This happened, or that, or this!!!

It’s our first date. I dressed up. I even bought you a bunch of lilies, the ones you like. I went an extra mile figuratively to find out your preference from your friend who doesn’t like me, and an extra mile physically because I could not find them anywhere closer. I even put some gel in my hair and carefully hid my receding hairline. I shaved again and got in my recently serviced car. Before knocking on your door, I once again looked at myself in rear view mirror, pressed my hair and checked if something was stuck in my teeth. I took a deep breath and knocked on your door. Every passing second felt like hours. And then you opened the door, clad in yellow, looking all perfect as you ever were. I didn’t think you had to go through all the trouble I had to, for looking this amazing. At the most maybe you just washed your face and got into this off the rack dress which fits you like it was custom tailored. I was so nervous around you. Dinner was usual. Table pre-booked, waiter tipped generously, no eating off other’s plate, hold the fork in left hand and all other etiquette. I parked the car few blocks before your home and walked with you. We didn’t talk. We just kissed good night.

When I was walking back, it struck me, why did I have to impress you? What was special about the night? Every guy does it. Well, maybe not every guy; every guy who has means and has a willing girl to impress. Why did this impress you? Didn’t you know it’s going to be like this? Why did you want this so much? It is not as if you would spend your entire life with a version of me that impresses you. It would mostly be routine, mundane life wherein I will eat out of a bowl most Saturday nights sitting on the couch and watching some stupid TV channel oblivious of your presence. The same presence which makes me forget everything today. The night looks so amazing today, as if there is an added fragrance to the flowers, or maybe added brightness to the moon. You are gone inside, but I kept standing there, hoping that you would come to the window. I felt your hands still holding mine and taste of your lips still lingering on. I could still hear your laughter, or the way you said my name.

What’s the point? Maybe I dressed up a little too gaudy for you. I got lilies when your friend actually said daisies; or she said lilies knowing that you like daisies. After all, she didn’t like me. I drove an extra mile to save some money. What could I have done? The vendor was overcharging me. The gel came down my forehead along with the sweat. I was nervous, I said that already. I cut myself while shaving and forgot to remove part of the tissue that I used to soak the blood. My car smelled like garlic and onions, because that’s what I sell for a living. I could not locate the leaf in my teeth because the rear view mirror was broken. Every passing second felt like hours because I had to pee so badly. There was no reason for pre booking the table at McDonalds; there was no need to tip the waiter because there wasn’t any and there was no need to use the fork either. We ran out of gas so you offered to walk. We couldn’t talk since it was raining. There is an added fragrance to flowers after rain stopped and so is the brightness more since the clouds disappeared. You never came to the window, because there wasn’t any. Your hands were sweaty, I still feel what it was like to hold them. I can still feel the taste of your lips because they tasted like the fish burger you had. Your laughter gives me nightmares and so does your inability to pronounce my name properly given that you lisp.

Why did you marry me?

You saw me standing on your door and waiting impatiently for you to open the door. You liked lilies after all. I could only get these lilies next town and you knew that I drove extra to get these for you. I was wiping my forehead and you knew I was nervous around you. Tissue on my face and leaf in my teeth, you thought it was cute that I was clumsy. You love garlic and onion smell, who could have thought? Your parent never took you to McDonalds, fearing you would never fit in that dress. You thought that I didn’t care whether you will get fat. I wanted to walk with you in the rain so I pretended that we ran out of gas. Really? Oh my girl, you are so sweet and innocent. You saw me standing there in front of your door hoping that there was a window you would see me from. You saw me looking at my hands feeling your touch. You saw me lick my lips and thought I liked taste of yours.

God is so kind. 

Your judgement or mine?

Why do I live how I live? You think there should be a purpose to our lives? Who told you? You read it somewhere or some spiritually enlightened soul whispered it into your ear? I am sure it changed your life and what you do now is for achieving a higher goal in life. You see beyond anger, happiness, love and attachment and are on the path of achieving which not many achieved – Nirvana. Did it ever occur to you that these feelings were given so that we can live them and understand our soul? No? Oh, these are only distractions which were placed in our way to free our souls. Each one to himself. My life’s purpose is to live through each of these feelings over and over again till I understand myself. If that means, sitting in my apartment all day long on my couch watching television, to fully understand the feeling of laziness and emptiness; probably that’s what I was going for.

Why did I need to love over and over again? People are not able to find even one love in their entire lives and here I am, describing the roller coaster I ride each time I love. I am putting myself out there, fully exposed to the pain, expecting vultures to pierce through my flesh bit by bit, till I bleed no more and my bones are pecked and played with by dogs.  That’s what we were born for and that’s how we are supposed to die. It sounded painful to you? That’s why you closed your doors and windows and chose to remain inside with no intention of feeding vultures and dogs? So what is the life that you live now? I remember now, you took another scared soul in and called it love. It isn't love, till you feel it every moment of your life, till you yearn for it as you would for water if you were thirsty for years. Love is not about possessing, it is about seeking. You don’t understand it, do you, but then, not everyone is meant to.  I admire the way you walk with your eyes closed and the way you have found convenient definitions of life, purpose, religion, God and love. I wish I could do the same. Meanwhile, someone has to feed vultures and dogs too.

Why do you lose? You will say “I cannot chose whether I want to succeed or lose. I can just make efforts and hope for the best.” Then I will say “Oh really?” and give the looks that mean that I can see through you and am not buying this bullshit. You, my friend, are hiding behind this comforting wall called failure. You know well that once you cross this wall, there is no more hiding, no one will protect you under the pretext that the meek shall inherit the world. You will join the rank where one has to take responsibility of one’s actions. You find it really cozy where you are, don’t you?

 I have lot of judgment about how you live, don’t I. What can I say? You started it. 

Rants of a Writer...

Here I am, sitting again, staring at a blank sheet of paper. A writer is not scared of dark; he does not wake up with a start after seeing a dark figure, most of the time it is the white colour which is a nightmare for him. You may want to test this by showing a white sheet of paper to a writer and demand a ransom out of him, though I do not advise this for the risk of him having a heart attack.

The question also is whether a writer should write about a memory from my past, a dream for the future or just pull out a feather from his imagination. Sometimes I feel that after writing a paragraph or two, all three of them gets mixed up to an extent that it becomes new reality for me, a new memory and a new dream. I feel if I could play a recap of my life, it would be very different from how I remember it now.

Another challenge is how writers keep coming up with innovative and interesting plots and characters. I have been told that writers keep observing people around them to get inspired for writing new stories. Well, I am not so sure about it. After all who live around pirates, secret service agents, conniving politicians, arm dealers, ghosts, wand wielding kids, dragons, parallel universes, aliens, talking dogs and cats, vampires and other such plots and characters I have never seen in my ordinary life.

You must be thinking that if it is such a scary job then why writers keep coming back and face their worst fears almost every day. Till the time I did not start writing, I could never understand the logic for so many people to vent out their thoughts, imaginations, standpoints on relatively lesser avenues of writing – fiction and non-fiction further categorised into horror, politics, suspense, thriller, love, sex, travel, cookery, religion, philosophy, business, education etc. For determining a definite answer to the question, I advise you to try writing a paragraph on any subject that first comes to your mind. You will have to establish a line of thought, one or more characters, an opening and a closing. After writing a couple of lines, I am sure that you would get your answer.

It is your chance to play God, to create people out of nowhere, to write and control their destiny, and to feel a power beyond your comprehension. It will also bring you closer to understanding the decision God takes while writing stories for your life i.e. if you think there actually is a God who holds strings to our lives. You would understand that sometimes there is no logic; sometimes you twist life of one of your characters just for fun, just because he was not doing anything interesting enough to be kept alive till the end of novel.

Having said that, since God is in this business for a long time, I believe God has figured out of a way of having a logic to almost everything which happens to your life – no loose ends.

The father and the Son

Varanasi, the oldest living city on earth, was his home. His mother told him that when he was born, she could hear the bells of aarti ¹   at Kashi Vishwanath Temple ². She never told him who his father was. When he pressed a lot, she told that she will once and only once tell the name and that he should not dispute or question the same. When he agreed, she told him that Kashi Vishwanath himself was his father. For that moment, he neither doubted his father’s identity nor felt his absence. He used to sit on the temple’s staircase everyday for a long time. He felt that the only way to communicate with his father was to immerse himself in the music created by ringing of bells and chanting of mantras. His devotion was more than meditation since he was not worshipping a God, he was just seeking refuge in his father. Years passed. Everybody knew him as son of the God.

Let’s skip to the day when his life was about to be changed. He followed his usual routine, took bath in Holy Ganges and started walking towards the temple. Generally he used to walk with his eyes fixed on the dome of the temple, but today he felt some uneasiness, as if he was being given some indication. He stopped for a moment. Just when he was about to start walking again, his eyes fell on an infant sleeping on a staircase. He looked around to ascertain if the parents are nearby, but could not find anyone. He kept standing beside the kid, not picking him up with the fear of being charged as a kidnapper. He sat near the kid for the whole night but nobody came to claim the kid. In the morning he decided to take the kid home.

It had been twenty five years from that incident now. His life in these twenty five years entirely changed. He had raised the kid as his own. He never married for the fear of division of his love. As it is he had to divide his devotion between his father and his son. He never let his son know that he was son of the God. He lived as a commoner, a daily wager and worked hard to meet their ends. He worked even harder for getting his son an education. The harder he worked, the more his health deteriorated. Not a single day went, when he did not long for meeting or speaking with his father like he used to do earlier. At the same time, not a moment passed which did not revolve around his son.

He was back to the stairs one day - The stairs where he found his son; the stairs from where he could directly look at the temple and speak with his father. He was wrapped in a blanket. He did not move. He could not move. After 2-3 days, people at the temple recognised him. They got very upset at his condition. They were angry at his son for whom he had done so much but was still left for dying on the stairs. Some of them reached his home to meet his son. After continued knocking and getting no response, they had to come back to the temple. While they were discussing the matter, one of them noticed that there was another figure wrapped in a blanket sitting in a dark corner. They went near him and recognised him as the son. They could not understand what was happening and asked the son why he left his father for dying the on stairs and while his father was at it, why was he sitting and watching him.

“He wanted to die in lap of his father, at a place where he himself was born as a father. As a son, I seek to ensure that my father’s death is peaceful. As a father, I seek to free him from the cycle of life and death” He said.

That very moment, a bell rang in the temple. They looked at the temple. It took them a moment to understand what the son had said.

A moment was all what was needed for the father and the son to be together for eternity.

1 Hindu religious ritual of worship

2 Hindu temples dedicated to Lord Shiva and is located in Varanasi