And thus spoke her Conscience

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’

Describing her isn't easy. She is a girl who hardly knows herself. But the irony is that, there is hardly any person who has analysed himself or herself so much in depth as has been done by her. She knows her weaknesses and is aware of her strengths. She has put together all the scattered pieces of the puzzle that defines her and indeed everything fits perfectly. But there is something still missing. She is in search of a thing lost. She has the energy but no fixed motive. She has the potential but lacks the passion. She has wings but longs for flight. She has dreams but fails to achieve them. She is happy but sheds tears when alone. She is a mystery even to her own soul. How then can I, a mere spectator, dare to describe her.

I met her years back, when from being a crawling toddler she had learnt to finally stand. I was there when she resolved to make a mark for herself. I was constantly there when on so many ocassions, she went out of her comfort zone and walked the extra mile for bringing smiles to people's faces. I watched her become a strong lady who had had the bitter taste of betrayals and heartbreaks and failures. Yes, I was always there. Friends leave, siblings may not always be there, parents expire; what remains are the little things like me that are silent spectators to every success and every setback that a soul endures. I am her conscience. And believe me, she has fire within her that burns like lava out of a volcano.

She doesnt know whom to listen to anymore. She has lost the sense of what's right and what's wrong. Her opinion was never valued and nor is it valued now. She is a loyal lover in the day and a passionate companion to unknown men at night. Her duties have beautifully merged with the suppressed desires of her heart and though amidst guilt, she is enjoying the life she is leading. She is not a whore. She is just a young girl fallen prey to love at an age when she was supposed to engage in mere flings. What she does is not wrong. The mysteries of her nights are known to no third person and yet there is a sense of remorse in her heart everytime she embraces her man in her bosom. While a devout lover on one hand, she is an explorer of possibilities on the other. Her love for her better half makes her stand still and give up on her desires but the burning fire in her makes her a mysterious vagabond in search of a different kind of happiness. She is two persons living two different lives. For some she is an elegant lady and for the rest, an unattainable mystery. She is on the run. She knows not what she is up to. She grabs whatever comes on her way. She gets allured. She is footloose. She is a dreamer.

Walk a mile in my shoes

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

I knew life wasn't fair the day I lost my husband. I knew life can be harsh when I saw my son breathe his last right before my eyes. I knew my existence shall be pathetic when I was ridiculed and taken for granted by my elder sons and their wives.

The young couple that lives next door smile at me each morn, but I can sense that it ain't a genuine smile; I sense pity in their eyes. The people in my building are extremely sweet to me and why wouldn't they be!? I'm afterall a seventy seven year old widow who lives all by herself in a three BHK flat at a city as noisy and busy as this. I get no visitors, and I visit none.

Sometimes, I long for some human company or perhaps a hearty chat over a cup of tea. When alone, I don't even feel like entering the kitchen and making something. I've never cooked for myself before, but now that they've all abandoned me, my longings to have people around remain unheard and unsaid.

I am however fond of writing and I'm an active member of our building's Writer's Committee. The members of the committee question me occassionaly, with eyes of mercy and a heavy heart that why dont I fight with my sons to treat me right. They say I am too sweet to belong to this world but I wonder what will it be like to be harsh to my own progenies?! How do I ask them to stay within limits when I didn't set any while I still had time!?

It's easy for my neighbors and acquaintances to come up with solutions and express their opinions of what is right but for someone like me who has lost enough in life to remain under the constant fear of losing what remains, it's difficult to practically apply their solutions. It's easy for the world to comment on my plight but I wonder what they'd do if given to walk a mile in my shoes!?

Life is a Box of Clothes

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

As kids me and my two elder siblings didn't have closets or drawers or fancy almirahs to keep our clothes in, we had boxes; or to use a more pleasing terms, suitcases.

Mine was a small black box which was of just the right size to hold all the colorful possessions of a one year old. We all have weird stories and tales of our childhood, mine was that I woke my mother from her sound and deep slumber each night at around two just to change my dress. No, I wasn't a nocturnal child but somehow the bodyclock of my tinier version was accustomed to waking up at that odd hour of the night just to satisfy my childish craze. And my poor kind mother never did refuse to fulfil her adamant child's weird wish.

As time rolled by and technology and development began to bloom in the country, we saw its impacts in our home too. For me, it was the shift from a black box to a Godrej Almirah that was strictly meant to shelter my belongings. I never let anybody open it without my permission and incase somebody did so while I was away at school, I'd found out about it the moment I returned home. My sister who was eight years older to me left for college at Delhi while I was still in fifth standard. And Delhi being so far away from home made it difficult for her to make trips home unless she had really long vacations like the summer break.

I wondered then, how could she pack her life in a box or trolly and just travel around!? I mean, I have a six foot tall almirah and that too isn't enough space for me to keep all my stuff which by the way is more precious to me than life itself. This girl here amazed me everytime she came home with her box of clothes and accessories. I finally concluded that may be she didn't love her stuff as much as I love mine. Perhaps, her clothes were simply pieces of fabric to be worn a couple of times and then discarded ( cause apparently my wardrobe was filled with the clothes that either didn't fit her or the ones she was tired of).

But years later, as I leave home for college now, I see that it's not always about clinging to your clothes or material possessions. Perhaps the way you maintain your wardrobe doesn't define your passion for your dreams. Life is afterall more than a ten year old's definition of love and passion.

Its been almost three months since I left home. My life too is now confined to a box. And coincidently, it's a black box again with only a variation in its size. As our college breaks for Puja and I pack my belongings into that box in anticipation and excitement of seeing my parents, siblings, relatives and friends after such a long gap, my heart pounds at a faster rate and the smile refuses to leave my face. I now realise what it must have been like for my sister back then, when she left for college in an unknown land and then came home to what's familiar.

The excitement of not knowing what prospects lie in an unexplored land to the happiness of coming back to what's familiar and cosy, life is a mixture of all this hustle bustle and calm, this uncertainty and certainty. Forrest Gump's mum was right when she said that "Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get" but I can really not come up with a better analogy than this cause it all comes down to this box of clothes in life that takes one away for his/her dreams and brings him/her back for love, family and everything else. We age, we grow, we learn and in the process we relocate from our homes to rooms in hostels in unknown lands. Things change, our priorities change and all this while what remains constant is the one thing that I just said: Life is nothing but a box of clothes!

That day before sunrise

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Sometimes you just know that the end is near. Something you held on to for may be decades is about to slip away from your hold and you can't do anything about it because its probably for the best. There are things in life we hold on to believing that they are our guiding light, we overlook the imperfections in our life that owe their existence to these very things we believe are our 'saviours'. Perhaps none would agree with me at this point but I bet that each soul has some self created barrier that stops them from experiencing true happiness and bliss. Here's mine, I hope that you find and get rid of yours!

A couple of years ago, when I was a bit younger and more insensible, immature and impulsive than I am now, I met a person. And that person was one charming, smart, captivating moron. He knew just the right way to get up on a stage and get his ideas liked by people; he was excellent with his words and gestures. Being a public speaker myself, I got impressed by him in an instant and hence without thinking much, I let his thoughts overpower my mental peace or my life goals for that matter. Without even trying to know the kind of person that he is or the kind of girls he likes to date, I dived into the deep, vast ocean of unrequitted love.

I began stalking him on social media and analysed every bit of information that the internet provides about people belonging to his zodiac sign. And summoning all my courage, I did initiate a seemingly interesting conversation with him one day. Every chat with him inspired me to be better than who I was, every word he spoke instilled in me the fire to be extraordinary. His words became my success mantra and indeed they helped me to reach my targets. My belief that he was my inspiration grew stronger with each of our conversations. While his words gave me the impetus to work harder, his refusal to ackowledge my 'love' for him made my soul unhappier and nights darker. I cried more than I smiled. No amount of success or blessings from the heavens could make me feel grateful about my beautiful life that's a gift to me only for this tiny imperfection. The pain of having my 'love' unrequitted did hardly let me sleep at night without wetting my pillow.

And then came a day, when I saw something he created, on the internet. It was his story of unrequitted love that he had boldly put up on the internet for the world to see in a very beautiful and creative way. While I always saw my pain, I failed to see his. I considered myself the bravest for enduring all the loneliness and dejection that I believed was thrown by life at me alone. But when we look around, there are people with problems ten times harder than ours, pain hundred times severe than ours and imperfections thousand times graver than ours and yet we believe that our struggle is the hardest and we are the bravest.

That day before sunrise, I cried for the longest duration. I barely caught a minute's sleep that night. It was perhaps my longest night. But even amidst the flood of tears, I knew that this time the reason behind these waterdrops from my eyes is not unrequitted love's pain but that of letting go of what mattered. These were tears of freedom from a long, painful and dark past. I had been holding on to something that was never meant to be mine and all this because I 'believed' that we had a story. Well, we sure do have a story; everyone does. But our stories are not the same. Though a little too late but I did realise this. But somehow, letting go of my presumed inspiration wasn't easy. It's almost as if mourning his absence was my comfort zone. But that day before sunrise, when I cried for the longest duration and barely caught a minute's sleep, I did free myself from the shackles of a self created prison.

Zest and fire of yore

Dear Soul,
When you're forty and mature and old
Do smile when you look at the mirror and try not be low,
"You're a pretty young girl" now you're told
But two decades hence, treasure your wrinkles  as if that's your glow.

Dear Heart,
Try not to be so unstable as you are now,
Let go of your attitude of attaining things 'anyhow'
Stick to the courteous path without being rough
Its okay to seek affection by abandoning the pretence of being tough.

Dear Eyes,
You perhaps now need spectacles to see things accurately
It's time you start valuing things for what they're truly worth,
What appears to you beautiful today will one day turn ugly
Do not repeat past mistakes to ensure the inflow of mirth.

Dear Thoughts,
You're what define me and my existence on earth
You're the windshield of my soul: shelter pure ideas without any dearth
Remain as compassionate and loving as you now are
Live your truest desire with the same teenage zest and fire!

(This one is from a teen self to a middle-aged self. It was written for a contest on Allpoetry where they asked you to speak to your older/younger version)

A well - known stranger

Have you ever met someone whose image has been hard to erase? A person who is a total stranger and yet who seems familiar? A face that's too special to forget?! If yes, then you'd surely relate to this piece of poetry written in honor of a stranger I met two years ago at an airport. There is literally nothing I know about him except for his face that has resided in my mind's eye ever since! Hope readers enjoy the poem!!

I remember a stranger at the airport

Who appeared a lot different from the lot

With glittering eyes and an unkempt beard

He had a personality unanimously revered.

A cup of coffee he held in his hand,

In an eerie desert he was a grain of golden sand.

A backpack adorned his muscular physique,

He was an epitome of a hero distinguished from the weak.

Following his trail wasn’t possible

Knowing his whereabouts - a task near impossible.

I carry him in my mind’s eye wherever I go

He is a stranger I’ve known too well to let go.