flowing with the wind!

We are always taught to plan our lives, to keep it in our hands.
They say, knowing your dreams, would give them true shape. When you know where you are going you would follow them and ensure for yourself a good life ahead. Those who had no choices did follow destiny. Yes, I had options. Life didn’t give me 1 or 2 it gave me 3 options.
Decent enough for a graduate to have three options to fulfill and I choose the one which was best suited …I was taking risks, risking the path others were taking gracefully, in their words.
In mine, I was sure of moving away from the path the crowd was going to follow. I was sure, confident enough to give myself satisfaction. Have always been an extremist, as if didn’t know what midways were.
But then life has his own ways of treating us, what we choose or rather wish to choose does not become ours. Even if we are just a step away from our destination, there can be a wind. A wind that can blow everything. Blow all, changing our path to options which were never in our list.
I though I was always choosing the best. Options which different from others. Ways which were apart from ways anyone else would have chosen. But may be life stores something else, and today after all analysis, research and soul thinking, I am to improvise upon my judgments!
You do not always get what you choose.
Life doesn’t offer whatever you wish or plan. And if all of it was this easy, it would not have been this adventurous. Or in simpler words, it would not have been LIFE.
So, after long………. Today am not trying to determine the flow of my life.
As someone has said “life is like a box of chocolates, and you never know what is coming next till you have this one”…so today am flowing with the current.
Lets se what the life brings to me!

Fantasy

The harsh truth, the acrimonious realities,
Which I strongly wanted to be untrue
Have come face to face
Am seeing things brazen
Raw, naked as they were!

That what was untrue
Was a reason for the murkiness?
But the truth which I suppress each day
The truth that hurts,
Makes me know what it means to see your softness cry
That truth wants to nullify itself each day!

Each day I wake up,
I wake up with the unfulfilled, unreachable dream
The untamed heart still wallows in search of the lie
The lie hoping it was true!
The fable wants to turn itself,
The fantasy wants to make me to be a princess in that imagined castle
………………………………………………
No, no…this is untrue
This is a falsity!
The sun is showing bright
That what was seen was in the darkness of sky
And the desired flawlessness of the dream,
Was nothing than imagery!
The heart may be blind, but the mind is sound.
……………………………………………….

But isn’t the reflection of our desires our dreams?
Isn’t that an attempt by the laced to free itself?
Isn’t that what both of them want, but still have to contradict
To let the one for whom both exits be sound!

To fasten the softer part, by the harder one
Wasn’t it to stop the brainsick from worsening...
………………………………………
The sun is much brighter now.
I can see through that what was don’t know what?
And that what comes now...
Is life!

Life has its meanings,
The dream was beautiful & cherished,
It was for the Cinderella in this soul.
But fairies, princess don’t exist...that’s what the sound makes me believe!
Yup,
I was again in the fantasy, but it could never be true
Coz, it has people like you!

The desperate wings

Being a bird, a bird that was always free
I started flying;
I knew I would cross the ocean not near.
The ambitions, the wings were longer
The expanse, the dreams seemed higher
As the migration period was near
I wanted to be the bird to cross the ocean not reached by anyone dear
As I prepared myself against those shackles;
Suddenly my spine seemed insincere.

As I expanded in the horizon;
As I thought the dream was near
The ocean visual was clear
I opened my wings
I pushed up those limbs,
Suddenly I fell down
Fell hard on the ground
There was something wet, something that oozed out my wings
The color was red
The arrow was dull,
As if meant not for just snatching away the dream
But keeping me alive
Alive of living the unfulfilled dream
The unfulfilled desire of an ocean, an ocean that neither seemed far nor near
But I was caged, with no wings to bear!

An unfulfilled Aastha of Mamta

I am Mamta…don’t know if the name had any meaning…mamta had to be related to a mother’s love. I had a mother but love?

Before my birth I had an elder brother. …I have heard, when he was born my grandmother kept him, and returned my mother back…when mother again somehow returned back, I was born and this time not only mom but even I was returned back to my grandma’s place… ..after having been harassed for long, maa could not bear things anymore, every now and then she would be thrown back….this time she decided not to return…

So I was brought up at grandmother’s place only.
There were my other cousins too. ..My grandma lived at one of the metros so my cousins had come to study their college there.
The eldest bhaiya was 17 years elder to me. I spent my childhood there, when I was 2yrs bhaiya would punish me for leaving food. He understood the hardships we were living in.
It was an emergency period…….even after having applied at so many places; he couldn’t get a job because his results were delayed.
By the time I grew up, my cousins got married……I was the youngest there at grandma’s place …with time cousins ,the only ones I could have called a brother or a sister had settled, they became busy in their own lives…
I took care of my widowed grandmother, my paralytic mother who couldn’t take the grief which had overcome her. I never saw of my father and he never wanted to see me….but my uncle was a teacher( a learned man in those days), he understood things…he was guilty for what his brother had been to his wife and daughter…he would secretly come and meet me, and offer gifts, it was his way of repenting of not having stopped his brother….grandmother abused him whenever he came to the house, the cousins abused him…when I went to his house( the father’s family) abused my mother…. While I was young, no one cared if I had a childhood to live…no one was to blame and no one was to be questioned… all of them were struggling, fighting and righteous in their own positions. …

I thought I would study, I would be independent, I would earn for myself, for my mother. I would support my grandmother who was working for me even at this age….
The day would make me busy in the household chores and in the night I would study…
I studied hard, cleared two entrance for bank P.O.s..a big achievement those days…

As I returned back home seeing my result at the rozgaar vibhaag……a loud voice stopped me at the stairs…
Who could it be? Grandmother had become too weak…mom? Was there a guest??

“So what do you think, upon the suggestion?”--- A loud male voice

“Anyways we brought up your girl, we were the ones who did everything for her”…a voice just loud enough to be barely heard spoke.

“We did everything, it is your girl too, and why should we bear all the expense? Now it’s your turn. Take her with you. Let your family also understand the expenses of keeping a girl…… see the boy and decide what you are doing about her.
Her mother is unable to move, and I am now too old to carry the burden anymore”.

So it was decided, I was to move with my chacha (my uncle, the only person in the other home who cared if I was alive or dead)

Tears flowed down my eyes, sobbing I entered the house…..it was me who was Mamta, and it was my mamta which I showered to my mother…and today I knew I was a burden, I didn’t belong to the place I was fed through…

Without questioning, I moved with uncle….my sudden new family had to bear me now. They had searched a groom for me in a small village. …But my new grandmother at father’s place was concerned if I would run away and not adjust in the family as my mother did at her place….she claimed!!
………………………………………………………………………………….
Me…Mamta, I was wedded in a village, where there were no roads. …. I couldn’t give the interviews… my brothers and sisters with whom I was brought up were no where to be seen…my mother was nowhere, my kanyadaan was done by my father and step mother(new parents to my life.)…my grandmother, the lady who would walk with a stick was probably unable to make it here…..

…….”The family” cottage was big ….the family had 18 people in all. There was work, there were cows to be mowed, cow dung to be put in this new home, there wasn’t electricity in the village for twelve hours a day….but this was my home, a home where I belonged to…the home where roles of each person was played according to the characters…
.
…the day I held my girl in my hands I made a resolution to myself, I would make the meaning of mamta true to her. I wouldn’t let her live a name she would question all her life…when I took the little angel in my hands. ….I knew she was “Aastha”…aastha ,who was mine, who would live life for me, who would break the wires around the village ..…who would stand on her legs, who would be independent, who would have a home for herself here with me…and when she would break the walls here, she would make a platform there in the world outside!!!

But the destiny was planned, and may be mamta was misplaced…..when my Aastha was of 24 days, maa became serious….I brought her at “my family” …grandma had left me sometime back…..and maa was broken all the more. Her half paralyzed body became motionless….if there were red ants on her hand, she could not pick up her hand and remove them. She could not raise a voice to alarm us. She would keep bearing till someone saw her and relieved her of the pain. I could care for her, only in the last 6 months ...when I saw her dying each day!

My mamta was growing, when did Aastha became 6 months old, I never knew.
Little mamta didn’t know that the bigger mamta of “Mamta” was there for few days
…all she knew was her mamta was taken up by her garndmaa….who would do nothing, lie still, but take away her time which was there for her mamta….when she started crawling, she would push maa and make her fall…maa kept moaning in pain, till I saw her and helped her out.. ..I tried giving myself to the unfulfilled and the forthcoming mamta….

And today I find myself bare, bare by the wave of an empty mamta…of a paralytic mother and a young daughter…I don’t know if my mamta failed,but certainly it was delayed… and it seems having been a fight to make the mamta in me meaningful !

An apology

Don’t know what makes me write this, when I strongly feel like leaving the idea right now. There’s a feeling within which says I am wrong this time, wrong to put something like this in words ,which should have stayed inside….am desperately fighting within when I pen this down, and am not sure when I’ll leave the script and would let it go incomplete….there is something which makes me feel like a criminal within….


Today I needed to accompany someone to a condolence because a driver was needed and I was the option available. Though I didn’t like the idea, I felt myself very much helpless at such occasions, may be it was my inability to accept the realities the world gave when someone who was yours, someone whom you kept close left someday with non hopes of ever returning back…..and even when “the person” wasn’t close the people whom the dead left made you feel helpless...today, the deceased wasn’t someone I was connected to, she was just a distant relative. So, I tried negotiating if I could just be a driver and wait outside while she completed the societal norms, but my attempts were a total failure…
Went there, while we were struggling to find the house, going back and forth ,zig zag in the lanes ..We could hear something loud, and it made us identify the place we were supposing to!

At the entrance on left I could see a table with a white sheet on it and some red boxes piled on top of each other, right side had another similar table this time with some glasses on it and a big kit, which I read BISLERI…
Suddenly someone pushed me, as I stood up again the person apologized and hurried within with a plastic bag, which had coke,pepsi,mirinda bottles in it….as these were not my concern, I went to the place I was destined for.

I took off my sleepers as everyone did and found a space. Though I didn’t know what should be my behavior, I was ascertained there would be nothing wrong in keeping mum. I sat down, in between people. Right in front there was a stage with a red carpet and three people on it. In the middle sat a female in a white kurtee with minimum makeup(apt for the occasion with a laptop in front. person on left was on a tabla and the right one held a synthesizer …probably this was the orchestra for the evening. The female sung two bhajans for the rested soul, then she recited “gayatri mantras”, which hold special significance in our hindu culture…as I was engrossed in it…she looked for a signal to a man again in white kurtee(the son of the deceased),this time the kurtee had kashmiree work on it, and he signaled her to sing something more….she continued..
Just next to me was a young boy probably 17 yr old, who was the grandchild of the dead soul….in a chicken kurta and jeans he held his handicam in hand, and was trying to shoot the orchestras, the photo frame of her grandmother, which was nicely decorated with red roses around….

a couple beside me, were in there finest clothes, certainly in whites...the female wore diamond sets apt with the white bordered zarii kurtee...probably gold didn’t went with it!

As my eyes moved around the white tent I sat there was something suffocating about the atmosphere, when suddenly the mike was taken up my a man who wore yellow for a change ,I expected some real “uthavnaa” rituals from him. but the mike was handed over to someone who talked nice things about the soul as if his speech was preplanned, and requested everyone present not to leave without taking the Prasad!

While mineral water was continually being served, the red boxes (conating laddus{the actual ritual }+ some baked biscuits,{ may be the onset of the culture we were heading to})were served which had a label of one the 3 stars in the city.
As I wanted to move out quickly, someone at the gate handed over to me a card, the card read…
.”My mom was a great female,
She loved….

……………………………..
I thank you all for coming here and making an effort to be little my sorrow”.


I don’t know if my acceptability to the life’s biter truth increased over the loss. But certainly if this was the society, which was worse then the TV daily soaps …...where children called an orchestra as a condolence, they made sure of the best fabrics even in such a situation.
At the second day of death, they wanted to wrap up things because “chautha “ and “terahvi” which hold some significance demanded time and the children were busy.
Then certainly I feel am better off not knowing the norms of such a society, and if this is one of the kind, I am a rebel.
I apologize to the soul, if anything by me has hurt her!

Finally an engineer!

I had not been writing for sometime.

People said have been doleful,

I needed to understand the brighter sides of life and portray them too...

So even if there were moments which hurt, I knew I wasn’t allowed writing. Even If I was an open book the world demanded something else, they wanted something that could interest them. If I was giving out my life, there had to be still something diplomatic.

So I promised myself of giving them a moment of happiness, if not happiness than at least not a moment of sadness. I decided this time I’ll wait for one. And see if it’s worthwhile enough to pen down!

I knew something coming up, end of my engineering…..I knew it would certainly not be a sadistic moment.

Had waited for the day from long.

Each of us never stopped saying, be it any exam, any practical

“ki kab wo din aayegga aur bas chuttkara millegga!” so I knew it was going to be funny.

So even the night before I was going for my last exam, I was sure I could give all of them a reason to smile at least tomorrow. After all only some hours more would make me an engineer! (An 8*5) a 40 day engineer.

Every semester………. starting from the day I came up in the college, whenever I would screw up a paper,

I would promise myself,

“Bas agli baar se shuru se padhungge!”

“ Par kutte ki pooch bhi kabhi seedhee huyee hai bhaallla”.

“To hamaree kaise ho jatee!”

The four years passed by like this only.

Someone making the assignments, someone taking out the printouts,

and the rest of the class simply paying them on the day of the exams. (After all the whole class apart from these two was busy , they had jobs to be done which were much more important, they were coming to the college …wasn’t this more than enough)

This was the practical part of being an engineer and theoretical couldn’t have been without god! (Lord Balaji and Goddess Shivani).

The whole semester we would buy books and at the last moment when time didn’t allow giving due respect to them, we had just “Shivani”…

Suddenly there was a ring, which brought me back to the world where I had a paper tomorrow, a chapter was unexplored and the clock was showing 1:15….. I was back to my senses.

I checked there was a sms which read

“kitna hua???”

These were the messages and miss calls that kept me awake and alive during the exams, but tomorrow was an end to it all…at least before the joining!

So it was going to be a big break, after long.

……………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………..

We went to college, rather than revising things, we were cracking jokes coz we knew we would mange passing….after all

“Haathi to nikal hee chukaaa ttha,baaki ttthe to bas poonch”!

While giving the exam, the thing I least wanted to do was write, wanted to run out after I would have managed a 35…when people around me were taking supplementary, I checked if I could even mange filling this one. And when I was sure I was managing it (former one (a 35), not the latter) there I was out of the hall…to search out the special feeling.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………….

And finally am an engineer, the enthusiasm seems all loosed out;

There is nothing special I feel for the moment which was waited and has come…

I have been trying hard from past three days, that there’s something which I could feel, some special crown over my head, some angels around…

All I feel is boredom, and now I think it wasn’t a bad idea seeing friends around for no good reason, hanging out on sanchi, just for time pass, and going for a long drive everyday(to college)..

And look at the discontent,

It always wants something which is either gone or is coming up. When in school we wait for the college, when in college we wait for it to end and look in for a job and when working we look back to those old days.

And see even am a part of it,

And am still hopeful of a special feeling coming up, anticipating that it shows up soon!

an ode to CSE 2008

Today was no different, a usual CSE party. We have had lots of them since the first day in college. Though its form changed with time. At first they were cozy parties, small number of people where each felt connected to each other. Later the parties were redefined; the number of people increased so did the budget, but the bond the feeling of being one with other seemed somehow vanishing. All most of the people were concerned about when coming to a party was to have a good lunch at one of the finest places in the city, take lots of pics which would give a false impression later of having done a lot of fun later… to make the bill heavy enough on the host and leave. At times even forgetting to wish the bill bearer.

These parties were lost with time, and then came this one-a party intended to be a farewell for each of us or rather a goodbye party, to see many of those faces whom we may never see again.

I was there at the party, with just no feelings. I was neither sad nor happy as if it was just a formality, a formality of just giving the last appearance.

People took their places;

some of the girls were concerned about taking pics as usual- a souvenir, remembrance… holding the person next to you tight enough to give an impression of the love, the friendship that existed between them. Then there were some who were busy scribbling something on some cards, a group of boys again busy amongst themselves, some of whom never talked to girls, so never did we.(as if it was a silent unsaid mutual agreement).

I observed all the small groups I could see and I wished I could just pick each of them and mingle them up, like I did with my bangles. I felt suffocated for a moment at the beautiful thought of being together when being in different cities when not concerned about talking to those whom I could never connect earlier when in a 12* 14 room…

“Hello everybody, may I have your attention please”-there was someone who was trying to host us, someone who would be having some plans to put each of us in a mix.

…he continued.

“We have some titles for each of you, a title written by someone, someone sitting out here.”

He seemed to be talking something which could pull us.

And the murmur stopped, people wanted to hear things about themselves, a narcist in each of us!

He would speak out the title and we would shout in chorus, guessing the person who had to be given it………guessing who was Mr and Miss diplomatic, chalu, samjseval, sarkarraaz, flirt, anonymous, charming, popular …….(can’t recall all of them) amongst us shouting the names of people “dil se” (as was suggested by the host.)

Then suddenly a title Mr. “xyz” was announced and I found myself shouting the name of the person, I had not talked to since past 8-9 months. I found him smiling at it, and I realized the gap which had come between many of us, unsaid, unwanted and never demanded.

Then the next title was “Miss mahila morcha” (have always been a rebel, but I never gave a thought if it was doing me positives or only negatives!) and I saw 41 people yelling out one name, when I never cared if each of them were around.

That day, we were there for each of us. We danced together, with special appearances from the couples. The party carried on, and all of us for the first time were enjoying as a branch with each of the person present… shouting, yelling, laughing!

Then suddenly the lights went off and we could hear something

“hum rahe na rahe kal,kal yaad ayengge ye pal….”

A video was being played, a video where I could see myself on a see-saw and a skinny class fellow of mine in air. Some pics which could not stop us laughing on each other...a guy of 40 kg trying to lift up a 100kg + person, a pic that depicted how the guys partied at holi with bare minimum clothes, someone trying to hide his face, two boys trying to depict an apsara, a pic zooming into someone’s tummy!

A video which was “our” journey through the college, our visits to tekrii, bhojpur, sanchi ,hamaree pahadee … a video which had our failures to our success stories , the moments we fought, we cried, we laughed, which we shared together, a video which had everyone as a package.

“We have always stood for each of us

We have been together

……………………….

And we’ll continue to do so!”

This was the message being displayed on the screen.

Lights were back again and each of us was laughing in an attempt to hide those pearls which had trickled our eyes.

Having sensed the irony in the above said words, the feeling of nostalgia had struck!

We knew the life coming ahead was new, it was unpredictable. We knew in some days our lives would be changed drastically and instead of the faces which had become familiar in the last four years we’ll be surrounded with just strangers in a world where we’ll have to make our own identity, make our own presence felt, to prove ourselves. A place where there would be no one who would do the assignments for us and give to the whole lot of us to copy. A place where when we’ll fall there would be no one to help us stand again. A place where there would be no friends to defend you, no one to stand by you when you’ll be alone. There would be no one to whom you’ll be able to speak your heart out.

Filled with the memories of the time we were together and mere memory we’ll become in some hearts once we leave this place, we were all aware of the void that would follow the evening.

We were leaving alone on paths, we ourselves didn’t know!