Dashes of color, sunlight coming through
A hint of blush, something yellow, something blue,
Warm like touch, comfort slipping through,
The taste of tingle, like watching the sun set as time flew,
Black and white nights,
Few grey shadows, few bright lights,
The tip toe of feet, rustling winds, whispering
Follow me, as i walk blindfolded,
Hands outstretched, feeling askew,
Dew drops on grass, like ice on my back,
Silence of confusion, sensations attack,
Feel me close, feel me not, do i care?
Existence matters, hidden or bare,
Transient fluttering, hope and faith,
Something you share, something i share........

Truth and Lies

They were holding hands. She saw them, smiling into each other’s eyes. A smile that said it all.  A smile that said they have shared secrets in bed. A smile that said they have accepted each others faults. A smile that said they were in love.

She looked away, a sad smile on her face. She composed herself and turned back to look at them and found herself looking straight into his eyes………

He was stroking her back, while she kept her head on his chest.

“you know something?” she asked.

“what?” he said.

“ I love you”.

He turned and kissed her. His reply to her was lost somewhere in what followed…….

It was a perfect match.

Or so she thought……

She found herself still staring into his eyes. Losing herself in his stare like the thousand times she had done before when suddenly she was jolted back to reality when he looked away from her to smile at the girl standing next to him. She masked her letdown in her classic smile and shrugged as the couple walked towards her.

“ Hi”. He said.

“Hello”. She replied.

“ This is Payal, Payal Sonia” and so they were introduced.

This was how she was introduced to the girlfriend of her ex.

A formal handshake followed and the three of them walked out.

It was drizzling outside.

He walked ahead with her by his side and she a few steps behind.

They were still holding hands.

Suddenly he turned and said ,” Its been a really long time, its really nice to see you”.

A very long time, three years to be precise, she thought.

“Yeah, same here”, she said.

He still had that crooked smile of his, which still made her heart flutter a bit, which still made him look at her a for a few seconds longer than she should.

she paced up to walk besides them and in the nervous few steps her hand brushed against his. Another lock of eyes followed……….

………She ran into the rains and asked him to follow. He did. Reluctantly. She held his hands and swirled around giggling like a three year old. He drew her up to him and said,” sometimes you look so beautiful, I am afraid to touch you, lest I disturb what my eyes are seeing. I love you”.

 She looked down, flushed from the stare he was giving her and then looked up to meet his lips where they were waiting. In the rains………..

“ What are you currently doing?” this question from Payal jolted her back into the current drizzle. It took her few seconds to really understand what she was asking to which she answered,” I currently am working for a firm in Mumbai”.

“Oh, that’s great, we plan to settle in Mumbai after our marriage, it’s a great city”. Payal said, giving him a glowing look when the word marriage came up.

Sonia looked away, a shrug in her face. They continued walking.

Suddenly his cell phone buzzed. “ I have to take this call, be right back in few minutes”. He said and walked away.

So the two girls were alone together. Awkward now had a new meaning.

“He still sometimes talks about you”. She broke the silence.

“ I don’t know what to say to that, I am surprised he does.”

“ You two were together for a long time, it must have been hard”.

“ Seven years. Yeah it was hard. Aren’t all break ups?”

“ He loves me but I cant help thinking at one point he must have loved you too.”

“At one point yes he did. But that doesn’t matter anymore, he loves you now. Anyways love is way too overrated”

“You can pretend I never said this or brought this up but when I look at the both of you I feel there’s still something there”

She stared back at her. Still something there? What did she mean? What was left? Hatred? Regret? Hurt?.......love?

She took a deep breath. Turned towards her for the first time and said,” If you asked me whether we once loved each other I would say yes. He was my life, my strength, the reason of my happiness. But then things changed. Heaven was not as perfect as I thought it to be. He stood there looking at my life fall apart without him, he saw me cry but his hands dint wipe my tears away.”

 She then looked straight into her eyes and said,” Yes I care for him. Will always look out for him. But if you ask me whether I love him then, no, I don’t. Not anymore. The love dint go away. It died. He is all yours now.”

She smiled and walked away, leaving her standing there for him.

Wind brushed past her as she walked down the road. She stopped and looked at the glass wall of the shop she was passing. Two drops glistened on her cheeks. They felt warm, mixed with the cold raindrops.

“ I love you.”

She spoke the truth for the first time that day.

Unanswered Questions

Where am I headed?

Where am I going?

From the raging seas into the whirling rivers?

 I thought I kept a mirror with me always,

To remind myself of who I am.,

When did that become an illusion?

When did I start dreaming?

 I kept away from it,

Made a wall to make it not reach me,

I lowered my eyes from it,

I turned my back to it,

When did it come so near to touch my shadow?

When did it make my heart beat?

Days alone, faking a smile,

Nights alone, letting that one tear escape,

I thought I was strong enough,

Not to fall again,

When did I fall to look up?

When did I let it get better of me?

 I was happy, or thought so at least,

Getting through, getting along,

Thought things are in place,

Thought I was out of the race,

When did the desperation come in?

When did my eyes start searching?

 Never realized this will be so tough,

I thought I was strong enough for everything,

Pretending still to be,

In search of that solitude again,

Knowing nothing is going anywhere,

I smile without a reason,

When did I open my arms again?

When did things happen?

 unanswered questions, untold feelings,

thought i was done with it,

stopping and thinking,

afraid again of what will happen,

when did i start leaning?

when did it start glowing?

when.....................

the flight....

It was early morning. The sun rays were still trying to break through the clouds and color the world bright. The earliest birds were just waking up, opening their eyes and wings to take in the warmth of the sunrays. It was one of those beautiful days just about to start.

She was still sleeping. It was comfortable, wrapped under the warm green blanket , with the cold stagnant air touching her occasionally. Finally she opened her eyes. Screwed against the early bright light. She stepped down from where she was sleeping. Stretched her body. The sky was just turning blue.

It was the start of a new day. And with this new day, there was a feeling of everything going right. The sun felt a little less harsh, the air a little more friendly, the birds a little more chirpy, the trees a little more green. It hadn’t felt that way since a long time. She smiled. Maybe finally things were changing for good. Life had been fair to her always. Or that was what she always thought. She chose to see the colors where none but the black and the white existed. She chose to smile at silly little things. She chose to live.

But today felt different. Today she felt she wouldn’t have to choose anything. Today she felt things will just fall in all the right places. Today was not going to be like any other day.

She walked in the early morning bliss. It felt heavenly to her. The grass still had the wet dew drops on them from the night before. The fight she had been having with herself for days finally seemed would get over today. That brought a spring to her steps. She closed her eyes and felt the chill. It was nerve tingling. She had never given much thought to how life would turn out to be. She was always much of a loner. A carefree, childlike soul that dint need many reasons to be happy. Today she had that same childlike silly smile on her lips. There was a glint of hope in her eyes. Maybe today it was finally going to happen. She felt the courage and the excitement bursting through her. In the midst there was a little nervousness too. But it seemed lost. Nothing could stop her today. After all it was her perfect day. With every step she took her past flashed before her more sharply. Colorful, blinding images of her life. She looked towards the sky. That was where she belonged. The ground was a refuge. Just that. Her destination was coming closer. The air was just turning out a bit stronger. It hit her face a bit harder. But that just boosted her strength. The time was now.

Finally she had reached her destination. It was bright, sunny, warm and comfortable. There was ground way below and sky way above. The cliff was like a hanging teardrop. Beautiful, glistening and fragile. She stood there, confident and happy. the moment had come. And then she jumped.

The air hit her hard. But all she could feel was the essence of flying. She flapped her wings. One beautiful, colorful and strong, the other one broken. She felt the pain shoot through her body but she dint care, she was flying. She was a bird again. She felt more alive than she had ever done. Her wings dint cut through the air like they used to but still she was flying. With each passing second she felt the ground coming closer. But she dint feel sad her broken wing couldn’t lift her up, she was happy she could fly one last time.

When she hit the ground, her body crashed, but it dint matter. She lay there, with a broken wing and a childlike smile on her face.

It was her leap of faith.

CONFINED spaces

I know the first thing that comes into the mind after hearing confined spaces is chetan bhagat’s one night @ the call centre and the scene there after. But the confined space over here is a tad bit different. It’s the confined space of a train berth. So you see, having sex on the train berth would be highly uncomfortable and dangerous, unless you are an yoga expert or you wanna be stuck in a weird pose for the rest of your life.not to mention the high public viewership. But then innovative ideas are always welcome. After all you never know.

so coming back to the confined space of a train berth. Well I have never really hated trains, unlike most other people. Actually I kinda love it. I love the berths too. Especially the upper berths. More especially the side upper berths. Travelling in trains, they feel like heaven, more so if you have a plug point you can plug your lappy into. But then sometimes situations can be very challenging. Even for a train lover like me. First take for instance sleeping on the train berth. Few hours its okay. If you are really sleepy, more than few hours also okay. But if not then it can be very irritating. Especially when you can’t even sit straight on your berth. Sometimes I will get up at night without realizing where I am and WHAM, my head would strike the ceiling. That hurts. A lot.  And then if you have the habit of really spreading out while sleeping, then big problem. With my experience of travelling in the train (which is a lot), I have tried out all possible positions of sleeping and concluded that the best position to sleep is straight, face up or down. The fetal position works too, it’s the second best. The second problem is when you are tall. Your feet are left hanging outside so that every person going down the aisle touches your feet with his/her head. Unless you really like to give out blessings in that way, it can be very uncomfortable. But that’s all manageable problems. Certainly not enough to lessen my love for the train.

But then there are other issues too with confined spaces of the train. People. Big issue. So you slept for the better half of your journey on your blessed top berth but how long can a person sleep? So eventually you come down. Maybe just to stretch you back. You plop down, sit on the berth, pop in your earphones and start waiting for the lovely journey to end. But wait, that’s too soon. Ofcourse the aunty sitting in front has to talk to you. Even though you are listening to music so loud that, you cant even hear yourself speaking. So being the nice person that you are, you take out your earphones and answer her curious queries. Smile, answer, smile, answer, smile some more. This goes on for a while, until she realizes you are a lost cause for gossiping. She gives up. You give yourself a HIGH high five inside your head and pop in your headphones again. So its actually been over 20 hours inside the confined space and right now our love for the train is actually waning.

And then the eternal trip to the bathroom. Inevitable and unquestionable. You see bathrooms in trains are well bathrooms in trains.People here work on some unanimous thought process that unless a bathroom stinks how the hell would one know that there’s a bathroom around? So trip to the stinky bathroom. Before you go inside it, you take a deep breath, hold it, get inside, do things as if you life depends on it (i:e in 30 secs flat) and then come outside and breathe out. PHEW!!!! Mission accomplished. Back to the confined space now. For time being.

So now finally your journey is coming to an end. You are more than ready to leave the confined space (bursting to get out actually). But yet, when you walk away from the train, you kinda feel connected to it. Not deep but still a connection. Yes you dint sleep like the seal that you always do. Yes you ate some the worst cooked food inside of it. Yes your legs feel cramped. Yes you look like mess. But still you cant help but feel a bit nostalgic. There is nothing like travelling in a train in India. And if your train is running late, like mine always does, well then God help you!

use of confined spaces!!!

Conversations

Yes conversations. Rather daily affair for everyone of us. a way of life, some would say. Their sole life, there are some who would say that too. Conversations makes us what we are. Human. though most of the time most of the conversations are rather inhuman. But what-so-ever.

but why am I writing a blog about conversations? Trust me i got no idea. This was a rather spontaneous thing. Coz I am no expert when it comes to conversations. in fact I belong to one of those people who practice having a conversation with a person before actually having it and then have the awesome talent of still totally goofing it up out there (though i have  almost outgrown it, trust me, at least I like to believe I have).

So back to conversations. There are many types of conversations. The confrontational conversation. The awkward conversation( the types you have with your parents after they catch you watching porn!), the Oh-did-you-know conversation. the "hi there, how are you?" conversation. (Its more like "hey dude. wassup" now-a -days, but you get the idea!), the i-am-so-sorry-BUT conversation. the i-am-so-sorry *sob sob* conversations. the ultimate 'we need to talk' conversation. The conversation that you have just for the sake of having conversation. the we-got-a-problem conversation. The honey-I-love-you-so-much conversation. and finally the imaginary conversation. The conversation that takes place between two people but the only problem is both of them is actually you. So this is the type of conversation i am going to write about basically.

These imaginary conversations are at the least ridiculous, weird, mind boggling and well imaginary.

i end up spending most of my alone but don’t really want to be alone time having these conversations, where on one side am I and on the other some other person, impersonated by me of course. yeah I know that’s crazy. but don’t all of us have imaginary conversations where the person in front of you (being impersonated by you) says all those things that you want him/her to say. so I m having these conversations while I am walking alone, which means I attract more than just jerk looks (surprise!! Yeah even girls like me get those jerk looks). I am usually always mumbling. Answering questions I am asking to the person being impersonated by me. Laughing at jokes being made by the person impersonated by me. Giving an angry retort to one of the impersonated one's weird comment. Yeah I do that. I even act the part. I smile. I look angry. I even laugh. Yeah I am more than half the crazy people think me to be. but these conversations, ah they are good. They calm me down when I am really angry (usually at the person being impersonated by me). They help me deal with depression (conversations that you emerge out of, victorious, can be amazingly mood uplifting). I can have a nice heart to heart conversation with the person I want to and not be tensed about hurting anyone's feelings or saying something wrong. Coz I can always be assured the person being impersonated by me has not heard anything wrong when i actually did say something wrong. i can actually take back my words in this conversation. How awesome is that?

These conversations have their drawbacks too though, sadly. Sometimes they can be so engrossing and interesting that you actually forget what you are doing currently. Which is why I get up at the middle of the night (jolt upright more like it) and wonder if I have closed the balcony door or not. Which is why I cant remember if I have put salt in the dish I am cooking or not. Which is why I end up searching for the pen I was just holding for half an hour coz I cant remember where the hell did I put it. Some might say these are just early signs of Alzheimer but trust me its actually coz all the time i am having a imaginary conversation going on inside my head. I don’t try to stop having these conversations though. They are fun. At least more fun than actually having the real conversations sometimes. So, what the heck?

Ohkay I think I should give this crazy meandering post a rest right here. And guys I am sure you can make drinking game out of the number of times I have used the word "impersonated" (and its variations). Totally HIMYM way!!!! Maybe I should change that to the number of times I have used "conversations" actually!!! cheerios!!!

Rains

Green all around.And a little bit of brown here and there.And lots of water.Everywhere.Sparkling and beautiful.The pleasant earthy smell,stirring up feelings and memories.Yes the rains are here.Big time.
As far as i can remember i have always loved the rains.Even when they ruined my plans and my dresses.Even when i got drenched  in it on the wretched day i was wearing that white shirt,i have loved them.I dont remember the first time i ran into the showers but i have lost count of how many times i have done that.
Nothing could ever stop me from doing it.Not mom(though she tried real hard),not my friends(the one who ran into the nearest shelter at the slightest hint of rains) and finally not even my crisp white shirt.
The rains  inspire me and make me happy,they feel like little droplets of blessings and laughter that God is showering on us.
The rains depress me and make me cry too,they make memories too fresh and make me feel lonely.
I have innumerable memories of rain.
Be it the time when i went directly to our apartment's terrace from school and got myself soaked to bones,coz i was afraid to face Dad after my bad results.
Be it the time i tried to catch the falling rain drops on my face by leaning on my balcony railings.
Be it the time i stood inside my room with my nose glued to the window pane (like a three year old),looking at the crashing strings of rain,wishing i was outside.
Be it the time me and friends ran to the terrace and danced in the first showers at midnight.
Be it the time i stood alone in the rains,hugging myself trying not to feel the tears that ran down my cheeks with the raindrops.
Be it the time i sat inside my room,wrapped in a bed sheet with a coffee mug in hand,listening to the sounds of rain outside and wishing i had someone to cuddle up to.
Be it the time i walked alone in the rain on the street, totally careless and psycho like, while everyone else was running hither and tither for shelter.
Be it the time i lay down on the roof, with the rain hitting me on the face and dreamed about all the insensible things.
Be it the time i was enjoying the rain and a car went by and splashed me all over and i yelled,"bloody weirdo" at it and it turned out he was my chemistry teacher.

So many memories.And every year new ones keep getting added to it.And the list goes on.When people curse the rain,I smile inside and say to it,"Dont mind, they dont see how much fun you are".I keep enjoying them.It brings out the child in me.And it brings out the woman in me.Its a friend,a compatriot.The Rains...........