The Beginnings-2

"Hello, Nirvaan!  I have not seen you for a long while, hope life is treating you well,  my old friend." her voice sounded benevolently frozen.

 I couldn't help it, the song "Hotel California" played in my mind "Welcome to the Hotel California...". For some unknown reasons I was dead scared. Nandini, the nerd Nandini was sitting in front of me in the tram. I had seen her last some twelve years back. She was a timid and unassuming girl. she was almost invisible.

 I remembered the day when I last saw her. She was sitting in the library trying to solve an equation in calculus. Poor thing she wasn't good looking neither was she good in studies, she was just an average. She used to steal glances towards me. Friends said she had this huge crush over me. So, that was the day we were playing truth and dare and my dare was to go and propose her and make her believe that I was madly in love with her.

"I love you." I said as I approached her. She looked at me quizzically
"All Right" she said and went back to her books.
"You have to believe me I really love you." I said sitting there opposite to her and holding her hand.
"Leave my hand." She said snatching her hands back and quietly stood up to leave.
I stood up, walked up to her held her hand and went down on my knees, "I REALLY REALLY LOVE YOU!" I said aloud and my voice echoed in the big hall. Thankfully the Librarian was not there. I was happy to win another bet. She will surely fall for this. What does she want more? She was plainer than the plain Jane and I was the School Head Boy, the most popular and all in the school. She will say yes and I will win the bet.

"Have a nice day." she smiled and went away.

She never was to be seen ever. Some people said that she went mad thinking that I proposed her. Some rumours said that she had declared that day that she has a boyfriend (me) and her parents took her out of the school and sent her to another city and she got married after three years. The day she turned eighteen. Rumours about her followed from her being a drug addict to an ugly fat woman to her having five kids. Some also said she went crazy and committed suicide.

"How are you Nirvaan, What brings you to the city?" she said. Her voice brought me out of the flashback.
"I....I a...m g..ood." I stammered out. I saw cold sweat gripping me in the month of December.
"You are sweating. I know Kolkata winters are nothing compared to the winters you are used to but still you shouldn't ideally sweat. Any ways  Cold or Heat I feel nothing....It has been so for the last ten years." she said her stony eyes moving from me to the window.
"What do you mean you do not feel!?" My mind was making all kind of assumptions. She looked so beautiful and so distant and something was so very wrong with her. She was different. I had thought of her often and felt a guilty pleasure that I can affect someone so gravely. She was a part of my numerous infamous legends. The girl I screwed without even screwing.

"After that day the life was not like that...my parents knew about my love towards you. I was supposed to say yes to you the day after but my Dad took me away to another town and locked me up for an entire year. everyday I used to write your name on the wall and my dad had it white washed every day. This went on for an year. After that I was not the same I was put into a Mental Asylum and I lived there for a year and killed myself." She said as a matter of fact and looked at me smiling.

I could not believe her last words ......"Killed Myself." I was looking at her as the tram dragged slowly through the lazy winter evenings of Kolkata. I was nearly in tears. I felt a deep remorse, a deep guilt in me. Had I not said that nothing would have happened. She would have been alive....

"I always wanted to grow up and live in Kolkata and always wanted to meet you once....now both are done and I can leave now..." She said with a deep sense of calm. She looked divine and gorgeous and what a waste of life!
"You look beautiful..." I managed to say as she got up from the seat.
"Calm makes you beautiful." she said
Yes, the calm after death makes you beautiful.

The Gate

"When I was waiting for you this long I never realized when I fell out of love with you." said Mira with an air of indifference.

Sahil stood there dumb founded. He never had expected this. He sincerely thought it was something she will understand. He was tied up in other things and was so busy with life that he couldn't reach her any sooner.

"How can you say that?" was all that he could manage. His deep brown eyes now filled with tears till the brim. His beautiful mouth shivering to start a bout of sobs.

"I do not know twenty years is a long wait. I kept on standing on this gate keeping my end of promise. What took you so long?" She spoke as her black serpentine hair gently touched her dusky face. Those sparkling almond shaped eyes were so clear that Sahil would spend rest of his time just looking at them.

"You know what took me so long. I have...had a family and kids to take care of. I cannot leave them all for your love. Be reasonable." Sahil said a bit sternly trying to make sense with these feisty lady, the woman of his dreams.

"Yes, your family. As if I am not important." she said with anger

"How can you say that!" Sahil knew Mira was self centered but this shook him from with in.

"Because it is me who is standing at the gate for the past twenty years waiting for you." said Mira with tears in her eyes.

"But you loved them?"

"Yes, that was twenty years back."

"Don't you have a heart?"

"No, gave it to a stranger.....Hey you donated my Heart right?" said Mira giggling.

"We are meeting after twenty years and you are your usual prankster.....you haven't changed a bit." Sahil said tapping her head lightly.

"No, time stopped for me twenty years back."

"So, was my case." said Sahil smiling his signature smile.

"Hey! I saw you smiling after years! How are the kids?"

"Both are married and have kids of their own."

"Do they miss me?" said Mira eagerly

"Yes, they miss their mother every single day, hope I was a good Father." said Sahil smiling apprehensively.
"Yes, Honey you were."

As she opened the gates she kissed him with all the love she had fought to keep alive in her for these years. Once she left her mortal shell it was very hard to be attached to the man she loved when she was bound by the worldly body. Every moment one by one the memories would fade away but she kept it with her. It pained her a lot to remember to live in a state of mourning even when she was just a soul but she knew if she would forget he would also forget and she couldn't make that happen. She promised to wait and she did. Now as they walked hand in hand and entered the Gate, their children were preparing to cremate Sahil and bid the final goodbye.

Separation

"...As if nothing had happened!" her mother shouted throwing away The Kafka she was reading.

She could see from her mother's face that this was not the usual, it was serious. Something had happened, something very bad. Her nostrils flared, eyes were blood red and she was trembling.

She held her hand with pleading eyes but her mother removed the hand and slapped her hard on her face.

She again held her hand with both her hands and held it softly but more reassuringly. She looked in to her eyes and nodded her head down once with empathy.

She knew what it was. She was not a child anymore. She was almost eighteen now. She was still not an adult but she was always an adult from the heart.

"What is it Mom?" she said calmly
Her mother had stopped to tremble and sat beside her on the bed in her room and kept her head low.

They remained silent for a few minutes and then tears started to roll out of the mothers eyes.
The daughter hugged her tightly.


"It is all right mother." said the daughter softly and gently kissed her head.

"You are not running away from us in the guise of moving away for the higher studies." said the mother with a child like innocence.

"No, Mom. I told you that I will come every other weekend." she said.

"Whom will I talk to when you are gone? Your Dad is too busy stating his own problems and your brother is too small."
"We will talk over phone."
That night the mother became the three year old daughter who cried night long fourteen years back on hearing that school means to be away from Mom.

That night the daughter became the thirty two year old mother who consoled her daughter all night long, fourteen years back while her heart too cried thinking of the separation.

The Cycle of Life....

Labels: Mother-Daughter Relationship , Emotional Turmoil, Family

For the infidels it rained that night

"It is a pleasure to love you, to know you." she said as she wiped the tears that rolled out of her eyes and touched her swollen lips.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It will hurt a little but then it will be over." said the boy to his girlfriend in the flat next to hers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have forsaken my identity for you and will again forge a new identity if you want."She said looking at him, her lips throbbing with pain all the while.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Isn't it wrong? You are engaged?" said the girlfriend next door, sitting back on the bed where her boyfriend had laid her.
"Then why doesn't it feel wrong?" answered the boyfriend with a smile laying her back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If it is wrong to you then I am saying sorry but I will never be sorry for it." she said as something hurt her dignity along with her swollen lips and aching body.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, I do not feel it is wrong but then....will you stay? No, you won't." the girlfriend said pausing the boyfriend who was about to kiss.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"WHY DID YOU DO THIS? JUST TO AVENGE YOURSELF?" her husband shouted and shivered, controlling the urge to hit her...again.

"No, just to prove that lying hurts." she said calmly and her husband hit her again making her bleed from her lips. Her lips that he loved so much.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You won't stay but my essence will linger and you will be a half lover to any woman hence forward." the girlfriend said as a matter of fact.

"Let it be...I want to be an infidel with you and for you." said the boyfriend caressing her hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"YOU BETRAYED MY TRUST! YOU ARE AN INFIDEL!" said her husband throwing her on the bed and again hitting her.

"I had always told you. You are marrying an infidel. Your lie just broke open the infidel in me." she said with a serene smile.

"Say you don't love...." he said now sobbing

"I have always loved you..." she said hitting him hard as he fell on the ground. writhing in pain.

She drew close and grabbed his hair with one hand and throttled his throat with another hand and kissed him lightly on his forehead

"This is what you have made of our relation. Love and hate hand in hand. Guess we both are infidels." she said smiling placing her body near to his.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I just want to be close to you. I know this night won't come. For me Love and incompleteness will go hand in hand." said the boyfriend lying beside his girlfriend.

"If only you knew I can never be in love.....I am the incompleteness in you, I am your infidelity." she said drawing her body close to her boyfriend.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Husband and wife lied side by side calmly sharing a bond of Love and Hate.

The Boyfriend and Girlfriend Lied side by side sharing a bond of Love and Incompleteness.

The four living next to each other separated by a thin urban residence wall, all of them getting adulterated love.

The held each other tight and cried and smiled peacefully........and It Rained That Night.


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

The Silent Secret

“I have not seen you for quite a while and can’t recollect your face.” She said earnestly.  She had a peculiar tendency of forgetting people’s face while remembering their names.

“Don’t bother. I remember you, your face.” He said as a matter of fact.

“You have learnt how to talk smooth, haven’t you?” she said giggling.

“No, your face has been the one which remained with me always. It haunted me everywhere I went to run away from my demons. It was the only thing that brought me back home because I knew my home is in the city you lived. I returned every night and fell asleep hoping to see you the next day. These went on for years. I didn’t even know you moved out of the city. I didn’t fall into bad company because I thought I might lose you. I never got near any intoxication because I was afraid that it would make your memory in my soul blur. I kept on fighting the demons within me hoping that the next time you saw me you found me the same. I failed sometimes and I won sometimes but I refused to kill the old me, the innocent me completely because I had always known that one day I will face you. I was strangely afraid of you, your righteousness. I wanted to erase my memories from everyone’s life but I didn’t because I hoped you will come. I fell in love again but it never changed what I felt for you. I am falling in love with you always; I am in love with you now. I do not want to possess you. I already have you deep in me. You are the epitome of a woman for me. A portrait of a woman…”

“But I was a girl then….I don’t love you but still love you…” She cut him short as she didn’t want to hear what she knew already. She heaved a sigh of relief feeling that all these years she was right and a sigh of disappointment that she didn’t have the confidence to wait.

She remembered the time they shared a common space together silently, two decades back. They never spoke or even tried to communicate like other teenagers. They knew each other well from the first day. Each other’s mirror reflection. Their mutual silence spoke. They had never talked so much to each other as they talked now but they didn’t feel awkward. It was as if they had always talked and known each other thoroughly.

It had been two decades and every time she struggled with her confidence and self esteem. She remembered him. He was the one who appreciated her work, appreciated her and acknowledged her when no one did. Every seminar in the college, every interview she faced she thought of him.

“If he has approved then others will. If they don’t approve at least he will.”

She didn’t wait for him as she never completely fell in love with him.

And now as they sat face to face in a Café, discussing the marketing strategy of their upcoming venture, they took this break to discuss things long pending to be told and never talked of. She had just retired after a bright career spanning seventeen years from twenty to thirty seven. She was married happily and was a proud mother. He was an entrepreneur who never stopped; juggling life between family (wife and kids) and dreams. They both had it all except themselves. But did they need each other as lovers?

Incomplete Love stories are a myth. They do not destroy your life. They motivate you to reach higher. Love can never be incomplete. If it’s incomplete then it is not love. Life Partners in life can be your Mother, Brother, Best Friend all those who share life with you.  Love can never destroy. If you are killing yourself for it think again is it love?

“I thought I will not live till twenty five the way I was going. You know what I mean. Thanks for being the silent secret of my life. Thanks for being there as a friend through all these years; invisibly motivating me through thick and thin.” She said holding his hand and squeezing it softly with eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

“Thanks, the feeling is mutual.” He said sipping in the coffee

They sat silently for a while.

“Hey where is my treat? I need my fees for motivation.” He spoke playfully breaking in the silent.

“Get Lost!” she said with a giggle and beaming eyes while hitting his head lightly with the magazine she was reading.

They resumed talking and gossiping as they had never stopped…

Friends forever……..

Clipped Wings??

Will you be flying Honey?
No you won't be flying honey.
Why said I? Oh Why said I?
Can't you see it from your eye?
Your wings are meticulously clipped
Just to avoid your being slipped.
Your bound not to sore high
So, should I sit back with a sigh
No, fly but not tither.
Make sure this path here
Is the one chosen for thou.
But I can't fly can only crawl slow

I don't want to crawl, no, never
I just hope myself to be my saver
And I fly with my clipped wings
Let the world shout, let them sing
The old cacophony of the norms
I am not going to bargain soul for a form.

I am not striving the road supposed to be taken
And my faith in myself won't be shaken
Nay the storms come and shake me hard
Let the adversities be my miseries' bard
Let the world be angry and let it diffuse
While I will be worshiping my muse.

It will pain and doubts will rule the road
But never will my dreams be sung an ode
I am and so, I dream
Without it I cease to exist
So, while breaking in free verse
I let my dreams fly high
As my destiny is nothing but my right
I go and go and strive harder
Yes, this love costs
But not living the dream costs harder.
There is no shackle otherthan self  adorned
We are our own limitations
We are our own limits....
We are our own Freedom...

Together Forever....

"Can we go there?"asked she, as if pleading replete with child like innocence.

"No, we cannot..." he said with a smile, just being contended that his scarred maturity had finally met this clear spring of thoughts.

"Why not? look it's so beautiful, we will watch the sunrise and sit quietly.." she said while tugging to her hand and trying him to move into that direction.

"Because you are clumsy on plain roads and you might fall on this rough terrain with a cycle." He said still calm while steadily holding onto his cycle.

"I find roads unnatural. This......is NATURAL" She said aloud pointing at the mud trail.

"NO!"

"All right, stay here, I am going." She said sulking and climbed her cycle and rode by.

"This Girl!" he said exasperated as he climbed the cycle and followed her.

The road was a mud trail, their destiny was a small hillock, The road went past a small agrarian village, it was dawn. The sun was yet to rise but it was already clear. They were speeding by in their cycles lest they might miss out on sunrise.

One could feel the morning dew in the grass and taste the morning breeze hitting their face. The peacocks rose early and were calling. As they passed they saw a peacock flying from one tree to another, long tailed, shimmering blue and green, just out of a dream they fly.

The trail had it's bumps and now they reached the hillock. They climbed as far they could cycling and then they walked the rest of the uphill.

As he walked, he looked at her and thought about her, the innocence of her soul was reflected on her body, pristine, that is what she was. He was scarred, broken betrayed, he was never taken care of. He was not sad, he was not brooding. He was working his hearts out. He was Thirty, he had a family at home but still he waited for her, that face, her face haunted her...

She was baby faced assassin, her flawless frame hid her scarred soul. She never was a child, she never was a teenager. She hid her scars, retained her innocence and smiled. She loved and was loved but wanted to belong, she had no friends, she didn't want any. She was a smiling recluse who just saw things understood them but never spoke. But her spirit was undying. She was Seventeen, had a life with all it's passion and shades but still she waited form him, created a face out of many to remember that face, his face...this face she didn't want to forget.

As he walked into the room she vanished, her smile vanished. He sat in his desk in the office, working as efficiently as one could. The road, the hillock, the river all vanished. He had seen her once passing in a crowded Railway Terminus and waited for her, thought about her, confident that in her lies his peace, his turbulence, his life. He didn't know when and how will he see her again. Whether she will ever know that he exists in this universe. Will her face ever have a name to go with it for him but he did not mind, he did not search for her. He just waited while not waiting at all.

As she sat their on the hillock, her brother came from the back and startled her and she feigned being scared, his face vanished again, the conversation she was having now was a scent in the air. She had seen him once in the Railway Terminus. The way he looked assured her that someone was there. No, she didn't wait. She kept on falling in love over and over again.

Miles apart yet communicating while they lived in the world where they were present but not involved......some love stories never end because they do not start......