When success followed my dream,
more dreams followed
Friday, January 18, 2008
Say no to love
And all this while he was my friend. Eight years of mutual nakedness. Ninety six months of confessions, secrets, fights, patch-ups, phone-calls, heart-breaks, birthdays. And two thousand nine hundred and forty days of companionship made it special. Pity it took just one hour of midnight to ruin it all.
May be it was just a compromise glorified, till its inevitable death knocked on our lives. I’ll like to believe that a few drops of dancing desires bottled in finest glass cage drowned it all. Or may be it was the conspiracy of an envious moment that looses its existence the very next moment. May be it was born to give us death. May be it fought, bribed, rushed through every minute to bring night onto us. After all it was a moment that build our story years back.
It all started with a prankster habit of mine. It was a close friend’s party packed with strangers, waiting to be my friends. On her special day a rare gift was being packed for me. After all didn’t he spend four hours to dissuade my make-shift cousin from pursuing engineering? His eyes left his socket when he realized it was just an active brain-wave of mine that gave everyone a reason to laugh. One party, one prank and two days later a chocolate from him was sitting pretty on my hostel desk. It looked like an invitation for a sweet, creamy friendship garnished with fruits and nuts. Only I didn’t realize it came with an expiry date.
Our relationship flourished by the day. From dentist’s appointment to study hours to friends to fights, to wins and to losses, we were together in everything. That he was an year newer to this world was not of concern to us because we were just friends, until 16th February, 2001.
My bus pulled in at 8.00 pm at Chandigarh bustand. At 8.10pm we were driving around mindlessly in his car. His favorite 7-round joke at his chosen roundabout just got over. In the silence of the night, I heard the tinkering of the music system, a familiar voice rolled out and my heart stopped beating. It was him confessing his love through a recorded message. The moment I had dreaded had arrived. Didn’t I make it clear we were friends? Just friends.
Then why this urge for possession, for belongingness, for commitment? Why does every bird cover miles in search of a nest? Do streams flow into an ocean to be with each other? Do trees have branches to touch each other? Do leaves fall on the ground to die in their beloved’s arms? Questions, questions and more questions were racing through my mind.
Then came the diary. Words beautifully threaded together to lay down a bed of love. Every sentence dancing with joy. Every page a memoir of desires. My pulse was racing now. Butterflies water-rafting in my stomach. This was not to be. He was a friend. Forever.
It was love trying to replace friendship. I felt his eyes searching for an answer on my face.
Desperately hoping for a curve of my smile, shine in my eyes, sprint in my walk. I didn’t want to break his heart, but keeping it together was far beyond me. For hours silence reigned. Loving hism in exchange of being loved by him was not mandatory, he smiled bravely. Even if just to make him feel better, I could not smile. I could not agree. The hope had to die. Today. Now.
The spark of the battle that played a day before was born that day.
May be it was just a compromise glorified, till its inevitable death knocked on our lives. I’ll like to believe that a few drops of dancing desires bottled in finest glass cage drowned it all. Or may be it was the conspiracy of an envious moment that looses its existence the very next moment. May be it was born to give us death. May be it fought, bribed, rushed through every minute to bring night onto us. After all it was a moment that build our story years back.
It all started with a prankster habit of mine. It was a close friend’s party packed with strangers, waiting to be my friends. On her special day a rare gift was being packed for me. After all didn’t he spend four hours to dissuade my make-shift cousin from pursuing engineering? His eyes left his socket when he realized it was just an active brain-wave of mine that gave everyone a reason to laugh. One party, one prank and two days later a chocolate from him was sitting pretty on my hostel desk. It looked like an invitation for a sweet, creamy friendship garnished with fruits and nuts. Only I didn’t realize it came with an expiry date.
Our relationship flourished by the day. From dentist’s appointment to study hours to friends to fights, to wins and to losses, we were together in everything. That he was an year newer to this world was not of concern to us because we were just friends, until 16th February, 2001.
My bus pulled in at 8.00 pm at Chandigarh bustand. At 8.10pm we were driving around mindlessly in his car. His favorite 7-round joke at his chosen roundabout just got over. In the silence of the night, I heard the tinkering of the music system, a familiar voice rolled out and my heart stopped beating. It was him confessing his love through a recorded message. The moment I had dreaded had arrived. Didn’t I make it clear we were friends? Just friends.
Then why this urge for possession, for belongingness, for commitment? Why does every bird cover miles in search of a nest? Do streams flow into an ocean to be with each other? Do trees have branches to touch each other? Do leaves fall on the ground to die in their beloved’s arms? Questions, questions and more questions were racing through my mind.
Then came the diary. Words beautifully threaded together to lay down a bed of love. Every sentence dancing with joy. Every page a memoir of desires. My pulse was racing now. Butterflies water-rafting in my stomach. This was not to be. He was a friend. Forever.
It was love trying to replace friendship. I felt his eyes searching for an answer on my face.
Desperately hoping for a curve of my smile, shine in my eyes, sprint in my walk. I didn’t want to break his heart, but keeping it together was far beyond me. For hours silence reigned. Loving hism in exchange of being loved by him was not mandatory, he smiled bravely. Even if just to make him feel better, I could not smile. I could not agree. The hope had to die. Today. Now.
The spark of the battle that played a day before was born that day.
late in love
It’s just one of those things we think will never cross our roads. It’s like the jackpot that never knocks your home, the bright kid that your neighbor shows-off, and the huge villa that does not belong to you- Extra marital affair. Extra-marital affairs are what you hear about, you add chapters to but you never, and I repeat; never indulge in this house-breaking temptation.
But, it happened to me. One sultry night of January it tip-toed into my much married existence. Ever since I am sharing my bed with one and sleeping with another. Living with one and being with another, a partner to one and soul mate to another.
How does it feel? It feels like a roller-coaster ride that’s bound to end. It’s the sweet poison that softens your dream before pushing you into a nightmare.
But, it happened to me. One sultry night of January it tip-toed into my much married existence. Ever since I am sharing my bed with one and sleeping with another. Living with one and being with another, a partner to one and soul mate to another.
How does it feel? It feels like a roller-coaster ride that’s bound to end. It’s the sweet poison that softens your dream before pushing you into a nightmare.
incomplete- calling out
There were these voices, always.
Whispering, conspiring, nudging her to kill the normal.
Normal? What’s normal for a 19 year old mentally retarded girl?
Soiling the bed in the night? Being chained to a lifeless witness of her sorrow? Or talking to herself, 24 hours?
Or is it the old Gulmohar tree in the backyard of her four walls? The tree. It talks to her. When it’s sad, it cries its leaves out. When it’s happy, it breaks into small red flowers. Last night it was angry. Swaying vehemently as if trying to uproot itself and touch her. She was in pain and it could feel it.
Even last month when “he” was here from the town, she was in pain. It always hurt to see him. She wanted to reach out and feel him. She wanted to smell him, she wanted to kiss him, caress him, fold his arms around her. What was he? Some dream she had lived, or more convincingly she had dreamt. Dreamt a dream? Was it normal to dream a dream?
What was normal about Raj Lakshmi anyway?
When she was a kid she did normal things. Freed butterflies from the sweat of her hands. Reveled the orchestra that the nightingale, woodpeckers, crickets, seemed to play with the rustling of the winds and the whistling of the water. She loved the stories that the sun and the sky read out to her. Often, when she would follow a pebble down stream, she would make a new friend. A wild flower, a rabbit, RAIN!
Rain, was sometimes Raj Lakshmi’s best friend. It mostly came unannounced. Sometimes it caught her out in the open, drenching her, embracing her and flowing down her hair like tiny transparent marbles. On other occasions it hid her embarrassment, totally drowning her tears. For hours she would sit by the window and watch the drops romance the air. Fall on the ground and break into thousand tiny droplets and then she would laugh, loud, unashamed of being heard.
It would raise a familiar fear in her dadi.
Chapter 2
Dadi and sisters
The month of july ushered in two seasons in the haveli of Thakur Rudra Pratap Singh, the sweet zest of mangoes and the tinkling of the two sisters’ payjeb. Raj Lakshmi and Swaran Lata, strangers sharing the same family!
In their Dadi’s words Raj Lakshmi at 14 was a princess. “A delicate stem of Lotus, prettier than the pink of monsoon skies, soft like rose petals and unassuming, very unassuming.” Of course she never forgot to add doomed with Raj Lakshmi! That’s what her cousins called Raj Lakshmi, Doomed Princess!
Swaran Lata was pretty, like..like….well she was pretty. She had big black magical eyes. They cast a spell on you everytime they would look into your direction. She could lock your attention for days after you would have looked into them, searching for that mysterious shine. Her long lashes were equally skillful. They would shut on you when you would be too close to something she kept guarded inside that sea of seduction. All of 16 years, the girl could boast of a voluptuously crafted frame that could lure many a thousand ships into a storm. And she was sharp!
She could cut through you and read every sentence you were about to utter. Read every word that crossed your mind. It was dangerous to desire her in her presence and impossible to not do so. Often, she played with people, she read, had fallen for her. She was good with words and words she wrote.
“ I burn, I melt
in the arms of wind
come embrace my being”
Come who would not for her, when the darkness was young and the sky all drunk on the beauty of moon. They all came. With expensive gifts and gifts of hearts! She kept them waiting for hours, for days. She never met them, not one of them. She liked words not men!
There was another thing she did not like, Raj Lakshmi!
It pained their dadi to see the distance between the two increasing by the day. Raj Laksmi reminded many of her mother. The same innocence, same beauty and same aloofness.
The quality of being with everyone yet being alone. The art of being everyone’s friend, yet belonging to none. Everything that Swaran Lata wanted to erase from her memory, she lived in Raj Laksmi..
Sometimes Dadi saw an unknown fear in Swaran Lata’s eyes, almost as if she had seen a ghost. Was Swaran Lata scared? What could possibly scare Swaran Lata? Her Dadi had seen her stand unperturbed on rather moving occasions. Occasions, when tears flooded the eyes of those, known to have lived their lives without a heart. They had failed to move the girl, of infusing any feeling of loss or fear in her.
What was it about Raj Lakshmi that invoked a fear in the heart of her elder sister?
What was she scared of?
Of Raj Lakshmi finding companionship where no one ever ventured, dark forests, khandars and the lone black room in the basement of the haveli.
Chapter 3
THE SUMMER TROUBLE
They indeed had remarkably dangerous similarities. Raj Lakshmi and her mother.
And this haveli would never let the family forget the same. Nor would that summer.
The holidays started on a rather lazy note, marking the absence of many relatives and friends. Kusum Tayee, from Calcutta, Banwari Chacha, Palo Chachi and their three kids suman, chandru and manohar would not be coming. But Everyone’s favourite “mene kya kaha tha?” P.K. kaka had just arrived. Lachchi chachi, the widower with a sword-sharp tongue had arrived a week earlier- in order to ensure the best room- facing the orchard and miles away from Raj Lakshmi’s den. Govardhan mama and his two twins love and kush were expected to be home by evening. A certain Shreyas, the twins’ friend from nagpur was going to share the room at the out house.
Whispering, conspiring, nudging her to kill the normal.
Normal? What’s normal for a 19 year old mentally retarded girl?
Soiling the bed in the night? Being chained to a lifeless witness of her sorrow? Or talking to herself, 24 hours?
Or is it the old Gulmohar tree in the backyard of her four walls? The tree. It talks to her. When it’s sad, it cries its leaves out. When it’s happy, it breaks into small red flowers. Last night it was angry. Swaying vehemently as if trying to uproot itself and touch her. She was in pain and it could feel it.
Even last month when “he” was here from the town, she was in pain. It always hurt to see him. She wanted to reach out and feel him. She wanted to smell him, she wanted to kiss him, caress him, fold his arms around her. What was he? Some dream she had lived, or more convincingly she had dreamt. Dreamt a dream? Was it normal to dream a dream?
What was normal about Raj Lakshmi anyway?
When she was a kid she did normal things. Freed butterflies from the sweat of her hands. Reveled the orchestra that the nightingale, woodpeckers, crickets, seemed to play with the rustling of the winds and the whistling of the water. She loved the stories that the sun and the sky read out to her. Often, when she would follow a pebble down stream, she would make a new friend. A wild flower, a rabbit, RAIN!
Rain, was sometimes Raj Lakshmi’s best friend. It mostly came unannounced. Sometimes it caught her out in the open, drenching her, embracing her and flowing down her hair like tiny transparent marbles. On other occasions it hid her embarrassment, totally drowning her tears. For hours she would sit by the window and watch the drops romance the air. Fall on the ground and break into thousand tiny droplets and then she would laugh, loud, unashamed of being heard.
It would raise a familiar fear in her dadi.
Chapter 2
Dadi and sisters
The month of july ushered in two seasons in the haveli of Thakur Rudra Pratap Singh, the sweet zest of mangoes and the tinkling of the two sisters’ payjeb. Raj Lakshmi and Swaran Lata, strangers sharing the same family!
In their Dadi’s words Raj Lakshmi at 14 was a princess. “A delicate stem of Lotus, prettier than the pink of monsoon skies, soft like rose petals and unassuming, very unassuming.” Of course she never forgot to add doomed with Raj Lakshmi! That’s what her cousins called Raj Lakshmi, Doomed Princess!
Swaran Lata was pretty, like..like….well she was pretty. She had big black magical eyes. They cast a spell on you everytime they would look into your direction. She could lock your attention for days after you would have looked into them, searching for that mysterious shine. Her long lashes were equally skillful. They would shut on you when you would be too close to something she kept guarded inside that sea of seduction. All of 16 years, the girl could boast of a voluptuously crafted frame that could lure many a thousand ships into a storm. And she was sharp!
She could cut through you and read every sentence you were about to utter. Read every word that crossed your mind. It was dangerous to desire her in her presence and impossible to not do so. Often, she played with people, she read, had fallen for her. She was good with words and words she wrote.
“ I burn, I melt
in the arms of wind
come embrace my being”
Come who would not for her, when the darkness was young and the sky all drunk on the beauty of moon. They all came. With expensive gifts and gifts of hearts! She kept them waiting for hours, for days. She never met them, not one of them. She liked words not men!
There was another thing she did not like, Raj Lakshmi!
It pained their dadi to see the distance between the two increasing by the day. Raj Laksmi reminded many of her mother. The same innocence, same beauty and same aloofness.
The quality of being with everyone yet being alone. The art of being everyone’s friend, yet belonging to none. Everything that Swaran Lata wanted to erase from her memory, she lived in Raj Laksmi..
Sometimes Dadi saw an unknown fear in Swaran Lata’s eyes, almost as if she had seen a ghost. Was Swaran Lata scared? What could possibly scare Swaran Lata? Her Dadi had seen her stand unperturbed on rather moving occasions. Occasions, when tears flooded the eyes of those, known to have lived their lives without a heart. They had failed to move the girl, of infusing any feeling of loss or fear in her.
What was it about Raj Lakshmi that invoked a fear in the heart of her elder sister?
What was she scared of?
Of Raj Lakshmi finding companionship where no one ever ventured, dark forests, khandars and the lone black room in the basement of the haveli.
Chapter 3
THE SUMMER TROUBLE
They indeed had remarkably dangerous similarities. Raj Lakshmi and her mother.
And this haveli would never let the family forget the same. Nor would that summer.
The holidays started on a rather lazy note, marking the absence of many relatives and friends. Kusum Tayee, from Calcutta, Banwari Chacha, Palo Chachi and their three kids suman, chandru and manohar would not be coming. But Everyone’s favourite “mene kya kaha tha?” P.K. kaka had just arrived. Lachchi chachi, the widower with a sword-sharp tongue had arrived a week earlier- in order to ensure the best room- facing the orchard and miles away from Raj Lakshmi’s den. Govardhan mama and his two twins love and kush were expected to be home by evening. A certain Shreyas, the twins’ friend from nagpur was going to share the room at the out house.
love to hate you
Just like some autumn feeling
Waiting to be shed
Your love in my heart
Is burning through my head
You taste like poison
Your smell stings
You feel like cactus
You split my skin
Yes I’m scared, I am bleeding
I’m scarred, I am peeling
I’m broken hearted
I feel you slithering inside
Waiting to be fed
Your touch on my skin
Makes me want to be dead
You move like a scorpion
Your kiss stings
You spread like acid
You burn my being
Yes I’m scared, I am bleeding
I’m scarred, I am peeling
I’m broken hearted
Waiting to be shed
Your love in my heart
Is burning through my head
You taste like poison
Your smell stings
You feel like cactus
You split my skin
Yes I’m scared, I am bleeding
I’m scarred, I am peeling
I’m broken hearted
I feel you slithering inside
Waiting to be fed
Your touch on my skin
Makes me want to be dead
You move like a scorpion
Your kiss stings
You spread like acid
You burn my being
Yes I’m scared, I am bleeding
I’m scarred, I am peeling
I’m broken hearted
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