A step forward..

Their love for each other was all encompassing. They were one but they had a fair share of individual passions that did occupy a large part of their lives. She was devoted to art. All forms of art. He was a slave to poetry and rhetoric. They were both alike, in love and hungry to spend time together but they cautiously devised a "sphere of no interference". They called it so to completely rule out the issues that arise from the demand and inadequate supply of the much talked about "space". Space was very well demarcated yet fluid between them. They were so unerringly comfortable with each other that it seemed that they had always been together. Long enough to have merged together into a single being.

They spent a lot of time together. He told her all about religion and law and philosophy and she introduced him to her arts. She was shocked on the revelations he made about his religion. The misinterpretations and the lack of knowledge that society presents to an individual as a ready dish on a platter is thoroughly misleading, thus, the root cause of a million misconceptions, she thought. She learnt about their practices and the significance of those practices. It was almost as if society had stripped away the intricacies and the simple logic behind rituals and depicted them in a light that was almost horrendous. But, she learnt and understood and liked it. It was almost like an influx of something she always wanted to know. She appreciated and felt attached to the idea of that religion since she was a little girl and finally being so close to someone practicing it seemed almost like she had become what she always wanted to be, a hybrid with as much freedom to practice a religion as the nation promises.

Her involvement with the religion began early in life, when she accompanied her mother to an auspicious and pious religious spot. She loved the air, the music, the smell and everything around. She loved how people had their heads covered as they enter it. As a young girl she loved to play with dupattas. She wanted to wear a dupatta like her mother did and dance around with it. It was nothing more than a piece of cloth, a trend, that she appreciated but nothing less than an obsession. She stood near her cupboard with a myriad of colourful dupattas thinking about old times,"how simple things become complicated as one grows up ?" A pretty, colorful, decorative dupatta is a symbol of purdah, she thought. But, there is no harm in using it if not imposed. Why not wear a dupatta if you like wearing it. Why complicate things by reading too much into their significance. A dupatta doesn't necessarily signify oppression or purdah. She, for one, wore it for beauty and she loved it !

With that thought she picked out the most colorful of her dupattas and wore it around her neck, looked at herself in the mirror and and smiled. She felt beautiful. She decided to take him to the kind of "Art trips" she loved. She wanted to introduce him to that part of her that belonged to a different time, a different age altogether. She met him at the tea stall where they first met. He looked at her and smiled raising one of his brows. He meant, "You look beautiful" and she laughed because she understood. How beautiful is love when it becomes independent of the servitude of speech, when souls and silences become the new language.

P.S.- The pictures are mine, nothing else ! :)

Getting older.

I still remember my second birthday. No, I am not lying, I do. I remember what I wanted the most on my second birthday. Just cake. That's all I wanted. I wanted to stuff my mouth with that colorful creamy sweet dish, a bundle of joy. I have a video tape of my birthday where I am literally jumping from my father's arms onto the cake. But times change and so do priorities. On my third it was about gifts and actually that remained so for many many years. I remember waiting for all people to leave and the party to finish so that I could first sit around the beautifully packed presents and eventually open them. One by one. Diligently. Trying hard not to spoil the wrapping paper in the first few and eventually tearing them apart in excitement. After that it was the dress I guess. All I cared about during my teenage was the dress I wore which was again carefully thought and shopped. I eagerly waited to wear that on my birthday. I felt like a princess, I remember. In college, it was just the party and my friends. Only the amount of  "fun" that we could have. Now, it's nothing. I no longer feel anything. There is no excitement. It's like any other day. In fact it's worse because people who have not even thought about you in years will suddenly call you and say "Happy birthday", You have to call back and all. People for the sake of social formality will write "Happy birthday", even "HBD" on your facebook timeline that will eventually lead to a million notifications. Most of them are doing it so halfheartedly that they don't even put pains enough to spell "H A P P Y  B I R T H D A Y", they just signal or register their presence, like marking themselves present on a class they never wished to attend. What is the point ?

The above mentioned "fun" almost becomes a baggage once you grow up. You're expected to throw a party. Invite people. Treat them with food and hospitality. Soon your birthday becomes a social responsibility. The party almost becomes a pressure. It's like the Indian marriage concept parents believe in. You ate at mine so you ought to call me at your's. No one is no longer interested in what do you want to do for your birthday. 

What if you want to be alone and do nothing and maybe sulk about getting one year older.What if it is like a clock ticking on your head. What if you want to go away and switch your phone off and take a birthday off and maybe spend a couple of days in peace in the mountains (Mountains <3). Or sit in front of a beach, all day doing nothing. Just thinking about what has the last one year added to you or what has changed and how much have you grown. Or maybe you want to set up a plan for your next year. You might want to lock yourself up or shout on the streets. Just do it. Remember, who was bloody born on that day ? You or the innumerable ones who think about you only once in the whole year, on your goddamn birthday ? You, of course. Then live it. Live it like you want to and spend it with the people who you love and who really care for you to be around you on your birthday. Spend it with the ones who you would want to keep in the coming year and in all the years to come. It's your day after all. Make it special.

Desire

Desire. A sensation locating its place somewhere in the middle of conscience and choice. A desire buds through a temptation and then cements itself in the back, front, middle and at times all over the human mind. I know this seems blasphemous, the use of words like desire and temptation that could be read as eternal sins but do we really submit to the conscience or work towards the fulfilment of our desires ? Desire leads to happiness and everyone around the world is in the pursuit of nothing but happiness. Then why not ? Why not let the desires rule out your conscience and strive towards its consummation. At least, this is what they did. The two of them. Who were religiously pursuing each other in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the eighties while the constantly moving chariot of the sun God declared day and night as days passed.

Once they had made room for a kiss, passion flew like waters from an open dam. There was no stopping them, no looking back. Carnal love is not to be damned. Contrary to the popular belief, what it really does is bring two people more and more close to each other and finally binds them with an eternal lot. They didn't care of what the world would say. By "talking", the world did what they are best capable of. Why should they not love and exercise their own best capabilities of loving and kissing and being one. Marriage, people consider, is the sole, legitimate initiator of the exercise of such a passion. A desire for love making. It provides the license but who knows this passion is obligatory or not. Who knows if people involved in the act are only procreating and not loving. Why are the carnal pleasures assumed only to be a recourse to populate an overtly populated world ? Why is this pleasure not an outcome of unrestrained passion where love leads to procreation as a product of love and not a means to an end ?

She had her hands locked around his neck and was looking eagerly into his eyes once they had opened after the spiritual commingling of their lips in a lip lock. He was burning with desire and read the same fire in her eyes. He tightened his grasp a little more around her waist and drew her closer to himself and soon she loosened her locked hands from around his neck and let them fall through his back up to his chest. The signals had been sent and well received. She knew it was time to be swept off her feet and placed on the spongy bed and turn red the white bed sheet. It was a historical moment in her life because it was her first time. Barely had she known that it was his first too. They both swam deep into each other and were both as happy as one can be. They had never been happier or more passionate.

They were both excited but nervous. Nervous but way more excited. They had barely known where exactly to begin because the unavailability of internet had barred a lot of education that we receive today in the modern tech-savvy world. So they just followed the signals their body gave them naturally. They moved from one part to another, from the head till the toes. They were exploring each other like travellers explore new lands and make geography. They were exploring bodies and making art. Art, the form of which was common to all, yet, was different for every couple. The bodies moving slowly to built positions and shapes, only too conscious to avoid hurting the other.

And then suddenly he screamed once, twice and thrice, signalling the completion. He asked her, "did you like it". She blushed and said "of course", barely knowing whether she was done or not. Although it surely was the best thing she had experienced in all her life and wanted more and more.They decided to meet another day, the next perhaps. He left being the happiest man on earth, while she still felt his presence both around and within her. It was a beautiful feeling. They had both explored something afresh. Something only heard till then but now, experienced !

To much of her surprise there were no reds on the bed sheet to mark her chastity. She was astonished and then remembered it couldn't have been so. Was it the swimming pool that had long ago defiled her ? "Then, what is all the fuss really about ?", she thought for a minute. But she was too happy to care. There was a sudden sense of growing up, of becoming a woman. There was a welcome change in her body, or at least she wanted to feel so. She was happy. Very happy. It was worth a million such penetrations. Was something so beautiful kept away from her just because of a wall she had already broken ? She thought. Then again the face of her charming knight took over her imagination and she felt so much more in love. From then on, they were one. Spiritually, emotionally and physically, one.

Something old...

Possession. Not of people but of inanimate things. We all possess a million things since the time we are born up till the time we die. We use, over use, discard and forget. Sometimes buy, never use and then forget. But we never think about what happened to those things or try to dig into their side of the story. This reminds me of the staple autobiography grammar exercises that introduced us to the autobiography of a rupee or a railway platform. Those were like the Johny-Johny's of autobiographies, every one had read them at a certain point in life. They were among the first's to give us an insight into the perspectives of things.

All of us have felt this strange sort of pleasure in unintentionally finding a note in some old book, or even an old book lost for years, a symbolic currency, an old piece of cloth, or a vehicle that we once rode and all those things that were so dear. It some how stimulates immense joy. It is like meeting an old friend that you have been loyal to for long but had to part ways or like a lover that time and space took away from you. It is never about the object that reminds you of an older time, a simpler time and then leads you into an abyss of thought, more thought, a chain of thoughts that begin with the irrelevant thing but soon jumps to How you were then ? What were you doing in life all those years ago ? but about people. People you love or once loved and looking at it reminds you again of how the memories associated with those people are still fresh in your mind and you have completely washed away all the negativity while not even trying to do it. It all comes down to the fact that the times that people generally remember or ever wish to remember are the happy ones. All sad memories are dependent on both time and space and eventually fade. Like Prophet Mohammad said, "reconciliation is the biggest charity" not only to others but to your own selves.

Coming back to the value-less, memory-rich findings. All things that you use from the laptop, to the mobile phone, even to a diary that once was the only "hidden-treasure" you possessed or a pen given by someone you love/d, share a story. They have a story that we share with them. They are constantly a part of our whole. Each used eraser reminds me of a sketch that I once made and clothes well they just remind me that I once did fit in them.  ;) I love the idea of ruins. No wonder the whole world is after antiques which are both historically and culturally loaded. 

The monuments(can't help it) are also the biggest example of the same fact. They remind us of the stories of the ones who owned it and left them for us to make our own stories in them. Have you ever come across a tree that had a very thick bark, thick enough to bar you from being able to hug it ?
I am sure you have. Have you ever thought about all the history that it must have witnessed. In fact it must have seen an undivided India, a tree that is in Pakistan right now could have been planted in India or summers that weren't so hot and winters that didn't lock you inside. Not yet ? Now do, Think about it's memory bank and all the silences that it has maintained. Such is the beauty of old objects and ruins, they are beautiful with all their faded colors and blunt edges. In all their deformities they are still loved an are always dear.

The Woman's body.

"Dude ! Look at those boobs !", "What an Ass ! I could totally do her"

While men talk about a woman like this, they only see the outside. Simply what meets the eye. A"do-able" ass, a pair of boobs and a hole between the legs that is crying aloud to them, "Come fill me in" ! That's precisely how much a woman is objectified every day, everywhere. A woman's body is broken down into parts and sections and exposed to the unrestrained voyeurism of a "band of robbers" willing to grab, cup and defile. How feeble and base is the imagination of these men who think of the woman's body as simple a riddle as this that they can solve it in eleven minutes or so. A woman's body is much more than just that. When men say, "It is impossible to understand a woman", they are only referring to the complexity surfacing on the outside. Unaware of the maze of a gazillion complexities going on the inside.

When a woman says, "I love being in a woman's body!", She means it ten times more than a man will ever understand. The initiation of such a remark is generated somewhere behind the forehead that deserves a thousand years of praise, travels through the eyes that widen, look deep into the eyes of the unaware listener and immediately generate a spark, reaches and comes out through the curves of the lips and twirl of the tongue and is heard through the vibrations that are producing the sound effect. But, is that all ? Of course not ! It goes way deep.

Women are beautiful. A woman's body is a beautiful piece of art. We know. But, so are men. Have we forgotten The Dorian Gray and his enigmatic beauty, or Adonis for that matter ? Women are beautiful, their bodies are aesthetic, true. But there is a lot more than that. The body of a woman is a Byzantine when compared to that of a man's. No this isn't about menstruation or child birth, I am not even beginning to hint on menstruation or any biological process. This is about how women feel about their bodies. All women will agree with the declaration of Tiresias that a woman receives much more "pleasure" in the "act" than a man. Even then we find men lusting them and the act more ! That's similar to the insatiable appetite of those who only know half the pleasure of an experience. In this sense men are like the bourgeoisie, who in their pretentious nobility are only partly aware of how the aristocratic nobility actually "feels".

"Feels". Yes that's precisely what I want to reach. Women feel each and every movement of their body parts a lot more than men. They are always conscious. No there is no science behind this but yes , twenty two years of experience. We are always playing a role. Women are constantly acting it out. We know which side of our personality-rich selves have to be switched on and when. Also, please don't take it as a diabolical trait. Because it's not. Women feel every curve of their bodies and are far too aware while curving it than men will ever think about. Each step they take, each movement of their beautifully carved and kept hands, each toss of their head, stretch of their neck and roll of their eyes is carefully calculated. That's not because women fake it but because they know how to make use of it. It being their carefully carved bodies. If the human body was only a cover for the soul why would the Lord take so much pains in making so many different ones, all beautiful in their own way. We women understand that. And obviously we can't disappoint or waste any of our inbuilt talents. So, we use it.

When a woman walks past, people turn their heads to look at her. They appreciate the body, the walk but never the artist behind presenting it in that manner. Women are not only art but also the artists who exhibit their best forms at all times. An artist who knows her best colours, brushes, lines and curves. We enjoy being our own canvas. Men are surprisingly very naive in assuming that women use makeup, they dress and act in a certain way to receive their compliments. I sympathize with all those men who think like that. They fail to comprehend that the first and only person a woman is pleasing by doing all that is herself. Try telling a woman she is beautiful on a day she knows she is looking horrible. She will like the compliment, love you for saying so, but, at the same time know that you are lying, or are simply too much in love. She will never believe you. NEVER. 

The woman's body is as beautiful as a man's is, at least in it's unkempt bare form. They do complete each other. But, women are equipped with the wonderful art of making it much more artistic and heavenly. It's an inherent trait in our nature. We just can't help being beautiful at all times ! ;)

When breaths meet..

Love. What exactly is love? People complicate it. Define and redefine it. Yet, there is not a single answer to that. But does there have to be an answer ? Why can't it be limited to what one feels and what one experiences. Some things are best left unadulterated by thought. When both your body and soul come in sync to respond to their call. Go for it.

So did they. Not only did their hearts respond but their bodies too were in complete sync. He was everything she ever wished for and she was undoubtedly his imagination come to life. When they were together, the atmosphere carried a magnetic field which made his body respond magically to the air she breathed. He was still making mental images of how her hand would feel on his skin, how would the grip of her fingers hold on to him and how will the imprints of her moist lips leave a mark on his bare skin. He was picturing all this, yet there was no rush. He was contended. Life had finally begun to be nice to him.

She was a lady. And a proper one at that, he thought. The first move had to be his and couldn't decide when would be the right time. The fear of spoiling something so beautiful by coming across as a pervert was hanging like a dagger over his head. They met. Spent the whole day together and then he walked her home. She lived alone in the city. She invited him inside thinking it is the right thing to do. How could she let him go? She had not had enough of his company. She wanted more and maybe something more than just his company. The mere thought shuddered her soul. How unthinking have I become, she thought. They came in and she offered him coffee. He sat anxiously on the sofa while she was in the kitchen thinking about what would happen next. She carried a caffeinated drink, a charged body and her drugged soul on the platter and served them to him. 

Their eyes met, he stood up and before she knew her lips had made way to his. A sudden flux of passion engulfed them both and they were one. He grabbed her waist and his grip on her body immediately erased all scepticisms and unfamiliarity from their minds. They belonged to each other at that very moment and for many more to come. She held him tight close to her and continued to kiss him locking his firm lips with her beautified pink ones. They stopped kissing to only look at each other and laughed. They held each other for about a couple of hours and days passed before they knew. Now she slept thinking of him and woke up each day hoping to hold him and kiss him and touch him and feel him. He was no longer some boy she had met at a tea stall. He was someone she had always known. A part of her being.

Unwilling Enemies

India and Pakistan were two flowers of the same plant. One plucked and planted on a different land, surprisingly enough what grows is nothing but the same plant again. What was the point ?

 I am an Indian. That's my nationality. I am not an Indian only because I was born in the geographical region called India but also because this has been fed to me since I was a child. Everywhere around me be it at home, school, college; the identity of my nation has been fed to my mind. The idea of being an Indian does not come alone. It brings along the idea of being the arch enemies of Pakistan. People always define Pakistan as the other. Be it cricket matches (which, by the way, are no less than wars between the two countries) or politics or even boundaries for that matter. Indo-Pak border is not like any other. It is breathing patriotism, instead of the winds there is patriotism blowing everywhere, with songs, flags and what not, constantly trying really hard to demarcate the region, establish the fact that this is India and that on the other side, a few meters away is Pakistan. I wonder how did we become enemies in about a few months time (not to forget we all got "influenced" like they wanted, so we acted like they wanted) enemies enough to breed the hatred in all generations to come. In spite of all this, I could never recognize Pakistan as the 'other'. Aren't we one ?

Are we not a whole ? The way I see India is never without Pakistan. When I look at the political map of our country and see Pakistan as a different one, all I feel is regret. Regret of having lost something so indispensable and impersonal that I wish we had not.

Think about the places, the monuments, the markets that we will, most probably, never be able to visit. All we will see of Pakistan is what media has to show and what we have watched in films and Zingadi (the channel). Not all of us will be fortunate enough to get a first hand, personal account, telling details of how are the people, the places, the streets, the air, the men ;) in Pakistan. The TRP ratings of Zindagi are enough evidence of the amount of "hatred" Indians have for Pakistanis. The division has not only taken away a piece of land and what it has to offer, but also, a culture all together. While watching Zindagi for the first time, I wondered why do people not talk like that in India, I would have loved to talk like that. That's when it struck me, the loss of a culture all together, It ranges from the clothes they wear, language they speak, the television they produce and every other man made thing possible. But what they couldn't divide and remains immovable is the air we breathe, the rivers that comes through, the mountains we share, the feelings of many others like me in both countries who detest such political demarcations  and everything natural that was beyond their power to divide.

When one stands on a mountain top or maybe looks down from a plane flying high up in the sky, one realizes how feeble, in existent  and irrelevant are these boundaries in the eyes of the creator, who still sees them all as one, a large piece of land he created and nothing more.

Because My Master Says So!

                                           

 Dear God/Men/Writers of history/People in power,

 In a far away galaxy, unknown to us, beyond the reach of learned “men”, there exists a genderless society. A space where young girls do not  grow up listening to the tales of “a knight in shining armor” rescuing a “damsel in distress”. Where greatness does not come naturally to men, and women are allowed to serve more purpose than just bearing sons, who would one day be as glorious as their fathers. A region where, public and private spheres are not apportioned as masculine and feminine zones, respectively,  and a double-standard of virginity and promiscuity does not apply to the two sexes.

But, I must not speak of such things. My masters- my fathers, husbands, brothers and even, older women, see it as a “corruption of the mind and soul”. I am a woman. I need to be grounded by protectionism. My betters have told me, that, women are innately diabolical seductresses and need to be reprimanded frequently. I believe them. They are my Gods, they infantilise me to save the world from doom that I may cause. So, I have internalised my inferiority and accepted endless subjugation,  as my destiny. I must not think of studying, they say.  Women who possess such an outrageous mandate are evil, they contaminate the male territory by trying to enter it. Thus, illiteracy is "chosen" for me. I fear to even glance at a paper with words on it. How criminal it is of me, to even think of it !

Soon will come the time for me to leave. All women should be given away to another man, to ensure their parents' place in heaven. I too, would be "exchanged" as a property. But so I must, before I shame my family by being involved with a young boy, who would write love songs to me. I might seduce him into loving my body. After all, there is a seductress in every woman. I will be married to a man much older. How can a young boy limit my wanton self?

Now that I have a new master-my husband, I  must fear and obey him. I must lie down still, submissively, while he climbs on top of me and does what was promised to him in marriage. A license to make love. An ideal woman submits to her master, so shall I. Then, I will bear his sons and nurture them, so that, once they grow up into fine gentlemen, their brilliance can be proudly credited to their father, while I smile and applaud my master's eminence.

My husband and his sons will rule the outside world, while I am supposed to be happy in the dark insides of my house. If I am not, who am I to tell ? So, I will be. I will cook for them and serve them, until, my sons are married. Then, they will get their own help-maids. But my job doesn't end here. I will teach my daughter-in-laws, what I was taught. I will make them learn the gospel, 'because the master says so'. I thank Gods each day, for blessing me with my master. The base birth of mine would have led me to do monstrous things, without their dominance.

I have heard of some "new women", who fight against our godfathers and their norms. Not only have they learnt how to read and write, but they also go out in a man's world and earn. They discard the long prevailing system of society and strive to define their own roles. They question our "authorities". They demand as much as a right to vote. Their revolt I think is praiseworthy and should continue. But, I heard my master criticise them. They must be the "evil", unchecked women, I was always told about. I should not appraise them, lest my master should hear!

                                                                                                                                  - Woman    

                                                                                                                                           

The Unexpected

Today let me tell you all a story of a Hindu and a Muslim. Story telling, a dying occupation ? Let's revive it.

It was a bright summer afternoon in the Capital. They were somewhere in North Delhi. She, along with a few friends came near a small tea-stall on some road near some street in some place in North Delhi. (Names of people, places, spots, roads, etc. are not important!) She, in a long colourful Pakistani kurta, long enough to touch her calves, came and stood at the tea stall, her back faced him. He looked at the beautiful shape her back was forming right in front of his eyes, he looked passingly and then turned to look again. All he could see were dense, long curls covering one of the most shapely backs he had ever seen. He wanted to look more. His eyes followed her as she passed along and finally stood with a bunch of her friends laughing. He had not heard such a ringing laugh before. The voice of a laughter that stayed with him. He wished to look at the face of this beautiful body and his wish was granted. She was so animated, in a moment she is here and now there, meanwhile he stole a glance at that, much desired face.

He saw a forehead that deserved at least a hundred years of praise and then her eyes. Her's were the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever seen. They were a pair of round almonds pointed at the edges as if carved by a sculptor who had  beautifully clad them with black kohl and decorated the lids with a turquoise glitter. He thought he could look at them forever. Her lips, he thought were how heaven must look like. She wore turquoise earrings. Her hands and feet looked like the clouds. They could disappear the moment you try to touch them. There was something celestial in her beauty. He thought she was magic. She looked like a hyderabadi princess. He had noticed all this about her in a minute's time and now all he wanted was to get to talk to her. But, how ? It was somewhere in the 1980's. You couldn't just go and talk to a girl then. Talking was out of the question so he made the most of his time trying to make eternity pass while he gazed at her from the corner of his eye.

But, they say somethings are meant to be. So was this. She looked towards them and waved. He stood there numb questioning reality for a second on watching her wave in his direction until he realized she knew his friend. She went across to meet the friend who introduced them. They met. She saw him, there was something magnetic. At once she had an urge to talk to him. But didn't. She did not want to seem too forward, or too interested. He was just another guy after all. Just another boy, who had the deepest eyes and the naughtiest smile. He did not look like a good boy. He was one of those who break hearts, or so his appearance said. People who don't take life too seriously, she thought. Yet, there was an inexplicable magnetism in that mischievous smile. But, just another boy. She had noticed him looking at her and being blessed with the heavenly quality of being a woman, in a moment she realized his inclination. The friend urged them to sit for coffee and they all did just that.

On a square table they sat beside each other. She thought he was a Hindu Rajput and he couldn't dare to think of her as anything other than a Hyderabadi Muslim princess. They exchanged names only to find out that all this while they were thinking the exact opposite of each other. She was a Hindu girl and he a Muslim boy. It's funny how looks deceive, they laughed. He kept her engaged in his talks and poetry, somehow everything he said seemed like a sonnet to her. Everyone else disappeared from the palace of warmth they were creating with each passing moment. She began drowning in his eyes, her mind stopped her with the fear of letting her out too soon. Even then, she was drowning and he knew he couldn't ever let her go.She seemed to him as one of those finely groomed ladies that men eye but hardly get. She was a treasure. All he wanted was to continue talking to her. He asked her out on a date for the very next day. For a second, the invitation shocked her but going completely against what her mind and morals said, she agreed.

The very next day, they met again. She saw him sitting on the boundary of the first floor of her college building looking at her, while she talked to her friends, their eyes met and she was so drawn towards him that she dodged the conversation and immediately walked to meet him. They smiled. His smile had posed the question and her smile had given the answer. He asked, "shall we?" and she said "Yes". Since then, there hasn't been a looking back. They are together and in love. Love happened the moment they saw each other and there was a connection, like they had always known each other.


Where is the Hindu Muslim drama? Not all Hindu and Muslim stories have to be tragic. Sometimes love overpowers them all.
                                       
                                           

Breaking through: Living Alone blues

I am Twenty two. I live alone in an apartment in the Capital. As soon as people hear this, they bombard me with questions.Questions concerning my securities, fears of living alone in an apparently carnivorous city like Delhi where men see you as meat, then, they mellow it down to how do I manage my food or 'kill' my time, etc. etc. Thankfully, I face no issues in dealing with any of the above posed problems. In fact, living alone was a very conscious choice. It wasn't the first of course, but, when circumstances lead to it and I moved in an apartment alone, I questioned myself for not having thought about it earlier. Living alone is bliss. More so for people like me who are greedy for their own space and company.

The struggle is not the fear of a paranormal activity, robbery, theft or molestation. The concern arises during times when all I long for is a human company to bring me back into the real world from the parallel world I am then inhabiting or a chain of thoughts that has led me way too astray, into the real. It arises at times when you spend hours sitting in the same position, thinking, and you don't realise the amount of time that passed meanwhile. When a soul shaking idea recurs in your head and all you want is something to protect you from it or at least distract you. And there is no one. It is a fit of loneliness that either brings along restlessness or leaves you dazed. I crave to concentrate all my energies and thoughts in one place but pertaining to my womanly multi tasker mind, I can't. My mind wanders away in thoughts and places that I fear the most. I want to sleep it off but either insomnia hits or my overtly active subconscious keeps a dream picture of the same thought ready to haunt my sleep.

Those moments are horrifying but I HAVE to cope with them on my own. I have to wipe my tears off after an uncontrollable session of crying. When one cries, mostly there is someone to ask them not to but crying alone is a commitment. You know you will cry your heart out and then will have to shut yourself up. But when it's over you know you won't cry again. You learn to wipe your own tears and get back to work. You don't starve yourself too long because there is no one to offer you food or force you to eat. You have to help yourself. You are your own friend, the one who never leaves your side. It's really a fight between the conscious and subconscious. When your fears that reside in your subconscious overrule your stability by entering the conscious mind, you break. If you succeed in holding yourself together and act as a dam against the flowing in depression, you have mastered the art of living alone and if you fail, you will learn soon. Just don't give up.

Living alone makes you strong. It is frightening, challenging, back-breaking and demanding but, it helps you discover yourself. It is an experience, it's like your den, people come and visit but you're the one that lives and rules. If you're a lion/ lioness you will survive and your problems will fear you or become your meal ! And we all know "food" is always welcome, we know we shall finish it !

After all, there is always yellow light(I like yellow more) at the end of the tunnel.

Attaining 'Nirvana'

Aren't there a gazillion times in one's life when each step weighs a dozen more kilos and thoughts in the mind's temple are stuck in a maze of the necessary and the unnecessary,when all one wants is to elope to an unexplored land to attain some stability, a partial "Nirvana" perhaps, times when actions are eclipsed by thinking and your thoughts pace up with the speed of light. If all of the above is true and the path of 'Overthinking' seems like a familiar territory, one should consider a SWOT remedy. (Don't confuse it with the evermore depressing SWOT analysis). SWOT here stands for the need to gaze at the limitlessness of the unpolluted Sky, experience the thrill of Waterfalls and the Winds, breathe in smoke free Oxygen and Travel to realize that there are larger things in life (literally!). In short, mountains are calling you !

I realized all of this when I applied it to myself and did not let the pettiness around take on the better, stronger side of me. I traveled to Mcleod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India. Although, the idea of travelling in itself is empowering but, I prefer the mountains because they heal and rejuvenate me like never before. On reaching the foot of a mountain you realize you have signed in for something you will never forget. Mountains liberate you, they make you conceive  how supernatural the sheer idea of nature can be. The indefinable shapes , the unruly growth of untamed plants and trees, the crooked man-made roads that lead to them and the possibility of being the habitat of unpredictable species of dangerous fauna, makes them wild and powerful. But, the dominating feature still remains the soothing effect that it causes to the eyes and the healing effect on the soul.

Mcleod Ganj was like a rain filled cloud over the barren land of my deserted heart and the dying vegetation of my unproductive mind tirelessly indulged in overthinking. The moment we entered the concentric roads of the Kangra region my heart sang with the winds as the droplets of rain kissed my face. I helplessly fall for places which aren't very crowded, where there is more nature and less people to look at and Mcleod Ganj was just that. Think about places where cameras fail and photography enthusiasts begin to feel that capturing images with their eyes and engraving them for a lifetime on the tablets of their hearts is more worth their while ! Standing on a natural rock in-front of the Bhagsu waterfall,I closed my eyes, faced the sky, opened my arms wide to embrace the scenery and wished with all my heart to terminate the flow of the ever-moving time and let eternity pass in that very moment. 

People often associate the idea of attaining 'Nirvana' in the heavenly 'stuff' available at the Shiva Cafe of Mcleod Ganj(very interesting place but for another time ;)) for varied infamous/famous reasons but my experience says otherwise. While in Mountains, the amount of 'grass' is not in question, what matters the most is the 'trip' you take in every moment. That leads to Nirvana. How does one determine whether they have successfully attained it or not ? It's simple, the moment your heart perceives, 'What are 'we' when compared to rocks and mountains?

I do.

Rings that teasingly came forth but vanished before she could say, I do.

They warn. That's all they do, warn you. Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't go out in the night. Don't fall in love, it's a trap. Love is a lie. But, these two were thousands of galaxies away from those who warn and those who complain and all those who exist. They also say "Don't make a person the center of your universe !". But, they had created a universe of their own. A niche where the center or the corner didn't matter, they owned all of it together. They were like the first borns in the garden of Eden only without the fear of a forbidden fruit or the temptation of limitless knowledge, or anything at all. There was no fear. They merged to create the sublime. What then was left to fear ?

She was like the ocean to him, with a body that was curvaceous like the waves and her presence, an encompassing stretch so elaborate that she conquered his vision. All he could see was her limitless beauty. As far as he searched, all he could find was the depth in her eyes and the truth in her existence. She had cast her spell and he was taken. For her, he was like the sky. Where ever she looked she found him looking right back at her, gazing with eyes pouring down pearls of love. He was a poet and his poetry was the mild breeze that blew through her hair and tickled her face as she smiled.

They lay together all day, drowning in each other's eyes and falling in love each moment. Together they were art. Even lying on bed together seemed like a beautiful piece of art, where the artist has carefully placed two bodies and worked on them so religiously that their eyes make them one. He loved reading to her and she loved listening while she played with her dark deep wavy hair, he thought were like a flowing river. He leaned against the bedhead, with a book in his right hand and a cigarette in his left and read to her. She listened carefully for exactly a minute or two and then blew along with the smoke rings with each fag.

She didn't like that he smoked but was guilty of basking in the artistry that lay before her. She somehow relished watching him smoke. Each time he smoked she was so bewitched watching his bare torso resting on the bed-head and the belted jeans stuck at his hipbone taking drags of the cigarette and reading love sonnets to her that she found herself enmeshed. As he pulled at the bud with his firm lips, a dense array of smoke rings followed that commence together from the halo that his lips form and then disperse. She made castles of the smoke in her head, imagining one smoke ring to tie them forever while another would make a headband.

When the cigarette lounged between the first two fingers of his left hand, she noticed the shape his hands took. Once again she was captivated by the perfection of the carvings of his hands, she looked at them and wished to hold them between hers for the rest of her life.He tilted the cigarette on his fingers and tapped on it twice to drop the ashes that had stacked on the lit end and redid the poetry again from bringing it to his mouth to dropping the ashes in the tray as she lay with him adoring the whole act until the cigarette was pushed against the ash tray and all that remained was the residual bud, last trace of the mesmerizing art she bore in her mind but never produced. Like the wedding ring she saw coming each time but he never produced.

Some leaves from a life I never lived but is still mine.

Have you ever visited a very old building, a monument perhaps, and felt that it belonged to you or you to it ? I have heard a lot of people talk about a strange nostalgia in such places. I felt that too. Not only do I feel that I belong to the place but also that I own it, or did, at some point of time, in a past life (yes, I am a believer). If the nostalgia in question was a disease, I would describe mine as stage four, incurable, laden with infections like mistaken identity disorder and 'chronological outrage'. But, science or medicine can neither pollute nor begin to fathom my feelings of belonging-ness in them.

My hometown is Agra (yes, Taj Mahal and all that). The earliest visit that I can remember to not only the 'Taj' but to all other Mughal monuments in Agra and the latest explorations of Mughal architectural sublimity in the Capital, were all embellished by the same recurring feeling of belonging to them. I am incapable of imagining the forts without the many army men that must have guarded the place back in the 1500's and later until the domino like downfall of the Mughal Empire. Although, I feel more attached to the times of Akbar. In fact, as complicated as it gets, I feel like home in the monuments associated with him. Take any that he has laid his glorious feet on and I feel it's mine too. Living exactly 100 meters away from his tomb, Sikandra, in Agra, could have etched an everlasting mark on my heart but that is only a factual justification for something so deep that I can only partially describe, unless I write a book about it.

Everytime I am about to enter a seraglio, I look up only to find a Dasi (help-maid) showering flowers on my head from the little Jharokha (An arched window to let light in) to celebrate my homecoming. Eventually, on entering I see the hallways adorned with the best quality red, velvet curtains and the floors carpeted with gold-embroidered carpets, the announcers announcing the gracious arrival of Shehzaadi "So and so", while, I walk through the passages owning the whole 'Royal Palace'. Every moment I spend inside, takes me deeper and deeper into the abyss of my belief that the place still belongs to me and I to the time when it was in it's full flourish. I never see the roofs with their present cobwebs and faded colours but in the way they must have looked when they were just built and exhibited to the King for the first time, when performances and 'Mushairas' were held under them and when torches and jewels were used to light the quarters. I always visit the 'Meena Bazaar' of the Agra Fort like Jodha would have, with the excitement of a little girl on looking at the decorated shops and the discretion of a grown woman to bury it inside (yes, I am always in character!).

I don't simply visit these monuments but each time I go, I do myself a favor by living them. The visit is a treat to myself in times of crisis, happiness and otherwise. Needless to say,that I make sure I pay them a visit when there are hardly any other visitors, which is, very early in the mornings. That helps me imagine (read hallucinate) better. The premises are empty, un-populated, unadulterated and peaceful at that time and I can easily quench my thirst for tranquility in the harmonious, home-like atmosphere. Each time I leave, I find a part of me left behind reclining on the pillars on the terrace or the arched corridors, looking at the crowd coming in to turn my home into a tourist spot. You might think that technically I am a tourist too, but no, I am not a tourist. I am a traveler and in this case, a time traveler.

P.S. : Of course, all this happens in my head, but why on Earth should it mean , it's not real ? ( Harry Potter to the rescue, ALWAYS)