Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Keep Walking

Keep walking, keep doing your share of good along the way
Love everything that strikes a chord, love it like it's your last chance
Find peace in what fills the soul, find it more
Feel it if it feels; do not be ashamed
Lend voice to what the heart says, lend sincerity to that voice
Be humbled for unconditional love, be respectful to the one who loves
Keep walking to love, to find, to feel, to lend, to be
Keep walking, for life is too short to halt and wait for others to catch up.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

#Silence

They awed her beauty, charmed her by raining praises and poems,
Poor souls...if only they knew that the only thing that worked on her was --

The glide of his gaze and that smitten half smile in silence.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

#Lie

‘Amma your daughter is a well-paid model, so just stop fussing over the five star prices and order!’ she told her mother charmingly.

Overhearing her two tables away, his lips curved in a sly smile.
She did charge well for spending nights with men like him.

Glossy lies often paint the murky realities quite effortlessly.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

#Fantasy

Wrapped warmly in his arms,
drifting into sleep against the lullaby of his thumping heart.

Her ultimate fantasy of embracing death.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

#Betrayal

Eyes shared sleeplessness, lips uttered promises
Fingers tuned caresses, heartbeats rhymed choruses

Things would have been different, if only the body never betrayed!

Saturday, November 1, 2014

#Circle


1 Nov, 1994: She entered the world amidst tantrums, disgust, hatred and mother’s tears.
1 Nov, 2014: She departed the world amidst tantrums, disgust, hatred and mother’s tears.

Life had completed a full circle for her.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

#Night

Cloaked in a black robe, the mysterious guard stood still to keep off the world while they explored each other with flaming passions in the darkest corner.

Forbidden love blossomed at night as terrace and stories entwined in each other’s arms.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Understanding the 'Small' & 'Big' of Rape Cases

"One small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world over is enough to cost us billions of dollars in terms of global tourism." – Mr. Arun Jaitley (Finance & Defence Minister)

I completely empathize with one of our senior most ministers - Mr. Arun Jaitley’s, apparently ‘misconstrued’, remark of referring Nirbhaya’s rape case as a ‘small incident’ which most definitely, had cost our government billions of dollars in terms of global tourism.
I absolutely understand that by the virtue of his gender (which understandably, makes him rather inept at relating to his opposite sex’s issues), he did not really realize how much scope he left for people to ‘misconstrue’ his remark of addressing a brutal rape case as a ‘small incident’.
So much was I intrigued by his skewed yardstick of sexual harassment, that I felt compelled to explain the difference by sharing a personal experience that I generally avoid recounting.
This effort is in the combined interest of ignorant people like Mr. Jaitley who essentially require enlightenment on the ‘small’ and ‘big’, ‘significant’ and ‘insignificant’ types of sexual harassment against women.

This was a few years ago when I was a student who had to commute to and fro from Ghaziabad to New Delhi for studies. It was the peak of summers and as usual, on a scorching hot afternoon, I boarded the regular blue line bus (route number 543) from South Ex. to Anand Vihar (Delhi-U.P. Border). Since it was during the afternoon rush hours, the bus was jam-packed with school and college students, teachers and other passengers. Anyhow after 10 minutes or so I managed to get a seat in the row that happened to be towards the middle passage in the bus. I settled in the seat and started reading a novel that I was carrying. Being towards the passage side, I, like every other person in that particular row, had to adjust with the pressing bodies of the people standing in the middle of the bus. Now being on the ‘ladies only’ side, I wasn’t too hassled by the uncomfortable pressure from the fellow passengers as most of them happened to be females only. So I was engrossed in my novel, absolutely indifferent to the world around. I was wearing a sleeveless kurti that day and as I kept myself busy reading, I felt a slight sensation of something faintly cool rubbing against my bare arm a couple of times. However, too taken up by the novel, I didn’t really bother to check what it really was. More so, because I had already assumed it to be a water bottle in one of the ladies’ bags who were standing pressed against me and my seat.

It was only when the smoothly paced bus suddenly stopped with a thud at a red light that I looked up from my book. Looking out of the window, waiting for the bus to move, I felt that cool sensation again on my arm. This time I turned around to see what exactly it was. For a second it didn’t register but when it did, it freaked the hell out of me. It was a bare p***s set against my arm’s skin. I looked up in horror and saw a middle aged man smiling down lecherously at me with his p***s still pressed against my arm.

I don’t know what happened in that moment. I was horrified to the core, but I didn’t scream or yell for others to get hold of that man, I just froze. Froze and instantly dropped head long onto my lap. No movement, no words, nothing. Like a lifeless rag doll, the upper half of my body dropped onto my lap, motionless.

The lady sitting next to me perhaps sensed something as she saw that man rushing out of the bus. Don’t know what but, she spoke very loudly to the fellow passengers after that. She rubbed my back for 15-20 minutes and later gave me water to drink. I got back to my senses only so much to identify the stop where I had to get down. In a daze I took another bus from Anand Vihar to Ghaziabad. Numb all the while and scared to death to be stalked by that man, I somehow managed to reach my home.

It was only when I reached the confines of my home that I felt the sense of life in me again. Without a word, I straight away rushed to the bathroom. There was half a bucket water in there that I started pouring onto my arm frantically while also starting the shower and the tap. I rubbed my arm rigorously with soap to somehow get rid of that disgusting sensation which just didn’t seem to fade. It felt sick and dirty to have stuck to a pervert’s skin, to have momentarily become a means of pleasure for a mentally twisted person. I kept rubbing my arm, washing and when the soap didn’t seem enough, I rubbed it with a hard bristled washing brush…and kept rubbing it till my arm started bleeding. It was only after my arm bled that I felt a little less sick.

So here is the thing:
What happened with me was a 'small' incident. I wasn’t raped. I wasn't murdered.

A pervert had only ‘touched’ my skin, which, as compared to rape, is not a big deal. Though despite being a ‘small’ incident, it has gotten stamped in my head permanently. Today, it is because of that ‘small’ incident that I don’t feel confident enough to move around in crowded places. I doubt strangers and have become unreasonably wary of men in general. It’s just that much that a ‘small’ incident of sexual harassment can affect a female...
...and so what happened with Nirbhaya on the night of 16th December, 2012 was certainly not ‘a small incident’, it was not, for obvious reasons.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

For Fair Play

Sometimes you owe it to yourself – the fairness of allowing justice to your very own self. Distancing from the things held closest to your heart and looking at them and their repercussions on you from a third perspective. Being neutral, detached, impartial with your individual self and taking a righteous stand against the dearest of your belongings.

Its weird though...vicious so to say. Marking a decision for oneself that hits the hardest in the wake of rendering justice to nobody else but - yourself. A funny game where you find yourself swinging incessantly between pride and pity. Pride of being fair, firm and strong enough to let go of the most precious of your possessions and then at the same time pitying to see just how difficult, painful and heart breaking it is to simply let go. You witness your strength and you witness your weakness, you witness your love and you witness your hatred, all together at one go. Spinning like a coin when both its sides blur to form a seamless circle that provides it strength for an independent movement.

It takes immense, I-M-M-E-N-S-E courage to let go of things that are skin deep, that are soaked in your spirit. Guess that is the reason why events like such are eventually filed under the 'experience' section of life; maturing you into a stronger person, leaving a dash of wisdom, polishing a darn bit of your uncouth soul.

But it hurts. Tugging away the dearest of your possessions from yourself pains.  

And since the thing about pain is that it demands to be felt, one needs to bear it. Bear it till it subsides. Bear it till it exhausts testing you. Bear it till you've proven your point of being hell lot superior than it. Bear it.

And then once you've proved your superiority, get up, pull up your socks, kiss yourself and take life by its horns. For you've grown up a bit now; have emerged one bit stronger, one bit smarter and one bit wiser a person.
Celebrate it!

Sunday, July 13, 2014

The Parallel Track

She turned around to see if it was what she thought it was...but no, he wasn’t there, nobody was. She returned to folding the clothes neatly and piling them up in a stack on the bed again.Smiling to herself again, yet again…this was one of the umpteenth number of times that she found herself smiling at his thought.

It had become a routine. She looked for solitude to let her mind drift to her golden reveries. His was a thought that consumed all her conscience and sub-conscience.It was a perfect world with him, her and their love; his love included. The perfection of that world surpassed the reality of the real world. She was loved passionately, acknowledged and celebrated for sharing their togetherness; his share of togetherness included. She was accepted unconditionally with all her imperfections, showered with unrestricted affection, secured with unwavering attention; his affection and his attention.

She looked at the clock. 6:15 pm. About time, she thought. After putting the stack of folded clothes in the cupboard, she went for a shower. Sprayed the cypress body mist (his favorite) on her bare body post shower and then slipped into a white cotton tunic and a pair of ice blue slacks. She could sense the smell of woods and wild flowers from her body. Hair still damp with water made her curls go all the more curly. She walked upto the dressing table and picked up the moisturizer. Rubbing it over her face and arms she smiled again. As always, it felt good to make that extra effort for making him smile and lifting up his spirits after a hard day’s work. Moistening her lips with a fruit scented lip balm, she looked herself in the mirror. Perfect, she thought. Just the way he likes to see her.

6:30 pm. The doorbell rang. With one final glance in the mirror, she went to open the door smiling. Her husband stood there busy looking at his cell phone in his hand. She looked at him and chirped ‘hi!’ ..’hey’ he said, looking at her half smiling and back to his phone while moving inside the home. She closed the door behind him and went upto the kitchen to get his glass of juice and her cup of tea. Placing the glass on the living room’s center table, she switched on the television and tuned it to the particular sports channel that was to telecast the soccer finale today. She knew her husband awaited it eagerly.

She picked up her cup of tea and walked out of the living room to sit on the low cane chair in the balcony. Looking at the red-orange sky slowly changing to an ink blue shade, she smiled again at his words -- ‘Had no idea I’ll be received by a dove today, you look gorgeous in that new white tunic!’

And with the warmth of his kiss still lingering around her mouth, she sipped on the tea...smiling.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

In Between the 'Perfects' & 'Seemingly-Perfects'

Sam: Why do I and everyone I love, pick people who treat us like we’re nothing?
Charlie: We accept the love we think we deserve.
--- The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Weird however it may be but, its an unarguable fact that we accept the love we think we deserve and quite ironically, that love most often is the kind of love that’s just not meant for us. We are a part of this mad, mad world where everyone is running after things, people, emotions that are least fitting for them. Wasting ourselves to get hold of our objects of desire, trying every tactic possible to make it work the way we want it to, going reasonably unreasonable with our lives for that one damn thing that we think ‘should’ be ours...but what do all those efforts boil down to? --- Disappointment.
Plain disappointment, simply because what is not meant for us would never be ours...no matter how hard we try.

It is indeed strange how we all are submitted to human psyche’s one black rule --- 'Perfect' things shall be taken for granted while the 'Seemingly-Perfect' things shall be adored and craved for beyond capacity.
We are somehow booted not to value the most fitting things for they find a way to us and hence, they automatically lose worth. The desirability quotient ironically stands inversely proportionate to the kind of treatment we are granted. We crave for the person’s attention who never pays attention to us, a relationship becomes an obsession where we are treated like just-another-partner, we fall in love with people who aren’t or wouldn’t fall in love with us…so on and so forth the round world keeps running round.

Lives could have been so much more simple if we were able to see through, identify and accept things that were meant only for us; that fitted best to us.  Could have spared so many broken hearts, crying eyes, disappointments, disgust, hatred, irritation, inferiority...if only, we never picked people who treated us like we were nothing!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

The Language of Silence

Somebody said it well - 'Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is - nothing at all.'

Don’t know why but, I find silence extremely liberating. Being a person who most often finds words falling short to replicate the expressions, silence for me is the most powerful and compatible language. No, am not an introvert nor a loner, but somehow things that I can’t say in a combination of thousand words, I can convey it seamlessly through silence, that too in the most unadulterated form. It is legible – Silence, it is expressive and it is beautiful, if only you understand it.

There is something loud and clear about unspoken words, they spell thoughts and emotions in the most genuine form for, one never goes silent on things one isn’t passionate about. Sitting against a window watching the raindrops, walking down the pavements alone, sinking in the wishful reveries – silence is all consuming. And soothing. And addictive. 

It caresses the soul like nothing else; a drug to which the more you get access to, the more you ask for it. A cocooned sphere where you are not answerable to anyone nor anyone else is put to answering you. A space where you can be yourself and let others be the way they are, where relationships are not robbed off their dignity and warmth, where there are no blame games and expectations...its just a golden space, a vacuumed golden space where you are devoid of all the worldly vices and virtues and find yourself floating in the abyss of a perfect wonderland of your thoughts.

...yes, I have and I do wander to that golden field beyond the right-doings and wrong-doings many a times...the place where words are shunned while silence speaks for itself...I relate to it, to that golden field; guess its the place I belong to...

Saturday, January 11, 2014

One Saturday Story

She had always been excited about her birthdays, ever since her childhood. This year she was a little more excited… it was going to be special for her coz her birthday was falling on a Saturday!

A SATURDAY……of late, the cold wintry Saturday nights had turned into warm cozy conversations for her. She sleepwalked the entire week to stay up all through the Saturday nights for those sweet nothings that made her smile the following days. For her, to have her birthday on a Saturday this year was a small little trick of destiny for fostering the bond that grew, a bit more strong.

She daydreamed about the events of her special day as she entered her birthday month. With each passing day her anxiety and excitement increased…for anxiety made her stand in front of the mirror and practice the standard replies to the standard questions. Recording and analyzing her voice speaking vague monologues were another attempt at correcting the voice pitch. Spoken conversations had never been her forte and so, she practiced, practiced, practiced and practiced hard; she didn’t want to mess it up at any cost...not this time. As for the excitement, she couldn’t wait for her birthday to witness what the day held for her; how she would be pampered – It was to be a Saturday afterall.

Her birthday – 12:00 a.m. – Cell started beeping in as her friends and family members poured texts and calls to wish her. She thanked everyone, laughed, chirped, enjoyed the attention with only one thing at the back of her mind – It’s a Saturday today.

9:00 a.m. – Her spirits were high. She roamed in the house like a five year old kid – singing, jumping, fooling around; excited and hopeful about the day ahead. She was ardently waiting for ‘the conversation’ to happen coz it was her birthday and, it was a Saturday.

4:00 p.m. – She shuffled her closet to find the most complementing accessories for the clothes that she planned to wear for celebrations with her friends. She then blow-dried her hair until she got them styled exactly as she wanted. The amount of moisturizer was a bit more generous today coz she had to look her best not because it was her birthday, but because it was a Saturday.

6:00 p.m. – Amidst all the hullabaloo of celebrations with her friends, she had a clear sense of just one simple fact; the day that it was – Saturday.

9:00 p.m. – Her anxiety was at its peak. This – was the time ‘the conversation’ needed to happen for, the hours of her special day were slipping away. She was sad for not being paid any attention since morning and so didn’t need any other reason to complain or spoil the highly anticipated conversation. Her anxiety, nervousness and irritation didn’t allow her to part from her phone simply because it was a Goddamn Saturday!

12:00 a.m. – Lying in her bed, she couldn’t believe her cell screen showing a different date and a different day. Her ‘birthday’ which was on a ‘Saturday’ was over…and…there was no conversation.
With a sudden sense of betrayal, she found the flashes of her speech practicing, dressing up, getting herself clicked and more, mocking at her. Feeling utterly foolish and unable to hold back, all her efforts, reveries, hopes came out flooding through her eyes. Heartbroken, at last she kept her phone away and pulled on the quilt to cover herself up; a meek attempt at mentally saving herself of the embarrassment. Her body curled instinctively beneath it as she felt exceptionally cold…and then an afterthought –

Maybe her birthday was not meant to be on a Saturday, maybe it pained more coz it was on a Saturday.
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