Dear James

I had shifted into my new apartment and I was struggling to settle myself in this new space, so I started early that Sunday .I still remember it was the first week of October and there was a single potted plant in the balcony, ‘blue daze’ with dew drops on the petals .I reached for the closet and here I found a letter, the writing in black ink made me eager to open it. Each word immersed me more into what she must have felt while writing it .When I think about that letter today, I feel as if I knew that girl, as if our eyes had met across the street .An excerpt from the letter which I still carry with me-

Dear James

When I think of you and me and how we met and what we share, it fills me with those kinds of feelings for which you wait for an eternity .You came in my life and I did not meet someone new but someone I had long lost in the history of time .I met you through words, and through those words I made a picture of your smiles, your eyes, the touch and the breath.

I do not talk about us to anyone anymore, for them it would be a matter of momentary detour in the monotony of life, they won’t understand how a long lost soul craves for that lost companionship, and they would steal my awe about us by merely dismissing it as a poetic glitch. I know how real it is in this ever diminishing world. The void being filled after all these years thinking of me as a person unworthy of someone’s love. There are so many questions on this path of logic, but in the true sense the tree and I would give you the same answer.

My dear always remember, my love for you is not a keepsake to carry, not a medal to honor you, and neither it will ask for an answer and neither is it a golden cage to elude you. Keep me in the sound of your laughter; keep me in your exaltations, in your writings and in your surreal word where I won’t be touched with incertitude, just safe in your beautiful mind and would be waiting to be in your arms again.

When you think of me, remember me as the same girl who blossomed with your love and was waiting for you in the hall when we first met, in the same black dress which you fell for, for our dance which we could not have, sealing the sways between us, away from time, let’s do it this time. Look into my eyes James; they would be smiling back at you, for that moment your grief would be mine. When I would leave this mortal form, you will find me in the flowers around you, all of them, different hues of my life and how playfully I loved you all this while. Do not be sad when you look at them because I would always belong to you.

Today I have made myself immortal to you through this letter, preserve me with your fondness.

Yours Lovingly,

Emma

There was no date on the letter; I wanted to know did they ever meet again? What happened to them .I wanted to know how they looked like. Did James ever replied to this letter or it never got posted.

My cheeks were wet and I had lost track of time. That day I spent the whole evening looking at the sky and that potted plant .Maybe they looked like the gloam which was slowly settling in, they both filled my room with their pain of separation.

Memories of a distracted Evening

Some years back on a mid May date I was sitting opposite to a guy who had brought me to a restaurant , I think it was some Italian joint but I can't recollect the name.Dimly lit and I could hardly see anyone else except us , music was soft.I have forgotten how he looked that day but those well cut glasses on our table , how water glistened in that light reminds me of that slow evening.We did not speak much as I was into the food and he ..before writing this I have a self re-assuring smile on my face , yes out there is a person  who notices how u nibble , how your fingers hold the fork and how you purse your lips and ache for water if chillies just taught u a lesson.He just sipped water occasionally.

Suddenly I heard some voices.A couple had taken a seat behind us , I heard them altercating.They must have been in their thirties.They both had a career and a child.They constantly complained , no one was really listening , and both wanted to speak up.Lips were moving , on a dismal face.May be they wanted some affection from each other without asking for it after a long day at work.They wanted to be asked how they are feeling because sometimes in life we are so busy completing tasks that we forget to feel things , even our own thoughts.They need to be nurtured each day like the roses in your garden.

Have you really noticed how a gardener mothers the fecund portion of your house.Everything worthwhile needs attention and care and see how they bloom and the fragrance fills up your life with happiness.Maybe relations are like that only , they seek tenderness which we forget as life is testing us each day.But how can we stop appreciating the beautiful things around us and the one beside us.When it is about partners I feel a woman's beauty is a reflection of her man's love towards her and man's strength is his woman's devotion towards him.

So much time has passed but their conversation stays with me from that evening.The guy with whom I had that dinner I don't know where he is but I am here content and contained reading some messages from a loved one , reminding me how it was like to know someone miles away , a stranger with warmth with an open heart.

Vacuous Vagary

This piece of writing comes from an absolute boredom, lonesomeness and loneliness and sometimes a mixture of all of these. Times when I did not like taking calls, replying to messages and going out with people , yes people are scary sometimes .They are bags of purging emotions , moods and something to do with hormones and they look like burden to you , yes me myself included in this slimy portrayal .And yes times when I waited for someone’s call , looked for my phone a thousand times for just a small tiny message  and waited for someone to hang out with but they could not turn up because there were reasons , they were too tired , I lived too far or lets drop euphemism , it was utter lack of interest. We do it all the time and it happens all the time – two people wanting the same thing at the same time happens rarely .Do we all live by convenience? And if not, are we counting our sacrifices so that we burst out one day, to make the other one feel guilty?

Don’t think too much about the last line, we are altruist and philanthropists too. We are the yin-yang of our destiny. Exploring our vices and virtues each day , and that is burgeoning towards self growth , maturity I don’t know , I really do not understand the word , it complicates my head.

What did I do on these days? Whatever I would share may sound non sequitur. But we all go through this; even Da Vinci was not painting Mona Lisa every day. I recollect myself listening to some old sad songs and making a Diet plan for the month which I never followed. I visited Facebook again and again and keeping the chat off, as if I wanted a view of a show without being noticed. I went running for two hours and then just slept off. I thought of making a new recipe and sadly could not find half of the ingredients in the kitchen and ended up eating Maggie .I sat for mediation and thought of all the flirty things I wanted to do .I wore my old dresses to check did I still fit in them .I over indulged in high calorie foods to satisfy something which I could not understand. I went through old mails and chats to remember how it used to be like when thing had not changed. I over analyzed everything  , and laughed too much on something really ridiculous and that was me at some point of time and also shed off a lot of tears  just feeling miserable without any objectivity and neither was subjectivity in place that time.

Honestly I did not do anything productive. But I also wrote this blog on one of those days and I also remembered meeting a harridan in her sweetness telling me that in life whatever you do be convinced by yourself first, trust it completely and then go ahead just like either you eat a salad or a Biryani because half cooked meal neither gives taste to you nor any praise to the cook .

My Languid Lover

O’ my languid lover

I wait for you somewhere

You dream of me on the shore

But never set a sail to explore

You search my face in the clouds

But never drench in the rains with me

O sweet, sweet lover of mine

Notice, I am just behind

The red, red wine takes the color of time

And you gaze at me as a mortal so divine

 The nectar of my longing is flowing

O’ paramour and you dwell in the vicarious life  

 The muse and the music you wish to know is here

Put me on your canvas; paint me with your touch

O’ my languid lover

I wait for you somewhere

  

Naina's - being Wifey

Naina was in her room, a little exhausted from today’s shopping, some boxes of jewelry lying on the bed, a pile of beautifully handpicked sarees. So much had been done and so much was still left .Yes it was her wedding time and not just a shopping spree. She looked at the clock and it was three forty five in the night and she had trouble sleeping. What thoughts were going in her head? Was she ready for this? What is arranged or love?

The Truth is we are never really ready for anything till it happens; we can do some preparations, get cognizant about it or even make a to-do list reading various articles but how it will really happen we can never control or know for sure so readiness is a journey in which we go slowly over time .Marriage is like our other relations which asks for acceptance of the other person in their most crude forms. For Naina it was a marriage which she had arranged partly and she was in the neighborhood of love. What kept her awake but?

She was imagining herself not as a bride but as a wife. What would it be like to be a spouse? How do married people live? All these feelings were new to her and yet to be explored .I could see a faint smile coming up on her face as she closed her eyes slowly. With the temptation to know what was going on I became part of her imagination.

Her mind was full of flashes of a life which was waiting for her : She had a comfortable couch in her house where she was watching a romcom with a man holding her around the waist …They were glued to their laptops for the next day’s meeting at their offices… and exchanged smiles whenever possible…She massaged his back when he would come back home late … he comforted her in those days of the month ….some days they cooked together and other  days they sat and did their finances ….Somedays went in silence and somedays in complete naughtiness …somedays were of narrating  childhoods and some days of house maintenance…those were the toes which met between the sheets even after disappointments of the day …a passionate night with “ Hazaron khwaishein aisi ki har khwaish  pe dam nikle….bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle” playing softly and filling the room with deeper urgency to make love …. And waking up with the same man…who got a cold last night because you got too adventurous …. He won’t be   your ‘ A little French Affair’  which got over with a wild night neither is he your teenage crush which got over because now he does not fit in your dreamy world ...he would be your husband ..the man whom you would stand by even if he is sneeze, nauseated or just grumpy because he is the one whom you will grow old with …he will lose hair, your bosom will sag but the smile will remain the same… and he is the one who will look at you in complete admiration when you would be hormonally racked out and would remind you how you looked on the night you first copulated .The days of reading together …celebrating together …days of nervous conceiving …days of blooming into a garden from just a seed of start….days of pulling each other’s leg and then caressing like the first rain on a thirty land….the days of falling in love again and the days of remembering the initial hesitations … the days romance which would transform into deeper understanding …may be he won’t impress you each day but would always be concerned about you…may be he would be your soul mate ..maybe he would not.. because it would be beautiful enough to have a companion to walk along…the flashes were so many and it was morning already ….she looked at her solitaire ring …refulgent and well cut  … Naina went to take a shower with a towel in her hand and ebullience on her face.

Ways & Wait

The way I look at you
The wait to be looked at

The way I say nothing
The wait to be heard without speaking

The way I look at flowers
The wait to smell them again

The way I look at my heels
The wait to dance again

The way I look at stars
The wait to sparkle again

The way I look at my pillow
The wait to sleep again

Tender may be the night
The wait for the tenderness in life

The meeting of eyes , the touching of lives
The wait for a little romance tonight

Hope & Reasons

One night I cried and I cried some more , sometimes looking at the light coming from the doorway inside my room , sometimes looking at the busy road outside and at other times thinking why did I become a sad soul each passing day. I even remember a day when I did not fear death not because I did not want to live but the zest disappeared and I did not find any reason. We humans, we always want to cling to a reason. We always want something to hold on to. But this is what confuses me all the time –should I be the stubborn child asking the universe what I want or let it go ,all of it like the autumn leaves without any expectations of the spring.

Next day I met a close friend of mine and spilled the beans and poured my heart out in her warmth and yes the coffee did come later. I told her about my qualms and soaked my handkerchief again .I told her I see a bridge with a rainbow in the background but I don’t see where the bridge leads to , from where I stand my vision is clouded about what happens  when I across it and this uncertainty takes my toll each day. If I could only understand zero and one I would not step on it but we do feel and our deep intelligence tells us that even mathematics have exceptions but to know the probability of being that exception takes our peace away.

She smiled at me and took my hand in hers. She told me about a couple who wanted a child but the pregnancy was complicated, the doctors were not sure if they would be able to save the child and even if the child is born for how long it would survive , they had no answer to that , only time had. It was a tense moment; they had the happiness to bear a child but that that moment they did not know what the future holds. What they had was faith, a hope to see that smile of a new born, and the most painful period of nine months of complete dubiety. The child was born and the girl who lived was sitting with me, a little moist in the eyes herself. Maybe understanding Hope is not easy; it does not need a particular certainty or promise to hold on to, it does not come with a glossy picture of the future. It is independent, it is pure, and it is your earnest prayer.

Be the stubborn child, tell the universe what you want and then let go, because you have been heard .Alchemy is no gold, it is a belief and without belief nothing changes. We walked out of the café and my life did not change but I wanted to see things in a different way.

Of Poppies and Fireflies

Inside my dark, dark forest

A little black, grey and green

I dream a dream so deep

A dream of colors and light

Somewhere in an open field

Of poppies and fireflies

Sanguine are the hopes

Like stars on a quite road

Of snowflakes on the top of a tree

I kept the window open

And here came the breeze

But also some rain, so is life

She Settled

Disha had overheard a conversation, and suddenly she felt as if her stomach was sinking. Her father’s words, “yes we would like to meet your son”, kept on giving her the sweat under the fan in her room. It was one of those October evenings in a middle class nuclear family where everything goes according to a plan, you have to be clear - what career choices to make, what will be made for dinner, you make ‘prasads’ on those assigned days according to the Hindu calendar and some roses bloom in the small garden in front of the house and people retire from their jobs and read a newspaper every morning after that in the same garden.

She had entered the peril zone this birthday, and suddenly everything had changed, she was supposed to think about settling with someone and that someone was supposed to be well settled (he could not be a bohemian, and not with too much of out of the box ideas about life).She was supposed to think about a changed life out of her will, she had to think more about sarees than books, more about culinary skills than adventure trips.

Disha was not against marriage but she felt suffocated when things came prematurely than her heart accepted them. Today if someone wishes to fill the house with roses but what you have are rose buds, would you cut them and force open the petals? No you won’t do that .They will be allowed to bloom in their course of time. So why do we hurry with ourselves?

She always had this question what if she never felt like having a man in her life or may be just travel with a partner , what if she never got the idea of what getting settled really meant , because may be you settle to be happy and if your happiness lies in something else then that is your settled life. May be she would fall in love with a man in her sixties and make love to him each day like a curious teenager .But why today and why now because she blew twenty fours candles .Let her know what she feels about being a woman, let her fail with many men, let her leave a trail but let her be.

Ten years later, I saw Disha in a café reading ‘The Story of Philosophy’ by Wil Durant and Lonely Planet in her satchel was popping out. She was wearing a khaki trouser and a white top which hung on her carelessly. Her laptop was open and maybe she was making some reservations. There was a shopping bag which had some coloring books, a soft toy and some groceries. Who knows what she became professionally ,  who knows did she even marry because I forgot to look at her fingers and those coloring books , children is the next question , maybe for her little girl or for the neighbor’s kid or maybe just for herself. How did she go back home? Did a car pick her up or she took a cab or maybe walked her way home humming ‘Wo sham kutch ajeeb thi …ye sham bhi ajeeb hai’ .I don’t really know but in my candor she looked Settled that day in her most inconspicuous ways.

They Met for no Reason

She walked in the room and sat beside him, the place was overcrowded and their thighs touched each other. Everybody was waiting for the screening of a short film. She asked him, “did you guys made this film?”He said, “Yes we did” .Who knew life would change for both of them after this simple exchange of words.

Each time they met, they slipped into an intimacy and closeness they could not stop as if the river just flowed, as if someone had opened the latch, as if there was something more important than taking in air.

They had to go out for dinner; she struggled with strings on the back of her dress and he sitting on a slouchy sofa in the dim lit room admired her between the strings through the gossamer curtains. She walked out of the room and suddenly their conversations turned into an altercation ,I don’t remember the reason.Why I don’t remember it now, I don’t have a reason for that. They got tired and slowly the twilight turned into a quiet night .It was not so quiet as the dogs were barking somewhere near the watchman’s hut but still an known silence  had taken a huge space inside the house. She had loosened those strings as they were not required anymore and was lying on the bed clutching a pillow close to her bosom. He walked in and looked at her back and then gradually moved his hand around her waist to make her face him and as she looked up he held her close to him and snuggled his face between her bosoms. The night was sultry and some breeze came from a wooden window on their left, teasing the sweat between their bodies. He told her about his childhood pranks and hurts, distant family and close friends, his failures and punishments and those scars which have made him what he is today. He cried in her solace as if he was a lost wanderer fooled by the mirages of life and was finally resting in the shades of palm.They fell asleep gradually and in the morning she found a note on the bed. What was in the note I don’t know but she had a grin.

She was waiting for him in a café which was at a walking distance from her place and as it had been raining the whole day she had carried her lilac umbrella with her .She was wearing a yellow knee length dress which had tiny white flowers on the hemline and her hair were still wet .He walked in as if he did not care that she existed and then sat opposite to her and ordered two lattes without asking her. He watched her sip as her lips touched the rim of the cup and how she kept the cup back on the table. He did not say a word and just penned her beauty down in his thoughts which enticed his eyes, the beauty which had no reason of its existence; it just existed as it had to. He left paying the bill and she left with one hand holding the umbrella and the other had white lilies. Somewhere in those moments between opening the lock on the door and before entering the house she decided to sit on the porch and watch the rain as it falls. Her hands rested between her legs and her toes were getting wet with each drop. She wanted to have his child not because she wanted a child to mother, not because she wanted a marriage not because she was a woman but she wanted to know him since innocence .Rain had stopped and she went inside.

They never met after that evening. They were the young lovers of the spring who had lost their way in the summer heat and when the rains came the world got greener and they turned grey.Although I believe in one of those winters they will grow a sapling because fertile thoughts are not dependent on seasons.

Somedays

Those days when you wake up and you hate the sunshine outside, you don’t like people with happy faces and chirpy talks. You don’t want to open your mouth or even move your finger and look at the wall or your laptop blank and lost .Days when Keep Calm posters don’t work on you , neither that cup of coffee or green tea in a silent corner nor your favorite book.

When Chandler Bing’s sarcasm isn’t that amusing and you really don’t want to know how Barney stays awesome. Your top-drawer collection of Music to escape this wordily wise world does not take you in trance and that blueberry muffin does not taste good. When your identity is the pain and you look for anonymity.

You slump yourself on the bed and nothing makes you feel better, you don’t feel anxious about anything, there are no questions and you don’t want to know the answers .The pragmatic populace calls it depression but I don’t understand what depression is all about but I do understand that this is when HOPE has found a new place to rent and you are abandoned for good .This is when you are dying in the moment, your past is not affecting you and Future in not even in the oven.

So now that you are dying and you are not dead yet that means some part of you is still living and this part of yours, Preserve it. It is good to be distracted if not focused because still you are attracted to something but being distant is not a salubrious concoction .These days are those ‘Somedays’ of our lives when we get apologetic of where we are and how life is happening to us. As we grew older we realized it is a relative world and the more we digested it, we also in our brooding corners compared everything and sadly we compared our feelings too. Look at a child near you, when he is happy eating a chocolate he is just happy, that is an independent state devoid of relativity.

Who saves us from these ‘Somedays’? We do, by ourselves .We pick ourselves from the most uneasy thought to a neutral one and from there to a sober one and gradually the smile is back. Some do it with oversleeping; some  by talking to strangers; some go for long showers listening to the force of water on their bodies  which silences the noise inside and others , the true optimists  , they still go looking for their tea kettle , but maybe this time Green instead of Black is the flavor which will play the trick.

Lemons in Life

One hand was under the pillow and the other went snoozing the alarm , rushed for the shower and forgetting the towel outside as always , struggled in the traffic and now glued to the screen , taking innumerable calls with the oh so formal tone of -"ya tell me " and as the hour hand dates the number 6 Neer is dragging herself back home , looking at the TV screen with little enthusiasm , a little cribbing and some jocularity.The day has ended and the lights are off with a feeling of demanding change.She doses off to sleep and not knowing what she had asked for.

Neer was in her early twenties and kind of liked her work though at the back of her mind she always thought about being somewhere else or being something more rather than the clear sketch in front of her.Why not a painting full of colors which could laugh all the time.

Her boss calls her up and the next moment she is sitting in a tense room and the faces are gloomy.Its not you its the organisation which has failed everyone.It still amazes me why Neer was not upset?She sat quietly there and she had nothing to say.In the next moment some warm hugs were exchanged and she was walking out with her stuff in her back pack.Today the Metro station was not crowded as the office hours had not started and she came in an almost empty one.As she was coming out she bought herself a cream roll , it used to be her favorite childhood ,her father used to buy her one after every 10 on 10 score.May be she was missing him.

She sat on the stairs and her calmness intrigued me.For some time she scrolled through her contact list in her phone even when she knew whom she wanted to call up.He did not answer her phone , must have been busy in the office , sometimes we look for comfort and the kind of love we want from the same place where we gave it.It took her a lot of time to understand that though.She could not call her best friend as she had assumed they could not understand each other.She could not call her close friend because he had chosen his priorities.She could not call her mother as she was suffering from an unidentified health problem which kept her only in pain.She could not call her brother as he was in the hospital.Without her notice one tear rolled down her cheek from her right eye and then for some time everything was blurred.She looked at her watch and it was late.Picking up her bag she walked straight wondering whether she was lonely or alone.

We plan our lives , what for ? We invest our emotions in certain relations again for what? I don't have clear answers but I do know these questions surface when things fall apart ,when we expect a linear equation but an expression comes up , when the loop does not iterate as expected.

We will always make certain choices , our minds will run into numerous imaginations , we will run after broken dreams and yes life will fail us but we have to win it back , always . When life throws lemons at you make lemonade , pickles or a tart  , no one cares the essence is to use the lemon even when you know it is sour.

Neer started re-reading the books she had always loved , for hours she used to be with different kinds of Music , some days capturing life around and some days so engrossed in her cooking as if her first love.Many evenings she used to be lost in her own world lying of the carpet gazing at the moon through the only window in her room.She looks into the  mirror to find a beautiful woman as the girl bids her adieu.In Italian its called 'dolce far niente ' - the sweetness of doing nothing.She has a little saving and she keeps on wondering of buying a ticket and just leave from the back door into the wilderness to smell the roses , run on the sand , talking to strangers and eating what she craves for .

I don't know whether Neer bought that ticket or not but she did have a certain glow on her face , may be it was love of another kind as she embraced her inner happiness

When I am There ...

I am there listening to your pain

Taking it in, falling asleep with it

Your eyes are rainy, without a waterfall

Give me the unrest  , and walk tall

Blank is the paper, let me ink it, even though it is a crumpled one

Let me write the poems you have waited for or the prose forgone

It is not a gamble; you win even when you lose as nothing is ever lost

Time and space have stories to tell but you listen to your core

Sometimes love can’t be just three words

It surrounds you everywhere when I am there