The Last Chapter

It was a Sunday evening , the one which is more thoughtful than lazy. Naina chose to spend it alone that day near the beach.She closed her eyes as waves touched her feet and then receded back just like her thoughts were playing inside her head.

She was back in the bathtub crying over her broken heart.She was back in the car where she had her first kiss and when everything turned sour, then to the last day at her favourite workplace , then to the first day in the city and then to an empty mind and everything looked like a 'gala dinner where no one turned up'.She was feeling her every failure in fraction of seconds again and again.Since the beginning she had a habit of giving timelines to every dream of her's and biggest space occupied the search for her one true love.But it did not happen , every soulmate hope ended up in no mates but only tough lessons.Sometimes you want things badly enough and eventually it becomes a source of sadness and not optimism.She went through the same thing.She forgot to give time some time.

Walking back she decided to drop by her favourite cafe and just sit with her thoughts and go through every lesson she learnt in her early twenties about love through those sleepless nights and her dear girlfriends who always stood there like strong pillars.She started scribbling over her notebook with every sip of her soothing Irish coffee :

1. We can never choose who will enter our lives and how we will start feeling about them and also their reasons of leaving.You just gracefully let go (it comes eventually)

2.People decide not to choose you when life gives them choices , don't convince them they have already thought about it.Let them go.

3.A beautiful face may not have a big heart.But a big heart always is beautiful.

4.When something ends.It really ends and nothing remains the same.Always look forward because people change and our needs change.

5.Always be true to yourself and the person you love.Being vulnerable is a strength even when it makes you look weak.In the end it will make sense (trust me on this one!)

6.Love and sex will always be different.One is an act another is a feeling.

7.If you think the person in love with you can see you in pain and still does not act , think again.Love is not about letting the other person suffer , it comforts you , it makes your experience called Life better everyday.

8.If they are not ready for you , they are speaking the truth,don't romanticise it.Move ahead with the happiness that someone was honest to you.

9.Red lipstick can always make you look beautiful.

10.When you can't figure out when will that person with whom you will have endless conversations with , who will wait for you at the airport , the one who will tolerate your weird pyjamas and PMS moods , the one who will choose you everyday of greying hair and saggy skin .My suggestion is to stop trying to figure out , we don't have to honestly , our meeting is already planned with that person like a surprise birthday party.Always remember even that person is equally waiting to meet you.

As a last thought Naina stood up reminding herself life is full of failures and rejections , we just need to embrace that part of ours with our very own unconditional love.

Naina shifted to a new city , sketched new dreams and yes she wore red lipstick now and then.

PS : This is the last blog to beau geste.

And they just Smiled :)

“Whenever she looked at him, one thought always lingered in her mind. How did he see her…did he observe her or just glanced her of the glimpses inside. Did he look at her bosom or the beauty locked inside? What kind of thoughts swirled his mind when she was around…were they peacefully sinful or a ripple somewhere to be found out.

He knew her thoughts maybe …and sealed her with unknown territories through his lips…He did not silence her but invoked a charm of its own kind. She wanted to be his mind to know her soul like an epiphany. They played in the needs of each other …unspoken and somewhat alluded desires..When their bodies united they touched each other’s soul  …they experienced birth and salvation in those moments of union. Their eyes when held each other …they smiled as if they understood the storm inside and the love one of a kind.”

This above note I had found in an old library book, I don’t know who had kept it or written it .But I thought about them .I imagined the woman moving her hand sometimes on her navel and the womb when she took bath, when water flowed on her supple skin, maybe she was like nature …procreating …giving birth to the love they had . What was the man like in the story , did he kiss her neck often ?Did he look at her while she slept , did he ever kept his tired head in her lap? Did he ever tell her his fears? What kind of shirts did he wear? Did he sleep like a child ,  holding and hiding the childhood in the closed palm somewhere behind?Thinking about a man is like swimming in the ocean , you know the water but not the tides ,you know the fury but not the calm .. Was he trying to forget something over his wine or was he closing his eyes in the night sky and remembering everything … I don’t know. Sometimes we need to love what we love and the universe listens to our free soul.

I saw the spring outside my window and I just had a warm smile thinking about what must have happened and it gave me peace.

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.