The Lunatic Speaks..

       Ok, to be honest my life is in pieces, and I cannot even tell which piece I should retain and which one I should do away with. Those who know me will be thinking that the lunatic is back. Oh yes, I am.You know, they say life is about troubles, how you overcome them and emerge victorious. The way you deal with troubles makes you, sometimes even breaks you.

But they never tell you what happens after you emerge victorious. Is that where the story ends.. you really don’t need to look any further? Oh hell, you do! You overcome one, and there are hundreds of them staring at you. Then tell me, why do they always pray for strength? Doesn’t it only get worse.. ? Can that kind of strength really hold you together through everything? There was a time I believed it does. But gradually I learnt that it only makes you impassive and stolid. You are left to deal with a hollow within you, and tears refuse to flow.

Now hollowness reminds me – do you know what you really want from life?? Like, really really want. At times I think I do, but later I change my mind. When I was younger I thought I want to get to the top.. and be recognized and successful. But now I don’t – I feel it takes away the life out of living. It’s a hard race.. a hollow race. Nowadays, even a certain shade of green on a leaf can make me happy. Or that wild red flower. Simple joys. Maybe that’s what I want. Freedom makes me happy. The smell of rain makes me happy. A gust of cool breeze through the open window enthuses me. I want to feel like I’m just born. Start from scratch, you know.. mend those friendships, walk that road, paint that picture, live my dreams.

What if love changes? What if, what you liked yesterday transforms into an object of disinterest. Would you let me walk back and take a different road? There’s no going back .. only forward. It’s unfair, the way life constantly turns into a subset of prior experiences, or only a logical extension of it.

Everyone talks about holding on, but why no one ever wants to give up? What if I gave up? And what about those who give up .. is it always wrong? Imagine a world where everyone fought that fight and no one ever gave up. A bloody mess. Life is also about giving up, I feel.. that one day when you finally act human and succumb. But myths and superheroes always win.

This world belongs to those who win. But what about those who fail.. their agony, despair and loneliness? I yearn to meet someone who has gracefully accepted defeat. I believe that man/woman would have a lot to teach me.

Sometimes I feel I want something to hit me and wake me up.. from this sedated life, this constant state of being. Do you believe in fear? I feel fear, as an emotion, has immense power. You know, someday I will die. My worst fear is that, at my moment of death I’ll realize I have wasted away my life, all those years of meaningless existence, abandoned dreams and a hollow heart .. and I’ll be able to do nothing about it. My life will be like a open-and-shut case. Nothing twisted or interesting. Ordinary, only ordinary. And I won’t live to tell that I too had magnificent, abandoned dreams.

So, what’s your worst fear?

An open letter to Haryana authorities.

Reblogged from Of mundane matters:

Dear Sir/Ma’am,

I write to express my heartfelt gratitude for coming up with a such an innovative and brilliant idea to curb the incidents of rape in the city of Gurgaon. I, as a citizen of India, urge you to expedite the process of implementation of this rule at the earliest. I completely understand that banning women from working after 8 pm would benefit this city immensely and would immediately render it safe for the working women.

Read more… 680 more words

Knowing ‘her’

She closed her eyes bringing a closure to her thoughts while her mind swung between visions of life and death – the agony of life, the freedom of death. She quietly put the pills aside, and continued to grapple with life, as long as I knew her, never quite living.. never quite dying.

I knew her since her childhood days. She had always been someone who preferred to talk less and think more. Her eyes were small, not too expressive, and thus a perfect camouflage for her various moods and emotions. Mostly, she loved to dwell in her own world, a guarded place that was revealed to none. However, at times, I could successfully prod her back to reality. Perhaps, I was the only one who could, or cared to. Together we shared smiles and laughter, tears and broken hearts. We were friends, the best of friends.
I truly miss her. She has become aloof, distant. We hesitantly meet at times, and avoid soul talk. There’s a huge chasm in between us, and I don’t think I can cross over to the other side. So I never tried. And she keeps moving away farther. Life changes, you see.
As I stand in front of the mirror, I can see her reflection – familiar yet distant; distant since her familiarity remains punctuated by a series of disconnected memories. I summon all my strength, this one time, and our eyes meet. We smile. No, not our innocent smiles, but a knowing one; the innocence has been replaced by a fair measure of sense and practicality. There’s no flow of exuberance, like the old childhood days. But there is now a steady calmness in her manner, which shows she has matured over time. There are fine lines on her face, and the joyful glow of youth is receding. Finally, a tinge of sadness sweeps across her face, almost waiting to brim over. But she manages to fight it back. The arrogant tilt of her head signals she is in charge of her destiny once again. She fell, but isn’t the fallen one.

And yes, I’m glad she put those pills aside that day. Life is far from over.

To Mumbai, with love.. (written while travelling by train from Mumbai to Delhi.. bidding the city Goodbye)

The trees pass you by, just like time. Time is relentless. No one stops to let you feel the moment, the sudden sense of loss; it jostles and pushes you ahead.

I’m trying to write and it is difficult. It was not just another city, another experience. It was something deeper, and yet, it was so simplified. Mumbai is more than any other city, any other experience. Maybe you will not notice its greatness in the daily struggles. You need to pause, once in a while. Look back. When you do, you’ll realise its greatness, even with all the embellishments of imperfection etched on it. Even with the terrible traffic, the dirtiest potholes, the soaring human population, the ruthlessness.. you can either love Mumbai or fail to understand it. This city is like a parent who urges his child to learn the biggest lesson of survival.

I distinctly remember the day I first visited the local train station. As I stood on the overbridge, I saw a sea of people hurrying ahead, nudging forward, while the train below was overburdened with people and still lunging ahead. I’m sure that a few moments before the train blasts happened, the scene must have been the same.This city has been ripped apart, time and again, by acts of utter heartlessness. But Mumbai is always back on its feet in almost no time. Not because people are not afraid.Not because they think it can only happen to ‘others’. It is because they are too well aware of the criss-cross of life and death each moment of their lives, and they ‘choose’ to rise above their fears.This city’s heart is brave, incomparable. Standing on the overbridge that day,I felt grateful for the life I have.Each moment that you breathe becomes precious, and that’s when you start understanding life more closely..

Mumbai does not impose any rules on you .. rules about right and wrong, rules about how you should live and how you should not, about morality.. it lets your sensibilities prevail on this. You decide what is right, or wrong, you decide what your choices are, because no one is going to question your perceptions. Only time and again it’ll hold up a mirror to you, and you will have to answer yourself. It will let you become what you choose to be, just as much as it will let you hold on to your true self if you so desire. This city does not bind you in shackles, it liberates you.. brings out the best and the worst in you,brings out your individuality, instead of moulding you into a ‘Roman’ just because you are in ‘Rome’. It is due to this that the city has a vibrance, where people bring forward their uniqueness without compromise and you begin to understand the ‘human’ that you are.. the flesh and blood, the vulnerabilities, the strengths, the fear, the entire amalgamation of raw emotions that you are made up of.

This city exudes a sense of fairness, even in your day-to-day life. Even if you work extremely hard here, you enjoy it. Such is the impassivity to pain that failures only give you a reason to hold on to your grit a little more, and then a little more. No one teaches you all this. You learn, and you don’t even realize when . You imbibe the pulse of this city into your being, little by little. Now as I leave it does not hold me back. I feel as if it is pushing me away, farther and farther,urging me to let go, before I can fully comprehend how much I stand to lose..

After all, “the show must go on”…

To Dream..

The light drizzle suddenly turned into a torrential downpour. Water mingled with the soft earth and I could feel the mud splashing onto my damp clothes. And what’s with this wild breeze? It’s desperately trying to blow me away. At times I really hate the rain, and then again at times I love it. But it affects me – one way or the other.

By now, the people around me have settled themselves considerably – inside nearby stores or a sheltered part of the pavement to protect themselves for a few minutes. People huddled together everywhere , nudging each other for a little extra space, a little extra comfort..

Oblivious to all this is a solitary man, somewhat old,  standing right under the open sky, with nothing to protect him except his own wet tattered clothing. He doesn’t seem concerned though. For a moment he looks up at the sky, and then down at himself. Then he just stands there. A few people look at him, then look away. Then they look back at him and crack a few jokes. He turns around to look at the source of those giggles and playful jeers, but remains silent. The sound of the rain drowns everything.

I must have been looking at him with intrigue for quite some time now. It was still raining hard and he continued to stand under the sky, pacing up and down a few steps every now and then. After a while he went and sat on the muddy road. More jeers. It was a little drama going on there. People probably thought he was mad. And it was then that he looked at me all of a sudden. I felt a little unsettled initially and then noticed the look in his eyes. No, it wasn’t one of anger, or defiance or even shame. It was an inexplicable moment – the look of desperation in his eyes.It seemed like he needed the rain right then, at that moment. He seemed like someone who thought the rain would wash away his past,his present, his memories, or maybe his guilt, his dreams, desires, his thoughts, everything. But no matter how hard it rained he looked worried ; as if it never washed him enough,as if his inner being still held some part of the filth that he wanted to do away with.

The rain had to stop at some point and it did. The people now rushed back to whatever they had been doing. The next thing I remember is hearing a loud wail.. a man crying (or rather almost shrieking) in the middle of the road. The same man, his eyes darting towards the sky. He howled, he screamed, he kicked , and then he fell to his knees, a shadow of defeat. There was a moment of abrupt silence, and then people got back to their senses.This man is mad, an utter waste of time. Some just moved past him, some jostled and pushed him to a corner of the street.

All except me had gone away. I couldn’t budge. Eventually he did. He simply got up and stared at me, as if he knew I was still standing there. This time his eyes were devoid of any emotion. And yet he refused to look away. He just stood there, like a man whose life was over.. like someone who has realised that the light at the end of the deep dark tunnel does not exist; he knows the light is only a myth.

Today the memory of the incident was somehow rekindled. The wild cry that had escaped his throat that day. I don’t know why he cried like that, and I never will. Was he really mad, or was it just a singular moment of utter despair? Probably despair arising out of a broken dream?

Just as well, it could be anything else.

But then, are we mad enough to risk a moment of utter despair? Are we mad enough to dream?

The Cunning Waters…

I remember the last time I went to the sea.. the captivating beauty of it all .. the approaching waves, the white foam, the playful dolphins, the rising sun.. you don’t even realize when your lips break into a smile.

Over the last 3 days, there have been TV footages on almost all news channels of the tsunami wreaking havoc in Japan. The agony of watching cities disappear under the murky sea water. When the tsunami happened in 2004, I remember hoping that it would be absolutely the last time such a thing happened.. But hopes and dreams of mere humans never come in the way of nature’s scheme of things. So,thousands of unsuspecting people are washed away,yet again, and others live through the horror of watching it unfold before their eyes, trembling in their sleep and praying for dear life.

I hope this gets over soon, really soon.I hope all those who have survived this have to suffer no more.

To me, the sea has lost its innocence, I can never really trust it again…

A Random Thought…

Over the years, living thru so many different days , I have heard so much about myself, from different people , in different situations, that I sometimes wonder which is the real me .. Sometimes there’s a constant buzz resonating in my head . It keeps checking on me , waiting to see if I have finally given up on being myself.. At times I feel I’ve become a murky concoction of the ideas of others, and I wonder if I’m lost .. far away from my beliefs..

The myriad of moments that we live thru defines us gradually and incrementally. But these versions of me are sometimes so conflicting that I feel I’ve buried myself under a million layers.

Which one is the real me? The part of me that crumbles at times , or the part that holds on, the part of me that believes easily or the part that is wary of betrayal, the part of me that worries or the part that is care-free.. the part of me that laughs and shouts amidst a group of friends or the part that silently watches even though no one notices.. the part that others hate or the part I love?

Probably I’m all this .. probably I am what feels right at that moment. But still there’s one part that I distinctly know and has remained true to me over the years.. The part that hugs her pillow like an old friend, as she reminisces a worn-out, ragged image of what she once was….

Of Troubles and Beyond

So a friend of mine asks me this profound question  – “Why (Read – Why the hell) are there so many troubles in life?”
This one is for you my friend..

Okay agreed, problems are no good.I mean, who needs them?? Unless you are so bored by the overdose of happiness in your life.. but then does that happen to anyone?
The one thing that really distressed me since childhood was my mother’s illness.. and I have hoped for something good to happen for years even as I watched her deteriorate  everyday. It didn’t happen, it wouldn’t anyway.

To be honest, I have worked this out for myself. I feel you’ve got to make the best of what you have. So there’s no point in wasting time.I treat life’s troubles as  natural phenomena, just like how the sun rises and sets everyday. It will happen, you can’t stop it.. even if you wish to.

I mean, we always speak from our perspective. Think about God.. He has a job cut out for Him that He probably hadn’t even asked for. And then if the God in question doesn’t enjoy solving people’s problems much like I don’t enjoy solving Shakuntala Devi’s puzzles, then the least we can do is sympathize He may wish to get a new hairdo, check out a different cuisine or become a style icon (having carefully analysed the immense popularity they enjoy). And to think that all we do is give Him the same kind of clothes, same hairstyle,and even make Him pose the same way year after year. So probably while he’s in the middle of scripting someone’s life, suddenly, he just gets bored with the evenness of it all. Hence he just tweaks the story and adds some spice to His otherwise mundane life.
Can we blame Him??!

You see, He’s just playing His game, you are just playing yours.
It’s nothing personal!

P.S – ok i know this post is weird 

…………

I’m hating this , all of it. A feeling of nothingness .. like a lack of something creative has rendered the brain, the body and even the spirit useless .. a cheap state of existence that has no meaning .. Has the blood turned cold ? Am i even alive? If i pinch myself i dont feel a thing .. except a form of pain that has no consequences .. It doesn’t ignite a will to retaliate , and even if i do it’s more because it’s customary to do so .. and not because of an animal urge to put things back in order…

I want to feel the thirst to be loved , and to love back, with a rawness and fervour that would awaken my senses. I want to yield to torture , I want someone to break me .. and along with it this facade of maturity , sense and perfection .. I want to be human again , imperfect again, someone who would laugh and cry , someone who is replete with emotions , fervent and spontaneous .. Sometimes I feel experience is a bad thing, it kills the spontaneity.. it teaches you to react in particular ways. The bad thing – it teaches you .. trains you , thus turning you into someone who is correct but not you .. or so i feel.

There is no happiness and there is no pain.. a dullness has seeped in , and quietened the gush of blood in my veins .. It feels like my senses have abandoned me. There has to be something that would defeat this dullness. Come, someone come and defeat me .. drive me insane in a flash … let me escape to extremities …

The Heart Is Homeward Bound …

“That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where..” – A Crazed Girl, W.B Yeats

Do you sometimes feel this irresistible urge to tear yourself away from all your ties and connections, and shut yourself up .. in vacuum.. ? I do (and I hope it doesn’t sound like madness, though if it does , so be it). Where there are no other voices , except your own ; where you are the solitary creature who speaks and listens at the same time. You can no longer suppress the noises in your soul , they become so audible suddenly.

It was a crazy day for me. Nothing happened. Except that I just felt crazy , for no practical reasons. I was just looking for something I guess.. frantically , and I didn’t know what it was, or where. The whole day was an ordeal to say the least. Initially i felt uncontrollably wild , feeling infuriated at the slightest provocation , probably even no provocation at all. Then I just became quiet . And the fact remains that nothing had happened.

So I came back home.. No, I think I staggered back home . Next I locked myself up in vacuum. Complete silence. For a few moments I searched for that answer , in the innermost recesses of my being..trying to figure out the unfathomable cravings of my heart – and then,I suddenly knew it.

You know how a child cries and throws tantrums for his/her favourite toy in the store? He MUST have it , and no reasoning or justification would suffice. As for me, though I’m ashamed to admit it, it is the unquenching thirst for love. Maybe the warmth of home is what the heart pines for, and is being refused , time and again. And that makes it go wild. This time too , no reasoning or justification will suffice.

In a way maybe I knew the answer all along , but suppressed it till the noise within me grew louder. Now that I know it , and admit it , the noise will choke me till I respond.