Stray thoughts from yesterday...

There’s emptiness in my heart. Yet, it feels so heavy. Like it’s being weighed down by a wall of bricks. Like there’s something holding me back. Strings from my past, restraining me from feeling the lightness I crave. This emptiness is keeping me from moving towards the rain. All I want is to feel the drops kiss my eyelids and trickle down my cheeks. Like the warmth of the tears I so often shed. I want to be able to bear my soul like I used to. I want to stop hurting on the inside. I want completion. I want to soak in the rain, and then hope for my sunshine.

To Say Goodbye...

Preschool! That’s when it all began. It was my first day of school. I had fought with my mother about what I was going to wear, as usual. Being stubborn as a mule, I had got my way. I gladly abandoned my strawberry pink frock for the comfortable denim dungarees and sleeveless t-shirt. Always the tomboy!

As I entered school, I was introduced to my fellow classmates. A bunch of girls stood to my left, all clad in pretty new frocks with hairclips, handbags and shoes in matching colours and prints. To my right stood the boys, dressed like me, and already covered from head to toe in sand. In the middle of these boys stood a quiet little girl with questioning black eyes. She waved at me, and so I walked over to chat with her. By lunch break, I had learnt all about Aarti. A tomboy like me, she lived with her mother and two elder brothers. Her birthday was on the 27th of November. She liked blue, and, like me, detested pink. Before we knew it, we were thick as thieves.

Aarti and I were together for four years, after which her mother decided to move to Bombay. I still remember the day she was leaving; I had brought her a handful of sand from the sandpit at school, one of the trinkets we had made using old bottle caps, and a little farewell card. I wondered if it would ever be so hard for anyone to say goodbye. Little did I know what life had in store for me.

Aarti and I kept in touch. Ten years later, we were still best friends. We had long outgrown our dungarees and our boyishness. Surprisingly, we were both seen sporting the most vibrant shades of pink! Still thick as thieves, there wasn’t a day when we didn’t call each other, or a vacation we didn’t spend together.

On the day we finished our 10th standard board exams, I took off on the first flight to Bombay. Aarti was to meet me at the airport, but her brother Ashish had come to get me instead. Something wasn’t quite right. After a long, quiet journey in the car, you can imagine my surprise when we stopped outside the hospital! Ashish broke the news to me then. We were here to see Aarti. She had been diagnosed with cancer; she had a malignant tumor in her brain.

I rushed to her room to meet her. She was lying on her bed in a state of semi-consciousness. She had undergone her first session of radiation. I tried hard not to cry. She pointed at the table on her bedside, and on it were a packet of sand, a trinket made from bottle caps and the farewell card I had given her. That was when I broke down.

I spent the entire summer at the hospital with Aarti. We spoke for hours on end about everything, right from the coolest new cars and clothes, to prospective boyfriends. I was there for her when her beautiful, brown hair fell slowly and steadily because of the chemotherapy she was undergoing. We spent everyday wishing, praying, hoping that there would be a tomorrow. Sadly, Aarti’s condition only deteriorated over the next few days. She knew she wasn’t going to make it, but I simply wouldn’t give up, stubborn as ever.

It was that summer evening, when Bombay had its first shower for the year. We were sitting on the hospital bed looking out at the fading sun. Aarti said that this was the end; There would be no tomorrow. We sat holding each other like we would never let go, weeping , while slowly and steadily, the life slipped out of her. I never thought it would be so hard to say goodbye...

तितली उडी

तितली उडी, उडती चली, फूल ने कहा, आजा मेरे पास, तितली बोली में उडी आकाश.

Aipes-sepiA

Monochrome is today. The play of light and dark is immaterial.
All I see is sepia.
There is no complexity in colour, nor the simplicity of black and white. There are no tones to light nor hide. Neither sharp, nor a meaningless blur.
All I see is sepia.

एकांत

Cubism

Amidst all the black and white, bursts of colour are splayed....My eyes know not what to look for. They wander between the starry black. the stark white, the enticing blue, the enlivening purple and the comforting green. Is it the play of black and white that calls to me, or the fading of the black and white into the swarm of colour that meets my eye?

Whatever will be, will be...

जो बीत गयी, सो बात गयी।
जीवन में वह था एक कुसुम,
थे उस पर नित्य- निछावर तुम।
मधुवन की छाती को देखो।
सूखी इसकी कितनी कलिया,
मुरझाई कितनी वल्लारिया।
जो सूख गए, फिर कहा खिले?
पर बोलो सूखे डालो पर कब मधुवन शोक मनाता है?
जो बीत गयी, सो बात गयी।

Dadaji's embers...

Sometimes there's no right way to say goodbye. Since I never got a chance, Im hoping these flowers will reach you somehow.

Quotables...

"Every journey has roads. Every road has it's twists and turns. Every twist and turn leads in a certain direction. Choosing direction is up to my compass, but choosing the journey is up to me."
- Anonymous cheesy quote off the internet!

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
- Emily Bronte

"Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark..."
- Death Cab for Cutie

"Perry the Platypus! Your timing is impeccable. And by impeccable I mean completely peccable!"
- Dr. Doofenshmirtz

"You shouldn't even think it! Racism is a crime!"
- Atteshwar Prasad

"Aaaaaaaaaaa.........."
- Roundy Aundy!

"Don't tempt fate!"
- Ayee

Resonance

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
There's a ticking all around.
Like time is closing in.
And all that's left to say is stuck somewhere deep within.
All it wants is to be heard. Not felt. Nor understood.
It resonates around, engulfing all it chances upon.
Its clear and even tones, devoid of all harmony.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
This ticking, so pronounced, is from within.
Its hollowness is a reflection of what's beneath the surface.
This ticking is a struggle, to say what is hidden.
It's resonance, a secret, that shall always be lodged.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Chocolate smears...

Music. Chocolate to my soul.
As I sit by my window...
Faint and distant, occasionally becoming clearer.
Its presence bring joy, lightheartedness.
But it's the taste I love most.
Its bitter-sweet emotions. Like chocolate.
Music. Chocolate to my soul.

Wanderpangs

I love to go a wander,
Along a mountain side....
And as I go a wander,
I wonder if I will ever be complete....
Or if I shall always stay lost in my endless incompleteness,
Much like this mountain side I wander.
I wonder if maybe, someday, I shall find me....
As I wander, wonder....

Through A Glass Darkly...

This is a quote from a book I have read and re-read until it's words threatened to ooze from every orifice.It's called 'Through a glass,Darkly' and it's by Jostien Gaarder. The book is about life and death and how both are impossible to run away from. The following quote is to be savoured once it's meaning is truly understood.

"The angels in heaven can never be destroyed.That's because they do not have a body of flesh and blood that their soul can be parted from.That's not how it is in creation.Here everything is destroyed very easily.Even a mountain is slowly ground down and becomes earth and sand in the end. There's mischief afoot in nature.There's trouble brewing in creation.
You don't always understand completely what you have created.For instance I can draw or paint something on a piece of paper. That doesn't mean I understand how it is to be the thing I've drawn.What I draw isn't alive after all. And that's what so strange: that I'm alive!"