Of past, of love
I wasn’t very keen on it when I last saw it. It was a hornet’s nest from the past and i didn’t wish to stir it. But this time, when I opened my cupboard and saw it lying at the corner of it, I was very tempted to read its very contents. I was keen, curious to be honest, of how my past has been, of romance and its starts. I locked my room, picked it up and sat on my bed.
I slowly pulled it out of the envelope and smelled it. It still had her smell, or so I thought. Except for slightly crushed corners, it was in a perfect state, as if it was written yesterday. On the centre of its portion she made a heart and wrote my name in it. Her writing was particularly beautiful, such that the cursiveness of its letters could give waves a run. After messily skidding my hand on the outline of that heart, I turned the page and started reading its parts. The contents reminded me of the times we had, of kisses and hugs, of trips and love, of future that never was. She ended by intertwining the letters of her name into mine, thus inbibing her presence in her absence forever.
In modern times, it is still this love letter from 2014 that still happens to be the most precious gift from my past.
Jamun Tree
There’s a jamun tree outside my office. I did not know about it until today, when suddenly a couple of climbers jumped over it and rained jamuns over my head. Obviously, I was angry initially, for the momentum of falling jamuns from a great height had a huge impact on my head but then I slowly turned disheartened, as I saw over a 100 jamuns squashed over road, rolling over, sticking with dirt. And then to sight, there were some people who even picked them up and ate, no washing-no grinding. Yummy, they said. I was left wondering. How something grew only to fall, under the feet, on the road, inside the mouth? How something juicy be at the mercy of some unfamiliar lot? How relevance conjugated irrelevance in the most unfashionable way and life became just a heresay? And then my spell was broken. I came back to senses as he talked, a tall built sando man, one of the climbers, who came up to me and gave me a polythene of dirt vetted jamuns and said, ‘Badiya hai, kha lijiye!”
As a gesture, I took it. I brought it to office. Washed some, shared with colleagues and enjoyed it.
Past Midnight
I can’t sleep. I sit on the chair and close my eyes. When I still can’t sleep, I peek through one of my eyes and look straight into the creek between the two curtains. I feel someone watching, looking at me, sending a shrill divide into my spine sinking into my heart. I shout, ‘Who’s it?’ but there is no response. A dark patch of abridged despair halos behind the distinct soak of undefined identity. I am now scared and want to sleep, but my body, aching from the tills of banality, screams from inside. I reach out to my bed, which seems indefinitely far, gripping first the corner, then dragging slowly along its centre. Now I lie on the pillow, curtains over my head.
I still can’t sleep. I have opened a small tubelight. Who was it? I wonder. I really felt something looking at me, or was it someone?
Metro and Magic
I deboarded Metro on Mandi House today. It was a jampacked scene, where people filled upto the brim and overflowed onto the stairs. A chaos prevailed and life came to a standstill. I exited the station, thinking that booking a Ola, Uber for a change would be a sane decision today. But then a lot of others were thinking the same. So when I exited the station, I saw a havoc of people stranded on roads, losing their calm, like a trail of ants was disturbed by something unnatural. Honking, shouting, slowly moving cars said the story has flown to the roads. I immediately knew how difficult the time is going to be. And therefore, the MNCs that they are, seized the opportunity. As I opened my phone to book a cab, Ola showed Rs. 300 in sharing and Uber showed Rs. 290 in pool. ‘Too high’, I thought. Let’s take an auto. But then I saw Auto rickshaw on roads asking for Rs. 200 per fool too. I was baffled. I had no clue what to do. I didn’t want to be exploited for sure. So I started walking. Minute by minute, strange it may sound, but thinking about things, I got lost in time. And the next moment when I saw myself in full senses, I was at ITO wondering and questioning the rush and thrush of life. Time passed, but I thought and meanwhile I took an auto for Laxmi Nagar. Breeze fell on my hair and sweat danced on my body, and the next moment I saw myself at Laxmi Nagar paying Rs. 50. But then something happened and the auto wallah offered me that if I could give Rs. 70, he would drop me at Anand Vihar. I said ok. Breeze fell on my hair and sweat danced on my body, and the next moment I saw myself on Anand Vihar paying the auto wallah Rs. 70 but he smiled at me and said, mazza aaya?
I just entered my house 10 minutes ago and I am still wondering why an auto wallah just took Rs. 70 from me and smiled when he could have asked Rs. 200 and thrown me on the road?
At the end of it, I reach here. There is life and crisis that I don’t understand. But then sometimes there is magic I don’t understand too.
Traveler
I stand here, on the metro door, with my back to the glass, exposing the wet pursuits of my shirt to the privilege ones sitting on the seats like patterns on the acrylic. It’s not me, but a marvelous reality, with colors scattered around, in the profile of heat that’s very kind to us. I am almost in my thoughts, fusing into a kind of mixture that catalyzes me to go wild.
I think.
Sometimes I want to lie down, at the entrance of the door, and let the countless bundles of men and women walk over me. I want to sometimes feel what bedsprings feel, when they cry inside the mattresses on the constant assault.
Sometimes I harbor the constant urge to stand on the door and feel the thrush of rush in the office hour. I want to sometimes feel what the rocks on the edge feel, when they are plundered by the big gush of ocean.
Sometimes instead I nurture a feeling to climb on the roof and witness the topography of the different head below me. I want to sometimes feel what the lizard feels, when it drags over on the wall.
But nothing is happening, and I know nothing will ever happen . Ardency and hysteria are merely two sides of the same coin.
Kissed
When I kissed her, it was sorcery, a figment of fire, like a storm was closing in, in the wildness of expanse. It was like a feeling, the touch of our lips, an urge I can’t articulate, our heads tilted and eyes closed and exchange of vows. She bewildered me with a sense of certainty, a red flush of longing. She gave me a fever that lasted a decade. It felt urgent and hallucinogenic, our bodies blending.
I had waited for long. It wore me down; seeing a glimpse of her in the corridor, sometimes sitting on bench through the window of her class. Sometimes I used to gaze her and get caught, but she had no idea how passionately we were involved. Sometimes when she used to dance in the amphitheatre, I briefly, like animals in evenings when the sky is small with darkness, pace across the edges, overcome the drunk, chanced to hold her for a few nervous moments. In those neon lights that danced in rhythmic fashion, we stood straight and separate, my arms stiff and hands hot as we circled, turning like a universe, a sun between us. And when she looked at me and smiled, all the songs spoke for me, all the songs were about her.
I had always wondered how she would. I wanted to press my mouth to hers, feel her voice on my tongue, pull the breath from her lungs, the heat and wet of her love drawn in like steam, one hand in her dark hair, the other on the small of her back. I wanted to press her boobs, hold her waist and pull her inside of me, like two of us bound by immensities.
Then I woke up. It was a dream, a perfect at that way. I never forgot it. She is gone now, to a different state, to a different world. She earns a tad more than me and thus, possibly doesn’t think of me as a perfect match. But she texts back to me sometimes, like a flicker in blue moon and my world lights bright.
She’s still a girl, her face blurred by layers of my memory, etched in my soul and riddled in my heart. And I am a madness of the same boy who never kissed her to find the true words.
AGFL.
Heritage Times!
I, today, instead of deboarding Metro at Mandi House station decided to foray into the swanky new Heritage metro line further into the famed Walled City of Delhi. After crossing Delhi Gate and Jama Masjid, I got down on Red Fort station. Interiors shining with 3D art installations and Mughal art spinning the rich history of the past, I was thrilled by the presence old photographs and maps of Shahjahanabad. I spent next 20 minutes reading the descriptions and absorbing the vibe of this place. It was different, beyond the normalities of the present. Imagine it is where Mughals rode on horses and elephants, Britishers moved on rickshaws, now stands this mammoth station waiting for normal people to come and take metro ride? How times change! Anyway, after feeling the modern makeshifts at the station, it was time for the real thing. It was a while since I last visited this place. I was excited and ready to explore my favorite city’s heart. Thus, I took the elevator and exited using my PayTm, upping slowly into the face of the red marvel, the Red Fort, the symbol of heritage and reminder of Dilli’s 400 years under the Mughal rule. It was beautiful, reflecting in the moonlight, slowly dipping in the noise of the city and enjoying the life that it faces. Yes, it was life of Chandni Chowk. Chandni Chowk awaited. Snail slow, packed like sardines, a true magic of symbolism and humanity in the face of Delhi. After crossing roads after roads, I finally reached my resort. Sabzi Kachori for dinner with a slice of mango pickle. I had two plates and slid into the bylanes, man to man, loaders shouting on the top of their voice, I finally reached Chandni Chowk Metro. Turning back, I saw once more, to the city where sun never sets, and went inside and boarded the metro I am traveling right now.
Life’s what you make it. Time’s what you see it through.
Understanding
The gray expanse of my bleak understanding, of life known as an unknown existence between the smog studded blue skies and the concrete patches of green, is but a questionable run of shadows and flesh mechanized by the unquestionable need to survive the survival that one has no choice of. The only something of some understanding about it is the end of it, one day, by disintegration into the five forces as they say, bringing an end to a futile journey marked by the different altars of pleasures and prosperity brought about by a combination of factors, of which again something unexplainable called luck plays a crucial role.
Scintilla of Scobiform 