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.