Plagued

 “I think, at child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt

When we are born, we’re already blessed with that one most useful gift. The gift that allows us to survive, to learn, to explore, and to grow at every step of life. We learn to speak, and then to ask. As kids, we want to know everything about everything. What color that is or which flower or which is that bird flying in the sky or what thing we are eating… My two year old nephew’s favorite phrase is ‘ye kya hai?’(what is this?) He wants to know what everything is, what its color is, how we operate it, when we use it and so on and so forth.

We grow up a little, and we’re sent to schools- to learn. Now school is the place where we’re supposed to be given answers to our previous questions and encouraged to ask more. Schools are supposed to quench our hunger for knowledge, and increase our appetite. But that’s the job of an ideal school.  The bitter truth lies in the following extract from one of my favorite books, The little red schoolbook:

“Instead of helping you develop as an individual, schools have to teach you the things our economic system needs you to know. They have to teach you to obey authority rather than to question things, just as the exam system encourages you to conform, not to be an individual.”

It’s not that schools are worthless. There are some teachers who really understand the correct purpose of schooling, and try, on their individual level, to meet it as much as they can, but even they are under pressure to follow the norms, and there’s little they can do about it.

Albert Einstein said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” He was probably a little too positive about that. In most cases, our curiosity starts wearing out in schools, when we’re asked to not question too much ‘out of syllabus’. And the answer we get to most of our questions is that it won’t be asked in exams, so we don’t need to know it. Sure Einstein wasn't wholly wrong. It is indeed a miracle that curiosity survives formal education for some of us. And those are the people who really do something worthwhile in their lives.

 Then we grow up some more, and curiosity fades away in most of us. Or let’s put it this way: We’re all plagued with routine. We grow up and we realize we have to do stuff, become something, earn money, follow routine, achieve targets, meet deadlines, and we suddenly feel so overburdened that whatever new things we see, we don’t really care to know what they are or what they mean and all. We just want to deal with things that concern our ‘business’, which we often confuse with ‘routine’. The point is: everything is our business. We have the right to question ourselves and the world.

 Experience teaches us lessons, curiosity enables us to have those experiences. So there is one thing I wish to remind all of us, including myself:

What we question is what we learn, the rest is just taught to us. Isn’t it?

A Thing of The Past

The other day, I was going through a piece by Lang Leav on ‘Lost things’, and after reading it, I started to think about all the people who were once very special to me, but are much like strangers today, or mere acquaintances. This thought made me uneasy. It’s like someone is the most important person in your life, someone you can’t imagine your life without, and then, gradually, due to certain circumstances or just indifference—with the passage of time—they lose their worth in your life and then, maybe five years later, when you come across a memory of them—an old photograph, or a souvenir they brought for you from their vacation abroad, or a letter or e-mail they wrote when you mattered, brings back all the memories in a flash of a second, and you begin thinking what was the main cause for the distance that prevails between you two now, and at most times, you can’t think of one substantial reason or event that triggered the parting. It seems more like a gradual decay, some little germ that once found a prospective cavity in the apparently insignificant tooth, and then went on eating it up till the whole of it was completely devoured, leaving behind a black spot, and making you wonder what was it that brought the germ in the very first place.

The germ may vary for different cavities. Sometimes you offend the person and their self-respect is too much of a hindrance to grant you forgiveness, sometimes you are too tired of trying to keep things going smooth, and after failing in your attempts to pull together all the pieces of your relationship, you decide to let go, with however a heavy heart, and the other person is too occupied with other stuff to have realized it; and sometimes it just happens that you meet new friends, and, unable to manage your time between the new and the old, you unconsciously ignore the latter, giving them an impression that you no longer need them, and by the time you are able to learn to manage, it’s too late and you aren't left with much to manage really.

Then another thought struck me, there are also people who I have known for a very long time, who are still as good as they ever were, and if there’s any change in my equation with them, it has only made it stronger.

So what is it exactly that differentiates the two categories? If I were witty enough to be able to decipher that, I guess things would have been different and I wouldn't be feeling all nostalgic right now and that nostalgia wouldn't be driving me to write this piece.

But still, it’s my rough guess, by analysis of my experience, that it is a matter of mutual desire and compatibility that keeps a relationship going or makes it a thing of the past. It is not a one sided effort, altogether, though you might have to put in some extra sweat at times or just not be an over-thinker and let things be the way they are for a while, it’s also about knowing how much to hold on and when to let go. It’s about discussing these limits with your friends and updating them frequently. It’s about sharing how you felt about something the other person did and giving them a chance to justify, or apologize. And most of all, it’s about forgiveness. For I read the following quote on the internet once:

 ‘A wise man will make haste to forgive because he knows the true value of time and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.’

—Samuel Johnson

To sum it up, the best idea would probably be to apologize for your faults without a second thought and forgive those of the people you love. Because if you take too much time juggling between the possibility of holding on and letting go, then, by the time you arrive at a decision, you might not be left with a decision to make, and all you will be left with is that black spot—and memories that will make you nostalgic, or perhaps regretful.

You might be wondering what triggered these thoughts in my mind. So here's for you, 'Lost Things' by Lang Leav. 

Maa

She asked her daughter, “What do you want to become when you grow up?”

“I want to become a rich man so that one day I could come here and buy you, so that you wouldn't have to lie to me and cry at night.”

Shital was dumbstruck. She always thought she was being successful in hiding her sorrows from her daughter. During the day, she used to tell her, these rich men were very sad and they took an appointment from her to tell her their sad stories, and after the counselling session was over, they paid her the consultancy.

Nidhi was 9, and Shital never wanted her daughter to know about the hideous truth of her life. She knew that her background would affect her daughter’s confidence, and performance in school.

She was herself 14 when she had been kidnapped and brought here. Initially, she was kept in a closed room with only one window, and the window had bars, like those in prison cells. It was a bad phase, painful and disgusting. She couldn’t live, and she couldn’t die, for death was a luxury for those whose life was their own.

They say it’s a trait of human race to learn to adapt to their surroundings. Shital, too learned the survival skills, and gradually got ‘promoted’ in her job. She had realized that it was her destiny. And she could either live it or lament over it.

Her daughter would never see this side of her, was her decision. She would work all day and cry all night. But that smile would never waive off her face in the vicinity of her daughter. Nidhi had to be made felt that her family was a happy family, no matter what the reality was.

Sometimes she thought that she was better than those women with apparently happy households. At least these men weren’t wearing any masks before her. At least they weren’t lying to her or trying to flatter her to get what they wanted. They could just ask for it and get it and then pay and leave. It was that simple. She wasn’t one of those unlucky women whose husband cheated on her with another woman or who had to keep calling her boyfriend every half an hour to check on him.

“Maa?” The voice of her daughter snapped her out of her thoughts.

“You’re a strong girl. And you’ll become a very brave man.” She told her daughter and nuzzled her to sleep.

Soulmates

Sometimes, when you feel like you’re in love, look up, close your eyes, they say. But the first person who comes to your mind is the person you were already thinking about. It’s not a fool-proof method of finding out if you love someone, it’s a psychological phenomenon, for that person is already on your mind. And mind and ‘heart’ are separate entities(though scientifically it's the brain that is responsible for the release of dopamine, too and the heart just pumps blood; but let'sjust stick to the conventional idea for now).

What is love—or who is our soulmate, then?

That would be a subjective answer. Someone might want a person who understands even their silence. Someone else might want to be pampered all the time. And there may be another person's dream to just be Ranbir kapoor's. :D

But we then forget what kind of a person we're going to be. I mean, we have a checklist for judging our perfect partner, but where goes the self introspection? Are we're too confident to think about that?

It then sounds more like reality that soulmates are not really made in heaven, but develop their soulmate-ness over a period of time, i.e. by spending time together, by sharing their feelings with each when required and learning to decipher the silence between them, at other times. Maybe Adam and Eve would have been Adam and Stella, and, Eve and Marc if the other two existed at their time.

Nobody’s perfect. And nobody can ever be. Even the figure of god has its own set of flaws. And perfect’s boring. There should always be some room for improvement; and change, which perfect would be too perfect to be able to accommodate, right? 

And hello! Soulmates aren't compulsarily the  people you marry. It can be your mom, or your daughter, or your best friend.
 Let's just break the stereotype. Can we?

Stranger.

We didn’t know each other, just two strangers sharing a room with ten other people, and kids.

She and I never shared our personal lives, or stories form the past. We just liked the craziness in each other— perhaps that was what made us feel connected. She asked me, “Were you always that quirky, or you've just turned so, recently?” I didn't know. I didn't even know if I could be called quirky at all. All I knew was that I wanted to stay happy, feel happy, look happy, think happy, talk happy. Happy was the only thing that could overcome that soul-devouring feeling of gloom and—heartbreak. Happy was the only thing that could make you feel less dead, more alive.

When I told her that just ignoring all that I don’t like to see or hear or think about was the reason how I could smile all the time, she looked into my eyes, and smiled. “You carry a load of grief in there”, she said then, pointing towards the two black wells, surrounded by ice-covered fields.

My words could lie, my eyes could not. I wanted to hug her, but just managed to smile.

Sometimes you're too vulnerable to a stranger.

The last letter

The letter trembled in my hand, soaked at a few places. The ink was smudged here and there, but the contents of it were engraved in my memory. Each letter, each word, for I had read it a hundred times now.

‘Dear Kriti,

 I know you are never going to forgive me for this. But I couldn’t bear that hatred in your eyes. You have hated me since the day you started to make sense of the world. And I don’t blame you, because I admit that I have deserved just enough. I never valued you. For I had desired a boy, you know, to be the heir of my tattered clothes and worn out shoes. Hah!

I didn’t treat your mother well. I despised her, for she was not of our kind, much lower in rank, and I had never agreed to the marriage of your father and her. If it was not for your father’s adamancy, I would have provided you with a very beautiful mother, one worthy of our family. But your mother is not as bad as she was expected to be. She didn’t send us to an old age home, at least, for the kindness of her.

The truth is, that I never thought I would ever be able to forgive him for having brought such disgrace to the family. I may have disliked you mother and you, at first. But I started to see the change in me with time. Old age made me wiser, and I could see beyond my preconceptions. I may have been unkind to you, but my affection for you, lately, was not feigned.

I don’t intend to bore you with my blabbering, but I wish I had not committed so many unforgiveable sins that forbade you from visiting me even once, for the last time.

Lastly, the books I always locked in the closet for fear that you might pounce on them, are now freely accessible as I leave that closet unlocked for you.

I have loved you, and by god’s grace I always will, and hope that you forgive me someday, maybe till the time I return to this earth in another form.

You have made me proud, Son.

Yours (If you allow so)

Balbir Tomar’

I read it again. And I had never felt guiltier all my life. Ma repeatedly asked me to visit him at least once, papa was angry with me for being so insensitive. But I was not interested in meeting a soul so wicked to have tormented his own offspring. “People don’t change”, I had said to ma, when he had left a thousand rupee note on the table for my birthday. “Heaven knows what purpose he aims to solve with this fake generosity of his. Why, after so many years…” The words rang in my ear like the sound of an alarm clock, getting increasingly loud with every sentence, till I could take no more…

People change. I was wrong. People change with time, and for the better.

I don’t know if I will be able to forgive him, but myself-- Never.

Oblivion

“Some things are too filmy to be true. Like those couples who keep fighting but always end up together. And those enemies who, with the passage of time, come closer and eventually fall in love. Or that sick, hopeless girl who finds her true love right before she dies.

So do you need to be fatally sick? Or some hand of fate to be your guiding light to love? Or is it that Love can never be forever. I mean, we have to die, so it will die with us. No?

Eternity? Hah! Funny word. Forever, interesting, like Infinite, which nobody has ever been capable of measuring, and nobody ever would be, I guess.

‘The world is not a wish granting factory’, so true, Mr. Green.
Perhaps ‘Nightmares’ is our 'always'.

I’m scared. More scared than ever. And she’s scared too. But we’re scared for the same reason. Scared of her being hurt. She trusts me that I won’t. I trust myself that I will most probably end up breaking that trust.

Maybe it’s better off that way—oblivion. I wish she would forget me. For I can’t, ever.”

.

.

.

And that, was the last page of his diary, and his life.

A merrier Diwali

So many lights, and so many yummy things to eat! I love it! And the fact that didi brings new toys, and accessories for me. They call it the festival of lights. But despite all this, I don’t like Diwali. Didi doesn’t take me out, because there is so much pollution outside. And people throw crackers on the road which scare me. Once a boy threw a cracker on the road while I was strolling outside and it burst right beside my foot. It hurt a lot, and didi put ice on my foot and had to take me to the doctor. The noise is very loud, and my ears are very sensitive so it becomes troublesome. I wonder how those people can stand so much noise. Even inside the room, with all the doors and windows closed, I have such a difficult time. And I can’t sleep peacefully for about a fortnight, from the Dushera festival till Diwali. The next morning when I go for a walk, it is very dirty everywhere. Papers all over which smell very bad.

But I am lucky that I have a home. My friends on the street have a bad condition. One of them can’t walk because his hind leg got ruptured in an accident when a car got off the road to save itself from a lighted cracker in the middle of the road and his leg came under its tyre. They have breathing problems because the pollution is very harmful to their health. It is sad that these humans are not empathetic towards us and just go on creating such noise and pollution which makes our festival miserable.

I like the extra bones that I get from various chicken dishes that are cooked around this time, but that happiness is overpowered by the difficulties in breathing and that unbearable sound of crackers.

If I was granted one wish, I would make all humans capable of interpreting my barks so that they can understand what I am going through and maybe my Diwali is merrier next year.

Need a friend.

I always called him my best friend. Initially he was so shy that he used to take permission on text before calling me. We shared a great bond. But then, he changed, his priorities changed. Now, he doesn’t meet me at all, and we don’t talk much. Seems like we’ve reached the expiry date of our friendship. So he’s not the one I could call when I need a friend.

She shares an obsession of equal magnitude for books and art with me. Both of us would go talk to every little kid we see across the street. I could really call her up and tell her what I feel right now. But I don’t share everything about me with her. She doesn’t even know most of the people I know, or let’s call it the people I think I know… She would be lost halfway through the conversation because she wouldn’t really follow the characters of the story. Hence I’m not really positive if she’s the one I could call when I need a friend.

He’s the purest heart I’ve ever known. He may have grown in size and all, but has the emotional thought process of a cute little seven year old. That’s probably what makes him so pure at heart. If there’s one person I could trust with anything, it would be him. But his life is his own. He talks to people when he wants to, and when he doesn’t, he won’t even answer their texts or calls. He has got an overwhelming mood-swing issue. And until he’s at least replying to your messages, you can’t really talk to the walls. He’s sure a sweetheart. But he’s a kid. And he’s never there to hear me out when I feel he’s the one I could call when I need a friend.

She and I have something more than usual friendship- the family friends thingy. We vent out our happiness, grief, confusion, frustration and so many things in that one hour we spend travelling with each other every day. Talking to her is always so refreshing for the mind. It’s a happy day for her, and my pain is so insignificant in front of her happiness. Plus we don’t share everything, we can’t… So I don’t want her to be the one I could call when I need a friend.

He is my inspiration. Close to perfection, a man of ethics. If the idea’s in his mind, he has already started working on it. He’s that efficient. He would hear me out if I’d ask him to, but then I can’t trouble him or, show him that I’m emotionally so broken. Because before him, I’m a changed woman. A stronger, more sensible, responsible, focused woman. And when I talk to him I feel all of that. Only because I forget this hole burning up inside me. Ignorance is bliss, indeed. He’s the one I would call for sensible suggestions involving sensible issues, so right now he’s not the one I could call when I need a friend.

She would call me up randomly in every fifteen days and talk about all that’s going around in people’s lives. My prime source of all gossip in town. I could really go hours and hours talking to her. I could actually spend so much time with her without even realizing it. But I cannot trust her with secrets. Because she is surely the kind of person with whom I would forget what time it is, but definitely not the one I could call when I need a friend.

He’s a mystery to me. It seems like he has a hold on necromancy. Risks-internal battles- inner conscience- morals- sensibility---everything goes down the drain when I’m with him. My insecurities keep pinning me but their voices fail to cross the soundproofing of the thing called love. He doesn’t want me to fall in love-love with him. But I do, and I can’t help it. I just want him to stay with me, with all his inhibitions; the girls he makes out with, the nicotine he inhales and everything he does. He’s the most complex shade of grey I’ve ever, ever come across. I’m still debating on the possibility of him being the one I could call when I need a friend.

She was a casual acquaintance at school. Then we were at the same college, and now we’re married. A typical Bollywood love story we have. But the fact that she’s my wife and she takes care of all the things in the family so well makes me rethink the idea of sharing all my worries with her. How can I trouble her further? She’s not going to be the one I could call when I need a friend…

Source: Strangers

Green Clips

Mummy had extra work at Sheetal aunty's that day. She said they had organized Kannu didi's birthday party.
"Why does Kannu didi celebrate birthday, mummy?" I asked her when she asked me to cook dinner.
"Because she was born today, it is her special day." She told me.

What do we do on birthday?” I wanted to know.

“She meets her friends, and gets lots of gifts.” Mummy bit her tongue when she said that. Maybe she wanted to keep that a secret.
"When is my special day? My birthday?"
"I'll tell you when it will come. Make sure dinner's ready before papa comes, okay?"
She said and left. Every time I ask her about my birthday, she goes away. All I'm left to talk to is my 8 months old baby brother, who can't even reciprocate in my language. 

I was studying in class 1, but mummy had to go to work. And papa also. And Akki was small. He needs someone to be with him. So papa made me leave school.
Every day, in the morning, I stay at home to take care of Akki. And when mummy is back from work at lunch time, I take the box of stickers and start my journey from Chandravali to Kamla Nagar, in order to earn some extra income.
Mummy gives me 10% of this earning as my pocket money. I buy clips with it. I love colorful clips. I have matching clips for my clothes. My friends don't get pocket money, but they can read books. Sometimes I want to write counting too. But then I count the notes I have earned, isn't that the same thing? When Akki will grow up, we both will go to school together. Then I will learn to write counting.

Today mummy gave me 8 rupees because I could earn only 80 rupees yesterday. I don't have green clips for this dress. And I couldn't buy them for 8 rupees. It was 3 pm and I was on my usual stroll near the snack corner. Most didis and bhaiyas come from college to eat here. They offer me their leftovers sometimes, but it is very tasty, so I accept. They seldom buy my stickers, but I keep trying...

Today a didi came and asked me, "Do you know Pooja? She is my friend. I want to meet her." She had two more didis with her. One didi had a big camera. 

Pooja is my neighbour. She goes to school in the morning and comes here with her box at 3. "She hasn't come as yet." I told didi. She was wearing a green top. Green clips. They were so beautiful. Must be very costly. She started talking to me. I told her that I go to school.

Mummy said that I should not tell anyone about the truth or they will take Akki away so that I can go to school. I don't want anyone to take him away. I love him. So I kept this a secret.

She was a nice didi. Asked me when my birthday was. And when I told her that I don't know then she said, "It's my birthday today. Let's celebrate your birthday also today."

She fed me dal rice with her own hands and also gave me chocolate. And that camera wali didi clicked our pictures. The other didi who was very tall, taught me how to write counting till 20, when I requested her to.

I didn't want her to go. But she wanted to go to her mummy's house.

Before leaving, she asked me what I like the most. I told her that I love to buy clips to match with my dress. She asked me why I wasn’t wearing clips today. And I told her I will buy green clips tomorrow…
She has promised me she'll come next Thursday to meet me. I'll wait for her. 

I am looking at the beautiful green clips she gave me as my birthday present, and I miss her already.

Of Blacks and Whites.

Okay so this friend of mine sowed this thought in my mind. “Is it true that even a rock can melt with love?”

Well scientifically, a rock is brittle. So it will fall into pieces if you try to apply pressure on it. So dear philosophy, shut the fuck up! But reading between the lines, we’re talking about people. And people, to begin with, are shades of grey. That is, they have both blacks and whites. So she said, “But some people are just so black. Always black. Raven black. It’s like they want to be black so that no color could make its mark on them. No color could be visible.”

“White!” I said. Mix white. You’ll see grey. And that’s what all of us are. Shades of grey?! There are people who keep switching between the two sides (which explains the theory of mood swings), and some people keep the jolly whiter on top of the stack of feelings. But there is a third kind: people who choose to put their darker side on display. Now there’s always a history behind that. You may not see it, but it is the foundation. Some past experience, or some incident, or whatever it may be. Those people have super public control. And there are times when I feel like learning that skill from them.

“So then everyone is grey. Right?” Her inquisitiveness rose. And I tried to quench it. “No, this was just about the black and white. But life is much beyond that. It’s full of colors. And human nature keeps changing colors according to situations.” So there are reds: of anger and adoration, yellows: of energy, greens: of jealousy, blues: of calm, and so on.

But if you argue that their black side camouflages all these colors, then there is always a white that will be there to conquer it. And if you can’t see beyond the black, you got to strive to bring out the white side of them, if you’re so determined. ;)