not connected. We aren't. What-so-ever. We aren't the same. Not anymore. Not ever. You are, merely, someone I happened to know. Some man I met in a bar one night, drunk and hallucinating. The breeze that unsettled my hair, and put it in such disarray, that it won't just settle again. But I have recovered. I ran my fingers through my strands of hair, and combed them fine, just now. Just about now.

So don't come back. Don't even think about it. Don't you dare!

Superwoman

There was this perverted whim I once had. To understand, appreciate and be able to utter, all the slang that language has had to liberty to concoct. But my mouth won't open, whenever, I said the word inside my mind and had the honest intention of making it heard out loud, my goddamn mouth just won't open. Like my lips were pursed with some archaic glue of femininity. A glue that eluded all the obscenity that existed in mankind, and walked away straight faced.

But as life often solves many of its problems like a well-oiled self-sufficient machine, it solved this one of mine. I found a teacher. He would sit with me, devoting hours of sleep deprived nights, until, I said it, until I said that mutherfucking word. Looking right into his eyes, out loud, with the right amount of venom, that deserved to be thrown out of my system. He would even incentivize the whole thing for me. By tempting me with a pout, a peck, even sometimes a kiss, if I was par excellence.One new slang every night. Such that, in a few months, I would write my own dictionary of them. And become Superwoman. Of sorts.

tonite i wonder if it was all my fault. if i should have held on tighter. waited for you longer. compromised a little more. understood and sacrificed like everyone else. fought harder with destiny, to keep you for mine. and not let you go this easy. ya, now it feels easy, in retrospect. then the world was upside down. i was crazier than ever. but i should have been saner. how much could that have cost?

now it has cost me love. 

Men

Just you. Only you.

There is plenty of men in this world. Arrogant blokes. Jealous colleagues. Men on the road who stare at you like you were a porn star. Autowalas cabwalas. Bus conductors that hassle over change. Men who are obnoxiously obsessed with themselves, can speak of nothing else, even if they tried. Really hard. Eve teasers. Potential rapists. Supposedly gay best friends, who aren't exactly gay, and stay with you because they are secretly in love with you. Men who befriend you because they would wanna sleep with your best friend, and your recommendation is their last resort. Seriously. Men who talk to your boobs. Like your face didn't exist. Men who would fuck exclusively the size-zero female only. Men with a fabulous sense of humor. And men whose jokes are funny to no one else. But still, you burst out laughing because you wanna flatter them. Men who are overpoweringly brotherly for no good reason. Men who pursue intellect. And those who pursue flesh. And speak no other language. Men, who have been the indefatigable infatuation of a lifetime. Forgotten lovers. Written about in random pages of diaries. And abandoned right there. Men who have turned on every single nerve end in your body. Men you have wanted to live for. And then die for. The tireless heartbreaker. Middle aged pedophiles for relatives. Men who hover around just because you're a woman and you have a vagina. Men who don't care. Because they are from another planet, supposedly. The guy from the teenage couple walking by, holding hands. That guy in school, first crush and bench mate. The ones in college. Ones that are getting married..Everyone, everyone. There are men all around.

But not you. Only you.

"Love will come through"~Travis'

Years later, she would pause and think backwards. Till this moment when he had looked right into her. For the first time. His glare was piercing. And very honest. It almost spoke for itself.

Years later, when there would be a creeper of money plant growing from a clay pot on their kitchen wall. Against the morning pale filtered sunlight. She would remember this moment.

Of course the journey would have been decades long by then. A couple such more, short of the end. And she would relentlessly stare at the thoughtless creeper, to listen to their story. Understand, respond. Compassionately sympathize. Dispassionately comment.

There would be boxes of glass bangles. Concealed in corners of her shelves, containing alongwith, the void left behind after all the gold that was given away to prodigal inheritors.

In the many rooms of their ancestral house, would hover the mild soapy fragrance of his crisp shirts..and his disintegrating voice. As if, it sent across ripples in the air before finally finding her. Deep inside the house. Bottling pickles. Year after year. Standing in the sun. Growing batches of flowers in their garden. Not a single winter went blossom-less, in those many decades. Pampering pets, street dogs, homely cats and talking parrots.

Albums of black and white pictures. Of pubescent daughters posing by flowers, and sons with toy guns. And weddings, and numerous birthdays. Anniversaries, gone by. And annual days at schools. Year after year. Every year. Keeping moments. Until now. Until now.

Until that very moment, when she would stare at their kitchen wall. And try to remember, hard, almost like an amnesiac.

Matrimony, they say.. 

Man Woman & Child

Summer afternoon. There is a drizzle waiting in the air. A patch of golden sky, is visible above the shoulder of the woman. It's reflecting on the window pane, and she's leaning out. Her thighs are oozing out of her shorts. And there's gooey face-pack over her face. She's waiting for it dry. It has dried up in parts, developed cracks and can be scraped off already. The breeze has just gotten cooler.

Unopened boxes lay on the floor. Like someone has just moved in. Or is about to move out. There is dust on the floor. There's some stuff outside too. Some things. Like a rocking chair. Left alone in the corner, all by itself. And there's a scarf tied around one of its arms. A few books. Hardbound, with the author's name fading into an insignificant golden yellow.

Just like the sun that reflects on the window pane. The wind has become virile now. And the window pane bangs harder. It might shatter into shards of glass, tonite.

The woman has moved away, into some deep insides of the house. And there's of course the child, rolling on the floor.

The man however is, invisible. 

Man & Woman

Obviously we rushed in to see the new bride the moment we were told there was one. I must have been tenoreleven. And I hadn't seen a bride till then. All of those got married at night and left before I woke up the morning next. Even the air wore a deserted look after that departure. Crushed petals of rose strewn on the floor where the feast was last night, but no sign of the bride.

So obviously when told there was a bride, we couldn't hold ourselves still. And waited after one of us, tall enough, to reach for the door bell pressed it. I must have wished I was tall enough for my eyes to reach the door eye to look into the house from outside. To catch a glimpse of that burly mass covered in red and gold, beforehand. But they never made see through door eyes then.

When she opened the door in only a starched cotton sari, prim and pleated like she was some housewife in mid life crisis. Only happier. We were disappointed, to say the least. A brief while after, we were told she was the new bride of a man such and such. Who had a slight of a paunch and was old and was balding. Who had more than a couple children, stacked away in distant cities. And an insane first wife who had been shunned. For that woman was as good as dead. To him. To his children. Everyone.

And this new wife was the spinsterish daughter abandoned in a family of lots of other people who definitely had other things to worry about than getting her married off. So her years of youth had passed and settled down as tiny wrinkles on the corners of her eyes. Which always shrank when she smiled, the way she smiled the first time she opened the door to us.

I can recollect. How much their lives felt entwined into each other those days. How she would roast brinjals pricked with garlic for him. Or he would get strands of lilies for her hair.

Of course, back then I wouldn't have deduced what I now deduce. And I realize, it's ridiculously obvious how much man and woman need each other. Notwithstanding.

Now I think about them. And then I think about us.

A kiss on the lips

Have you been there? When the person right next to you, in your bed, wrapped in the same sheets feels like is miles away. And you're somewhere else. You don't particularly wish to be though. But you can't help it. And it feels only natural to be that way. Disconnected. A couple of years ago, you would even wonder if that was ever possible. Emotionally, biologically, rationally, irrationally, whatever.

With time, more than a few tides turn. Innocence leaves. Suddenly, as in almost overnight. Promises recede into oblivion. Particularly those written down on the last pages of school notebooks. If they don't head back stage, sometimes you kill them. In a heinous way you never imagined you could.

A lot of things change. The mind allows layers and layers protective sheaths over itself. Yet we remain the same within. It's funny, how you pretend to be different just to protect your undiluted self.

And one day you wake up with a stranger. Picking up shreds of clothing and not looking each other in the eye. You're not particularly ashamed of what you've done. Life wasn't supposed to be special anyway, and you've learned it the hard way. Nor do you let regret hover anywhere around your conscious. But still there is something, that itches. Could be that person you caged and protected underneath what you've become. And you don't let it torture you anymore.

You put up a bold face in the mirror and behave like nothing much has happened, but the obvious. Like you knew those wishes you fabricated before were juvenile hallucinations or something. Impractical nonsense.

..

Seen Unseen

It's spring already. And I have a bevy of reasons, for why you wouldn't even think of loving me. Because I have this subtle quality to merge into the backgroud. The hem of my clothes must look like the edge of a weird piece of furniture. And my hair must look like wool. Or a tree. Perfectly overlookable. I must be almost invisible. Or completely invisible. And you wouldn't know until I scream that I am. That I am absolutely taking advantage of my invisibility to relish your every move. Every single movement that your muscles make. Absorbing each pause between your laughs. Understanding whom you be. And feast on the slight delights of the man you are.

I am almost proud,of how you wouldn't screech to a halt even if I rain dance right past your eyes. Or run hither and thither. Or use worn out archaic English for that matter. Because you are married to everything I am not. For you, I could at best be a non-existent no-body. Or in the very least, be like the lone girl at the next table in a restaurant you're at with someone else. You're only probably faintly aware of my presence and couldn't practically care any less.
..
Spring is almost over. And the first phase of Summer is breaking itself upon us by intermittent afternoon thundershowers. And I count that as first rain. In which today I got drenched. Bulbous drops tripped on my head and broke apart on my shoulders. And I felt like flinging away my hands and let virgin rain seep in. Wild waves made inroads into my mind. And dreams that would never be dropped in hints that they could be only if you had raised your eyes once. And looked at me,crouching, right next to you. Staring at you already, and waiting to be seen. Merely seen.

Adam

Being influenced comes easy. Even now. Books, even books drive me nuts. Movies addict me. To almost a point of no return. That point of no return, where onward I begin to worship, believe in, and love, without reason. Such love, attraction and intoxication is an insult to my intelligence, shouldn't deny. And books and the like apart, you are a man.

You could a bimbo. And I could love you only for the assumptions I have of you. Without considering who you are for real. You look alright to me. Good rather. And I love your smile. God, I adore your smile. I adore it so much that it makes my inner being beam. In the few seconds your face flexes into a smile, it's like each and every bit of you is happy. Oozing with joy. In those few seconds, I wonder, how could anyone, ever impersonate such honest an emotion. Your smile is so pure, it makes me want to tell you how I feel about it. Like I said, it drives me crazy. But in a good way though.

And I should be shameless to feel anything like this about anyone. Now. After everything. It's almost embarrassing. And I wish I could get help. You could be a bimbo after all. And not the person of my dreams. Not the man I see behind the face, the gentle humility. And all that. But seriously, you're like a delicious slice of chocolate pastry. I find you too sweet to swallow because I am already floored the moment you touch the tip of my tongue. Quite non-literally.

It couldn't be the naughty teenage infatuation. It shouldn't. Because that would mean I have regressed. Or I haven't evolved. At all. But I wonder if we ever do. I still feel like that butterfly-in-my-heart seventeen year old. In the few seconds I just stand there to see you smile.

Adam. Adam Adam

The Mating Game

This post is supposed to bring back the magic. And announce, aloud, the return of fiction. The return of romance. To this blog. After a year of an almost continuous typed out sequence of psychobabble. And remind us after all, of those days when this thing was read.


Ideally, this post should have been named after the inglorious series 'Men in My Life' . But then that's too cheesy, so lets skip that, should we. Because ideally a lot of things should have happened, which never did, do, will. Hence.

In a crowded room, full of strangers, when the only man I knew failed to give me the attention I thought was due, he had absolutely no idea what game of mutual humiliation he had just begun. Because I had walked down to say hi, totally endowed with the knowledge that he was an ass, after all. And he snapped it back right in my face. How crazy was I to overestimate his skills at being human. Affable and chivalrous, be at bay.

But anyway, we get used to shrugging and walking away. In due course of time, in life, we all do. I assumed that episode never happened. And settled down with a drink. Inside my mind.

Later that evening, things changed. It was getting pretty late. And I stood by the road, trying to hail a cab. But all the cabbies, as usual, hated the place where I stayed. They raised their noses and drove off. And there he was. Shirt tucked out. Tie-less. Loitering. And assuming I wasn't there.

And I know how un-feminist it sounds, but just his being there made me feel safe.Our world is so small, it's too hard not to know people. Most of who I know, fall somewhere between being a friend and an acquaintance. With distinct loyalties towards being the latter. Because sometimes, I don't let them in, and sometimes they run away. But as long as the guy is in between the points, there is a probability, and a few may-be's. The hope of a possibility.

Clinging to that possibility, when he walked up to me, that night, I has an 'apology accepted' written on my face. Somehow, I knew we had been put up in the same hotel. It was honestly, very comforting to know that  now, being the man, he would hail us a cab. So, I stopped screaming for one. And we got talking.

Unbelievable as it sounds. We never ran out of words. It was obviously getting late. But nothing seemed to matter. I assumed that happened, because we had lived similar lives till then. Only at different places. With different set of people. Etc.

But what irritated me was that he wasn't looking for a cab at all. I mean, of course conversations could be taken to other places. Two minutes later, I found out that he wasn't headed to the damn hotel after all. Shock gripped me hard, I wanted to hit him with a hammer. Why did he waste so much of my time if he wasn't going to get me a cab. Ugh.

Some sanity must have dawned on him, and he dropped me at my hotel, before heading to wherever he was headed. And it was a goodnight after all.

Today, he is not someone I barely know. I mean I guess I know him well. Rather well. He assumes I am a friend. I assume he is an acquaintance. And I also assume, he isn't reading this right now.

The End

The way they show it in movies. There's a sad ending. Colors disappear and the screen goes black and white. The ending often has some or the other huge message behind it. And your eyes are about to well up. Deep inside, you must be touched by this poignance. Because there is some beauty in it. Or may be you see glimpses of your life in the movie, etc.

Sometimes, after that moist climax, they bring up the beginning. The beginning that they din't show earlier. Just a couple of glimpses. During the movie those moments of the beginning must have been referred to many a time. Making you imagine how must have they gone for real. Arousing related general curiosity. So you wonder, a couple of times. About those happy moments. When our story began. And strangers held on to the eyes of other strangers. For a little longer than the usual stretch of time for which memories are involuntarily erased.

You then travel to the other end to see the beginning for real.

And then you can connect the dots. The beginning after the end. All the blanks are filled. Everything falls into place. And you are relieved, at least there was this happy beginning.

Now assume that movie is life indeed. And you feel like you are fast approaching the climax. The sad ending. Because you really don't know why, your sense of loss keeps getting deeper and deeper. And colors disappear. You begin to think, you must be somewhere very very close to The End. A closure must be in the offing.

And you are trapped in amnesia. You can't remember how long you have been walking. Incessantly. Panting for breath, half in tears. But most of all, you can't remember the happy beginning. The one they show in the movie. In the end, after the end. No matter how hard you try, you just cannot remember. What the beginning felt like. And you're not sure if it was a happy one. So that must not have been the beginning after all. So you keep going back in memory. And yet there is nothing in your hands. Probably, there was no happy beginning after all. And all your life has been this way. Dis-satisfactory and flooded with ennui.

Drawing parallels, between the movie and life, you never stop wishing. For a miracle that could bring back in a flash, the memory of the first few happy moments before the drama began. For any Closure, other than this, would be unfair

Chronic mental congestion

A shaky fingertip on the button of the remote. Impatient, ready to flick any moment. And skip this one to see what's on the next channel. Then wait for a few seconds, and repeat. Merging such seconds into minutes, minutes collapsing into hours. Spent with nothing done. Nothing gained or lost. Time consumed as if it hadn't even been there. Just the mind, more unsettled.

Looking. For something unknown. Probably. Aimlessly, loitering in shady corridors of an abandoned apartment. Weekdays gone by, weekends apart. Two days of pain. And Television is no consolation. Neither is the paper. Sheet after sheet of gibberish. Unread. Stacked under the bed. Crosswords, lost at. Peace, flung into pieces. Just so you know, time doesn't pass on its own anymore.

One has to make it glide by. Slowly and slowly. But without break. One has to try to ensure that time hasn't gotten stuck. Somewhere it was. Hours ago. And that it has moved on, relentlessly. You've grown older. Just the way you deserved. And you do it whatever way you want. No body cares. Stare mind-fucked at the TV. Stash away unread newspaper, assuming you read them. Paint your nails. Un-paint them. And then paint them again. Turn sides on the couch. Look out of the window. Write. Delete. Try to forget. And then try to remember. Or cry. No body cares what you do. As long as you try to keep your mind busy when time takes its own sweet time and moves on in the background.

These subtle distractions are indeed the drug. Because save them, there is nothing. There is nothing that can numb you. And make bearable the merging of seconds into minutes, and that of minutes collapsing into hours. When nothing meaningful is gained or lost. When time hasn't passed for a cause.

Blocks of the day, filled in with utter useless acts as such. Voids, sewed up. So that they don't stare open mouthed and breathe in anymore air. Wounds, unexposed. You abandon the remote, and hold the nib of a pen in one hand and dictionary in another. Braving to begin solving the next crossword of the day.

Unlike

Due to the certain degree of harmless guilt associated with narcissism and for the fear of dying alone with black cats on an arm chair, I couldn't restrain my affections for the one who was me. But he was too much me, staring at him felt like looking into the mirror. And anyway, nobody likes the mirror for long. Does she.

Nothing, absolutely nothing else makes two people more alike than sharing the same insecurities. That makes those two one from within. When the deep set fears seem to freeze, there are a dozen common fatalities to blame. The chemistry must have begun right there.

In retrospect, it occurs to me that the thing that scared me the most about him was that he knew me. That he knew exactly what I was so wary of. My well kept secrets were out there, right in front of his eyes. It ceased to matter that I too knew his secrets. Which, then of course, became our secrets. That should be kept from every third person. Just in between the two of us. But the burden of those secrets shrank my shoulders.

Sometimes loving him felt like narcissism. Sometimes, it felt beneath me. Like a last resort. Must have been the most carnal need to look for a dissimilar set of qualities in a mate, because our minds like to diversify. Stretch beyond who we have been. I left him.