An incoherent post about grief

It is a lonely autumn afternoon that I’m spending in my room in London. This means it is typically cloudy outside with hardly any ray of sunshine at the moment. I was in a different place three days ago. I was in Delhi – with its people, chaos, noise, and sunshine. Lots of sunshine.

I recently lost my grandmother. Just wondering, can I call it a loss if the other person is in a better and happier place now? She was suffering since a long time. Physical ailment in old age often breaks human spirit, and I cannot say for sure if it hadn’t broken hers. But she had faith. And it is through her that I touched the tip of this iceberg termed Faith. Her faith wasn’t particularly specific to Nature or God or people- it was just in her own ‘self’ and the continuity of ‘life’ as a concept. She spent a lot of time thinking. Thinking what – I do not know.

My Nani had lost her son several years ago. I can’t say I understood her grief. I have never had a child, I do not know what it is like to lose a child who you’ve nurtured him from a tender acorn to a sturdy oak. Love is felt intensely, I believe. But what does grief feel like? It is like a prolonged state of nausea for the one who is grieving. The more you think about it as a permanent loss, the more you will feel miserable. Further, grief and remembrance may or may not overlap. For people like me, it was hard to distinguish. The closer you are to a person, the harder it is to distinguish between the two, I guess.

Chants and prayers soothed her but did not particularly elevate her spirit. Our culture does not teach a child the importance for living for himself/ herself. Living as such is implies a heightened sense of individuality and borderline selfishness. Simultaneously, the society also condemns taking your own life. We must teach our children the importance of being social – for man is a social animal. But it must also guide them to carry on when the people who you love are not around anymore. They grow up to be you and me.

Life in itself is meaningless. It’s us who assign meaning to it. For instance, a man I knew once threw a part of his dead son’s ashes in a garden, and then when there were flowers and foliage growing on the spot, he found comfort in the belief that it was his son living in another form. He believed that life is life, no matter what form it continues to live on in. What is this if not faith? Faith can be a strong purpose to live. Using it might lead us to give meaning to our lives.

If you are a Giver in love, you’ll find it easier to find love around you. Grief can only be overcome by giving love. Find someone who needs your care. Think of them as someone who deserves your love. Love shouldn’t have to cost too much. Who knows in what form we might find our loved ones who we’ve lost? Grief can never be a purpose of life. It will only distract us diametrically from finding the real purpose, the real meaning of our life. And that purpose need not be singular. We can have a different goal each day, as long as it takes you forward in life :) 

Unpacking Life Stories: Late night musing

The few hours after midnight and before dawn are either filled with complete mental peace or of total sentimental breakdown. There is no in-between. The emotional bravado of the day starts to peel off and a more real self is revealed. For these few hours you either fall in love with yourself or discover profound self-loathing. But despite its dangerous nature, late night remains my favourite time in a 24-hour long day. You can get high even without the wonderful smoky Talisker whiskey that I’m fantasising about right now. Sigh.

12 am to 6 am is when I’m on my Cinderella time. Everything looks the way I want it to. I become a storyteller, imagining myself as a princess from a classic narrative of either a conjugal romance or lamenting a personal loss. I try not to lie to myself between 12 to 6. I don’t tell myself that I’m in a perfect relationship, I don’t hide the fact that my past is still stuck to me like hot wax gone cold on my skin. It is during this time that I openly admit to myself about the times when I hurt people. People who deeply cared about me. And sometimes they hurt me. I get infuriated at myself, and then eventually I forgive because I know the next morning is going to be a struggle. And I better be on my side, you know.

They say that all the stories ever told in the world originate from only seven universal plots. Seven classic narrative plots. On some nights I wonder which one is mine. Or maybe, just like Christopher Booker, we will take another 34 years to come up with ‘basic plots’ for the story of lives in our generation. Initially I remember sniggering when I found out that he managed to put every story ever told in such simple plot-frames. How Chris, just how? But Wise Man Chris is wiser than I gave him credit for. Maybe if we try to break all the complexes in our lives and categorise them into separate plots, the umbrella narrative would become easier to understand. That might help us unpack our emotional mess and deal with in a story-format with characters and causal-links. It might not look like it at first, but I think this will reduce the amount of unnecessary directionless thinking that we often resort to.

So yes, 12 to 6 will now be used more wisely and fruitfully. For truly forgiving and forgetting. And for having whiskey, of course.

Life is short. Nah, scratch that.

One of the overwhelming moments of joy in my life has been when I’ve wanted for somebody to magically appear and that person telepathically has obliged my wishful thinking. I was almost moved to tears one time- in a good way, of course! People you love have this ability to sense your feelings and someone or the other of the lot just shows up with a smile on his/ her face,leaving you amazed and often grateful.

My favourite people have found me when I was in pain. They have found me feeling lost in a crowd which was celebrating my own achievements. They have loved me, fought with me, annoyed me, made me want to tear my hair apart, but they have never left me alone. Shunning the scientific purpose of our ‘stint of life’ on this planet, I feel a sense of responsibility towards humanity in general. What if we got the purpose of our lives totally wrong? What if we were sent to Earth to make people happy, and not disappoint them? No, I retract from that statement. This does not sound convincing. Especially not in the world we are currently living in.

Love is sacred. Something we are blessed with. Something that finds a place inside most of us and stays. Sentiments and emotions are tremendously precious to me. I don’t know any other way to be. If I find a place in someone’s heart, I feel accomplished. I wear it like a badge of honour. I am not indifferent to people’s opinion of me. I am not bogged down by how they feel about me but it does matter a great deal. I believe in ‘Right and Wrong’. I believe in what is ‘Right or Wrong for Me’. And then, there is a Right and a Wrong for Me at ‘that particular instant of time’. All three sometimes have completely different answers. I have fallen in love with places, non-living tangible memories and some incalculably crazy people. But there are zero regrets. Because I cannot imagine unconditional love with regrets burdening me down.

Life is short. Nah, scratch that.

Life is too short. Love like there’s no tomorrow.

Guess who.

I think I am dying. In fact, I know I’m dying. I have never been anybody’s destination, only the most essential accessory of their journey. My appropriation has only been done by poets across the planet. Those, for who I am of high value, have made me a part of their religion. I have existed alongside jealousy, anger and sorrow. You will find me at the cusp of love and fear.

-  Hope

The hopelessness of logical dreams

I don’t fly up high in my dreams anymore. I don’t get to have coffee with Bollywood stars; no playing with snakes. Not even making love to others’ boyfriends! Since a few nights my dreams have started becoming logical. They have started making sense, linking one scenario to another, sliding smoothly from one frame to another. This is just sad. My visions include convincing my parents for something that I stand for, receiving appreciation for some crap that wasn't even worth it, handling rejection for the work I actually gave my best to and getting my feeling crushed by someone I feel deeply for. What is this? Why am I seeing reality in my dreams? Why is life stalking me when I close my eyes, ready to be transported to another world of colours, beauty, humour and horror?

This is downright unfair. I have started to dream increasingly infrequently of people I have lost in real life. How do I make life understand that I can’t lose the sight of these people in my thoughts? Why is it depriving me of their dark yet comforting company? My mind at night becomes the site for perfectly written scripts from end to end, like that film-maker who is afraid to risk his narrative with open endings. I have to say it- the imaginations of my mind have become utterly boring. I used to be a bold heroic character in the romantic imaginings of the night- confessing my love in the most poetic manner, daringly staring into his eyes while he blushes and then laughs at my audacity. And now,I feel a tangible desperation to say it but simultaneously nudged by a sensible silence to stop. Damn! I hate this! I miss the magical times. I do not wish to dream anymore and real life has too many self-proclaimed ‘rationals’. I feel hopeless. Wish my visions would return. 

Does it matter?

Being human was never as complicated. In a world with fluctuating moralities, humanity has worn a thousand gowns. But I don't wonder about that any more. I wonder about 'being' more than human. What are we? Who are we? The first question is probably easy to answer, courtesy evolutionary science. The second is what captures my imagination. Are we just a body with our brain as our God and brain as our Devil? Who owns our soul? Who defines us? How do we interpret our own selves? Are we how the society views us? Or how we view ourselves? And even in the society, how different people classify us, based on their own experiences and their interpretations by the others. These questions form a mesh in my mind- overlapping, knotting and tearing each other apart.  And then I realise- I am only a human, with a mind that is still awaiting the ultimate truth. So I move on to the only important question in life that, according to me, we ever need to think about- 'Does it matter'?

An Untitled Blogpost

Sweetness is alluring. Like the innocence of a rabbit leading you to a dark forest. That pitch dark space where everything leaves you, even your shadow. Happiness isn’t exciting unless it is holding a dagger behind your back and you know about it. Love doesn’t feel passionate unless it is on a deadline. Sorrow is not responsible for any of it. It is the joy that creates all the fear, the inhibitions and its conventions. You don’t feel happy in life unless it wrongs you in some way, you keep feeling there is something wrong. And ultimately when something bad does happen, you love to be the one saying, “I knew it! I knew life would screw me over” and then take pride in the fact that you predicted something negative (which was bound to happen at some damn point later). Why?

The answer lies sometimes in our own insecurities, and other times in the intense philosophies which poets around the world offer time and again as a part of a race to establish themselves as the greatest lovers. They keep giving us yardsticks we cannot match up to. I blame them for making tragedy an integral part of romance; not only that but a necessary and unfortunately, a sufficient condition for some. Now we feel incomplete even when aren’t particularly aware of what is missing, thanks to the instilled poetic insecurities. I blame our own minds too, to always want to see what we cannot see, to feel what only are words out of someone’s cruel mind. We all search only and only for pain, under the garb of seeking happiness. We search solely for chaos while claiming to seek solace. We want only the things we have lost- not the ones we have and certainly not the ones we might be blessed with in the future. Hypocrisy is more a part of us than we would like to admit.

The Beguiling Love That Never Was (Part-I)

The whistle-blower of love is silent tonight. He had quite a lot of his favourite scotch. His arguments from the evening sounded hollow to his own self now. He never discarded the cynics; instead, he was the one to welcome their views with such acceptance that they were impressed with his sense of communicative justice. Freedom of expression, he said, is what makes you know more about people and that’s the way there would be less hatred and more love. He never needed to word it all out- his calm persona did that for him. It was a stifling formality of attending a party that night; he had to concede to the repeated requests of a dear friend. He thought he’d wear his blue shirt which was gifted to him by a woman who he had helped long ago. His friends thought she liked him, but he would never know and she would never show. Or maybe she did. Heck, he just decided to wear the white casual shirt and headed out for what was going to be quite an eventful evening. Life-altering would be a more appropriate term, perhaps.

Like a camel’s hump, he had his own depository of the things that were vital for him- his memories. A laborious walk down the memory lane was the last thing on his mind when she walked in. This woman resembled someone he knew, but he couldn't remember who. He looked at her with suspicion, narrowing his brows, stiffening his lips, trying to place her, but failed. He was not in a mood to think much about it and dismissed it as just another déjà vu moment. The party was taking the form of a classroom, where groups had formed and topics of discussions were fixed. None of the intense discussions seemed inviting to him. Cars, gadgets, gossip, food, pay packages, wannabe junkie narrations and horror stories! The party indeed was a compressed world in itself. He decided to retire early for the night and moved from his chair to look for his friend. The host friend was busy talking to the same woman he had seen earlier. Fifteen minutes later, he learnt that she was a banker, hailed from Bengal, living with two flatmates in the city and that her pet dog was suffering from an upset stomach. As she was talking about her life, he was wondering how to process those bits of unnecessary information. She seemed quite pleased to find company in a noisy surrounding though; perhaps she was as lost. There was nothing particularly striking about her, she was quite ordinary, he thought. Ordinary, but sweet. And kind too, he made a mental note, while she helped a young drunk lady get up on her feet, took her to the ladies’ room and helped her clean up.

He could feel his head becoming lighter now. He offered to go along with her when she declared that she was going to drop the young lady home. He had no idea why he said that and was even more surprised when she gladly agreed to his proposition. It would be nice to have some company on my way back, she said. It was quite a fearless and kind offer that she had made to the host, considering nobody wanted to take the pain of taking care of an ‘irresponsible young woman’ who ‘should have known better’. He seemed more interested in her words now, solely because he thought she deserved a good conversation, at the least. Talking to strangers about conjugal relationships has been a favourite past-time for all of us at some point or the other. He was no different but she brought it up first. No, my wife is not waiting for me at home, nor is my girlfriend, so we could go back to the party if you want, he uttered in response to her first question. Did he really say that? Was he really considering going back to the party he wanted to run away from? But the words were out of his mouth before he could think them over, damn the scotch!

Sense...and a little madness.

‘Nothing worse than living in

A loveless place’; the words of you,

How they laugh at me now.

Countless conversations,

With no promises made;

How conveniently beautiful,

The words of you.

I’d rather be a wild fowl

Than a sparrow of gold;

Ah, the words of you;

How they’ve spoilt me rotten.

Such pride ignited by love,

So much vanity in vain,

Good lord, these words from you,

Of my beauty and your pain.

‘Almost possessive about you,

Like the lyrics of my favourite song.

Tenderness needs protection’, dazzling lies;

The words of you.

Now I’m sitting in a corner, by that

Lakeside nobody’s ever trodden,

Lamenting a future loss, hearing the

Last few words from you.

बैक टू स्क्वेर वन.

"दिमाग़ी पागलपन एक बीमारी है". प्रतिदिन हम सैकड़ों सवाल पूछते हैं. हर परम्परा, चलन, रूढ़ीगत मान्यता की खोज-बीन करके उसे आधुनिकता के मापदंडों पर परखते हैं. फिर पागलपन के साथ इस तरह का भेद भाव? मानवीय संवेदनायें बदल रही हैं. हम सब तनाव-ग्रस्त हैं. अकेलेपन में न जाने क्या ढूँढ रहे हैं. बड़ी अपेक्षायें हैं इस एकांत से. आशा है ये हमें अपने आप से मिलवाएगा. पर उनका क्या जिन्हें ऐसी स्थिति सिर्फ़ अंधकार की ओर धकेलती है? ये एकांत जब खाने को दौड़ने लगे, तो कौन जवाबदेह होना चाहिए? इतनी गहराई में जाने से तो अच्छा है कि आँखें मूंदकर मान लिया जाए- "दिमाग़ी पागलपन एक बीमारी है".

Midnight Musings.

1.

How do you do that?

Having just the right amount

Of emotions, no more no less?

And I'm just here collecting

My thoughts, saving them

Before they spill out.

2. 

Your love is like grammar-

It just HAS to be a certain way.

Or maybe we just speak 

Different languages now. 

3. 

You say you're a non-conformist,

I believe you.

But those meaningless words?

Day after day?

Hour after hour?

I believed them too.

4. 

It scares me that I still see you,

Beyond the infinite gap between us.

Sadly, your memories aren't 

As evasive as you.

Solitude and I.

Enjoying solitude is one of the luxuries one enjoys. I wonder if the previous generation could afford this. It has almost become fashionable to glorify not wanting anyone in our life who loves us. People are quite boastful about the fact that they are pretty indifferent to the ones who love them- even if they are family. There is a certain pride they hold in being alone- with no one to care about. I wonder why that is. What sort of a fad is this? Maybe this is some new-age defence mechanism or a fashionable trait which seems so irresistible to fall for.

This hypocrisy has its origins in cynicism, which in turn has its roots in idealism. Why does others' solitude seem so attractive? Is it because you feel your attraction might change it? Is it because we derive a kick out of the fact that someone is sharing thoughts about his/ her solitude with us? What is so attractive about a person who just wants to be left alone? More over, are they this way out of choice or out of sheer tiredness of having to try once again? 

Just like we expect too much out of a relationship, there can be inadvertently high suppositions about solitude too. Solitude disappoints us more often than we'd like to admit but letting anyone in on this secret will mean that you aren't happy with your current state and nobody wants to confess that, do they? It is not that people who enjoy being alone are lying. I, in no way, am against their choices, but it is tempting to point out that even when they do get tired of their desolation, they hesitate to acknowledge it. That is what I have an issue with. 

Your solitude is your own wilderness, your own world where you and you alone define the rules but all I suggest is- should you ever feel that ought to be changed, should you want a loved one to enter into that world of yours, don't hesitate to speak your mind. Love makes life worthwhile, desolation is just a selfish temptress, an experience to be remembered but not to live your life for! 

The Milkweed Seed

There is only so much cold wind one can endure. As I stood up from my table to close the windows across the other side of it, a milkweed seed with lovely little 'feathers' made its way hurriedly into my room. If it were a person, I am quite sure it would have been panting- huffing and puffing. 

But it floated gracefully, inspected for a nice spot on my table and lovingly descended on to it. As it decided to rest there for a while, I closed my windows; "how far it must have traveled, let it be here for a while". After staring at the lovely white carrier of the tiny seed, I could not hold myself any longer and touched it gently. I feared the white carrier might break- although the carrier had to be shed by the seed but I did not want to be the one to do it, because then it would stay with me forever; and where would I keep it? Would I be able to give it everything it would need? Probably not. But the urge to touch the beauty of the untouched milkweed miracle overtook every other feeling that I had. I slowly hurled up a the small wisp of its white hair and mobilised it, out to the window. I opened the window and pushed some air in the direction of the wind. Before I could heave that sigh of relief, it came back, floating and dancing. Its elegance and loyalty touched me. 

I tried sending it back again, to where it could belong, to a better place to shed its white carrier and settle down. It was back again and this time it did not stop at the table. This time it its flight was decisive and rapid. It landed straight onto my lap and settled in the fold of my skirt. I knew for sure this time that it wanted to be there. So I stood up again, closed the windows, gazed at the little beauty and removed its white hair-like carriage. The seed almost smiled at me as I did that. The detached tufts flew away, bidding goodbye and a beautiful future to their little friend.

कुछ वक़्त मिलेगा?

आदत थी मुझको, सौ दोस्त अज़ीज़ जो थे मेरे,
कहीं अकेले जाने का तो सवाल ही नहीं था.

आज अकेले , अपने शहर से इतनी दूर,
इस coffee-shop में बैठी हूँ,
फोन की contact list में जाने पहचाने नाम ढूँढ रही हूँ.

बड़ी शर्म आ रही है, कैसे पूछूँ? कैसे वक़्त माँगूँ किसी का?
कोई पूछे तो किसी अजनबी की सोहबत को दोस्ती बताती हूँ.

बातें

आज रुक नहीं रही मन में कुछ बातें हैं जो,
भाग रही हैं, इधर से उधर, मुह तक आती हुई,
कि हर बार उम्मीद करती हैं की किसी तरह
आज निकल ही जायें.

मैं वापस भेज देती हूँ उन्हें,
कि जहाँ से आई हैं वहीं रहें,
पता नहीं बाहर आ जायें तो क्या हो जाए,
न तुम फिर आओ, न तुम्हारी ख़बर ही आए.

No Time for Words

After the 'diary', it's now 'blogging' which will die a slow death. Every one of us has a way of expressing (or not) how we feel about things in our lives. For some it's singing, for some it's dancing and for some it's the love of writing. Writing makes people feel like their opinion matters. It gives them the satisfaction that they are being heard, whether or not it is true.

Posts longer than two paragraphs start to bore us and we avoid reading anything beyond that limit. Owing to micro-blogging sites like Twitter, our mind is now adapted to all sorts of information reception in just one way- 140 characters or less! In a scenario like that, what future does this generation hold for blogging? Another unfortunate thing which Twitter has done, at least to me, is making my thought process intermittent. My thoughts are no longer penned down by me because after a sentence or two, I start to lose interest in the post or the flow is broken by some other thought which also demands to be written down immediately. The patience which writing requires is vanishing, just like it is disappearing from any other aspect of our lives. 

How I Lost Her.

I hesitate to kiss her. I am pretty sure she feels the same way for me but I still hold myself back. Will she like it? Will she make fun of me for having feelings for her? Maybe she will never speak to me again and I might lose my best friend forever, my only friend perhaps. You see, neither do I talk to a lot of people nor am I appropriately expressive. So I approach with caution, breaking down the barriers of morality in my head, surpassing my urge to suppress my passion.

I finally place my lips on hers, not caring if we'll ever be together, in a grossly selfish act, and she, unsuspecting and unprepared for, shouts, “what is wrong with you, woman?”…

Womanhood

That Day:

On one end of our bed, I am sitting and laughing uncontrollably and on the other end is my elder sister, terrified and confused. My sister has been trying to take me away to a separate room since a few hours now. She is determined to make me understand something. She often tells me that I should enjoy these few years before I start bleeding. From the looks of her face it seems she doesn’t expect me to understand. But I understand fully. I have bled before too- when I fell down while playing in the field or when I accidentally cut my hand while attempting to imitate my mother in the kitchen. How can she possibly ignore all those glorious wounds? I have complained to my mother a few times and so today my sister has taken up the task of explaining the whole bleeding process to me. Ignorant naïve fool, hah! Let me hear what she has to say.

Today:

On one end of our bed, I am sitting, terrified and confused and on the other end sits my elder sister, giving me a comforting and reassuring smile. “You are a woman now”, she says, as I begin to recall and realise all her words I earlier used to ignore. So I am a woman now. Hmm.

Impulse.

I would have loved to listen to you for hours, the sound of your perfect laughter, the stories of your past and the women who broke your heart but tonight I have a task to fulfill. I have to mend a broken heart.

Not so long ago I had promised somebody that he could count on me whenever skies seem to close in on him, whenever it rained black or whenever he felt unloved. He had laughed it off, convinced that such a day would never come. Tonight was different as I got a call from him. He spoke in a hasty tone, in dire need of breath and attention. He asked if I could visit him tonight. It was a question but only technically so. Of course I told him I had to see you first as we have been postponing our quality time due to heavy work schedule. He paid scant attention to the details and just asked me to come as soon as possible. So here I am, at the door of our house, asking for your permission if I could go. Again, like his, this is also a question but only technically so. I have only one thing to ask of you, please don’t try to find my whereabouts if I don’t return. You have been a good man and I have been a good wife to you. I know I will not get your forgiveness, irrespective of whether I come back or not. Had you known this man years ago and had you seen me with him, you would have understood. I have to go.

Before I go, I just want to let you know that I would have loved to listen to you for hours, the sound of your perfect laughter, the stories of your past and the women who broke your heart but tonight I have a task to fulfill. I have to mend a broken heart. My own.

Of Dreams and Nightmares.

There lives in each of us a golden dream,

Day in day out we carve it, weave it,

Nurture it; whilst it plots to get further away.

It gets hazy, it gets dark, assuming that it’s you,

I begin to draw us in the air, with my finger.

Dreams are designed that way, like a movie,

We know who is who, watching

From the city of angels, you’ll know.

You were no friend, you’d be no friend,

But you visit me when I’m deep asleep,

Whispering in my nightmare, the deadly secret-

‘Bold treason is greater than wavering loyalty’.