Parents are not the Divine

Contrary to Indian cultural faith – our parents are the manifestation of God, letme bust the myth – they are humans. As an individual, they can be folly and faulter. And that’s fine!

Please don’t set yourself up for disappointment by expecting the moon. They are human beings just like you and me. They were raised by a set of parents like themselves who perhaps were not perfect, either. The concept of being perfect doesn’t exist. Unless it’s an Utopian world we live in. Then again, there maybe other restrictions.

So coming back to the subject of our parents, they also have dreams they couldn’t achieve – maybe, you were born. Or maybe because they were married off to the wrong person. How many of them were aware of the institution really? How many of them actively decided to settle with one another? And how many really did the homework required before taking the plunge?

Notice, how I said “they were married off…” instead of “they married…”. The latter also isn’t a guarantee of a happy/successful married home.

In a society, where non-consented, early marriages are still a part of several cultures, where women are not sent to schools and where they are given no education or introduction to marriage; let alone sex, how else do you expect the children from those households to be? And I am taking about the New Delhi, NCT region here. Take this portrayal of our society to rural set-up and you will witness child marriages happening still. The pathway only goes downhill from there.

Before I share my parents’ story, I want you to get the understanding of the frame-work of our society. I often wondered why in Bollywood movies, the actress post wedding was shown changing to wearing sarees from her pencil skirts & pencil heels during her courting days… with the saree length covering her head all the time.

Please don’t come at me with that being the sign of respect towards elders. Then why men are discounted? And why is she expected to cover her face altogether? Should she be ashamed of the fact that would be stripped at night/s for bedroom activity?

In those movies, even after the wedding was long over, why did she move around the house all adorned in jewelry, still? Even while sleeping! And how on earth was she smiling doing all the household chores of a large family she was wedded to? Wearing that heavy saree complete with makeup & jewelry?

Absolutely nothing was ever shown about that lady holding any conversation about her choices in life, around work, career, or house work or finances or compatibility with her future husband and the house she was going to become a part of. Just no one started the conversation, not even the lady herself.

In 2013, when I broke out of a certain phase of my life, heading to corporate world again to make a living; I was appalled, when I was bombarded with the questions like: Why aren’t you married? And why? And why? in name of introductions. Apparently, no one could make sense of my marital status, not even that VP, who couldn’t get past the idea of me being single. Her why in plural are stuck in my head like the static you get on a low bandwidth on a zoom call. This VP incident happened in 2021.

So you see, as a society, people are conditioned to living a certain lifestyle, no question of choices or the fact that they do have the option to make one exists!

The discussion on the institution of marriage, here in India is for a different post. For now, I am highlighting what to expect of our elders, parents & our caregivers in terms of their identity, making informed decisions; i.e., if at all; and, developing their children’s identity, helping them to form a mindset of their own. Internet is majorly utilized for watching videos of popular movie songs, devotional songs or maybe a food recipe…

The picture I am painting here is why it is how it is.

There is no education on partnerships, adulthood or responsibility included in schools too.

At home, the man is busy fending for his family, aggressing when requested for participating in discussions because that’s all he was given to witness in his childhood. The woman is running the household from managing the finances with whatever she is given, to probably even giving away all her earnings towards it and executing all the chores of the house, all by herself. She works not out of choice but to add to the clang for her home.

She wasn’t taught, she has a life too. The cycle continues. Till date. The exceptions are truly exceptional.

It is; but natural, parents will and do make mistakes – life altering ones, both yours and theirs. They weren’t educated about attachment styles, effects of household chaos on a child and being a responsible, self-aware individual. The only time they read “trauma” was perhaps in the ER’s trauma ward in the hospitals.

If you are an adult now, please forgive them for who they have been to you. And if you really care, please educate them. They are who they are because of how it has been passed on to them. They were busy raising you under the pressure of the “society” with no time time on hands to think. They have done what they thought was their job; it’s your turn now.

Forgive them. Educate them.

Unbracketed

This may have taken a bit of time before it reaches you… your eyes in this case.

I am retrospecting my life. The choices I made at work, with the men I dated & my reactions towards loss, heartbreak & betrayal. It is my POV of life happenstances and the one observing from their perspective may have a very different narration. I attempted to fit myself in their box of perception far too long and have decided on giving up the discomfort – once and for all.

I am letting go of the pain I have been accumulating. I have been people pleasing for the longest time ever trying not to cause them the hurt that I endured before.

I do not resonate with life choices people make under general circumstances. I think of things from a perspective of surviving the given circumstance/s. That said, I am also headstrong. Often being labelled as rebel! Again, that is because they struggle to find a box that would fit me in 😀

In this process, I will address the emotions I feel – both at present and I did before. And how I am now training my mind to make different choices than my usual reactions often based on my “expectations” (of people).

There are flaws I identified in me. Before you come at me in comments that I may be negative self talking; I assure you, this isn’t that. It is addressing my pain and saving myself from more. And devaluing myself anymore.

Relationships are much more than the word defines. In my dictionary, it is “people experience”. A relationship is never lived one on one; it influences your mind, mood, understanding of the world and hence, your day-to-day life decisions. All of this has the power & actually does shape up your world.

I meet people only for the season & reason/s, and most times with a lesson. Once the purpose is served, I lose them to death, distance and dissociation.

Thoughts in my mind are chaotic at this time. I am writing to tabulate in head and write, all at the same time. Obviously, this will have several parts. Initially, I thought of writing my coming out of a narcissistic relationship. Then I recalled my work experience with a narcissistic boss at work just before that. The mind work from there is becoming busier by the day.

I will also write about misbehavior I have been subjected to by a close friend of mine. I will write about my family. That is where the chaos began, I knew that, you see. Just that no one wanted to understand when I talked about it, when questioned. Simply because they never experienced anything similar. So, they denied to develop understanding of my part of the world.

Thus, I don’t resonate with people raised in a secured home with caregivers showing up at all the right times and the ones who go on to be wedded because that’s what everyone does growing up!

I know, I will lose a couple of more people once this series begin to go out. And I can’t wait – not to lose them; but to outline what is not acceptable.

And that is the reason of documenting and writing about people experience and your immediate world.

I will also try to forgive myself for lot of actions and self depreciating treatment. With a very strong hope of adding value to people’s life, through their struggles, providing them the validation often not given by the immediate “relationships” for their strange and very personalized encounters; I will outline the traps and my learnings out of each of these experiences so the one reading finds a closure, direction and hopeful that they themselves are enough to stand themselves up.

This is not an attempt at isolating anyone. It is to equip yourself to stand better and fare the weather skillfully with minimal damage. One life is all we have – as of now. It is you who has to live your live, not your family, friends, co-workers (they are the most transient of experiences) or your mentors! Those are a different can of worms. Ick.

This is what I posted on one of the Lisa Bilyeu (post: Perspective is everything) and Jimmy on Relationships (video: how to set a boundary) on YouTube. Copying it here with slight alteration to suit the tone of this post:

Schools should include studies on human relationships, psychology, attachment styles, trauma & psychosomatic stress, including these quotes* mandatorily right from the first grade 💖
It’s high time, we all be educated against manipulation and misbehavior 💖
Enough of receiving suggestive remarks and taking BS just because “that’s how it is” 💖
It’s not acceptable and the change ought to be introduced at a large scale 💖
We shouldn’t wait for heartbreaks, subsequent episodes of depression and then YouTube hand holding us to become educated 💖
We need to change our education system 💖
First, we are conditioned to be a certain way for generations… so our genes, veins and breath are all affected and damaged 💖 Thereafter, therapists tell us to look at the thing from a different perspective 💖
How about, we are educated about perspectives and acceptability right from the beginning? 💖

Relationships aren’t easy, yes, but why do most act like they are entitled! What for! Why don’t people know their place and respect others too ❤

Sometimes, it’s good to leave them altogether, instead of just that room ❤

* The quote in Lisa’s post was – That shit may have broken your heart, but it opened your eyes. Take that win.

My upcoming posts would be an effort in that direction to share as much content based on my experiences, my take on them, including my after thoughts and the learnings I earned the hard way.

I have no degree in psychology or human behavior so I am not licensed to give advices. These are only a summation of my experiences that I now recognize fall under narcissism, abuse, trauma, misbehavior, being objectivized and many more terms that may have not been established yet or I am in the process of learning.

I will share my experiences chronologically. Learning and realization may not have happened in that order.

Please feel free to ask questions if incase I may have jumped explaining due to cultural differences or even otherwise.

Reinvention

Or epiphany.

I had a realization hit me a couple of weeks back. Since then, the idea is living rent free in my headspace. Even when I’m not thinking about it, I observe myself arriving at the same conclusion. Over and over again.

A little over a decade back, I lived a life of a recluse zeroing down my social life to zilch! I now understand, I was depressed.

I was labelled as lazy, dependent and falling in for the “easier” choice instead of the right one! What is the definition anyway? And who decides? Were they not able to put my phase/life choices/condition in the box they were familiar with and hence, push me to the slandering slogans? What irony, their limited mind capacity was seemingly my fault!!!

I was constantly being nudged by a few close friends. They meant well. Alas! No one guessed I wasn’t doing that to myself, knowingly. I had gone into the freeze mode.

Often when I am surprised, I freeze. Like too shocked to react. I have known that about me since ever. Back in the day, these psychological terms were not so talked about, not here in India, not so openly, so I didn’t realize one could freeze for so long.

For days together, I won’t get out of the bed. Weep, recalling my life experiences with people. I spoke with no one and met no one. In my reality, the version of people existence was only from before. I lived alone so stayed quiet unless my house help was around and wanted to query about stuff. Or, maybe, while working. Often, I would remain locked up in my bedroom not speaking with her either!

I stayed numb for very long. I wasn’t prepared to handle back to back, two episodes of betrayal. And live in it. I wasn’t able to make sense of what was happening and just just went along whatever my guy advised. There was this knowing at the back of the head that this will work out. It did, but not in the way I was looking with my conscious plans.

I do not grudge for what happened to me then. If anything, I consider myself fortunate. Instead of losing my mind over and myself too, I regained my composure. And how!

This was when I began writing, again. Some called it a creative vent, asking, what comes now? Some said, I was going too all out about myself. Some commented, I was doing my laundry in public.

Guess, they were trying to fit me in their box again! This weirds me out, every time I remember the reaction of my friends… Classmates, ex coworkers, whatever have you.

I found myself in the period of solitude!

Towards the end of that period, I thought, I reinvented myself. I now understand, reinventing oneself is a constant act of remembrance of who one is. If you don’t live mindfully, you will lose yourself, lesson learnt.

I had lost my sleep, appetite and the courage to see the world outside. Within, I was burning bright, taking up spirituality, practicing actively since. All of this was happening without I making a plan. This just happened –

It was one of the dark phases of my life-till-now or so I thought. I realize now – what that time did for me. Now, when I look back, I see lights… Dazzling and holding life in their warmth. My life.

This was the time that reminded me of who I really was. Perhaps, it happened, so I find the lost me. It set me on a path I was intended to walk.

How fortunate I was to have the luxury of sitting up and go all in with retrospecting my life decisions. I was 29. I was grieving the loss of my acquired possessions/relations. What I missed to notice was the fact, my sanity was intact, still!

Meeting new people soon from all over the world, online, making friends with them, I was not so lonely as it looked from outside of the immediate periphery. They just couldn’t find that damn box to fit me in 😅 and that probably must have freaked them out.

It’s not about them though! It’s about me. And will be. Always.

Was it synchronicity that I failed to notice or did I choose that in thoughts and then the Vortex brought it to me? Did I know what I needed? Was it me who asked for it? And went after it?

Yes.

I sketch, I create art, I write and I sing besides investing time & money in selfcare. I love to cook and curate newer healthier alternatives. Depression catches me still when I fizzle but I am able to shoo it away.

I am going back to being me. I am going back to being vegetarian. I don’t drink that often. I wasn’t into it anyway, just used to enjoy a few drinks, occasionally!

Am I into one of my brooding sessions? Maybe. For the record, I work, as I used to before, from home, like then, have a nice home to myself like before and almost no chatter of friends, how it was. And am I glad!

I am tired of absorbing people’s version of me. Perception is people’s outlook due to their upbringing, immediate environment and their choices of values including their choice to embrace redundancy knowingly. It should be them delicasing their choice/s. I am not here for it.

And by people, I mean the closest of my friends, the men I dated and everyone ranging from this to them; usually I don’t care about, anyway.

I meditate everyday. Live mindfully, and care only about myself. Self care and self love define my engagement towards me 💕

I experience synchronicity everyday in most of the things happening around me. It seems it is planned and I am being guided. It’s much more than intuition. It’s knowing. A constant awareness. Like being aware that we are alive. Or like breathing.

It was this part of life that made me see and experience the real me pointing out the choices I should be making… I kept forgetting, often; before and thereafter.

I am grateful, each time I let mindlessness take over, the Universe sends me to frenzy & then a time-out like a cooling off period. I also see, this has happened many times before. Just that five years was a long time. Infact, I am in one such episode of living in solitude.

My passion for writing was limited to filling in greeting cards, buying the prettiest ones for the season and gifting them to the people I knew.

While I found a way of expressing in words some decade and a half back, I created wall-art of some of the old greeting cards, recently. That’s when I read the things I had written during my teens and in my twenties. I saw, I was aware of my childhood trauma and depression. Also recognised them. What I wasn’t aware of was – I needed to process the grief.

I…

Love myself how I expect/ed a man did. Care for myself how I did decades back. Give no hoots to the ones who don’t resonate with my lifestyle. And always, choose me, right from the beginning.

These reclusive phases brought me back every time I gave into altruism. These episodic phases of depression, stretching for months and sometimes years, when I am in my head, them then spreading me past the clouds as a rainbow… was like my higher self monitoring my steps everytime I lost sight of track.

I also learned, no matter what, I’ll never go down. Give in. Or give up. I wonder, how easily I have been forgetting my choice of choosing me! For someone with an elephantine memory, this seems ridiculous.

I have made myself a promise, I won’t abandon myself, now or ever.

GRATITUDE.

Exposé

Truth is loads more than just a plain ol’ virtue. It makes you ponder, weigh your life decisions, make you feel very very lonely and fear the next course.

It’s a veil beyond which lies a newer dimension. Nobody knows what comes thereafter. It’s not unknown either. It opens you up to a fresh perspective, you didn’t know existed before. It’s upto you – which side of the veil you want to be.

One thing is guaranteed, everything changes. For the best. You move towards becoming you.

If Eureka is a thing, so must Truth. It’s a portal to this dimension wherein you become a headstrong person making choices consciously instead of being influenced. Being scared of the things it will bring, you roll with it anyway. Because…

Heart of hearts, everyone knows the truth.

This portal sets to charging when you realize the truth; your ability to accept activating it. Within the tiniest flicker of a millisecond, your world shifts. You switch to becoming this Omni-viewer watching a certain drama being enacted instead of the one being affected. That drama that had many tiny red flags waving to grab your attention since the beginning.

In mind, you watch the drama happening a zillion times and more. You see yourself being the viewer. Thinking. How…? Why…?

Hate me all you can, the answer is you. Almost always. You chose not to see the truth before. So now, you have this demon of a truth threatening you to gulp you down whole, crumpling the house of cards you built based on your choices every time you looked past the narrative truth was saying.

The empowering part is, Truth doesn’t affect the person stepping forward to embrace it. Yet, everyone around jumps in to quickly point finger out on you, calling you out for not being caring, considerate or whatever else you stopped being.

Are they your friends, really?

You choose you. That should give you a lifetime worth of high! The buzz of your “friends” calling out will die down very soon as you step up. Don’t worry about them, they will find someone else for their hobby.

You don’t need to fit in & most certainly, not within any box.

They may have been in your life journey and helped you when most didn’t. Now, when you are being you, do they still regard your essence letting you be who you are? Go back a bit, chances are that you landed where they once held & helped you because you chose the Truth. But now, are you able to choose the Truth again? …With their help?

Maybe you are abandoning it to conform to their expectations. Or the one you are with now. Maybe at work; appear more social with unmannerly, extra-friendly in name of inclusivity, blurring all lines to your personal information subjecting your life experiences to their judgment and validity they may or may not offer based on their perception & outlook!

In the process, you are abandoning yourself.

My two cents: when in trouble, look within. Calm down and give it a third party point of perspective, you’ll know what you have and have to. Sleep on it or keep tossing over as the case maybe, live with it, give it time till it grows you into becoming courageous. Save yourself first. Don’t seek help of someone who themselves lead a life of compromise. Ever.

Inside of you, you have known it since long if not always. I said that before too. Don’t fool yourself now that you realize that you’ve been fooling yourself. Since decades? Four years? Seven months? It is NOT your responsibility to react to someone’s misbehavior or educate them. Respect them for the choices they made to grow themselves into some spineless, oppressed & suppressed narcissists who are so confused about their life choices & their own value system.

Disengage at the wee bit of discomfort. You don’t need to offer a thesis to explain yourself or sell your outlook. Emotional Intelligence is when both/everyone exercise emotional regulation; often abused, unfortunately. And you are left to “adjust” as you understand more!

Unlike Reality, Truth is not subjective. It’s not objective either. It’s this realm that will make you the best version of you. Every time. Don’t duck it when it hits you. Sit in that moment and let it hit you. You brought yourself to it. Remember, when it was whispering before and you chose convenience? It could only last so long.

It is your life & choices must be yours too. However daring or embarrassing. Own it & you will be proud.

Days of brooding as I used to call retrospection is way better than negating your identity constantly. Depression will be low key and you won’t require meds often to fix that. You will be at peace and lot less clutter and rules or dictations. Or dictators.

For whatever its worth, it will liberate you.

Greyed out

There’s something comforting about darkness… Almost like assuring life to life.

The stillness speaks of containment of all the emotions there is reflecting satiation.

Maybe, I’m healing after all!

A lamp with driftwood and lemongrass essential oil is burning on the bedside table next to the marigold flowers bowl… My little sun in the evening. Light, fire, warmth and a wafting aroma, all signing together of close of a chapter, or perhaps the book.

I feel at peace. I feel depression leaving me. I feel calm. My anxiety is at rest. I’m not overthinking… or planning… or fretting… or rerunning the past/s in mind. I have several pasts, 😆.

This is how “not a care in the world” must feel.

Winter was amazing this year. Although it’s freezing; still, I say ‘was’ because, usually it’s spring to summer around this time of the year. It’s been decades since we experienced the chill! Of course, I’m enjoying it.

I had entered my teens the year before that March, when I was barely able to write my paper… My fingers were numb! Gone are those days. Now we have our air-conditioning unit running in March.

Fast forward to 2024. Delhi NCR, India is waking up to a cloudy sky and foggy air every morning for a month now with almost no sun for a casual week or two with a spell of hours of dim sun someday. Who’s complaining 😊

It’s some weather phenomenon causing this chill, bringing back Dilli ki sardi after over three decades. The fog lasts throughout the day, clearing in the early evening only to hustle back in a couple of hours!

Picture this – the cut flowers I displayed around the house were frostbitten by evening. They were crisp in the fridge!

It’s been raining the whole day today, winter rains. At last. Who knows what we see tomorrow, sky or the outstretched grey. Seems fog is the extension of the cloud. All one sees around is, or cannot, due to silvern mist 🩶 casually shrouding every particle of the air.

Darkness…

I feel both… the change in weather due to season – warmth, as well as the musty wind… at the same time. I feel the rain is ours, and the chills become ours.

Oh! And found that poem I learnt when I was in first standard. I remembered the second half of it all these years. Here’s how it goes:

Happy little raindrops falling from the sky, we can hear you say to the clouds Goodbye.

Happy little raindrops falling at our feet, we can hear you singing down the busy street.

If anyone remembers or knows this one would notice a slight change, that’s how I remembered it and is my version.

Most appropriate poem for the evening…

I hear this quiet proofing every motion in the atom with completion. As though the frequency of sound is being converted to wholeness and hence no emission of sound is required.

Is it possible that a matter moves from one state to another without any shift in its state or any dispersement of energy? Let’s wait till it finds its way in our knowledge.

Often, I have stayed awake at nights to relish the serenity darkness brings. Night is the perfect closure to all affliction, animosity and anonymity. It is stronger than whatever any day might bring forth halting everything like a page break.

Winter, night, rain, bedside earthen lamp, moldy air carrying driftwood-lemongrass fragrance mixed with faint scent of marigold… tonight, within the silence of darkness, I’m enjoying the sound of rain – I feel, I am in some trans dimensional space.

It’s therapeutic ❤ If you know, you know.

Life has its way of moving life ahead!

Darkness manifests it.

Edit: The sky is cloudy with just a streak of gold. The day is windy, swaying the leaves to dance in the cold. Water puddles forming a stream of grey silvern logging. Almost grey, blue pigeons perched around puffed up saving themselves from chilling breeze. This morning is soundless frosted by darkness. Imagine a monochromatic painting of early spring. It’s fifty shades of grey and darkness 😊

Where’s the 🩶 smiley!

It’s a wrap!

This post should have come in July. It’s a belated one.

During this time, I realized a blatant fact I hadn’t before. It is stark one. Thankfully, now, I don’t feel much pain. Practicing spirituality and the stage I’m in has strengthened me in mind. In hindsight, I see I was protected then too as much as I am now.

The last few days of that month was one big chain event of synchronicity. How else will I explain the sudden urge to collect my degree certificate? Not exactly stalling, but I had been moving this task ahead on calendar since the last two years! Why now exactly, then I felt compelled to doing it?

One evening, that uneasiness gripped me so hard that I tapped everyone I knew may know about collecting a certificate from the Uni seeking their help. My ex then reminded me that I had received an email in September, 2021 with an address to collect the same…! Of all, I had shared that info with him. It acted as an insurance since I had forgotten about it… I checked my email, this time clicking the compressed chain links. An address was indeed sitting there in that correspondence.

The following morning after a cup of tea and an hour long attempt to speak on phone to ensure my travel would not end into disappointment, I readied myself to that address. I was headed for the study center that shifted from Dwarka to Naraina – New Delhi.

After a wait of half hour, I held my graduation certificate for the first time. I worked really hard for it. It took me to drop the first time I enrolled for graduation in 1995…, my ex not telling me how close Maidan Garhi was in 1999 from Saket/Malviya Nagar, when I was well within the allowed grace years of completing the degree…, re-initiating the process from scratch in 2016…, taking enough narcissism from my then current boss and later on, my relationship.

Only a week back in current time, my ex-relationship made me realize that my uncle didn’t give me the course books while I still lived in that house. Perhaps, he had no intentions of I being independent or well read.

Years of meditation, and hardships backed this day. The center cheered for me. They said that it was quite the feat that the certificate was returned in mail, not lost and was retained throughout the period – I say, if this isn’t God scheming, then, what is! I rushed straight to the University at Maidan Garhi to collect the marksheet which was another hour of run by car.

I reached well past the closing time. Thanks to Uber route. The driver rode inside the gate straight ahead. instead of stopping. For those who are not aware, it is a huge campus complex with residential quarters adjoining the University within. At any place I stopped to query, I saw people coming forth to guide me… as though they were guided divinely! Another set of applause marked the corridor of the Uni building as someone ran to me with my marksheet labelled as “returned in mail”!

Come to think of it, the University employees celebrated my degree felicitation!

The final markseet was published on 20th February & country vide lockdown was announced on 23rd March in 2020. No examinations were held for the following two years. It scares me to imagine what would have happened if I had not signed up in 2016 or for what if I had not cleared my subjects. The business I was associated with ramped down the next year. We were all moved to different accounts within the organization. Needless to say, if I were not a graduate, I don’t know – what would have happened then! In this timeline, I don’t need to gain that bit.

Someone who tasted struggle would know how sheer luck backed me everytime in my journey!

This is what I posted on social media:

My latest acquisition…

I can’t begin to tell about the amount of struggle this day claimed from me… Not to mention the mental trauma due to my then current boss creating semblance with what happened over two decades back when I had to drop it… the first time!
I’m trying to fight my tears. My grit deserves better.
I dropped it in 1995 when my uncle asked me to leave his place/my home then after my mother passed on. There was no question of going back to collect the course books.
Living in IP Extension, I wasn’t aware of the whereabouts of Maidan Garhi.
And hence, I couldn’t apply for a change of address. Being correspondence based study, I made the second most difficult choice of my life.
My self respect refused going back to the same place to collect the study material.
The decision to drop it then and take it up later, staying insecure for the following two decades, I’m happy, it’s a wrap, now!

My first decision that changed my life was sticking around with mother instead of leaving along with father. I feel for father now… though, I will do the same if I am given to choose again. That’s a story for a different post.

I enrolled for Masters the following day, or may I say night, at the eleventh hour. That was the last day of admission. If mom were around, she would have friendly jeered… Meena, why can’t you advance and not stall until the last minute!

Actuality

I was sipping Bailey’s, watching a show with him when a thought struck me. I guess that’s what’s happening to me right now.

I am an empath. I feel everything around me… sometimes even at a distance. The word “feel” is an understatement. The very occurrence appears to me as though it’s happening in reality far away from me. This knowledge about certain event that happened almost a month & half back knocks my wits off as though it’s happening at present.

That’s the best way to express… I feel I’m witnessing something in person at present. In reality, it happened not with me watching over it- atleast not in person & it’s not happening anymore. It’s over so to say. But my mind isn’t registering.

I was at peace at home thinking eventually, everything was falling in place. After all, we had spent last two days with each other. Nothing seemed out of place at the surface. The night the story of betrayal was written, I couldn’t bring myself to eat. Thinking, that it didn’t matter, I hit the bed. And then, I had fallen sick.

I was wide awake disturbed with no thoughts I could think of. I tried running all I knew in mind; nothing seemed to be the cause of that unease. Soon it grew into restlessness & before I could register, I was in high fever.

Life went on & that restlessness made me its new home. I lost my sleep since that night. My mind wandered to unknown horizons in attempt to tally with my new found state of being.

Two mornings later, my deepest fear got me! The very night before, I meditated asking Universe for a sign. I had skipped food. I was scorching in fever & everything outside me somehow seemed alright. I had infact put together in mind about what may have happened & was shunned down by him upon confronting. So proof is what was required & left to be obtained. Since the ones present was being constantly denied by him.

That morning changed my life & perception of someone very dear to me forever. I acted as I was shown in hours of meditation. The realization was ugly. It did not set me free & now gnaws at my conscience at all times.

I was disturbed since past December. I felt him to be distant even when we lived together. We dined together, had been out a couple of times, watched shows together; & still, I would often go back to him asking him to be with me. I missed him. I missed the affection… I wish I had acted believing the ongoing situation already.

That’s when it all started. And I had damn well felt right… or wrong, is it!

A bunch of lies & made up stories felt just that- fabricated. Questions I would have in response to his being distant both emotionally & physically were answered with I attempting duel. And since I was starting the “fight” always; he was distancing him from me. That was his alibi. EDIT : Gaslighting

The cycle went on getting further skewed each passing month. Under some or the other pretext, I would be left to myself every weekend to deal with that engulfing feeling of loneliness. I felt abandoned, wretched & invalid. Weekdays were different. I was treated fairly, relatively, with generous hugs & consoling statements that all was in my mind. EDIT : Love-bombing & Emotional abuse

The distance that joined us together created enough space for others to hop in & out. While one too many had been quick to hop out of that “space”; it was during a “hop in” period of someone I never met that I made a doomed discovery of an affair.

I have been a few times over to the place where one of the chapters of betrayal was written. Once to rent, once a day before the story was written & later to get my stuff from that apartment. Oh yes, I chose to do that to myself to test my resilience.

Even though the story is in past participle, I feel it’s being enacted in some parallel dimension still. Not even for a second I am not cognizant of that act of deceit & betrayal. Obviously, that sense of uneasiness is dead now; but, the feeling that lived in me for eight months, while it was gathering momentum, breathes in me still.

The day the apartment was rented… the times we fought over me not agreeing to give my stuff away to set up his other apartment to his travel on weekends to that place… were the times when that ugly monster had threatened me to swallow me whole. My instincts were right.

I have not met or spoken with them; & yet, feel very strongly of their existence or shall I say their presence in life.

Come to think of it, there were some signs… the ones I ignored thinking to be nothing really. What if I had rushed after following him to his goddamn apartment? What would I have encountered? My shattered pride, my foolhardiness or a broken me? Living with the very knowledge of occurrence of something that’s in past is already difficult- I wonder how would I have survived “catching” him in the act. How would have I reacted or put myself together – like ever!

I don’t know how to make peace with this newest realization. Surprisingly, the allegations of me fighting with him constantly, the very skill is sitting dumbfound. The expletives are tacit.

I have this strong yearn to start over again. Fresh with new ink on new pages. I wish I had the courage to move on like I did before always.

Maybe, I will. One day. Today isn’t the day.

EDIT : I encountered multiple episodes of physical violence, thereafter As if I needed anymore, those pushed me to call it off. The horror story got over in April, 2023.

My second experience with a narcissist resurfaced my childhood trauma. I am working on my cPTSD now.

Definition

Letters can not know the depth of pain… they do not feel. Pain is experienced; & the one who does, becomes a different person. Letters do nothing for the aggrieved. They only appear imprinted on pages. Once the page turns, the words depicting pain become read in past participle. The story on the pages takes a new course. In my world, after writing a story for three years, the draft reached to stand still.

I am attempting to live with the knowledge of what I saw coming; yet, something I did not fathom to encounter ever. Change takes a series of events & its knowledge introduces that point in time where one becomes clueless about why that had to happen at all. Words fail to express personal loss, or the emotions felt… infact, at times, there isn’t a word to describe the experience.A longtime goes by to accept & come to terms with the veracity. The moment it’s accepted establishing its occurence, a definite amount of rage creeps in.

The original draft is lost. This is a re-write. The same is happening to my world right now.

I mentioned in the post immediately before about a premonition. That has comes to pass. That restlessness that had made me write about a certain change to comeby had soon grown into a persistent uneasiness over the last few months. Eventually, it hit me… so hard that it tore the moral fabric of a relationship very dear to me.

A month back when I was overwhelmed with uneasiness, I turned to Universe. For hours I meditated seeking a sign. In my trance, I was shown a scene. I was to enact… something that would have never crossed my mind if mot guided. In the morning, I followed what was told all the while telling off that voice in mind to not urge me to do something so pointless.

Like in some horror movie, I sat in my living room unveiling layers of a buried tomb covered in cobwebs of betrayal & stench of deceit. It was existence of a parallel world in present perfect continuous intertwined with that of mine. I was unaware… up until then.

My pride is shattered. Seems who I owned was mine never. At a different time, I concluded perhaps, the foundation wasn’t strong enough to hold the two of us together. The semblance is deluding. There’s no trace of anything on the surface; but, beneath my calmness is the storm that is eroding my love for life.

The space I am in is an abyss of self doubt, lame realizations which perhaps, may be true; & a pierced heart incapable of trusting again.

Once known, knowledge cannot be not- known. It creates a moment to pause & reflect. It imparts responsibility to carefully assess what is that should no more be. And when I sat down drained carrying its weight, I saw Karma staring at me.

Mistakes I had made with intent & the ones unknowingly, as though all gathered together to seek accountability in me. It was during one such restless evening when another stark realization left me stoned for days together. Was this is why my mind was unable to calm down?

I had wanted to forgive father for all he did to mother & me. And in this happenstance, Karma presented to me that opportunity. I do not have any whereabouts of father. So seeing him is another task unfulfilled- unless by some Divine intervention, I stumble upon him.

I am standing where a twelve years old me stood bidding father farewell making him leave without me. What was happening to mother was most important & with that in sight, I chose to be with her. My mother chose me & I being a woman, it was obvious I would stay with mother. My father’s attempt at speaking with me in school & one morning at a bus stop later was responded by an estranged daughter. In turn, he estranged me for life.

In the last few years, I have felt his pain. I am the one who fated him to become the man he is today- if alive still. I do not want to create another father. I do not want to create me again. A chapter written 33 years ago is progressing towards closing sentence.

These are the things that turn a perfectly worldly-wise into a recluse. What this turns me into will be etched in a post to come.

PS – The header image was shot during my stay at the place where that realization happened.

Free spirited

Is it the haircut after a year or a ultra lavish pedicure… again after a year? It certainly isn’t the weight I’ve gained working from home past 2 years.

I felt wind in my hair in a rolled up window car. I felt levitatingly elated. I was not high on spirit, though now sipping home concocted mudslide. I tell ya’, it’s heavenly!

Being independent gives me a high.

And?

So?

Travelljng around, buying simple home stuff, visiting salon, checking out the development around, carrying bags heavier than meself, all scrunched on a watch. I have a clock running in mind while planning my next move – salon visit or rushing to Bikanervala or do both, but never checking the time actually.

I’m free from worry of time, action and life. I felt so for a long stretch of time today.

Life is as it was a year back with no ripples on the surface. However,

Something is changing, again, I feel strongly. Like a premonition or a very strong hunch, I am about to hit a big change.

I’ve been living life independently since my teens. This feeling of highly spirited ecstacy is well known to me.

Yet, I say, today is different. From the window of my moving car, I noticed the sky getting cloudy. Wisps of cotton cloud lay lazily casting a hazy sunny day on a February afternoon. I felt in charge and charged.

I shed my dried leaves, golden yellow, crisp and to be soon dead

I made wishes.

Basic Instinct

Rarely do instincts change… be it sipping a drink to dull the moise of chaos to come aware of the surrounding sounds of train honking and a distant dog barkin between intermittent stillness. Or, identifying the approach of yet another dreadful phase…
Just when you thought life has landed you in a place where you barely survive, you surprise yourself. Your resolve becomes boundless. All past hurt fades. Newer blossoms of fragrant memories bloom overlapping the wilted foliage.
The last relationship if that was one really, swept me off my feet quite off guard. Even before I realised what was happening, it was over already. He swore his love for me, rushed into proposing marriage and then developed cold feet. Incidentally, that was the time I used to go out a lot for such excursions. On one such trip, he even accompanied me and then got madly impressed even though I kept wondering, why.
Father would get veggies weekly from local vegetable market. Those were the days… One could take public transport carrying two very heavy bagful of veggies and land safely at home. Walk from the bus stop to home must have been tiring. And still, he would get me a garland of orange marigold and some lose petals of rose and chrysanthemums wrapped up in a big green leaf for my temple at home.
I would eagerly wait for his return the Sundays when he instead of uncle would go to fetch veggies. The market was some 4-5 kms away, some 2-3 stops away. I’m sure there must have been local hawkers and yet, that was every weekend’s drill.
Today happens to be mother’s death anniversary. A harrowing episode of losing my only and last true relationship. What followed thereafter was nightmare… damages trailing to this day. I took a trip to local flower market to get a marigold garland, lose rose and chrysanthemum petals and some sticks of rose, gerbera and chrysanthemums.
When I reached home, I was so overwhelmed with what I had done after 2 years that I forgot the fight I had a couple of hours back. What mattered to me the most was my instinct, my identity and my defining behavior. My grief from years before failed to curb my resolve.
There I was. Reaching home, I washed, had quick food and got into the kitchen. Preparing rice pudding, yellow chickpeas and arranging flowers one by one tending every stick like it was my own child. The process of arranging the flowers whispering to them about the vase they would be put into, pulling the extra twigs out cause they rot in the water they are dipped in.
I love to fix them in the kitchen. The sink comes handy so does kitchen tools to prune and nip. I prepared my drink after 7 hours cooking, flower arranging, and tidying up Ganshu darling.
It’s going to be 4 in the morning. Next couple of hours were the last time I slept carelessly some 25 years back.
Is it a coincidence that I’m did this exactly this year or once again Universe is driving me here!

My best friend

As you grow up, you realise certain words so commonly used in preteens have a rare place in grown up world. As I write ‘grown up world’ I get a feeling of all things morbid and so mature that it would start decaying the next second. I quickly turn my mind gaze to what made me argue with mom when she was around.

She would say, “Not everyone you meet is your best friend. Once you grow up and meet people who would stand by, you will know who your best friend is…!”

I would ask, “Isn’t that conditional…?”

“Why will I decide on relationship status based on timeline existence ?”

Mom would then flash that all knowing smile and “you’ll see” rung in my mind in oscillating echo.

I would then go silent thinking about the essay we all wrote in primary school years We all did, at least once.

‘My best friend’

How we all wrote about the person who ranked amongst the toppers in the class or school to be that special friend even if it were someone else. We would go on composing lines after lines describing him/her in a way that would make him/her to be the prime choice for a role model’s image.

You had no clue of where you may find yourself 20 years from then if not ended up already in pursuit but you knew all about your ‘best friend’s’ goal in his/her life as if they were yours! Perhaps, you were a tyrant or a brat in real life, but that one time you wrote in progression showing that special friend to be most disciplined, intelligent, studious, all rounder, talented, ambitious… Suddenly you seem to know the words, and your parents took you to be dense and dull… so not done!

The words you used in his/her appreciation got you your teacher’s and/or parent’s approval. That one nod that made you gloat for the choice you made in that person… he/she too had smiled back at you when you showed your notebook to him/her. Remember?

I had not featured in her essay for her bench partner would have given into sulking and she expected me to understand and I did.

Thinking back about what I wrote, and how I’m in touch with most of my schoolmates, including the one whose name I popped in the essay, I feel a sharp and constant and almost a parallel presence of a friend/relationship whose name appeared in my life sheet much later.

Fast forward to that gloomy, dark world of no fantasy where grownups live. That’s when we discovered our friendship. We are still exploring.

The magic mind fills with when I think of the times we spent and do when together. None of my boyfriends came close by. Ever.

If I were to write about her, under the title “my best friend”, this will go on. Decades long episodes can only be put in a novella. My intentions are different. I am reflecting on what I wrote, what mom said and who really is that special person.

She knows all my boy friends or at least about them, most of my insecurities and all my evil plans. She reminds me of who I am everytime I feel down and under. I wonder if any of that is true and when she observed all that. We couldn’t spend much time hanging out and it’s been a long distance affair for majority of the time. And so strong that someone else stepping by for a rebound will be like discovering an atomic evolutionary twin living on sun.

Mom was my best friend for all the right reasons and this girl… when we are not ‘playing’ friends seems to be mom’s extension.

Pause

I want peace. Like absolute stillness on the snowy mountains. Crystal clear like spring water. Utter silence with no shrivels on the surface… or beneath.

No sound or voice or breath. Not a whiff either. No hint, no whisper or indication.

I have had enough synchronicity. I want harmony. Wait, isn’t that the same? I believe harmony will have more tranquility and richness and youth and fountain bubble…

In life I feel I’ve climbed the highest peak. There are no more plateaus to conquer. All plains have been walked, all rivers have been splashed… all demons conquered. I now want stillness.

Like scorching sun on desert sky… burning and stark. Roaring and falling like waterfall… unlimited, unruly and deafening.

I want solitude.

That monk sitting on that cliff before the giant wave takes him in 2012… that’s where I see myself. Where nothing exists not even in knowledge. With no thoughts, dreams, feelings… just being.

Maybe I’m evolving. Perhaps I’m expanding. I want no attachments, associations or anything around. Like left in space with no hopes or vision. Except in my version it will be serene. Very very scenic and beautiful.

Do I need to die to reach here? I know not. I want to be in that stillness, stark and burning. Like that lifeline beep coming to stopple. The window screen with great background… no processing unless clicked. I want the system to go on freeze mode without malfunctioning.

What is it I’m experiencing?

Is it awakening or an illusion that is keeping me in the loom? Am I learning to jump dimension or being fooled due to ongoing survival phases?

I yearn for no more continuity. I want no life and absolutely nothing that comes attached. An abrupt halt is what I’m seeking with no jolts or spilling or holdups. Like a very serene terrain captured in a spellbinding photo… silent, motionless, magical, and lifeless.

Where am I reaching. Again.

Flickering moment

I feel burnt out. I’m unable to sit down knowing the time is not right… for anything at all. It is a walk through a pitch dark tunnel with no sight of light or the other end. It feels maybe there’s just that – no end.

I had a big coffee and some cake with cashews to feel elevated. I have a lifestyle alright, it is still difficult for me to cheer up. That’s right I’m unable to cheer up in any way.

It is that feeling of constantly being in denial to smile, to talk, to rejoice. I feel guilty to sleepover tiring myself further. Having food seems a sin. Watching movie is a no-no, listening to songs- nada, socializing- what for?

If I give up now, on the outset, I’ll lose last 3 years of battle. With this, my demon of last 25 years will become even stronger than before. Instead of me looking him in the eye, bidding him farewell, he will own me. In one clean sweep, he will devour me leaving behind the ugly memory of my experiments with disappointments and my failure to fix them.

I realise I’m depressed. I’m unable to see the end to it. Whether I’m upset due to my inability to foresee or unable to develop any sight due to depression- what’s the difference. For now, I’m begging for a clue.

What I need is a sign.

I’m failing to view the lines of tomorrow. Like a horror screenplay set to rewind just before climax, I feel I’m stuck in a loop and I see nothing. I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing excites or even incites me.

I want this moment to end.

I want to weave the threads to future. I want to etch a pattern tastefully ornamental and appealing. I want this feeling of being locked in the bunker to die. I want to remind myself that this too shall pass.

I want the time to stop so I run along and touch the finish line before I lose sight of the race. I want the volcano to erupt me out of the crater so I fly the sky. I want the buds to stay green through the fall just a bit longer so I root the soil well watching it.

I want the Universe to gather all forces in me this once more.

In transit

Often I turn to reading the posts I wrote here before now. Each one of these are an alarm clock to my yester year struggle, my patient dealing with the transition joining the present I desperately wanted to leave; now past and my present- then a fancy dream of improbability,  and my sensational win over the situation, rediscovering my lost self and establishing the woman and the rebel I am in an undefinable way.

These are the times when I’m handling the over arching and yet somewhat pseudo situation in space time. I go back to reading the words I wrote here to set a reminder to not give in. The shrill of clanking bells create a set up for my mind to stay drunk in the glory of my last victory and a push to carry on.

However distant it seemed while within, it has worked always.

Only recently I experienced a change. I’m in the same business, familiar faces, same profile and yet the mere change of workstation, line of business and team has set me into another set of transition. So it was a change I was wishing for since long and this change has put me in another transit.

While I’m in the zone of being transcended, the zone I left was a sort of engulfing vortex. For sometime it seemed unending. The very understanding of what was going on was further dragging me insitde a pit with slimy walls to support my crawl upward whenever I attempted to turn around… not that I had that choice.

I wanted it to happen in an organised fashion… like an event turning up to conclusion as scripted instead of I applying for a remediation. There was a lot at stake. Obviously, I wanted to keep everything intact… the poise, the facade and my faith in synchronicity!

It’s part humorous and part ironical that the name of my business resonates with the term “synchronicity”. I secretly prayed that things resolved animatedly as though pre-programmed instead of me getting vocal or the other side becoming powerful pinning me down to a level where I scream.

The travel has sent me to a new travelling path. It’s chaotic- the change and yet there are factors bringing me to serenity! How birthdays and festivals marked passage of year’s time before is now marked by appraisal, ‘rating’ and bonus.

While I was sorting and surviving the change and the take aways from previous phase, the transition I was anticipating hit me. Part pleasant; part surprising, it is overwhelming and brand new. Most of it is how I often wanted…

It’s a change alright. A person. A relationship. An experience.

That’s all about the desirable piece. It has a strong flavor of time twisted around. It has elements of my previous experiences with close associations, only I am now at the other side!

Often I see myself during the last over two decades that determines my action based on how I had desired my associations rather treated me. It’s expending. It is emptying me a little bit more everyday.

With all that and more than words can convey, I’m not worried for time to come with/without him. I feel headstromg. I’m involved in the immediate venture. My complete state of being is doused in that project I undertook three years back. Let’s just say I picked up the cord that lay loose since last 25 years. It’s a demon I’m fighting everyday and I have no choice other than to win.

It took me over 3 months to write this post. I was hinted to wait to conclude. Today was the day when I typed all that I needed to include within the write. There’s more to come, indeed. For Now, I have to conclude the assignment I undertook. Everything else is seated at the back burner. It is now clear that that change at work was to stabilize me just a bit, bring about the change I’m experiencing now and advance me towards a milestone that will truly be one.

I’m anxious, unresting; always on the lookout, alert.

I am not praying for this change to stayby till then. I’m living it. Only as much as that I don’t let the demon go out of my sight.

Dear life, you surprised me alright.

Vocation

I’m only half a year away from achieving a goal that took me two and a half years more before today. It also took a huge amount of courage to reach here for inhibition had to be seen off in the process. Time to rejoice is still some months away.

While I’m this close, I feel I’m dissipating. Strangely enough, while typing on my smartphone, the word would keep taking extra ‘dissi’ as though elongating the process of dissipation; if such a thing is possible. Such a word would have appropriately described my present state of being right now. I’m not pieced…, yet my very existence seems to have changed type of matter, further changing its existential type till it particulates atomically.

Remember X-men?

The catch is, I’m short of time and opportunity to dwell into this thought of sinking. I need to keep moving and I wish I knew how!

I am doing all it takes. All that I should be doing. Everything that is required of me.

Then what is stopping me?

I’m dealing with people who are psychologically imbalanced and use mistreatment as balancing tactics. Their ego is wafer thin and even as much as breathing close gets them to bits. I stopped investing mind into why. Reasoning out is futile; concluding which was a sharp blow at the time. My only bail out of it is wait the time out.

It is this realization that is killing me. I want to walk away and now is not the time. I’m crushing my very essence to keep up with the idiosyncrasies. I need to brace myself with a few more gears which will happen in due course. My respect is bruised listening to the voice of survival.

I’m torn between having to do what I am expected to and what I want to affecting what I need to for now. This deal of concentrating on my task of completing the following six months successfully being pestled meanwhile to keep up with what I want to leave is taking my focus away from what I’m required to do.

I have a clear understanding of the task in hand. From what I have to do – to what I’m being forced to do – to how it will eventually end soon so I shall have the choice to do what I then wish to and that what I have always wanted to do.

Amidst this chaos, I feel I’m becoming a different person again. Whether my alter ego is refusing to take over the battle or whether all the personalities in me united causing this anxiety and worry, I feel I’m crushing myself down. Every time I’m suppressing my voice to scream back in hurt, I’m chipping a bit of me.

For now, food on my plate is warm and I have the money to eat what I want and I earn that with not having to fork my respect.

I want to say the same for my essence too.

It’s that time of life when I’m yearning to receive healing, compassion and faith. Dear Universe, I reach out to you again. I do not want to get institutionalised.

________________________________________

PS: I took that picture many years back when I was dunked into a similar warped situation. No edits. That picture too has a post pending. Soon!

Lost and found

I am writing this in the times when “search” is only a click away or a tap actually on a touch device. Yet, at times what’s lost seems to be the only prototype making the loss more profound.

Anyone would validate when I say music taps our soul soothing the exposed bruises of a broken heart. Before a girl reaches for her cards laden bag for that much required retail therapy to pick her mood up, it’s a levitating piece of music that touches her brain neurons reminding her of who she is and that being herself is more important than nurturing the hurt of the recent loss.

That’s what music does… it patches your present day to the times long gone! Times when you were learning to smile more often, running through a new beginning after a long patch of disappointments that danced on your crumpled ego not so long ago. With every note listened to mind started to as if rebuild itself to go out there and hug the world with widespread arms. Mesmerizingly, it was recreating the feel of the times when you had done something similar just not long ago.

I am floating in this feeling that is filling my every pore right now listening to the music I thought was lost. Memories are taking shape of televised images inside vision animating with life activating every cell in my body to action shedding the dust of failure and haunting shadows of recent past. Like it is celebrating second anniversary of promotion at work urging me to move with same excitement in order to celebrate life.

I had synced my cellphone two years back. I was attending process training sessions for new business process after promotion at work. A young chap from my batch- Pranay David who incidentally left soon thereafter had shared some very beautiful numbers, new to my ears then. An hour long greatest hits of Coldplay 2015 was one of them. While creating space in my old cellphone last fall, I had lost all the numbers or so it seemed since. I ended up losing the tracks while deleting Xender and Shareit.

Search wasn’t working… Nothing was available online since that hour long track was burned from CD. As child I invested time in recording while numbers were aired on the local radio channel. Then came a time when I enjoyed alone listening to the aired numbers in an attempt to prioritize survival. While I wanted to buy a huge music system a decade back for my love of music, all I have is a few Sony ear gears for now. As technology advanced, I started storing music in chips and laptop syncing music with music buffs downloading from websites once in a while.

Laptop wouldn’t show any track or copy of it until today. My crazy music collection is green again. I would love to have a sound proof house playing pipe music creating a mini Universe within this much bigger Multiverse that responded with abundance just this evening.

PS: That’s captured by the new phone I bought this February. I wish smartphone cams were a bit more stable.

Resumed… recovered; life!

She showed up after all… the me me.

Along with, she brought some of the best recollection of life long lost… so it seemed not long ago. In the hiding, I was still me. It was time I get her under the arc lights.

There’s a constant inflow of transitional events. This new sequence of events is making me give in to certain mellowing stillness. I feel high. There’s a long way to go before I sit back to toast success. I’m close though.

I happened to present the client convocation soon after I was moved to the new business following promotion at work. I was loved by the client and organization leadership team alike for my emcee act. I was nominated hands down by the senior management of the new business. Boy! Did I live up to their expectations!

That meltdown struck me exactly when the show was hit. I became a star overnight while a part in me slumped; for certain support was lost the same time. While the cruel alter in me was busy playing the hot headed super bitch that stopped for no one; another me was snapping within. Recollection of last over a decade was lost.

It was well timed. The world around was busy celebrating my success. After all, it was a great deal. We were able to successfully welcome the leading heads of North America Banking!

And then, this was long overdue.

How was I to react to it all? For how long was I to pretend all’s well?

I had to call out the change that hit me earlier this year. I saw the softer alter winning making the cruel alter bow in submission. This time around, the me me was struggling to stand upright while the dominant one waited in silence.

The following evening when I was all closed and contained, the new story reminded me that my present was waiting. I stepped out of my self-imposed recluse this time before it turned into years. I ran fast to unite with my present and myself.

Yes, the show meant life to me and its success reflected my life-stage at present. Thank you for reminding.

An evening later, I tried putting the missing parts together. The realisation was far from pleasant. I’m failing to love back. I’m acting passive. I’m feeling a bit stretched between the urge to lead and then a pull that stops me short.

Have I become defunct?

I look back for recollection; I draw a blank.

At first it freaked me out. Then, it broke me a bit. After moments of going back and forth, I concluded I was able to erase memory of some of the instances to the very last bit… the ones that made me. I sorted the recollection of all instances till now letting the inflicting ones fade away in the backdrop.

I dissociated myself off the afflicting instances at last. The process combed the webs out of my perspective making me lose some of the order; and hence, there are no patterns or practice begging any repeat.

Newer designs are being created.

Was that a meltdown or was it the dissolution of affliction for once?

Amidst the chaos that started after shifting earlier this year, I drafted several coffee table romances in myriad colors. The pages are all flipped over and the books shelved to be read during girls time out. This one story graduated beyond the prologue. This is happening after I decided to savor transitions. I’m letting the flavor simmer in mouth.

Sampada, I’m waiting for your phone call.

This is a fresh line of walk. It’s taken me by surprise. For once, I hadn’t seen this coming or otherwise… maybe?

This is my story. I’m in it too. I carry some share of bitterness from unwarranted experience gathered untimely. I’m trying that that doesn’t affect this in anyway. It’s so long something this beautiful touched me. I know there’s more to come. I’m preparing myself to embrace it all.

I lived some of my best days of my work career so far. I’m set to find my footing in Corporate again. I’m starting as operations team leader for the same line of business with NAB.

Life’s springing again.

Turning away to look beyond

I am sitting from where I still see someone dropping me home one late evening. The moment and several more preceding that became perfect reminders to who I am. Yearlong period of yearning and wishing had met fulfillment in that one evening. He had nudged awake my alter in hiding. It took me time to let go. When I did, I found he was who I wanted one to be. Nonchalantly, I had acted dumb most part of that evening. I was still thinking…

Taking to liking someone could be fleeting… or so I thought. It was meant to pass me by; right? Yet, something in me held me back every time we planned to go out. I wasn’t running to catch time or build memories. It was more than just living in the moment. To me, it was a real deal. The me in hiding was strongly wishing for him guarding my actions. I had to ensure that all was how it ought to be.

I had to turn away from what I was looking.

He professed undying companionship seeking comfort in other’s company. I was subjected to deceit day in and out getting cheated on with my close friends. My male- friends meant my “partners”, his association with women was “purely out of compassion”; never mind the unending dates or phone- chats or whatever else that is implied. It was my doing. I trusted someone and why! Promises and commitment were  tacts to “get” me. I was still mourning my wedlock I had walked out of only a few days back. The last thing I wanted ever was a broken marriage. Inevitably, I had become my father. I wanted to sit in silence and look within. I was made to share house with his girlfriend, in the process  earning the title of his boyfriend’s mistress from her. She made me look straight into the facts I had looked over right at the start of that phase making it extremely ugly. I realized I was dealing with a psychopath who intended to keep me to nurture his ego that was squarely bruised by his spouse and his girlfriend. I had submitted to their dictates and the housework till one night she decided to put to end her agony. I ran out almost undressed to save myself from getting stabbed. That was only the curtain raiser of the life to come.

It was far from being said a relationship; that captive. He addressed it as an arrangement. It was worse. While I was promised work and security; I had ended up becoming recluse. The damages I ran away from in my marriage had all loomed over. Soon, I was slogging for a narcissist without being paid for. I was addressed as whatever one deemed fit. His wife went everywhere I did, so did his girlfriend. This claimed my career and social circle since my going back to any place I belonged was crudely savaged. I ceased stepping out of the confines of my home literally. I was called lot of unmentionable dirt in my face. The one to have dragged me into it played his part actively ensuring more came my way. Though I lived alone, my movements were stalked. Cab drivers were queried about my travel. My neighbors queried of his association with me and on it went till one day I stepped out, got bald and got myself some real work. I wasn’t proving to be the damsel in distress he took me for. I was far too strong to remain suppressed and what for? I knew a lot more than getting dolled up. I had breasts alright. He forgot to take note of my brains; a fact that is often missed by the patriarchal society we are a part of. I had exposed the monster in him out there for everyone to see. My hard resolve to take it all till I hit the bottom that shall kill me then taking away my weight that would in turn send me afloat was where I was focussing on. I took all that I could till I could no more. The turn I took was steep. Not even in dreams he had envisaged getting stumped in the way it happened. I owed it to that girl.

How many more heartbreaks could I take at one time singlehandedly? I had friends who thought I was lucky to have run into that man for he came across as an aristocrat. Only I knew what lay beneath the façade. What was I to do if not to go quiet? I wasn’t talking about it to anyone. How I re-invented myself is another story altogether. With all this going on in my then present continuous tense, how could I have walked upto him and said things I would have if this wasn’t happening? Beside, overlapping isn’t my thing.

Many more people gone unmentioned, my ex- managers, friends, neighbors and the likes of my ex who had joined in to violate my identity, I hope they are reading me.

How I wish for more of him now. Having said so, I don’t want time to turn back. I’m happy realising what I wished for since I did wasn’t a momentary influx. The feeling rules most part of my waking hours. I am aware of him and of our last conversation during my sleep too. The replies I get in his one- liners is making my alter in hiding to step forward even though only by a few inches at a time. Someday she will come out to take charge. Until then, the merciless alter who is me will rule. She will ensure I collect nomore attacks on my dignity. My present day apprehension isn’t without a reason. Even with all of that, I am feeling ready to give people their due share of chance. I’ll let new people come in and I’ll go out to them and weave a fresh fabric of life.

Giving away the identity here shall be simpler and I feel he may not mind too, but; there’s always a certain way about things… the right way. I did it the way I thought it ought to have been. It deserved a correct presentation and not an eruption of incoherent words not lasting a few dates and possibly reaching nowhere.

It isn’t as fleeting after all.

As it should

These were snapped-shot in January of this year; resting in my laptop since. Given the time-period I had withheld expressing my feelings for him, six months seem puny. It was during winter of this year. It was freezing, foggy and one of the most ideal days for me to have gone out. I had dressed modestly in jeans so I could hitch a ride on his bike.

It’s hurting beyond bearing to look for words to share about the day that could have changed my life to come.

It was BCP day at work on Sunday, 25th at a different site. We were seated an empty workstation apart. Before we knew, we were discussing travel and about capturing photos saving the bits of life for them to go on living in a different dimension across our work stations. He had handed over his cellphone for me to view his travel captures. I spent over an hour’s time zooming in the pictures of serene mountains with snow capping some, and sand spread screen-wide with him smiling over in most. Each one of those frames seemed to be calling me in. I felt that snowy wind ruffling my hair. My nose was freezing while riding up the snaky terrain. The rocks loomed so up close that they would have send me tumbling down the slope if I weren’t careful. I saw myself stretching my arms wide to take in that open space all in me screaming wild at the same instance. I strayed alone capturing the serenity around hearing the rest of the gang giggle aloud. They were busy getting photographed. One of them waved at me so I join them. I smiled back nodding otherwise thanking them all in mind for making me a part of this… I would keep the phone in the bag while attending to calls feeling relieved at getting a break for one look at my face would have given away most of it. My face reflected the very shades of the snap shots.

I was seated near him, watching his pictures, talking to him while thinking of him. How many times could I have a person over at the same time?

We spent the breakfast break together. He had held over his phone back to me, this time to let me read his poetry. I failed to read it aloud even after his insistence. His proximity in that space was enough for my voice to lose sound. There he was, reading aloud the piece he had penned in the elevator unaware of how wondrous and equally anxious I felt to be with him even though we weren’t the only ones in there. Stepping out of the lift, I had turned toward the open terrace. There he was again to show me around. He was close to three years old in the organization by then already. My show of showing him around was ruined; though he made no noise. The fog was condensed all- over. Jumping over to reach the boundary rail, he had exclaimed. Indeed, clouds seemed to be closing in on us!

He was excited in his usual manner and I was thinking…

That flowering bush seemed to be saying something. I watched them sway for some time stressing to hear. They seemed to be urging me to go ahead. I was planning to back out. It seemed they were telling me otherwise. Not knowing how to silence them, I plucked that flower. I made a silly gesture of presenting it to him. He thanked me graciously presenting it back to me. There ought to be a defined limit to how simple and charming a person should be. That blossom now made inaudible yet unignorably loud noises. I took one last look at the bush before we rushed to our workstation; I heard them saying, “you’ll regret!”

It is less about him and more about me. It had been a life-time since I lived and laughed being myself. The days turned to months and decades of time went by while I waited for the day I’ll be liberated. The only times I enjoyed in that phase was either in restriction; so I let most of it fade, or the ones I stole off in my own way, paying a price in-turn often. To be able to spend a carefree day without a mind block seemed a distant dream then. Something in me was cautioning me that that won’t be just another casual outing. That several more implications would get joined in a way that it won’t remain the one singled out in time. I’ll yearn for more… and then more of him too. It lay all in open for me to look at and decide. I was fighting then to step out to earn myself and even though I was close, I needed to have been done with it. I wanted to live the day with him being myself. I wanted to come home after I went out with him. I wanted that I yearn for more of him being myself. The final episode needed enactment before I declared it a phase lived. The curtains had to be drawn. The last thing I wanted was to become miserable feeling torn between the whole wanting more and rightfully controlling my thoughts reminding myself of the things that needed my immediate attendance affair! I was done stealing in bits. I wanted to earn it.

Back at the work- station I clicked a frame. This was my first one ever in work-life till now. He had gladly agreed to capture me too. By now, I had turned down to go out with him. Uncountable times I had mused over going out with him, to be able to watch him laugh about and live by.  I had spent over half a year already by then watching him over keeping discreet. A few times I had said that I liked him was dismissed as a light- headed mention. I reached home dragging myself when all I wanted was to go out with him freaking out silly. It was difficult for me to decide that I let the day go by without us going out. I am finding it easier to share today despite feeling hurt of having denied myself a time that would have changed my today… and possibly his too. I wanted my slate to be clear. I needed to rule out the confusions. I couldn’t let myself go out and enjoy for I had to clear my canvas. I felt helpless following the order of that to-do list which thankfully is revised now.

That solitary flower stayed fresh at my home for surprisingly long time, close to two complete months. It showed no signs of wilting, till one day; I saw that bud too blooming! Perhaps, it was trying to make room in my thoughts. I had already captured several pictures to save a memory of the day that could have given my life a fresh direction. There’s no denial of that possibility. At the very least, it would have added to the lifetime memories of the wonderful days I lived. Even though I didn’t find out how beautiful a day could have been with him, it changed my life forever.

Celebrating Life

Today is a beautiful day.

I’m listening to “a state of trans” while typing this. At work, I was all over the place. I sprawled on one chair resting my legs on the other and yet feeling far from being restful. I felt fresh ripples spurting in me on intervals. Upon arriving home, I realised my body was crying to give in. I saved myself from slipping over in the washroom… I suffered another episode of abdominal cramps lasting several hours. I lay unconscious for two hours thereafter.

This is my first one in a long time. I saw the summer was bent on hitting me in the middle; so, I ensured I have something to look forward to. On my way home, I shopped for my venom. After staying sober for over a year, I’m all tipsy. Bad jokes apart, I’m far from it. Not even high! What a shame…!

I’m discovering newer ways to fit in to this life, the one I got now. I realize I’m better off than when I worked with Vodaphone. That was the first and my last time I had tasted life. That feeling of abundance that seeped in in the beginning of this year that I worried over to lose while shifting is growing in on me. I wonder, what stopped me from becoming me all this while.

I am on my round to finding answers. Hopefully, I resolve that final bit of the maze too. I need to identify the pattern to stop the repercussions in time. I have given in to silence again. I am reading Autobiography of a Yogi once more. I’m emoting bitterly at one time, getting depressed at another. I’m interacting alright but not sharing myself or my mind with anyone at all. The bit that I did share apparently was when I was depressed. I forfeited the moment I realized. I’m thinking, joining the dots looking for the tell-tale signs I ignored and matching the displacement with the amount of bitterness I earned while taking that calculated risk.

I’m the same hard hearted person I am. I haven’t been able to forgive myself about few things yet. I’m introspecting my actions and thoughts before enacting in present time. This way, I will save time in future. This is where I found I need to embrace what I have valuing its occurrence. It’ll be sometime before I grow grateful to life for bringing me here. I see things I was failing to before when they were right here all this time. Letme honor all I have; be it the rightful and willful earning or the sheer snatching a big chunk as a takeaway or even the stains of wine that spilled before I tasted.

I do have a few leftovers of yesteryear’s heartaches to deal with. Guess that too will work out soon if I keep this pace. It’s all in metaphors for I’ll need to translate this feel good feeling into actual happening in time. I have feelings in me breathing forcing me to rediscover myself. How many years have I suppressed being myself? I’ll look for appropriate words to share soon. That’s the least I can. So what if I am far from being who I wish to be; I’ll live this part too in words again. They reciprocate with the same intensity of affection I harbor toward celebrating life.

Once again, my words will create life I aspire to live.

Setting new footprints

I went to shop veggies after like ages today. Something prompted me that I go to the local market adjoining my previous residential area.

It was my domestic who had nudged me. While she attended to her work, I waited; we were to then go to that flea market that sets up outside the community gate. I had charged my music phone in advance. I wore a pair of jeans and shoes so it was alright when I hopped over the wall fencing to mark my time.

I must give it to fate for I landed in the park right in front of the house that conspired me to go homeless not long ago. I know this place and yet didn’t feel this unattached before. This is the same park I plucked flowers from in spring of 2011 and uprooted several seasonal flowering plants… like in hundreds maybe choosing each flower type carefully. I sat there for quite a while living my today so I don’t cut off myself because I no longer live there.

As I write this post, I realized that this was where I stood two long hours one summer night, possibly around the same date in 2012. That was the first time I had made myself stand out and quite literally so. The walk back home had witnessed me resolve to stand up. The process of dissociating myself while loving the place since then has left me a bit numb.

The place had as though mourned the day I shifted out. It brought me over on foot in less than an hour’s time. It seemed like the roots had entangled my legs pulling me back. I had to walk back in and out soon after I shifted residence.

How it goes with me always, I have newer memories associated with this place now. They have made me love this place even more. My discreet visit about 15 days back on yet another Tuesday was like the perfect topping to finish the sundae decoration. I relived a bit of that most beautiful evening in a long time and the memories of the times when I lived there. It was a free- flowing essence of my stay there and of the evening I went circling the area looking for cues… nothing else existed anymore.

Life wants that I live…

Lending from Universe

Pain has immense power to bend us… I’m told. When we are fighting the cause, we emote. We cry in despair reaching out to the dear ones expressing grief. We are handheld until one day, when either, we learn to handle the loss on our own; or a better instance heals us.

That’s the usual course one takes when hurt to come back to being himself. What about the ones who are numbed by the amount or times of hurt they have taken?

I’m a die-hard optimist and believe in all mistakes being opportunity generators. It creates a space otherwise going disregarded for one to challenge oneself and come successful. So in other words, there are no falls, only path-benders that create you as who you are meant to be.

What’s concerning me is that I’m finding it difficult to emote. Does that mean I’ve stopped fighting?

Crying is a waste of time. I’ve cried behind the locked doors, my pillow knows; but, to others only to be sympathized and what for? Who would know of the hurt I’m living with and understand what I need? And by the end of the session, I would have suffered a loss greater than before I started sharing. I’m this close to closing myself. I’ve done it before, I know the signs. That’s what I’m scared of. I’m constantly drawing a blank. Often, I’m feeling clueless. Even though I see positive indications around me, I’m failing to embrace them. I wish, I could show respect toward the things working out in my favour. Those are one too many.

So many changes and in a short span has left me baffled. My sharing any of it would mean I have taken to cribbing. For once, I consented to repeating the pattern too! I’m yet to regain peace. I’m getting accustomed to this new life and there shall be a day when I would resist leaving this all behind too. I raced so fast to get here that I’ve forgotten taking it easy. I’m finding it difficult to deviate. My ability to meditate has worn down. That motivation and looking up to live is terribly missing. I have tasks to finish introducing order back to my life and I’m waiting for the 367^th day it seems! Once again, my peeve of handling things on my own is playing up.

There are several factors drawing complacence even in this completely upturned set-up. There were delays to reach here and it took time fixing a few things to make my new life liveable. I have been patient all this while. Maybe, this is where I lost my strength. I hate myself for lamenting around. I need to get up fast and run again. I need to tell myself to accept what I have, for this is the best I could under the circumstances. I am giving myself enough reasons to love this change and appreciate the elements in it. Since it’s my first ever in a long time, I’m at a loss to express. For the first time ever in years, I’m tasting life.

This is where a large part of me is fighting within herself. Why I waited and for whom when I could have attained the lifestyle I’m leading or worked toward enhancing my way of living how I’m planning to now? How had I let others define for me and rule my existence? I’ll take the blame on me. I should have left the survival tact being just that and moved on instead of haphazardly blending them to my then present life. In the process, I lost myself. I got bruised several times over before getting enough time to heal. This was my doing.

I’ve uprooted the dying weeds. The leftover dried twigs will clear in sometime. Perhaps they will decompose and support fresh life. It’s drizzled in parts. So, some of the ground has sprouted young leaves. This time around, I’m wishing Nature to support survival. The growth of vegetation no longer will be due to my efforts alone; I’ll let Universe play its part to support abundance.

I’m praying to the energies around me and from far away to conjure that will in me… one that is free of all known and explored testaments.

I’m waiting for that one rain to drench me from within.

Ticking off the wish list

I wished three things in the beginning of this year. They were and in the order:

• Turning my present continuous into past participle
• Seeing my father
• Practicing Yoga more often

I tick marked the first one off the list in March. I sailed out of that captive… somewhat bruised. With passage of time, I’ll know how successful my attempt is. I witnessed the Universe conjuring yet again. It whirled fast enough to create the momentum I needed to start-off and sail through. The execution was nearly perfect. I was awarded ample time and space to walk my way out. If not now, this wouldn’t have happened.

Initially, I wished to lie barren lost in trance not letting any emotion affect me. However, destiny has different plans it seems. I see these micro-particles reflecting light creating an illuminated space around them. In its circumference, I can sniff the matter throbbing to become life. I hear them call on me. I feel this force wanting me to change along with. The one time I had taken forever to heal, would remain as the only instance. I’m gearing up to spring up again.

My slate is clear. I have wiped my mirror squeaky. In due course, I may reflect an impression too. I didn’t get enough time to lie barren; and yet, I want it in no other way. Miraculously, I look forward to live again. I earned my life back. The chapter which would have ranted of how the curtains were drawn is narrating of my attempts to write my new book. I struggled hard. Leave the situations alone, I underwent a hard time picking myself up. There’s only so much you can take. Deceit; and how many times? Nevermind, my name has LIV(E) in it and I shall adhere to it every time I hear being called on.

Denouement

That tender cord holding me in shape almost snapped today or so I thought. After the initial shock of realization subsided, I figured it had come off quite a while back. I know this pattern. It hits me when I see myself failing. The last time I was all over the place baffling in madness, something nicer happened to me. It was unexpected and now having come this far, I can say is fulfilling. I was shifted directly under the most competitive manager. Whether my then current manager had organised my movement or my present day manager stood up to get me remains a mystery for now. Atleast their faces were happy while mine was glum. It took me time to come to terms with that changeover. Like I said it was unexpected… both the changeover and the change. I was presented with newer challenges and expectations; in turn, was regarded for my expertise I had gained during the previous tenure in the same company. They told me I’ll overcome this causal pain and boy, were they right!

One happy ending, that.

That was at work. This one’s in life. I identified this pattern some time back, yet could do very little to prevent from giving in yet again. A strange restlessness has crawled in me keeping me anxious most part of my waking hours. Sleep seems like an impossible dream until the sedatives drown me down. Let’s say, I drafted the last chapter of that book I was reading yesterday. It’s safe to say I finished the story. After all, eight years is a long time. When young, I often wondered how the directors decided on a certain ending for the drama or the episode… it could linger on for some more time and have a few more scenes added in it; then why it ended where it did. Now I understand.

Certain amount of emptiness crept into my state of being since the time I started to plot the sequence. Even though that was a much delayed response, I cried… at places I’d never imagine and at the slightest nudge. My cruel alter made sure no one guessed the real reason so I carefully looked for excuses. This was happening all in tandem without my actually doing it. I reached out to people unknown and distant asking for strength. Since they knew very little about me or what is really going on; it was safe to draw some wishes without having to answer unwarranted questions and get “advised”. Just how mechanical I could get.

I hate to see people go even though the equation maybe far from loving. Yet, I want it in no other way. Truth be shared, I’m the one narrating this end. For years, I was assimilating courage to fight this last pattern. I needed my mind to tell me that that was the right time. Writing healed me and so did work. I look forward to rushing to work all dressed up and with a beaming smile to face the limelight head on. I like being left a bit aloof, even though I am at my best when in a large group. For now, that’s my favorite place and I wish I could show off that part of my life around… Then again, never mind.

Once again my cruel alter is going to take over letting me forget this pain that’s making me write this or is it the stronger alter that’s making me see the event in its eye. That I fell sick soon thereafter is something that was bound to follow. Did I cry? I don’t recall! I got busy collecting myself.

The utter realization of I having fallen into this Karmic trap had made me go reclusive. I was serving my Karma or perhaps, the unfinished ones of my mother’s. In the final episode, I’ll break that last pattern… and break away. For years, I’ve yearned for this; yet, anxiety is ruling my sanity.

I’m not talking about it to anyone in person. I want to keep my strength. I’m close to becoming recluse, if not for work. At times, the new book seems a distant dream. Each of my alters is fighting different aspects of the final episode. While playing my role in this drama, I lost people, place and some of me too. That bit of me me is hiding someplace scared. I need to assure her that she’ll survive.

I’m this close to winning and equally close to losing it. I’m gathering every ounce of energy to cut through the wind to take off. This is my moment. I’ve dreamt of it for long regardless of how insecure I’ve felt at the same time. With my arms wide opened, I’m calling every spirit in the ether to hold me. I need to jump and let go.

Rewriting the concluding page

I finished drafting the last chapter of that book I was reading yesterday. Certain amount of emptiness filled my state of being since I started to plot. This one had to be concluded here regardless of the mood it’ll end in. As I writer, I need to care for the continuity. It ends leaving enough room for the birth of a new story.

What I had adopted for my survival held promises to be turned into a life… my life. I was making myself believe I could. I was restraining to run my judgement. It was my choice to read through that moth infested book. I wanted to restore and re-write the passages. I tried in every possible way to edit and include new chapters, yet, the outline stubbornly remained the same like some old gothic text engraved on the walls inside of a pre-historic cave. It was an inscription dug deep. At the start while displacing the characters, my naïve mind gloated on my short lived win; never mind, how dirty I had become in the process. Several edits and revisions later, I realized it wasn’t my story, so no amount of rewriting would work. Characters were sketched already, the drama was pre-decided. I was just another side character to be eliminated carefully after my role was played.

It’s time; I place the book back where I picked it from. I’m not worrying over my readers’ reactions or the demand of fulfilment of the storyline. I like to keep my mirror clean. Corpses belong to the cemetery.

It was as though the book drew me. Like a spell, it created an illusion that it was real! In reality, I was serving my Karma. In the last chapter, I’ve broken that last pattern that uncannily drew my life stances similar to those of my mom. I served my Karma, balancing the ones mom left unfinished. Now on, it will be my story.

I’m not talking about it to anyone. The instances lived once through was the best it got, they don’t deserved to be shared. Evil should be burned down and not spread across. After the book is tossed, I plan to go recluse again. I want to lie wasted like the barren patch after the crops died. It’ll take time for the weeds to dry out and die down. If it wasn’t for mom, I’d failed. I am on the verge of giving up. My smile has left me; I keep a forced one pasted still. I wish I knew how else to draw strength.

The new book seems a distant dream. At this stage, I wish I died. In this way, my attempt of escaping shall truly be successful! Then again, I’m worrying the continuity. Maybe, a bit of blank, some space before life picks up the threads.

Sole existence

A strange feeling is seizing my mind, a mixed reaction for the days to come. I’ll be alone, left completely on my own. It’s been a while since I tasted solitude. At the farthest scratch it lasted only few hours before my domestic would show up. Like a five year old she would throw questions to anything I’d say. Her query would be repeated again in a few days, the same one that I resolved only the other day. She has problems registering anything told once. Even repeated a few times over would make an impression only for a few days or weeks at the best. She is travelling to her hometown to see her parents.

For over ten days in a stretch, I’ll be coming home in an empty house. I would miss her company and a companion. My office life would remain un-gossiped. Speculations would have to wait. It’ll be silent with no one asking queer things and with me not having to talk in order to reply. I’ll be enveloped in a sphere of my own. Last time she travelled was over a year back. She had taken that trip without informing. I hadn’t handled the change very well. What I got into in those two months is something I would never imagine myself getting into… but, I did. It was an experience alright.

Of all the sorrows I earned here, she is a witness; more like the walls of this house… mute, yet observing.

Each time she took a vacation, I stepped out a certain distance off this maze. I am the weaver and the un- weaving happens just as she skips states. The relevance remains to be an unresolved mystery. Something moves forward in a direction unchartered yet pulling me out of this loom. I realise then; I exist. She’s one of my real relationships and the only acquired one. Friends don’t meet every day or for years ongoing. So far, I have been careful to not get clicked in the same frame. Geographic distance closes in to balance the proximity in the picture captured. I find it cruel! I love being photographed and with people and yet, that does it. That marks the end of it; sometimes, in real way.

She’s left for the day. She’ll start her travel tomorrow and I feel a change trying to cave in already. I’m a bit anxious to know the nature of it. I know there isn’t any way to predict the course of events to follow and given how fast my mind is whirling, I think I could take a vacation myself. That’s what she wished before she left. I have only a single day off in these eleven days to come; so the possibility seems bleak. She had another theory then: how about if I am sent on an on job training. We’ll see. The very fact that she is only a phone-call away and thirty minutes on foot if I were to reach out still is re- assuring. She is a part of this sand clock life. Time runs out and the clock is turned to start again, there’s no escape for the sand trapped within.

I see myself in her; naïve and vulnerable. The degree of intelligence varies and yet, I haven’t achieved as much to say so out loud. What I did ever; is lost, without consent. Next was me breaking into dust gathered at a corner for long enough to have got swept. In my case, the particles assembled into a shape and life breathed into it. She alone stands sole audience to this ordeal, of all the others. Overall, it isn’t as bad as it looks. I achieved a few things long pending, including my self

I’m sort of planning my days ahead. I know what I’ll be packing for tiffin. I’ll decide my outfits on daily basis. I’m not seeing myself eating much back home. I’ll go on a detox diet. I’m thinking about what I shall brood upon. This is what I was referring to- my mind wanderings!

On the other side, I’m happy for her. She didn’t know how to go beyond the houses she worked in. Today, after six years, she is equipped enough to travel all by herself. She is independent- financially and morally. I hope Universe is watching and preparing my share of returns of it.

The shift

Sharing the other half of my mind is pending. It’s growing by the day threatening to take over becoming the dominant part of how I feel. The limbo has shifted.

They say dark rum with cola takes you to heaven; my taste buds are retaliating. Let’s see if I can get used to its bitter sweet flavor. Brandy tastes better both with cola and soda. It’s far too cold for my bearing and I had to get myself a glass of that and some wafers to go along.

I am still enveloped in the casing time created. Escape is yet to show me the door. Some measure of distance is still left; I feel. Time’s ticking… I feel the changeover striking in small amounts, the count is going up by the day. Like I said, that limbo has shifted.

 I feel a strange bearing reaching out for me. Karma, time, law and whatever else it maybe; I see that energy creating a spark within my aura. It will be a bit more time before I too resonate on same frequency. Let me translate…

Or maybe I should give myself some more time.

The vocabulary I’m acquainted with seems to be inappropriate for me to be able to deliver the expression conjuring up within. The momentum my life’s gaining now is promising me to go a long way. I don’t see a turning point. The trail seems to be ascending onto the adjoining mountain. I’m up for it. This new bearing is bringing to me newer aspects of me that I was unaware of. It’s tapped a few unexplored corners of my attitude how I wear it.

I’m keeping my mind calm. I’m enjoying this bearing. Transitioning has gone submerged; waves of change have taken over. What’s surprising me is my being cool about it. It’s leaving me with a thought: is this is my alternate ego that’s taken over letting me be this or if my ego is altering… that’s something I’ll explore offline. Hope I stay sane enough to share.

I shared my mind or the feelings I have for someone; I handled one of my demons and pinged and talked (chatted) for long with someone instrumental in making me who I’m becoming now. Holding grudges is not my idea anymore; not against someone who made me move and on for good. I realized again… I’m not who my father is. I’m able to go out on team parties at work and get clicked without worrying as much. The pics are doing the rounds; of course I look great! My best friend called and we talked. It was after a long long time we spoke; blame it on my work timings. One of my other friends took time out and traveled down to see me. We went out for a very late night dinner. At work, I rounded up within the first ten in the global dashboard.

This year’s only getting better.

Travelling distances and in time

I am so tired… wrong! I’m still up typing this post sipping a fat blue cup of tea in my bedroom.

I’m enjoying the famous Delhi chills in January of this New Year. Cyber space is my world, one another dimension where I dwell. It hears me, lives me in preserving my life details those which I share. It doesn’t hurl any curiosity or run its judgement. Void resonates the key tapping as though in acknowledgement. Is this fit to be labelled as relationship?

It was one hectic day at work. What with a certain retail store running one 60 months interest free promotion for the New Year weekend! After a daylong contemplation, I went out to Connaught Place. Season ending sale is up here (in India) and I’m sure the sales persons there would be echoing similar sentiments. Travelling to several destinations in a squeezed up timeline completing the planned is one of my skills; I’m beginning to appreciate. Hands of the watch then run at my pace moving only after I tick a certain item off my compiled list.

The day was like any other. I traveled after work to check what’s on the stands, buying some, treating myself on way back and yet pinching enough time to relax. Music played in my ears, thoughts in mind. They do the strangest things possible to us. There I was, standing amidst the crowd lost several years back in time. A few months before dad packed up his life off us, I had pushed him to buy a sweater for me from Mohini Knitwears. That knitwear brand was a rage back then. The sale used to be in a Hotel Janpath in Connaught Place in January (again!) The racks of apparels stacked in around me had all melted just for that moment creating kaleidoscope of colours matching the display as was on that sale all those years back. I held that trousers like I was holding a dead child shocked more than grief struck. I found myself to be standing alone… very alone. Mom loved going out during sale period how I do too. The sweater I had bought then was somewhat oversized for a child of 11. My argument then was that an oversized garment would remain wearable even after I grow big. I still have that sweater alright, a pretty baby pink cardigan with plastic sequins embroidered.  I have worn it almost never…

Dad left, mom passed away a few years later. Here I am, recalling and reliving the pain which is now an inseparable part of my existence; one of the reasons why I don’t want to bear a child. I don’t want my child to carry the particles of the precipitate I would pass on during the growing up years. I fall short of words to reply in when I am questioned why I don’t want to become a mother… I don’t want to become my mother. I don’t want my child to become me how I have almost become my mother! I’m only five years away from when she died screaming in despair begging to be saved. She wanted to live for me. She deserved to live for herself. There she was crippled- medically, physically and emotionally by marriage and family. I’m the ugly precipitate that couldn’t be dumped in any bin. She didn’t fit in anywhere.

There isn’t anyone who witnessed what happened all those years back or what transpired thereafter. I feel inappropriate to share my future life with any man for he wasn’t a part of my life gone by. He wouldn’t be able to complete me. A tender part of me is bruised due to family and my marriage too. An inclusion from the outer world will not bear a match with the existing particles. An implant will always be that; rest of the organs are the body parts. An artist knows the meaning of the word impossible while mixing colors to create the exact shade as in his mind. One needs to know the poison to suggest the antidote. That said, it’s a good idea to leave the patch barren for some time till the soil neutralizes.

This was the same place where I shopped my dresses from when young. Snowhite is the place we- mom and me haunted to pick up sets of skirt dresses. The last time she had wanted to get me something was a tussar suit, embroidered and styled Indian, priced obscenely high. She had noticed that on one of her trips to the place, and then one afternoon I was taken to the shop so she could buy me the same. I did not like it as much. The very moment I had voiced my view, the mannequin was removed from the show window. It was sold off right then- to another customer. Things changed as did life and the visits to the store interrupted. Several years and another lifetime later, I was drawn to the store. Was that to do with this store then what I experienced today? Within a matter of few seconds, time, instances and series of memories had closed in on me. Time wasn’t a graph axis anymore but another variable with several instances plotted at different intervals, all resonating with life at the same time! Memories and the event occurrence seemed life-like with me watching over as they were occurring at their designated time interval and yet all at once.

This was one part of my mind. The other part was celebrating me. It’s proving contrary to my thought of all’s been lost. Though in a decimated proportion, I am beginning to observe an upward plotting in certain areas of my present life as compared to then. It’s largely scattered to be mentioned in this post.

I should run along now. Movie watching time was taken by this post. Dinner shouldn’t wait any longer. I noticed the moon while entering the building gate in the evening. It was a big scoop of white butter, yet to draw another arc to reach its roundness; yet, looked fascinating… from where I am, it was after a very- very long time that I stopped to look back to smile at it instead of acting to notice.

It yearned for my glance…

Transitioning… from being human alone

Things are changing. I am not writing about it- for now for I’m busy playing my part, enacting my role. I see the person in me changing. Vodka still gives me a high… only I don’t need that ecstasy anymore. It’s burnt out. That phase I was zapped into, I’m out of it. I am ready. Any moment Universe is going to throw me off the circle detaching thereafter off the cycle of life and death letting me live on that infinite tangent of bliss. I realize I have a long way to go; as a person and as a soul who I am.

I don’t want relationships. It makes perfect sense now why I don’t have any and why I have never needed one. I don’t harbor grudges, forgiving comes easy. I have let go of every bitter incident erasing the final memory of it.

Alright, that last bit is not true. I love my dad and am unable to come to terms with the fact that I haven’t seen him in a long long time- I yearn to hug him. I am yet to convey of what I think of someone I lnow; just that. I am not expecting any reply, let alone a response. The day I feel strongly about it, I will. Being an optimist, my mind believes that perhaps, he is reading it and understands that this is meant for him. I am thinking he knows it even without reading this.

I have no secrets to tell. It’s not barren either. I am graduating to a different plane that is then digressing into different dimensions. I feel myself becoming who I used to be and also moving further all at the same time.

My laptop needs a new battery and I have a little know how of where to get it from. I am still a step short of becoming self- dependent. The issues exist and more are getting added to the list. So what has changed really? An assurance has crept into my conscience that’s giving me a constant death certainty. Like a seizing trance number, it’s numbed my pain letting me concentrate on achieving my target and beyond.

That’s what I am after. What’s out there beyond this? Beyond me and after you. What comes then? Who stages it?

I’m exploring the possibilities.

I wish to break free off this cage my Karma has fitted me into and dawn the garb of a teacher and to come back after I have lived being this constricted human being.

AMEN

My battle is on.

Walking till the post

Today was my last day at work… last day of my first work- year at Genpact.

Hitting the dial keys to log on to the bridge to barge a phone- extension remotely took me back by a decade. I was promoted as Quality Evaluator for my own process in November of 2004 in my work tenure with Convergys then. I was only a year and four months old in the organization and the process alike.

I was given to monitor calls at work today. This is when I am only five months old in the process. It felt strange! My instincts are alive still. Preparing the observation report wasn’t difficult either. I was given to prepare process level reports directly to be sent to the clients and process managers previously. I was only a few days old in the current process then.

I haven’t been able to sit back to reflect since then. For weeks together, I don’t get that time to brood. Even though I took a couple of sets of work-offs in the last two months, they went by as though never existed. What remained was a static sense of being employed again. It’s that plain. I have no metaphor or adjective to describe my state of mind.

Once what used to be the core constituent of my attitude: that pride of being alive with dignity is coming back to me. This isn’t a milestone really; not yet, I am walking alright. I congratulate myself for having dared to start life afresh again, regardless of the fact that this wasn’t the first time.

My thoughts are scattered and emotions staggered. That feeling of loss has washed down a bit. It wasn’t without difficulty and I strongly feel the presence of a driving force. The Divine seems to have designed a destiny for me after all and I find myself striving toward.

For now, just that; I have goals I’ve got to achieve. I’ll start laying my plans now.

I pray, surrendering to the Unknown so I be made in thy light.

AMEN.

Celebrating mom’s demise…

Time spent with mum suddenly seems distant. Memories associated are growing hazy like some old discarded mirror left unclean reflecting the light with the dust eating at the contours of the reflection.

I haven’t quite survived the loss though I pretended I have moved on for some time. In the exuberance of shaping my life, I had folded the reel down thinking I might never have to look back. Which is why perhaps all of this happened –the time spent in Gurgaon– to remind me of my own self, mom and what’s mine.

I lost her on Diwali morning on 23^rd October, 1995 – the year I graduated from high school. After all the rushing around with last rites, I was bent on the sketch board completing assignments for submission. It’s a shame that she didn’t witness how well I did despite being thrown away on the road and getting molested in name of being in relationship. It wasn’t any pleasure, any feeling of it was remote and for a long time thereafter. What followed after losing my only blood relationship is something I’m still trying to take control of. I believe I have sorted some of it- atleast in understanding. To mark the life coming of full circle, Karma is awarding me with the festival falling the same day as it had back then. It couldn’t get any better.

I celebrate her death anniversary instead of wailing and for what? I wore a saree one year I recall when with Convergys; when I think I was moving on. Last year one of my neighbours had invited herself over for drinks… and so on. For last several months I contemplated draping a saree to work to identify it as a day of celebration; now reconsidering my plan. It’s festival time, so I could dress up traditionally though mum hated me for this. She was a modern woman resonating ideas much ahead of her times. She may have made a few haphazard choices and then stuck to them; but whatever she ever taught me has stood true blatantly against all phases I have witnessed so far. She wasn’t wrong about me- not even by a comma. Her wordcount to describe me when she did turned out to be just about perfect. No spelling mistakes or syntax errors were found.

Even though I can’t reach out to her anymore, I feel she is forever around, so close that the time spent with her now is folding itself in neat layers- becoming the building block of future and nomore stabbing me. I miss her not because I suffered- but because I fail to go back to her telling how successfully she grafted me in her own light. Whoever I am is in her reflection. She knew how to hang on. Incidentally, this isn’t it. As I write this post, realizations and epiphanies strike me like they were waiting on my writing this wordplay. I see the sequence clearly of the events that are to soon unfold.

This is where it would end… this whole big phase that started close to two decades ago. I feel I have worked out her Karmas too. I kept myself going; though, it would have been easier to give in and end up in a bigger mess probably even bigger than what mom got herself in. A few clever choices I made which were equally scandalous and those which added more experience against the time I spent living seem to have done it. I feel free already. A few more hours to go before the actual time of the anniversary would set in, what other way could I have it… at work, surrounded by co-workers dressed up and with happy faces around. Unknowingly they would become a part of my celebration, such is how Universe works. Regardless of what I choose to wear, I’ll be inquired for being ecstatic.

I feel somewhat clotted after running a few tears down. Much to my liking, I’m right now dwelling in solitude. Content and a bit stopped short. It’s drawing a close.

Edit: This is what I wore. To work.

Deliverance

Abundance was seeping into average and before I knew, it blended with insignificance only to become non- existent. My identity and the amount of contentment waned before I could register the nightmare coming to shape. Self-dependence had zoomed straight into nothingness.

It claimed my work, confidence and a few acquired not really a relationship to realize what I want. Reverse the essence: if those acquired relationships were not given the undue precedence; this post would not have found words. I would have saved my work, attitude and myself too. 

Once again I am all set to create the colors of rainbow on my canvas; the shades of which I lost not so long back. The splashing tides from not so remote past still scare my state of being threatening me to lap me.

I seem to have found the strength to carry on, taking things in stride… I will, once I get ahead. I need to gain momentum and that’s irritating me- the lack of it. Maybe it’s brewing at the horizon. Perhaps, it’s hit me even as I write this; displacement is what I am craving. I am desperately awaiting an upward thrust that will send me to the edge where the things bothering me in the present will become insignificant. The frustration catches my already bruised ego often. I wonder if what I earned when I think I thrived in abundance was enough. Haven’t I reached already where I was then? In some ways- yes; others… no. My benchmark has modified.

It’s the lost good and more of the other side of it that’s ruling my present. I need to earn my present before my efforts to keep the past where it rightfully belongs wears down. I am nurturing all I’m left with from then to recreate myself. The transition has begun alright. In the course of events, I decided to reinvent myself instead of rediscovering… I find this new me better than who I was then. A lot of things those belonged to remote past is finding home in me again. I see winds from childhood and youth playing in my hair. This is definitely new. I had merrily swept my old-self away to create the future that I am craving to call past! If I keep the number of years I have lost to gain what I have now; then, it’s abundance again… only, the idea of it has modified slightly. The pointers to it are regardless, what matters is the me-bit earned in attainment.

On a lighter note, my brands are back in the shelves; a few really big and better ones too. I take pride in posting pictures of what I wore, when to work. Yet, when I draw a comparative graph with people I knew v/s time spent, I feel spaced out. Once what seemed to be a mammoth time is now a mere value in time. My having spent a year in the organization I’m associated with in the present isn’t giving me any reason to smile. Instead, it’s making me ponder upon how easily I had let many one-year-time-spent-with-the-organizations I worked previously sit aside. Why hadn’t I seized those work anniversaries and gloated in the wake of collecting achievements! Perhaps, that would have kept me afloat…

It seems dreamlike to me my previous work affairs and hence, I keep to myself and that isn’t helping. I’m biting my own tail and screaming. Yeah, I know what I need and can’t bear to wait either. Are there any options over the ones sighted?

I call upon my faith in Unknown: the forces of Universe, the Cosmic Law to deliver what’s for me.

AMEN.

Conclusion begins now

I don’t lose things… ever. I find a way to find them back. If I wish for something, it crawls to me almost always. If only that held authentic for people too. My work- off days kinda went really well excepting for I having lost yet another someone. That’s a pattern now; one I’m not comfortable with still.

After lot of wishing and stashing after sometime of brooding for the past 3 days, I went out today. I went to Gaffar Market to fetch my belated b’de gift. Mary gifted one right before my b’de when we met- so I got a shining bottle to myself for the day anyway. My childhood friend was here from Dubai. We met after a year again. Last year I had negated the very date though we had met two days after my birthday. That was yet another day spent running around. This year too we had spent the day roaming in Saket mall. Before running home, I bought my butterscotch cake and first set of twin watches from CP. I was really excited… but that was needled in too hard so the feeling died before I had started savouring.

I bought Issey Miyake edp, a few nail paints and eye liners from one of my fave haunts. Colors, I tell you! I bought a hair color too. I wore one of the new watches that I had gifted to self on my right wrist how mom used to or how I do. My work there was concluded in no time. After some trailing and snaking through the traffic, I reached yet another haunt- Malviya Nagar, where some of my most memorable days were spent. I visited my friendly neighbourhood -then- chemist. Oh boy, he too was missing me- 15 years of knowing them; bought the necessities those I consider more like accessories. I packed food from one of my fave eat outs. That’s where I ditched the vehicle submitting myself to public transport. Next to Nazeer was Dunkin Donuts; packed a few burgers for breakfast. Waiting for food to be packed, I called the auto chap so he picks me up from the metro- station. For years together I stayed confided: transport and finances being the prime constraints. I am in the process of sorting the rest.

I love this runaway life. I don’t want to sit caged up or be instructed or led by their choices. I have had a fill of it already. I like running around and about collecting things I need and get swollen tired. State of Trance played in my ears… on my way to heaven. I managed to grab a place to sit in metro although I was coming home at peak office time. This wasn’t the first time really. I board the train placing my faith that I shall get a seat. So far, it’s working out well. I feel I’m guided by the Divine; this is how I feel His presence.

Music was doing things to me. I didn’t want to observe people today. I saw them observing me; my eye make- up maybe or my hair that wears an enviable texture after I went bald or perhaps my skirt or the low neck floral top. I knew not and left it at that. While waiting for the auto chap here in Gurgaon, I slipped into Metropolitan mall and checked out a few more things.

My manager wished me – belated wishes they were. I grinned reading his text sitting in the auto rick. Travelling through the same road as I do from work, I felt I was in a dream. Only three nights back I traveled through the adjoining road; it isn’t that long back. Besides, I’ll be taking the route again in less than two days. It seemed I was running through a long forgotten track… in certain way I was. I stopped by the local veggie haat and shopped veggies too. Only I can do it – stepping into a local on road market wearing my signature skirt and high heels. What the heck! I got what I wanted at steal away prices.

Now sitting home. Wondering.

I do this drill whenever I travel from Gurgaon to Delhi. The place I stay in is countryside. Veggie market happens outside the community gate twice a week. They start setting up the place after the sunrays go slanted which is why I can’t club picking up veggies while riding back from work which at the farthest clock gets stretched to 3pm. So it’s usually after meeting my friend at MN, still visiting the same chemist, combining all of it the day the market is set up so I buy veggies. Phew!

When was the last time really I felt so contented? Was it a few days back when my excitement was killed by that someone who I am considering lost now? Was that when I was employed for the last time… some seven years back from today? Or was it before I overlooked and got into the marital institution only to get bruised and get thrown away apparently? Why only eyeliners, my foot- wears too were matched to my shirts then. I hear silence in reply. I don’t feel sorry anymore. I don’t cry either. A bit of pang is left for falling off the level I was at once.

I have figured out what had happened to me here and why it all went out of control. Not everything is within the outline; yet, I feel my old self emerging back in me. Which is precisely why I have so many things typed into this insignificant post without sitting back to cry a few tears. I have shed all of I had to. Notice: how I would jump the transition in the next two lines.

It’s not the clock alone that tells time.

I am happy.

I am listening to Ray of Light that once set me free.

A love story- long lost

With each passing day I feel calming within like death filling in with its nothingness. After a long while, I prepared coffee for myself after an evening head wash. I feel at peace within.

Just before stepping into that warm shower, I visited one of my haunts. A story I had read before, I went over again to read through its words. A queer feeling envelops me while re-reading. I tend to re-live within the exercise of reading and grasping. I transform into the story- mostly within the protagonist’s skin enlivening every bit of those emotions that the protagonist is supposed to live through or convey. I create another identity and live yet another life within the told story.

I promised the author to write a detailed comment the day I read it. I went back to read the lines again. In no time I could see myself breathing within the published words. I am producing the bit here in my blog.

I am yet saving my words for this one- like I said, I will in detail lest I miss any shade. Stopped by since wanted to read you… listen to your words. It was after posting the comment I realized I actually said what I wished to.

I have been that woman in your story- once maybe… only to be left being called unworthy, orphan and ineligible, being forced to and brutally deserted to fight my things on my own. No amount of begging or pleading had worked out. It wasn’t to stay over- for there wasn’t anything to define whatever it was or to hold upon- it was for support. Such love as depicted here- I’m envious already. Heart yearns for it- mind cautions against- for the evermore is a figment of fairy tale dimension. It wasn’t that one time that I was estranged. Father gave a start to what every man I ever met since has kept going. That one time I really wanted to die for and wait till beyond… I was left to do exactly that! It took several years thereafter for me to get over that love- if that was and hurt both. Over two decades of feelings were let go of erasing the memories which for long had made me smile- tickling me to life, to run about and catch the dreams. There are chances he might be reading it here and know it’s for him. I know not how he would feel for I don’t feel for him anymore.

I am yet to decide… if it was really love or I was hopelessly hoping for it. Several stories happened through that one and even thereafter, each time I tumbling and falling over after falling in head over heels. Stories those would never be told. I have kept the better part of each with me and grown indifferent to its occurrence otherwise. Though he never stayed to help me; yet, aptly reminded me of who I am before pushing me out of his life and this time perhaps, forever. Shamelessly he had agreed then how right I was in judging him when I had- we were all of twelve then!

That fight is still on- it wasn’t resolved in the way it was required for lack of support; piece by piece I am picking the dead twigs. The battlefield has changed, so have the names or should I say characters? I am bruised and dragging still…

Life doesn’t stop and that’s the lesson I’m trying to learn. That’s not the only hurt. The intensity or definition may vary, that wasn’t the only love either.

I’m yet to feel, love back, loved and accepted for who I am. I am ready to sing again, laugh about and be in love and perhaps even die for… I’ve drawn curtains to most of them, even left the stage, waiting for my drama to take place – of my choice, choosing the real prince to be my prince… There you go- the fairy tale takes over again “smiles”

Such are your words- evoking, invoking… kicking back the dead to live. May you breathe thousand breaths; a few for me for I don’t anymore.

Framed

The beaded string wall hangings were out a month back, Ganshu darling was made to sit back at his place a fortnight later. Today, I took mom’s picture photo frames out too. The frames occupied the wall- space as though they had never been moved away. For close to a year, I had stared that empty space where the pictures hang now. The black outlining of dust that was left after the pictures were removed as though showed mom’s image too. I know that is far off the stretch of possibility; yet, those empty spaces replied to me as the pictures did.

The ruffles my belongings take seem to have almost humanized them. Silently they watch over me; sometimes, even guarding me. Most of my stuff that I own today has a story attached; often trailing down to mom, if only she were alive.

I miss a friend, a parent and a companion in her. I do have a friend in Ruby, having known her for years more than spent with mom. I have a sorta companion in my domestic who is with me for the past 6 years now; but the parent mom was, I feel her growing in me. The change didn’t come about today or during my reclusive years, I felt that the instant I lost her. I had felt grown up and that isn’t a metaphor. The simplest of the things changed in my behaviour. My outlook still remained and is same as was; however, something just grew alongside. Having said that; you would understand when I say, these picture frames are like mirrors, reflecting my own image. I don’t tend to recognize when I see my own image- even if a selfie; atleast not when displayed within a frame, but these, I feel I know them.

I don’t much resemble her excepting when brooding. My hair isn’t as beautiful or dark, neither are my eyebrows a perfect arch. My complexion isn’t a match. My forehead is big. Her legs were shapely… I can go on!

There is one another measure by which we are two different people. I’ll wait a bit more before I fill in the space to share that bit. I believe in conclusion instead of setting up and leaving in transition or failing to finish.

For now, I have a two pairs of eyes watching on me; actually, make that three, I am included in one of the frames too, but then, do I know that third set of blinkers?

“Re”

It is only natural to send emails across at work; yet, I owe you for this one again. The other day you had wanted me to send that insignificant team outing presentation across to HR Manager and Process Manager, but the one I sent today was sent to VP HR and VP Process too. I am only seven months old put against the seven years old employees. While we make no bones cribbing about the silliest things, I thank you for this invaluable earning today.

I sent this text to my ex- manager, who I have refused to call so; I address him as my dear manager. Gladly, he accepts the addressal with the signatory running of his hand through hair and a bare all teeth grin. Other managers know who I am referring to when I leave a “hello” to be passed onto still my dear manager. I am now moved into a different team under different process in the same line of business. I haven’t come to terms with this movement yet. Him and my manager says, I shall be over it soon enough. I know what will make me take it in my stride; though outwardly, that’s what I am wearing.

I completed seven months in this organization today and that ain’t any achievement. Neither is the fact that I was asked to convert a report into presentation today. I am still in the beginner’s role- “an agent” to be precise. But then, something changed by the time I finished preparing the presentation. I was instructed to send that across to all, the leadership team included through my email ID. Here I was, sitting more baffled than excited after having prepared a process specific report to be sent to one and all and I am only in my training for that process. Only the other day I was made to type an email that was then sent to the onshore client. This doesn’t qualify as an achievement either for I have been there in my previous profiles… how many years back again?

SIGH

Clearly, my ex-manager had put in a word across to my current manager. I took a moment after sending the email closing my eyes, thanking everyone backing me up for me to be able to live through to this day. Teary eyed I then thanked my managers in person- both of them; the dear one and the present one. It wasn’t a biggie for them.

For me it was… within a few minutes of sending that email, for the next half hour, across all systems throughout the process floor ran the same slideshow, each one animating at a different slide. What a show it was. My fellow workers were viewing their names with roused excitement chit chatting over their work- stations nodding in approval. My job was done. They were pleasantly surprised seeing how differently highlighted their names were this time. I searched within their lit up faces; they seemed happy… as though for me too!

It takes me a few seconds before I format and jazz up any given content or report in the manner required and/or requested. This wasn’t my first time.

If only I am able to format my much encrypted lifeline too. I shall feel amused. There isn’t anyone around me in person or even virtually; so nevermind the fact I’ll smile singular, I take that in my stride most of the times anyway. I have long years to close before I take a break.

AMEN

Ground in thoughts

Am I finally embracing my much-ignored-by-me roots or is it that finally I am learning to go back to the shell I belong? Then again, do I belong to any?

The realization set my mind back in the time now lost… to the time when mom was alive. Rituals were observed and there were celebrations. Festivals were awaited and there were preparations even for day to day life. Let’s picture a house all adorned with strings of marigold and water-bowls of rose petals placed at the center of an alpana. How many years since? Ten…? Twenty…? Whoever said time heals, I have a question for him- the most obvious one.

How long before I turn deaf to these calls of memory of the times that was blatantly scraped off my timeline?

I bought a mixer grinder the other day, my first one ever. I was excited to make use of it, but that joy was amiss. I found myself brooding upon the time when it wasn’t a big deal. We owned most of the gadgets, some even imported.

And one fine morning, as it was destined, I lost my home.

Along with, I lost my culture, joy of celebrating festivals and the need to remember what marked as traditions at my home, in my culture or during festivals… nothing mattered.

It is over two decades that a coconut was bought, at my place. I was merrily munching a chunk as I used to even back then when the fruit sprang that sapling in my mind.

I am not depressed anymore; only in denial mode. Come to think of it; there isn’t a single soul around who has lived this transition from then to now to understand this loss. Though it’s exciting that I successfully prepared something new, i.e., not belonging to our food culture per se, the smile up my face is lost. I needed vodka to blend in name of enjoying a drink with coconut water. The raw coconut water tasted as though a bitter concoction was being poured down my throat.

I am in my reflective zone- indecisive if I should smile or cry. I am not in my sixties or even fifties or forties. I wonder when did I live so long that the events dead are finding trails to haunt me in my present?

Close down

Yet another movie I finished watching a moment back. Tears know how to flow alone, so I washed them off my face. Still, a tear or two rolled down my cheek.

I was losing myself to depression starting from living with unbearable cramps to breaking into repeat fits. Reasons are just excuses; hence being restrictive with those.

It was only a movie suggestion. I had let it skim down for the sometime… till one day, I felt the urgency to find out about what was suggested. I was waiting to know the person better, if not very well, to accept the offered suggestion. The last time the offer and acceptance role was played; it changed my course of life. I needed it, it was offered to me. A stage was set for me to be able to step up to enact my play. That was the first time too.

I was offered to become the author of my biography.

The previous one I entered into my personal favorite list was The Lakehouse: a love-story being played at two different time-zones simultaneously to cheat death and collide to bring about a happy ending at the last crossover. The Fountain was linked at several places across three different timezones reminding us to let go and live at peace with death. Although the movie had ended with death in bold letters; yet, a certain amount of rewriting -after the story within the movie was over- infused a warm feeling.

A big chunk of my life has to die and get buried. I’m standing at the threshold of a new beginning, watching the stale branches getting pruned. I feel I’m being sized down; for once those episodes are concluded; many years would draw a blank. A certain part of me will die along perhaps or so I’m feeling. Memory of the events may not fade; some would continue to live with me bearing a scar on my skin too; but for now, I see the participants drifting away from the spotlight. I am witnessing the curtains being drawn!

I am pulling the string.

The movie wasn’t about death alone. I felt a push to let go and instead hope. Changing a certain course of action maybe possible if not easily attainable; yet, accepting that loss with hopes intact will take life forward.

If being a woman you ever went bald at some time by choice, you must know how it felt when you realized it’s grown long. As a kid your excitement was well placed while fixing a clip in your hair; but unparallel to how you had felt taking those clips out from the closet. You had forgotten how beautiful your tresses were and then one day, it needed styling and that’s when you realized how beautiful your hair is. You maybe mundanely combing to clip them and that’s when the mirror did its reflection trick. It had showed a vision you had forgotten about- out of choice. This is what is depressing me. That I did go bald only helped me write the metaphor.

I am at a loss of words about how The Fountain didn’t end on a sad note. The movie being suggested by the person who inadvertently let me take hold of my life again; I take that as an indication. If not across different time zones; however, I felt tugged by a few time-periods all at the same time while writing this post. The cause of depression isn’t lost still. I need to let a few things bid adieu now. This is not the end of life- neither could the previous losses bring any; nor would the overdue death of a bunch of characters. If at all, I need to raise my hopes.

About the love-story: Instead of till death do us apart, I say, we’ll unite forever in death.

P.S.: Given the fact I write when it’s over, I believe I am not depressed anymore. I’m adhering to yet another suggestion; though practicing on my own since a few weeks unknowingly. I have been up for almost 24hrs now, will crash for 6 hours so I wake up a new person. I’ll cheat and play dead for a couple of extra hours 😛

Paired Up

Paired up with a very good looking non- smoker leo in name of my trainer for the next two weeks is what I have earned, not to forget the learning more about the business part- but we’ll discuss that later. For now, I am spending my office hours in close proximity of a hot trainer. And you thought I ain’t interested in men. You now know- I am. I am ranting about it here.

It was one hell of a weekend shift – my first one at the new work place.

I had reached office an hour in advance and since I was in no requirement of setting up a workstation for myself, I spent some quality time listening to music and doing shoots. We aren’t assigned any fixed work-stations, we hunt for one every day. Later about that; let’s get back to the trainer talks. I worked this Sunday fooling around with my ex-team members during breaks. This trainer guy takes me out most of the time i.e., to inhouse cafeteria. He pays too. So this morning, we went on a tea break that was more of an Adam n Eve in the garden of Eden for me. He showed me around the office complex taking a complete de-tour, through the walkways unknown to me. I was shown where my ex- process used to be; so much for understanding the business. Not only a certain division; I am also learning about its history and geography and with a handsome escort to hang around with. I didn’t mind the fact that we didn’t find any coffee at the end of those de-trails. With that, our tea- break was ruthlessly cut short- I saved it though. All I needed to drop was “can we please walk a bit?” that was then answered by first a “C” and then a complete “O” circle around the office complex. Morning walk… of course what else? Boy! Does he mind his manners? He doesn’t yap while eating though that hand cream parfume was distracting enough, maybe that was on purpose. Who cares anyway? I should enjoy this time off work- and I am doing just that.

He is a leo and a complete charmer… what he doesn’t know is he is fantasizing one of his own breed! He carries himself with a stiff-neck though he is anything but that. He wears a killer ease minding his business. Precisely why it seemed a misfit when he looked strained then. I was watching my new team monkeying around when I heard him grumble “something is not right here.” It took me only two seconds to set that just about right – the first one to look at his face to figure out and the second one to point out. While he was breaking his well-trimmed, clean and manicured fingertips on the computer keyboard, squinting his brown eyes, joining the carefully plucked brow trying to figure out the graph deviation; one look and I had declared what the error was. I can point the flaws out like that’s my only business. It is only a few months back when the statement disclosing the account keeping service fee on the sales voucher was modified countrywide upon my pointing out. Back then too, he was the one who was assigned the task of shooting instructions to stop the printing of existing format on the e-sales voucher incidentally. I was barely a few months old and was sitting pretty etching expressions upon that incorrect figure quoted in terms of dollar amount of a major financial company and credit service provider of a certain country. How many newbies can add that kinda feather up his cap?

*gloats*

So we do have a nice-looking guy around placed at an authoritative level – nothing less than interacting with the client directly and a single. He holds the door for me though I graciously; yes, I said that, step back with a polite “thank you” and a coy smile. Oh c’mon, I can do that. I am doing that.

I have already made it official- on the floor, in public audience that my ex- manager is anyway my “ex” now. So I am not two timing either you see.

*snigger*

P.S. all the above mentioned is in strict accordance with the actual occurrence of episodes. Nowhere have I lied that I am interested in my trainer 😉

Suspended- II

Here I am, back to writing some more. I am doused into terrible depression, having gone totally reclusive, not eating or even peeking out. All I want to do is sit still or probably sleep and in an un-ending continuation. But that is not it.

Neither I’m able to sleep, nor am I sitting still. Sketching now, writing then, and shooting thereafter… I’m anything but confined in motion; yet, I haven’t stepped out of my house even once in the last three days. Obviously, I skipped work. The fact that I-and-a-few-more-slogged-to-get-me-here was shoved at the topmost shelf where I would have to stretch my arm and fumble in space before my fingers brush past its edges.

I woke up this morning giggling of a dream. Strangely, the background was that of a place which was not a good stay in reality and had accelerated my downfall- although not before tossing me quite up… so up, that I lost balance. Instead of their grim faces, how they carried themselves most of the time, I saw them smiling. The house was done up well and there were colors all around which was in stark contrast to how their house was and most likely, still is. Not even once had I dreamt of him through all these years of our association and dissociation later; now I do, when there’s nothing but an awkward annoyance left.

Over ten days now, I am in denial mode. It started a weekend before. From updating status to texting, I reached out to people I could possibly to trigger some response and hence some distraction. Nothing worked- not even when I ended up annoying one of my contacts and then it went off to some other tangent. All patched up immediately, at least on the face of it or so I would like to believe, I’m beyond crying anymore. Like some eerie development, my domestic isn’t keeping well and hence on leave and there, it finished with a perfect house for void to rule.

Whether I have moved up even half a step or still brooding in past, only time to come will tell; for present, I’m afflicted even to emote. I don’t want to start any conversation- not even an impersonal one, not see anything new or for that matter anything at all. The only person seems worried out of it is my manager- who is no more my manager- officially. Not even once did he call up to ask about my (not) showing up at work. Every time a text arrived or a call made, he sounded anxious. There was nothing he could do- some silent exchange of words later, he would wish me well. I told him I was blogging. He rebuked me for not eating; yet, that didn’t affect my state of mind.

I don’t want to go vegetative again. I have been there long enough to not invite that unpleasant feeling all over again. The aftertaste is bitter than any poison. Atleast the latter kills you numbing your mind. I don’t know if my other alter has gone stronger again- one that had taken me down promising me a comfortable zone to live in. In my mind, I feel a battle going on constantly like a giant hub of electrical exchange. If that stops, it will result in doom. I feel all my energy being wringed off each of my cells. Numbness seems too inviting. What is feeding her essence?

I want to remain lost in thoughts with no one around to check on me. I don’t want to eat, I’m happy starving and stay in spoilt mood. Excepting, I don’t want any of it. I want to go out, meet people, laugh with them, live with them, and take equal amount of pain from some since not all would give pleasure in turn. I want to sing- and yes, I do; dance around how I’m doing in my dreams.  It seems my subconscious mind is also fighting that same battle and maybe that’s why my dreams aren’t dark.

I want to scream hard and when I finish, total serenity should fill the backdrop as though this present never existed. A piece of miracle is all I need before I die my death in peace.

Suspended

It was barely nine in the morning and I was crying hard. Pressing the white smock up my eyes, I cried as though mourning. I screamed as if I were a retard. The losses are too many to be pointed. Where I am is a void. Most of the times, I remain frozen so the realization don’t affect me. At an unwarranted moment like now, when completely un-forecasted, it pierces me- the stab going down to every pore and those voices screaming at my inability to take control.

My manager is a nice man. He doesn’t seem to mind the pun intended jokes I crack- some on my team members, a few on other managers, some on him too; needless to say -most of them- publicly. He thinks I’m a lively one to stay quiet; but so does everyone else. The one day when my ability to keep up the façade had gone fragile, he had let me be dead in the medical room for the entire shift. He had not let me come to the floor. It was only the third day of calling here in this new organization -after nine years in time period when I got promoted as Quality Evaluator. I said nothing, didn’t cry- only my expressions had frozen. He had noticed. Nobody would ever know what part of me had died the previous evening before I went off to sleep for the following early morning shift.

Vacuum heals me. I don’t have the luxury of company who would comfort me. I was still in my training and not his team member yet. We got bonded in a mutually respecting work relationship since. I just ate up the chocolate he gifted me the other day to calm myself. His kid wasn’t keeping well, exchanged a few texts wishing him.

I wished yet another colleague -morning. She showed up the day I thought I had lost my new cell. I misplaced the token that was issued since our cellphones are to be deposited before entering the production floor. I was standing there bewildered at my own carelessness at the token counter with an approval email printout from my manager so the security hands over my cellphones, when I saw her standing there smiling at me. She was a stranger then. A day later, I had walked up to her and shared how she had made me feel at the time when I was running around bemused. We became friends.

This is how I had wanted. To be surrounded with people- the ones who would know me without me having to explain all about it. People, who would respect my limited interaction, understand my silence and not misjudge my laughter. What’s more is: them belonging to my workplace, the place of utmost importance to me. The fact that I had quit all to settle down –in manner of speaking and not how it otherwise explains- hits me hard all the time. My intentions were right, I wasn’t deceiving anyone, wasn’t getting my end served either; and yet, it fell flat in my face. It was always meant to. Options were a luxury then too.

Just where did my trait of judging people gone then? Why did I let it happen at the first place? How could someone I intended to weave my life with leave it tangled like a loom shuttle flown across the yarn- knotting them at places so them having to be cut in order to be removed? Where did I go wrong in projecting myself? Or maybe I made the same mistake as he did. I took it for granted that I’ll get my way around.

It is six years since I set foot in a Corporate again- where I belong. Nobody told me how haunting the walk through the corridors of my new office would be. I saw those walls looking down upon me; I lowered my eyes in shame. Orientation days seemed familiar. Policies and regulations- I remembered those all. I wasn’t being smug and yet was treated with respect. I noticed how the rest of them were surprised at my professional manners. I was too. Just why couldn’t I control that one twist that has now left me twisted forever? Why had I taken down all that I had built myself on my own? Where had my ability to forecast gone?

I alone am taking the shocks of changes now. The numbers of brands displayed on the pantry wafers stand made me go home and count the numbers of years I lost. Thankfully, the computers came to me being the most friendly asking me no questions about my ability to understand the updated softwares or the error messages. Decade old manages didn’t know of the things I do. The in-house Barista counter reminds me of my work with Convergys. I dind’t have enough to spend. A couple of months later, I won a contest and came as a goodie the Barista vouchers. I bought some brownies in exchange of those. It made me go reflective again.

The queries and the questions are most unflattering… is this your first job? I think in my mind- do I really look like I’m in my early twenties. How did you negotiate your salary? It takes me back to thinking how I had kept all my cards up the table and sought their understanding of my need for money and the amount. Why don’t you stay in a PG when you are all alone? And spend my life dumped on a bed and boxed in a cupboard witnessing two more girls doing the same- eating ill cooked food and being watched over with absolutely no privacy at all? Am I a refugee? Why aren’t you married? This one takes the cake. People who know me would know what I mean here. I’m tired of explaining- it’s a waste of time and effort. What’s the guarantee anyway that you wouldn’t want to press your opinion on me? How much do you pay your domestic? Don’t you have physical needs? You like wearing skirts? What was your previous name? What’s your father’s name? Are you a foreigner, you don’t look an Indian? Where are your parents/relatives? Don’t you feel awkward being on your own? Why don’t you have a boyfriend?

*SCREAM*

I was most successful in my work life be it any level- any sphere. I alone know how it feels to be dragged down from being a trainer/manager to wearing an associate’s badge. I am forced to interact with team members still not born when it comes to their level of maturity, nevermind their marital status. I can’t risk not being a team player. My manager makes me review his emails before he sends those to the leadership team. My presentations skills are appreciated. I have been professional enough to not retort at my colleagues’/managers’ uncouth approach and I’m not a softie- mind it. I don’t join heads to gossip or bitch… yet fool around like no-one’s business.

I was there. Then I lost it- what all alongwith is a separate chapter all together. I grieved enough to last a lifetime. Someone I never cared to know whose name back then is my senior manager here. He is humble enough to share I had once mentored him to the fellow managers. That was over a decade and half now and I thought I lost only six years. His sight is an ugly reminder of my mess on daily basis. I have to be careful to not add my co-workers to facebook or watsapp and not offend them either. I don’t want them to dig a way to my life- it isn’t exactly bright you see. I am careful not to say my complete date of birth when asked. Quite self- explaining- isn’t that? What compromises I am making by the day- one wouldn’t know of the intensity even if I described.

I bought clothes and shoes after over half a decade; also some kitchen utilities, cellphone and food. I bought eggs, mangoes and inner-wears. I have some lose-change now to spend and save. Dignity is anyway lost- atleast I’m surviving healthy enough for people to not know any more than I wish to disclose. The tell-tale signs are gone. My face isn’t dry anymore, toe-nails are painted. I don’t keep sick. I lost some more unwanted weight. There are people around me to take notice of my hairdo and dimples when I smile. My bright colored lippers are asked about for their shade number. My outfits are asked every detail about. They know who to approach for workplace related resolutions or product related queries.

I have a long way to go before I bridge the gap. Compliments don’t gloat me; only reminds me of who I was and what I had become- or maybe still am. I had everyone and everything. Then one day, alongwith people and earnings, I lost myself too. I’m nervous shaking most of the time. My framework is fractured. I feel I’m heeling but at this time as I writes, I hardly do. I want to sleep, so long that I don’t wake. If I must, then that should be in a new place with bright sunlight and snow clad mountains to be stepped out to. I don’t want people to know me there so they aren’t curious to join the dots. I’ll spread my arms and breathe in the fresh air before I go for work and come home to serenity to be able to live in peace.

Maybe I am dreaming heaven. Death perhaps.

Weathering up

When kids, we are happy, playful and ever- rejoicing. Our only worry: how to add to merry making! Then one day, we grow up. We all do. Our playful self gets locked up in the closet with our toys if all of those are not lost during shifting houses. Our merrymaking plans shrink like our once-upon-a-time-used-to-be favorite dress. The only time we then cheer up is to the tinkling of our wine- filled stem-glasses. Yet, all that put together never brings the real us back. What we were born as gets dumped somewhere with the old greeting cards- yellowed and torn at the edges, molded, getting cushier with every passing year. However neatly folded, there comes a time when the printed matter appears greasy. The handwritten matter fades before that. Then, one day as you try to flip through the tissue soft papers, it crinkles between your fingers, disjoining. The papers underneath rustles away to dust… you barely are able to preserve any of it anymore.

But you don’t die. You continue to live; only your essence does no more. The crisp crackle in you dies.

The cotton candy of memories continues to breathe in you; emerging from time to time making the you live in parts.

Long after he is gone, after hours of having locked yourself up in denial to face the fact that he is gone and yet leaving the door ajar hoping for him to come back and just when you are coming to live in the present tense; your brain catches the smell of his hair. You shrug your head in an attempt to wake yourself up from that illusionary state only to realize that that smell of his has made home in your mind, your senses… your hair. You smile at the very thought embracing the realization of newer facts that even when gone, his essence lives in you. As you do so, you see him smile. You do all of that with your eyes wide opened. Two warm drops roll down your cheeks. Only you would know if that’s in his remembrance or if a sense of fulfillment wrapped you up making you warm and cozy even in a chilling fall evening.

A new set of “to be preserved forever” takes place of those wasted, wilted petal like greetings. The child in you is born wanting to run around, giggling, setting foot in awkward toddling steps. No amount of cheering drink could ever make you as tipsy as you are now. Your sky is full of cotton candy clouds – of the color you prefer looking at often. This is no fairy tale for you are sane, sober… and sobbing still. What just happened?

Is that love- you ask yourself? Your tears say nothing; they do what they are best at, roll down your cheeks.

You remember of him holding your face, kissing you while you were moving around your house. He had stopped you unaware keeping his promise he had made before dozing off the night before. Or was it really that he had wanted to then? It hadn’t mattered then. It certainly doesn’t now. What does is: you think of him with teary eyes, craving for his chest to hide your face letting you dissolve all of your hurt and pain; making you a free-spirited teen… again. Such is how he makes you feel since you have known him.

A divorce and a deceit together during the last twelve months of knowing him could not deter that feeling to grow. It’s grown up into a young tree, just as how he is, branching to reach out to unconquered horizons, swaying through every wisp, every breeze and every storm that took off a few trees whenever it set off. Not this one. It’s young but not fragile. His agility has kept him stood up to sun, all the rain and through the nights.

Such is how you feel now. Ever since the leaves brushed past your cheeks, you have begun to live.

An unexpected visitor or a divine blessing, was that?

If you wish to know of love for animals, pick up a copy of Ramayana right away. It takes awarding each-one-his-rightful-place to a whole new level. Perhaps, the first of the humanoids were born in Hindu scriptures; though not quite the same way how they are being developed today- sex bots and what not!

The then king of Ayodhya– Rama conquering a demon king Ravana, but not without the help of a monkey troop; the biggest battle of all time as depicted in yet another holy scripture, Mahabharata can also not parallel the enormosity of the victory so achieved by the handful of Aryan bloods and a huge army of primates, save for a few apes, maybe even a gorilla or two and a wild bear. As a regard, I am guessing, they are depicted as talking and walking human like -well almost- divine figures. There, now you know of the dedication of the ancient ones towards the animal lives.

This is one such Tuesday morning during Delhi monsoons –although I live in Gurgaon, but hey, it’s only 30 minutes away from New Delhi if you drive at 80km/hr without braking anywhere – while the rain god seem to be working on his KRA. Anyway, while FB is updating status after the other of dry spells in Delhi, it’s raining (yes) here. So it’s safe to call it a rainy morning. The first time this monsoon that it feels like monsoon- dark, humid and windy, raining since over 24 hours in spells. One thing you should know about India is it is a country of all seasons; excepting monsoon, that is! So all this while when it seemed the pigeon pair is happy and hence notifying me of their presence with loud hums, the poor purple pair was trying to draw my attention – and to what?

A cup of tea I prepared after some lazy chats, warding off one can-I-date-you-pretty-please-since-you-look-sexy on one of the matrimony sites, I happen to have my guest visiting me. Obviously, it was a surprise come over. What do I see? A full grown Vaanar perching up on the broken a/c unit… only birds drenched and hurt sit up so meekly. The verandah door was ajar, so was the grill gate. What I mean is, he had all the liberty to take I-care-not-any stroll inside the house making it into his home. Worse, claimed my bed to relax his muscles. This building is a stand-alone; he must have had to climb up right instead of jumping and hopping through floors.

And boy, was he chivalrous? He didn’t ogle a wide eyed, red haired, skimpily dressed, barely covering her modesty; I say more than that was required to. No seriously, I didn’t feel threatened. All it seemed was as though he knew I was thinking or maybe even scared. My heart didn’t skip a beat, it had stopped flexing altogether. I was only moved by his domesticity. Aren’t these known to bring the house down single handedly, okay, with all four of their limbs? No sir, not this one. He stayed put waiting for the rain to die before it climbed down and without a single act of inducing any bewilderment in me. Now, I am thinking…

Today being Tuesday, I totally want to believe that it was Lord Hanuman visiting the lowly me. The Indian in me (read: the greedy self) can barely ward off the idea of being blessed by the Lord himself this morning! Such is my devotion towards the one of many who are forced to now wander in the cities climbing buildings instead of monkeying in the wild.

God Bless Him.

P.S. I didn’t capture his poise although I so wanted to. I didn’t want to antagonize my guest any further than him seeing me.

Celebrating an anniversary

20th January, 2003

One Monday that was (a decade back), that changed my life. I wish I could add- for good. There were people and celebrations alright; but something still had made me cry. I didn’t have a family, so it wasn’t about shifting homes from maternal to marital, so what was I mourning about?

Ten years hence today, I have layers of memory collected, celebrating with people (again) and captures of the same flying around in the cyberspace too; instead of those getting shut inside an album running a risk of losing its possession. Not now.

Evening before while I was writing my mind out, I broke down remembering the first time I was beaten up being squashed like a discarded cabbage with its leaves broken and blackened. It was that time of the month. I am no Draupadi, but was stripped while I bled.

The clock struck twelve in the midnight while I was talking over to someone who played his share of part for it to get re- sketched the following day!

I spent first half of my day in Dilli Haat, sketching. Read: freaking out with people. Anyone who has been there knows it’s a cultural n social hub. Families from all walks of life go there to revive the feel of a local fair. Only it’s gotten commercialized and modernised over the crawl of years. Think of a cleaner, more colorful version of Surajkund Crafts fair, with more and varied options of eating out thrown in. So there I was with the Delhi Pencil Jammers group toying with my sketch pencils for other to see and thoughts playing hard with my state of being for none others to know of.

Two stuffed paranthas, maybe a tea if not coffee (don’t remember well) and a few hide n seek strawberry biscuits later, I was on my way to Dilli Haat. Heart thumped with anxiety to face people on a day when I would have (otherwise) sat locked up in my bedroom in complete denial. Taking cracking shots at the other jammers, jumping over the cemented seating to capture the jammers sketch, spiraling my way through the crowd; my day had only begun. There were snacks from Puri, Bhuvaneshwar, Orissa; chocolates, savouries, home-bakes cakes and me! It turned out to be one of the best jamming sessions till now; a fact acknowledged by the group coordinators too.

First half hour I had a tough time taking control of my emotions. No one noticed; such is how I carry my façade up, but I was at the brink of making myself a public sob at every smile I flashed. In some time, the smile I was sporting turned to laughter; an infectious and vivacious display of being as carefree as one could get.

That was the place where we met some twelve years back. “We shall buy the home decor stuff from here when we get married…”

31^st December, 1998

A simple statement spoken was a prophecy that that became after four years from then. That was my first visit to the place.  Only two months back from then I had slept my way to survival. The count isn’t confined to one as how a few have known that to be. A fat amount from one, denying the proposal of an affair and accepting work from the other one, wondering if that could develop into an affair; it was barely 7- 8 months that I had stepped out of a slightly over a year sleeping arrangement. I said already, the count isn’t confined to a solitary violation. All that and much more kept flashing in the ether blurring my vision every few seconds. I have known to be the stone faced emotionless dolled up snob. I didn’t cry the day mom passed away; then how could I now? I had no time to howl about my loss. That would have been a waste of time and I was left with none. Today, I don’t want to give myself any to brood about the things those have made me how I am today.

A meeting at Dilli Haat four years before I got dodged into the wedlock in a Convention Centre in Lodhi Road. The album shot at the occasion was picture perfect. I looked beautiful. This is when I am not at all one by the most conservative definition of the term.

20^th January, 2013

Soon, I forgot. I embraced my present day, time and people with all the strength I could gather up. I looked in my happening time. A photo-walk with the jamming coordinator framing the handicrafts, those which I once fancied to do up my house with didn’t remind me of much. A few phone calls kept reminding me of someone’s presence- in my life; but for the lack of a better expression. Another call after the walk was over made me run (quite literally) to Lodhi road, the place where my matrimony was ceremonized. More pictures were clicked and of me too. All the pictures have been uploaded already on different profiles. Mine, his, on the jamming group… Infact, on my FB profile, I have a few of those uploaded under different albums. Some flowers I shot was the color of my wedding dress, apparently, my favorite color too. That one album that I thought of to be picture perfect that I don’t have possession to, I don’t need that anymore.

More people, all strangers  joined in for the walk from India Habitat Centre to Jor Bagh Metro Station. The station was so crowded that I had run my way up to start breathing again. A small tumble on the stairs that didn’t end up in a fall couldn’t stop me from running to catch the bus. All this was happening at 10 in the night. The bus too was crowded. For crying out loud it was a weekend, it should not have been. Impulsively, we got down at the next stop and there we were… back to Dilli Haat again.

We walked till the closed iron grills to touch and mark our presence and walked back to Metro. We got into one, kissed our goodbyes and traveled our ways. I was to travel till where the rail ends. The girl sitting in front of me was weeping, red and loud. Why was she? I didn’t need any more mourning. But that’s all that I have done for long.

Happened has noway to change. I have left it at that.

Misplaced Relationships (edit)

I have been wedded for a decade now. If only the said wedlock had held true even for a week. I haven’t been vocal about it. To gain what in turn? Some rude judgements? Negating opinions? More questions?

My father set up the trend that then became my destiny. Meet the girl who has only been distanced, estranged and abandoned by her relationships.

What I’m mourning upon is not my youth in the number of passing years, or the abuse of emotions; but once again, loss of a petty relationship.

I was getting a rude fill of starting my mornings being beaten up, kicked in the gut and spat over. Such is how I celebrated my first wedding anniversary, my following birthday… and then, every other day.

After a year and a half of taking violence, it happened again. The estranged daughter became an estranged spouse too. My crying in public view of Tis Hazari Courts corridor for over two hours only weakened my resilience. I withdrew the case the day the decree was to be awarded. It took half a decade since to muster up enough courage to readdress the issue.

Some people say I am lucky. Thank you. Really!

I had no time to listen to music, hang-out with friends or even blush. I would look in the eye of anyone seeking a romantic alliance and scream silently- don’t you dare mess with me. I have pushed myself off the edge to stand rooted to the ground both ethically and morally. I called it survival.

The child inside died and the girl lost. What remained was the porcelain faced doll.

Tonite, she speaks. Good evening.

PS: This is what I read at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India at Open Mic Caferati- 25th January, 2013. Edit of the previous post.

Misplaced relationships

Today’s my wedding anniversary and I am definitely excited. Just how many long years I’ve waited for this day. I saw this date some six years back, well almost… but the day never arrived. Not then.

I have been married for a decade now, atleast that’s what this date implies. If only the wedlock had held true even for ten days. This isn’t any metaphor or wordplay. People I know may hold a grudge that I haven’t been vocal about it. What would I have said and to gain what in turn? Some judgements, negating opinions, more questions and still, no understanding of what I was/am going through. Even today as I am posting this here, there are some who do know some part of the story; yet, I have strong reasons to harbour doubts upon their understanding of the veracity.

Meet the girl who has only been distanced, estranged and abandoned by people. When I say people, I mean very close relationships; perhaps, the only relationships. My father to begin with, then my uncle who was a part of the broken family I grew up in, friends… I wouldn’t add husband to it. Once I earn the decree, he won’t be anymore.

What I’m crying for is not the wasted number of years or abuse of emotions; but again, a loss of a relationship, saving grace- it was never one to be referred to as. Even then; so what?

The first time the case was put up in 2006, I had withdrawn the case the very day the decree was to be awarded. I stood there crying in complete public view of Tis Hazari Courts for over two hours not knowing how to handle the dang situation. It took half a decade before I could muster up some courage and readdress the issue. I feel it’s completely out of point to share how much ill treatment I have been subjected to while in the “relationship” or to even to come out of it. Even after being married I didn’t have the man, never to myself. All I earned out of that relationship was abuses, violence, indifference and loads of shit. Once again, this isn’t any figure of speech. Hours of being beaten up, kicked in the gut and spat over has only made me resilient to physical violence. Four years of knowing a man were not enough to know about him or maybe I don’t know how to at all.

What do I have today?

Father, who I was a daughter to (if not of), for only twelve years before I was estranged by him.

Mother, who I lost to a helpless death; while alive, she fought against her medical condition to bring her daughter up for eighteen years.

A sibling who bled to death till I came aware of the accident and after which mother became a medical mess.

Uncle who threw me out after mother died.

Friends but one, all of others took the most convenient lost touch route.

Soon, my futile attempt of surviving by self began.

A few men tryied to declare themselves as one, and got away with violating my life.

Some people say I am lucky. Thank you.

I mean really. There isn’t a thing that I haven’t tried to push myself off the edge to keep myself stand firm on the practical grounds- yes please, do read in between. I maybe strong; and that also makes me un-apologetically ruthless. I had no time to listen to music, hang-out with friends or even blush. I would look in the eye of anyone seeking a romantic alliance and scream silently but loud enough to tear his insides- don’t you dare mess with me.

The child in me was lost and so was the girl. What remained is porcelain faced dolled up version of a pretty piece that can’t be read by anyone and everyone. Even when crying, I don’t give out the actual reason behind the act or the breakdown. That façade is always up. When pushed, I give out something that is more relevant to the one who is expressing concern; so in future sometime, that conversation might pay back.

When did I become so mechanical?

Why do I keep things to myself?

When will I get to live- if at all i.e.,?

Even through this post, I haven’t given the actual reason why I feel so low right now. If that one person is reading it, he will know.

Prayers; I need those not

The day you are ready to do what I want or do if you already are, the day you understand what I need, the day you feel you wish to know what I do (need), the day you do all that with the same “stop me if you can” attitude, I’ll let you pray for me.

The day you would want to set things right for me, the day it would matter to you if they are not so right, the day you would want to make a difference, for me, you will ensure it happens; then, I wouldn’t need anymore prayers.

The day you set them in order, I wouldn’t need prayers. The day you would want to do it and for me, I wouldn’t need prayers. The day the things work out for me, I wouldn’t need prayers.

The day you do it for me, I wouldn’t need prayers. I would then need you.

Become the reason if you really care, if you can’t and/or don’t wish to be, then don’t pray either. I’ll work it out either which way like I always do.

~*~*~

The day you are ready;
do things if you are,
the day you know
or wish to
what I need,
I’ll let you pray for me.

~*~*~

Say it with a flower

I won’t give flowers,
I’ll myself to you.
Will you care to hold me forever?

It was only after a week that I noticed another bud hidden beneath the mauve bloom. How had I not before? I had held the flower for hours making a drama of studying the broken twig before wearing it on my overcoat button-hole. Back home, I had made a huge display of displaying the solitary flower. Then few days later, I had spent hours trying not to and apparently framing the bloom.

All I had seen till then was a tiny bud trying to wisp open beside the circle of petals blooming with pride. What I had missed out upon was another bud, a bigger one fighting aside the lavender blossom trying to spring open its own round of petals.

I am in love with life,
obsessed with its cliffs,
I wish to seek Him through you.

Is that what was happening for the past few days? Do I really take time to take notice? Or realize? No wait, I am judgemental enough to dismiss a bad-tempered shark for an over-grown tuna. But this was different. The arrangement is made to sit on the dining table. That’s where I’ve been sipping my cup of ginger tea in cold mornings of December last year and January this year. Every time I sat beside the glass vase, I made the flower to look at me; it seemed they were nudging me. All I had to do was to tilt my head the other side and I would have known- what about. It took me days to do so. I misinterpreted their indication. No wonder!

I failed to take notice of something. Existence of a life, another indication of joy; a bigger budding hope!

The arrangement of corolla, sepals n petals with stigma and stamen is a sign of conceptualizing to me. Having said that, you can very well judge the intensity of the thoughts it generated to have made me write about it. Technically, this is my first post of this year. I love the color, not just ‘like’ alone. The capture has in some way framed the rest of the colors I like too. Purely un-intentionally although!

On that note, I wish you all a very Happy New Year 🙂 Happy 2013

I won’t write for you.
I’ll say my part when you do.
May you know,
I wish to live my life with you…

Sleepless beauty

That I am fixing a drink at 3.30 in the morning, could mean one of the following:

I may be stressing…
Something must be bothering me beyond my ability to handle it…
I may be anxious…
Perhaps, depression is winning…
Maybe, I am excited…

Actually, all the above.

The easiest guess is that I may be awake… obviously I am. The toughest one is to guess the reason(s) behind my being so. This is after I walked for an hour’s time on heels. I had a pleasing company at dinner. I ate what I like; if not the most. I talked almost the whole day. What I mean is, I wasn’t left alone even for a single second to let the reasons bother me to think about them. Only, they have succeeded. Why else I am awake?

I am socializing with like-minded people; but, that isn’t helping beyond a certain point. I am still in the hiding. Rarely do I go online or blog. Nothing new has happened really. Not even the realizations. That had happened half a year back. I identified the problem and have known the solution to it too. Wait; there isn’t any other option available either, other than what actually is the only solution.

After having drawn all the conclusions; well, most of those- for I am still in the introspective mood, I am suddenly gripped with this fear. Someone in me who has no stage fright, has never suffered of performance anxiety and has always been known to act on impulse is suddenly trapped. Something invisible yet highly powerful like some goddamn cosmic force is entrapping me from within. My intuitions say nothing. Infact, the poor guy is trying to push me forward with his pitchfork. Right, he and the devil has swapped to save me from being in two minds and playing accordions on double octave; yet, I am as passive as though possessed.

I have read all the signs. The phase is in its dying phase trying to cling on to me to save itself. It is a huge tug by the shriveling phase to keep thriving on me. It has foreseen its death and now making desperate attempts to shrug me out of the mode I have gotten into. The fight is exhausting. I fear if I would be left with enough verve to act upon after I have scared the phase in turn. I can see from here that it would get into another round of pulling me back once I have stepped out of it. That too is scaring me.

I have done this twice before. First time, it was a huge success. Second time it was not as much; why else I am trying to do it the third time then? That is tiring me too. Thinking about what I had done the first time that I need to repeat this time so as to leave no room for any failures. I am also peeping into where I fizzled the second time. Not that that concerns me anymore but that is to only be careful this time around. To me, it is a very big change that I am bringing upon. The world may not notice immediately; but, apparently will in sometime. The risk calculation has been done. I also know that certain unforeseen circumstances will arise during implementation and execution. Then again, it’s me who says, do it and see what comes of it and brace it with your heart in the similar way you had embraced the affair.

This one isn’t about any affair though. That would have been simpler; relatively, or not!

Inactivity has blunted my vigor. All the words about stepping out of comfort zone fall in place here; only, this is not a comfort zone anymore. It never was… or else, I would have talked about it like I usually do. For once, I am not being as clear as I always have been so far; but what to talk of it either? It’s all dirt and dirty. Betrayal, deceit, lies are just a few contemptuous virtues some people practice. It’s the experience of these that cut you to unsewable chunks. I have gathered all the pieces together. Now, I am praying that the chunks stick together while I am in the motion of conducting the changes to hit me.

I don’t have a back-up plan. There are none actually. This will have to be. Like I already said, there are no other options available other than what is required of me to be done. That indeed is what is required of me.

To act! Strike like a lightning. Drop as rains. Bloom in rhythm. Blow as wind.

Do all of that.

Time stops at The Lake House

What happens when a dainty doctor and a handsome architect falls in love so madly that time gets negated of its existence?

Dr. Kate (Sandra bullock) while moving out of the lake house dropped a note for the next tenant requesting him to forward her mails should any land up there anymore.

That was the cue.

Alex the architect was too amused when a dog had run over leaving paw prints exactly where Kate had mentioned they would be. There were none when Alex had arrived. Infact, he stood witness to the canine drawing his paw impressions as though Kate was forecasting.

That she was then.

For some weird reason, they started writing to each other. The reason was romantic pull- but of course! They wonder if they have the same dog to themselves. A few correspondences later, the answer was “yes.” Kate would go back to the mail box to take his letters out and put her replies back. Wonder, why hadn’t they mailed those instead?

The story moves on and he takes Kate around the town one day. A map was placed in the mailbox that was marked at several places. The whole day she and her dog strayed around the city looking at his favourite places. One of the walls was sprayed with a “Thank you Kate” note too! So far, so good.

A few strange things happen thereafter.

One day when Kate was standing next to the mail box, she noticed the latch of the same move. At the same time, Alex too, noticed the same. They hurriedly scribbled a few more notes, putting those back in the mailbox- only to watch the latch go up and down and new notes waiting for one another. Yet another day she makes a mention of how she missed the trees at the lake house when Alex uproots and drives one of the tree trunks to the place she “suggested” that she stayed in. Kate was running to shelter on a raining wet evening, when a full grown tree materializes out of nowhere. Kate had to be there to see that happening. One moment there was nothing. The next moment there was a tree. The same tree that Kate missed, which was a bare splinter bunch in Alex’s time that he planted outside a construction site was a full grown thickly stemmed green, outside a huge (constructed and occupied) building in Kate’s time.

They were two years apart!

While most of the motion pictures, even animation are based upon going back into time to fix it up, this one went ahead in time to make up for the life lost. What’s more, no one travels in time; but, let time move on at its own pace. At the “right” time, Kate realizes what she should do now so Alex lives, and so then, Alex lives. Such is the power of love. I won’t add the word “true” for that makes it sound really sleazy! This time, after meeting twice in the “past”, they really do meet, in real time zone- alive, in flesh n blood without having to twist the needles of a humongous or for that matter any other clock!

For one, it revolves around Valentine’s day. Watch it if you love to watch romance, more in the line of fantasy, instead of flowers and fornication…

Time indeed steps aside for the two of them to come together at last, (almost like all romantic movies), because, if stretched beyond (the last scene of) a passionate kiss, the ugliness of the reality creeps in. Only, this one makes time get caught up in its own web. How so?

Think mist, pastel, soft and loads of romance! Sigh!