Tuesday, December 28

Burnt

It was her fault that lead to end of their relationship. She could not fight for him; she had to stand opposite and defend someone else who was more important. Raji could not contain herself when Nitesh called her a back stabber. She could not find a reason for it. She asked, but all she got was anger, hatred and nasty sarcasm from him. She tried to reason but it fell on deaf ears.

It was all a part of the joke being carried forward from one person to the other. Why was it that difficult to understand? One person got fired earlier and now it’s me, but I never wanted to lose you. Nitesh didn’t know about Aseem and his presence in Raji’s life that why he blasted her using offensive words, which were unbearable for any husband. Aseem was protecting Raji, and so was Raji.

How can love get nasty? Why can’t it just be contained as a good feeling? She lost Nitesh, forever, when she wanted to hold him and tell him that she is sorry for the miscommunication. She could not. When she needed her best friend to remain, he went. Aseem felt her pain and stepped forward to apologize to Nitesh, but she could not let her husband down in front of her friend. She fought for him after all. She had to choose and she chose Aseem.

Raji was in pain, and there was none to share it. Her husband used to be her friend once upon a time, now it was difficult for her to talk even to him. She wanted to hold Aseem and cry at her loss but she was not sure if he would understand her dilemma. She thought it might create trouble in her relation so she contained it. How she wished that the events in the past two days could be undone.

But alas! She had chosen to burn it at her own will. Phoenix’s are imaginary.

Thursday, December 23

Night Crawler

It’s a night crawler
That creeps into the darkness
It’s so evil
The happiness goes numb
within its vicinity
the smile vanishes
under its shadows.
It’s dark, it’s evil,
It’s the night crawler.
It moves into the souls
It fills us with hatred
It creates sans love all around
It’s bad, it’s devil,
It is The Night Crawler
I am the night crawler
The hatred around
The malice within all
the abuses, the pain
I am THE NIGHT CRAWLER.

Lessons learnt

You know what – I’ve been weird and never satisfied with what I had. Its one confession that I have never even offered to myself earlier, but I guess it’s high time I need to learn to appreciate what I have. I have experimented too much with my emotions, making them go through the most extreme forms of tortures one can imagine. May be it has been because of my troubled childhood (staying away from home when I needed them the most) that lead me to become a pest or a nuisance.

I was never serious about anyone, anything, or any emotions. Probably I never understood them or maybe I was scared to acknowledge them. I had always felt the sense of betrayal growing in me saying that if I am not happy why others have the right to be. I would hurt everyone around me just to vent out my hatred. I knew there were people who loved me sincerely, without asking for anything in return, but I guess there is a limit to people’s patience. I had hurt them enough – so I could ask for no friends, no companions, and no one for my own.

Truly, there are very few people I have sincerely had feelings for. I had relations with people either based on respect or love. Respect failed and one lost it all. Love lost – I don’t know what was lost but something grew and it was indifference. I had never been satisfied with people loving me and I had always asked for their undivided attention – something more than I could handle or deserved. I know now that it is not fair to ask for something that you don’t give them.

I have come to understand the essence of happiness, it is not about having everything you want but it lies in the small tiny details of love, beauty, competence, togetherness, communication, sweet nothings, hopeless fights, meaningless whispers, gibberish sentences, smiles, tears, sarcasm, apprehensions, expectations, and everything else included in a package rather than being greedy only for attention. I suppose, I have understood what Tirth (my best friend) used to tell me, “Be exclusive to someone.”

Nostalgia – My First Trip to Juhu

I guess you have been waiting for long for this particular post to appear – Hima George.  To introduce you to other readers – She is my younger sister by Rakhi, yes she used to tie Rakhi to me in college. She has been one of the most innocent people I have come across in my life.

My first couple of months in Mumbai was rather adventurous, as I was new to the place and a little scared of venturing out after coming from Delhi. I got to understand Mumbai and its safety as I started to venture out to places, sometimes alone or with my cousin. Later, my cousin left me to roam around the city alone so that I get a hang of the place.

By the time I had joined college, it was almost a month of me staying in the city and I had been to most of the places and also I had a couple of friends who I could go with. However, Juhu was one place where I had not been and I wanted to see a beach. So, I and Hima decided to go to Juhu after our shopping spree in Bandra. Hima said that she was well acquainted with the place as she frequented Mumbai due to her relatives.

We reached Banrda and by the time we were done with our shopping, it had started to pour, but we were hell bent on going to Juhu. We took an auto to Juhu, reached, went into the sea, soaked ourselves, and did almost everything one can do to enjoy themselves. The real adventure was yet to come. We started roaming around the beach to figure out the way to get back on the main road.

Hima told me that there is walkable shortcut to Santa Cruz bus depot from where we can get a direct bus for Navi Mumbai. So, we started walking to find that shortcut. We almost walked for quarter to an hour to reach a Ganv, where we were the only two girls fully clothed. It was sort a red light area and people were staring at us as if they would eat us alive. I got very scared and asked Hima whether we are on the correct track. She looked at me and burst out crying.

Two teen girls had lost their way and were stuck in a hooker’s zone with men all around staring strangely. We scared to ask direction to anyone as we thought they might mislead us, so I asked Hima to calm down and continue walking. I would praise about myself that my sense of directions was brilliant and I never used to forget my way even if I have went through it only once. So we walked around that area for one hour drenched to the core and in midst of finding a dead end, walking around same street twice because of that, finding women in the most outrageous of outfits, bearing glares of both sexes, and what not.

Finally, in we could see a tall building just behind the wall of a house on that area. I was keeping my fingers crossed that God please there be a direct road to reach that building and lo we were there. I could not believe that we were again on the main road where there was life surging and people were humane. I was unable to bear the contrast of the two places separated just by a small street and not even a wall. I could not bear the overwhelming chocking feeling of coming back to safety from such a dreadful place that I sat down on the road.

I was crying; however, it was raining so much that none noticed that. Seeing me sit on the road, a sardar taxiwala stopped by to ask Hima if I was unwell and needed to reach somewhere. I stood up, still scared to ask for help, but then I realized that this is the real Mumbai where people really help you if they feel you are in some sort of trouble. I asked him, where were we and he understood that we were lost in that particular area. He asked us where we had to go and he finally dropped us to Santa Cruz depot.

We had walked over 13 kilometers in that daze and were shaken so much that I don’t still remember our conversation after we got into the bus. That was the first and the last time I was scared in Mumbai.

With Hima, I have much more interesting incidents which will have to wait for some more days. Miss you darling, a lot.

Saturday, December 4

Missing You

My heart is popping out some unbelievable emotions for me to understand as of now. It’s 5:10 in the morning and I have not yet slept. Sleep is miles away from me. Not sure how to explain these unexpected chills running throughout my body, shaking me and awaking me to reality that I miss you. A feeling this strong has come to me after this long and I find it damn difficult to shake it off.

I hear your husky voice close to my ears, whispering my name and telling me that I’m beautiful. I sense your smell around me, your aura spreads and encapsulates me within. The gentle playfulness of your fingers in my hair, the way you made me laugh – I miss my laughter some days, the way you played with my fingers, and I miss you being around me always.

I don’t believe in “Lived happily forever afters” and so I want to have you in person, with me and for me, NOW. If time could be played with, I would shift it to be with you and pause it there. Why is there pain with all the good and bad feelings both? Let one part be free of it. Love relates to pain, break-up relates to pain, distance relates to pain, missing you relates to pain, fighting with you relates to pain, why every damned emotion is related with pain.

I miss those few lazy and gentle moments spent with you, lying beside each other and not speaking even a single word. But then, the silences meant a lot of things to us. I wish I could ever tell you what you mean to me. It’s not only a ‘deal’ that I’m living, but a life that will be always be incomplete without you. I wish you knew how much I miss you. I wish I could tell you, how much I miss you.

Dead Man in the Train

The rain was delayed by five hours as usual. The trains are running late in Mamta’s regime so even we were sure that I won’t be boarding it before midnight. So as per my premonition, I boarded at 12:30 am. Again something common about the trains is that if there is no one on your seat, others occupy it as per their whims and fancy. It’s so awkward to wake them up so late in the night. Having no other choice, I had to wake the uncle up from my berth.

My luggage shifting and talking to my family and people who came to see me off woke the people around me, but there was this man on the passage seat sleeping unperturbed. I saw the man’s pants were wet near the waist area and he was sleeping facing the window. He didn’t even budge at so much of commotion, so I thought he might be in his drunken stupor. I don’t have the habit of sleeping at night while traveling; probably my brain believes that most of the thefts occur during night, so I guard my stuff.

The man’s phone kept on ringing for the whole night, which he didn’t pick. I was surprised at the fact that he didn’t even change position while sleeping for over five hours that I was awake. Finally, at 6:00 am I went to sleep after waking my dad up. The man’s phone was still ringing. The other women in the nearby birth said that the man had to get down in the next station but he was still sleeping. The continuous ringing of his phone now made people a little scared that something might be wrong.

We called the Ticket Checker and told him about our suspicions. The TTE called the attendant and asked them to wake the man. They tried with all their might but still the man didn’t budge. While they shook him on the shoulders, his whole body used to shake as if he was frozen. The TTE got scared as he realized that the man was already dead and he fled from the scene instead of calling the cops and the doctors to remove the body and inform his family.

Later, the other people in the compartment informed the police and it took those people over two hours to get a doctor and remove the body from the seat. The man was dead for over 8 hours then and his body had iced up due to rigor mortis. The police let us know after verification that the man was 28 years old, recently married and he was a part of the armed forces located in the north-east of India.

It was after the body had been removed that we realized that we had spent our whole night beside a dead body.