Sunday, December 20, 2009

"Serendipity" Part - 13

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Part - 13
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(The Last Letter to her)

There were times when life puzzled me and you were there. You had the pieces to those puzzles. Even I have tried my best to do the same for you. You know, what makes me sad?

After a few years or may be after a few months, you will take your puzzle-pieces and walk away, and I will do the same-I will have to. We can't leave our fragments in each other's life, can we? We will just stand up and walk away from each other, like nothing ever happened.

It surely will hurt though, the way I so carefully put all those pieces in places and suddenly I will have to break it all apart. But that is life I suppose. You have to move on; you have to start afresh and try finding a new solution to that puzzle. Can't say about you but I surely will be left a bit confused. I have this bad habit you know, staying confused.

Sometimes I pull myself away from you and sometimes I just want to be next to you. Strange, isn't it? Extremes of the opposites.

Our relationship? No. Don’t even try giving it a name. I have spent nights thinking about it, but can't say about you. May be you know the right name to it. But then don't tell me anything about it, not even a hint. I just am happy with my confusion.

Last night I went for a walk and when I returned,
I found my beautiful life, twisted and turned,
Its taking me long to make it all fine,
And often I stop and write a few lines,
And then a question bothers me:-
When the curtain falls and the show starts rewinding,
Will I be the one...the last man standing?

"Love gave me more than it took from me. It gave me tears but today when I think about them, I feel I am the luckiest.”

No one knows what I went through and how I stood up again to walk. But that is the part of my life that gives me strength every time I fall down. It made me realize how important I am to myself. When I held myself, when I splashed water on my face this morning to wash off the tears, when I sang myself to sleep, when I felt the pain slowly seep into me every time I faked a smile, I realized that I could face anything in life...For me love was always about expectations and... I was a fool."

Love

Good Bye. Take Care.

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End of Serendipity
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"Serendipity" Part - 12

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Part - 12
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(Boys do cry)

Yes Boy’s do cry. They cry in presence of nature. Anything can trigger it. A song, a word, a love, a care, a dream, a destiny, feelings that hurt like anything. Boys do have a heart that cringes and silently dies down with the spasm of pain making it without warning.

The last conversation with her made him to take a deep breathes and then finally ends up with a sigh, long enough for the moon to go through a full cycles of its game of eclipses.

Tears swell in his eyes but it stopped for a moment before bursting out; he thought for the moment as if his tears are worth of the pain he was going through last ten years. He lay curled and bent, like a fetus on his bed with the pillow between his knees. He kept the lights on because the sight of his shaking body was making him comfortable. He found himself not alone in this situation. His saw the site where his thighs stopped shivering when he held it tightly.

He clenched his teeth to keep the commotion down, to keep it all silent and unnoticed. But all his efforts went to vein when he surrenders to his emotions and the pain crawls out as a desperate scream. He bites the quilt; the cry keeps into the thread and cotton and disappeared forever. He wondering with the number of cries it holds in itself, how many screams of angst and pain it holds.

The nails start to etch lines and arches on the skin-thin lines, white, speckled by the broken lines of red, where the nail cuts through the skin. He cried in sobs so as to keep the world at bay. The sobs slowly turn to hiccups and then He whispered "What was my fault?"He looked around, everything looks blurred. Tears, they say, make everything blurred. He wiped them off but they came back again, like they flow from a fountain of perpetuation. Like small rivulets they make their way through his cheeks, leaving wet trails.

The gasps and the sobs, the hiccups, every expression of pain turn them into sputters-mixed with saliva they scatter out of existence.

“I pity myself. I cry because I pity the way I suffer; unknown and unnoticed” he whisperedslowly the body loses its tautness; loosens like an untying noose. There's no need to wipe off the tears or wash my face. It knows how to smile.

He opens the door, lock it and walk with his slippers on. Punching numbers on my mobile, pretending to call someone he walked along the corridor. He switched off the cell.

He reaches to the main gate of the building. The rusted Iron Gate, wet with dew. The moon shines with its brightest of faces. The stars twinkling in a subtle but controlled frenzy. He looked at them, made patterns and rearrange them.

Sky, stars, moon and He



Saturday, December 19, 2009

"Serendipity" Part - 11

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Part - 11
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(In this part he is reciprocating to her answers)

You have changed. You are not the one I once met by the twilight's warp. You are not the one I talked to who looked like being covered with the golden slivers of sunshine. You are not that beach girl with whom I had my life best of best moments. Not the same dreamy woman but a brittle, ageing girl; not the fine silk or satin but a crumbled sheet of cotton.

Your words now come drenched in a breath of coffee; your sighs now wear smoke rings around them. Your voice not soft but wrapped in barbwires of arrogance, your smile not born but drawn from a cellar of old and used pleasantries.

And you, not yourself but a slave to the body of your illusions. You carry along with yourself your own definitions of happiness. You wear them, drive them, eat them, drink them and use them. The definitions.

We don't talk like we used to; our words approach each other like suited men, greet, sit and then discuss the "business" and the "purpose". I try going back to the old days and you laugh it off in a wisp of smoke and then you push it aside like some unwanted file on your table. Then you shower me with the answers of all my questions which I had never asked. So impertinent.

You laugh when not desired, you smirk when not expected, and you sympathized when not asked for. And I see all the colors of your face on the thousand tiny mirrors that sit glued to your well decorated wall and watch us like prying eyes.

Her gaze was fixed on the cup of coffee that she was so silently stirring. The dark whirlpool funnels deeper as the teaspoon scrapes against the walls of the cup. Her silence unfolds its own comprehension.

He stood up and said "Goodbye. Nice meeting you."


"Serendipity" Part - 10

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Part - 10
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(In this part she is answering the entire questions he had for her)

"...you can never face what I face every day, you will crumble before you even stand at the place where I do, and you are nothing.
You love the walls of your artificial world, and you think you have seen it all. You frame your past, admire them and show them to me as your prized possessions. You let your veins fill with pride which has turned your sighs to heaves, your anger to grudge and your hope to greed.

Fear the curse of those you ignored, of those who wanted a place in your heart but you stood there as an idol of stone and watched them return empty handed.

You compromise, you disguise and you rephrase but you don't have the courage to face it. You don't have the courage to fight as you fear the scars they will leave. So, you accept defeat but no, you don't say you were defeated, you say you didn't fight as it is of no use, as if you knew the consequences.

You disgust me when you lie to yourself that you don’t love me. You betray me when you lie to me that you don’t love me. You show me a different face, different from the one you admire everyday in your mirror, different from the one you feel sorry for as people pass by without ignoring it. But you have eyed more innocent than the guilty. You were blinded by your obsession with past and fear for future.

You have a heart of glass but to me you show it as cold ice. You think you are strong? You have no answers to your failures, you fear that you will lose again and so you show your back to the world and that’s the reason you never stopped me and asked me to get back in your life. Did you??

You asked me “What do you know about me?” The words I speak, speak of nothing. You turn the words around before you read them, you twist them, you bend them because you don't love them the way they are but you try to mould so that they would fit in your artificial world.

Hah! Solitude is bliss! You sleep with your alibis and make love to your ego. You don't have the courage to open the doors and you say you love the darkness. You can't stand the beauty outside and you say you love what you are.

Stay where you are, how you are and what you are. You think I am happy, you think I do not care about you, you think the world doesn't care about you. But wait. When destiny will push you into the fire, when despair will burn your flesh, when defeat will scour your skin, when your hands for help will return empty, when your guilt will shatter your house of glass, you will remember these words. And I will stand and watch, watch you burn, watch your blood burst out of veins and quench the fire. And then when you will raise your hand for me, I will hold you as I am not you...I am not you...I am not you." And she started crying a loud. She couldn’t hold herself anymore.

It was a complete silence around both. He just kept staring at her; he looked the way she was crying but didn’t found any courage to hold her.

He felt restless, his mind was thinking something but his heart was crying. He realized all things, he summarized all ten years from day when they left each other. He just couldn’t able to get the things done. He was amazed with the flow of words from her.

He found himself far below her, he knew.


"Serendipity" Part - 9

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Part - 9
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She looked into his eyes. He was looking towards moon but tears were rolling from his eyes to his chin. She saw that and she couldn’t control herself anymore and she also started crying.
“Plz, don’t cry. I know you. I had seen your face almost every night. I am also vulnerable to the pain which you are going through” she said to him.

He responded to her but this time a frustration was clearly visible in his words. “What do you know about me? What is that you know? What do you know of my pain? All you see is my face.” He responded

“Why are you feeling pity about yourself??” she said

“Self-pity? Yes, I pity myself. I pity the way I suffered. I pity the way I burned those nights. Time didn't give my share of mourning and it stayed all inside. It still is there, burning. It burns me every night. No matter how loud I laugh, how high I jump, how much I cry, it stays there” He said

“Why are you getting so much angry? Don’t you see sympathy for you in my eyes? Don’t you??” she looked into his eyes

Yes, I am angry. Fucking angry. To hell with all your sympathy. Live a single night that I lived and you will crumble.

“Do you think is that all easy for me?? Just compare your fate and mine?? You will see the difference” she lose control on herself

All you know is compare. You, a part of this race that compares everything, jealous of everything, of even sadness. All you do is compare your sorry fate with mine and then fling verdicts at me but don’t feel proud of yourself?

“Yes, I am proud of myself. I am proud of the way I faced everything. I am proud of my coldness, of my fake smiles, of my strength. See the sights I saw and your walls of strength will crumble to dust. Your eyes will well, your heart will pound against the ribs, your lungs will scream for a breath. But wait, you have to smile through all this! You can't cry, not even sob; you have to hold everyone. You have to be strong. And I am proud of myself.” She defended herself

He couldn’t able to utter a single word, he kept listening to her.

But God it hurts. It hurts like hell. I want to speak out. Let go of everything. Someone who would hold me and ask, "Tell me everything. Tell me what all happened to you. Tell me and I will listen." I let no one see me burn but today I need someone to know all that. No, I don't need any sympathy. But I want everything out of me. But how will I make sure that all that's out? Only when someone will tell me, "It's okay. It was not your fault. It has all passed. Stop crying." She continued.

“I was always there standing alone to help you.” He said

“Can you help me measure my pain? Help me please. I beg. Take my life but help me live for a moment. I feel so drowned. So alone. So tired of pretending that I have got over everything”

“Even I want my everything back. I want my innocence back, my life free of worries. I am afraid that in my attempt of running away from my past, from my worries I am running away from the ones who love me the most. They remind me of everything. I am so far from them now. I want to get close to them. I want them”. He said

“I want that cuddle of friends, that warmth of my parents, those nights I shared with listening to you. I want you back. I want your shoulders to lean on. I want you please.” He continued.



Monday, December 7, 2009

"Serendipity" Part - 8


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Part - 8
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He looked into her eyes to see the answer he wanted from her. He stood from a couch, walked closer to her. Now he stood in front of her. He asked for her hand. She couldn't deny it. Her heart had no more control over her mind. It didn't listen any of a call from her mind.

He held her hand, and took her near a balcony of her well furnished home. He pointed towards a moon, which was in a full shape today. They both stepped out from the boundary of a relationship, a boundary of the friendship. For the moment they forgot everything, they were here like they were ten years before. They were still holding each others hand, but this time more tightly and starring towards a moon. Moon has its own effect own them. They fall back to their old memory days, a day when they were out for a trip to a beach with their friends.

He started "I opened my old album yesterday after almost ten years. And I found you. You were dressed in your favorite half-shirt and half-pants. You had knotted your shirt above your belly. Your belly was clearly visible. That gesture of yours still excites me every time I remember it. I stand next to you with your arms around my shoulders. We both were striking a pose for the camera. The background of a blue bed-sheet with patterns of flowers stitched on it, hangs behind us. We were smiling.

I turn to the next page and I find you sitting on the broken wall of an old house on beach. You watch me from there as I play with the sand on the beach. I dig holes, scoop and fill my hands with the sand. With a twig I then scrap off the sand from behind my nails. I look at you then, smiling. You look back and jump on to the heap from that wall. We build our first sand-castle.

We got tired and we slept over their. You were leaning towards me with your brows furrowed. I am on my belly, lying, peeking into your eyes, with the characters of the story, you started telling to me about all your family, your brother, you mom and dad. Hours pass together. I yawn. I say, "Rest family drama tomorrow. I looked into your eyes and I saw something and changed my words. No, tonight after dinner!"

You smile, "I can finish it now if you want me to." "No!", I say, "I want the full of your bakwass gossip tonight." "Ok", you say and you slap me with the love. I tried to have a fake anger; you ran off towards the beach, I ran off behind you. I caught you near sea. We both fell into the sea; you became wet so I was. I held both of your hand, I saw love in your eyes, and same love was visible in my eyes. I held your hand more tightly. Your eyes got closed; I came close to you, a very close to you near your lips. You felt my hot breath and you opened your lips, I sensed it what you wanted and I reciprocated you with the same intense. A complete lust took over to love for the moment, away from all, in the presence of sea.

We broke that moment. I stand with anxious eyes, nervous. You play to find something in the wanted, the thing you do when you are worried, you nervous. You walk out of the sea and then walk back in to the house. You walk out again and in again you came out. You came and stand near me anxiously. You hugged me tight. You cry. I try figuring out why you are crying where it was no one's fault. But then I cry too. Just because you cried.

"Serendipity" Part - 7


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Part - 7
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"It's so easy to read you, so easy" she said to him.

"You can't hide your anger, your fear, and your frustration. Though you pretend a lot at times but every time you try, you fail. I don't know about others but it just takes a few seconds for me to know in what mood you are." She continued.

"You know what, you speak more when you are silent and when you speak, and all you try to do is show that you are not all that's so obvious. Lock me in a dungeon and smile, I will know; drown me in an ocean and cry, I will know; burn me to ashes and hate me and you will find my ashes flying away." She opened herself more.

He amazed with her understanding and the way she knew him. There was full of emotions flowing between them. He wanted to cry, wanted to cry aloud. He was missing her all those year, no one know him more than her.

"You will have to give me a sign, one of your stupid ways to hide your emotions and I will know. I swear I will be there then." She paused for a moment and looked into his eyes. He couldn't able to utter a single word. He was fighting with his fate, his feelings, and his emotions. He couldn't hold himself anymore and he burst into the tears.

"I am all alone from last ten years, from a day when you went away from me", he told her with wet eyes.

"There was no one to listen me; a sudden change of surroundings was beating me more than healing me. It was so difficult to change myself into next orbit, I couldn't able to done that. I just couldn't able to forget you. I couldn't able to get married and settle in the life because there was no one to take your position except you. I had missed you so much." He continued.

She couldn't pretend to remain strong for long time, wetness in his eyes making her weak enough to roll her tears from eyes to heart. But she held herself in a shock when she listened that "he is still single". But why? Is that a milestone of the love? Is that a sacrifice? Is that I am the reason for it? Guilt of making someone suffer a lot was flawing over her heart. She couldn't able to look into his eyes.

"Why, why have u done that?" she asked him.

"I had never measured relationships in miles, but yes there were times when the distance between us has shaken my faith. I ask myself how would have life shaped without you and I found this huge empty space. Sometimes I feel may be someone would have taken your place and given me more than what you have given to me. But I found it hard to think of someone else in your place, you know, everything looks so odd and off the place. Even the remains of the misunderstandings we had and we have, fit so perfectly in my world. If I remove it, it will make my life so incomplete. Funny, isn't it? Whatever harsh words you used or I said, in whatever way we have hurt each other, everything has become a part of this life that we shared; everything completes the design. It's a complete design of my life." He sighed. .

"Serendipity" Part - 6

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Part - 6
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A moment which was like eternity to them got revoked by her child. She gained all the sense but her eyes were still finding no other way except his eyes.

She introduced him to her husband as her old college friend, she looked into his eyes for gratification, but he chooses to skip eye contact with her. He was feeling numb, his hands were getting cold, he was feeling restless as he know this moment will get end abruptly anytime and he don't know how to ask her for contact no?? Same was happening with her also. She was eager as him to get rid of contact number but how can she?? "Can't you give me your no??" she murmured. And even god wanted to them meet again, her husband invited him for a lunch on next Saturday. He accepted it wisely.

She looked into his eyes. His eyes were saying, "No, I won't ask you anything. I don't need your any favor. I know how to be alone and i will walk away the way i had come. I will not stay. But plz help me to heal my soul" She recognized an anger, a frustration, a persuasion inside him. She wanted to say him "Tell me what happened. Tell me everything and I will listen. I will stay mum and wait for you to finish. You can lean on me, let your tears flow down my shoulders, and wipe your eyes with my sleeve. But don't let anything stay inside".

It's like both were listening each other without bartering any words. Only few people can do that whose heart beats in the rhythm. There was a complete void of silence between them. They were not uttering a single word but listen every word they wanted to exchange.

But time has its own speed, time doesn't wait for anyone and it didn't wait for them also. As time passed by, they were becoming more restless. They knew it that time will get end soon, he hurriedly broke the silence and accepted invitation of his husband. He said "I will join you for a lunch next Saturday, Thanks".

He handshake with her husband. Her husband and child moved ahead towards exit but she was still looking into a pretending gesture of his saying "all well", she knew it. Their eyes met, no one wants to say anything, they tried to understand without a barter of words, they did and understood.

"Bye", He said. "Bye", she said. But their eyes were saying something different. With the resonance of relationship they shared with each other both got apart.

He was walking to some place lonely tonight as always but today he felt to hide himself in the shadow of those trees there; so tightly they held on to solitude for so many years and tonight he feels to borrow that solitude. But why he was trying so hard as he knew that surrender was the only answer to his anxiety?

I sigh on the count of every twenty stride he took; something that has fallen in place between him and her, their sighs. Everything else just hangs in the mid air; as confused. The questions resurface like bubbles from the deep within. He was barely holding anything tonight. Tonight it seems he will fall for her again. He again saw her face when he closed his eyes. He fought for a sleep but he lost. He opened his eyes again and remains awaked.

He was getting ready for the lunch day. He was confused what to speak, what to say, to get angry or calm. He was just out of his mind and a day arrived where he found himself alone with her in her house after a lunch.


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

"Serendipity" Part - 5


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Part - 5
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For the moment he closed his eyes. He lend himself back to that day, a day when he met her last time, ten years ago a flashback with the closed eye. "Bye" she said. He didn't replied to her bye. He was looking into her eyes, without a word he was saying everything to her. His eyes were so expressive at that time even words fall short at that time. She wanted to get away from his sight but his eyes but she couldn't dare to get away from his sight. Tears in his eyes was easily visible and making them shine little more.

"Moving back to end of road, far from each other, last phone call to meet last time, a day when she said she is getting engaged. A fight when she said its too late now. A fight when he didn't understood his love for her. Last day of college, that first gift, their laugh, their first date, their first outing with the friends, his first photo with her and a flash from camera" that flash recovered him to open his eyes.

He felt like a time has rewind against the rule of nature. And he is standing there from the ages to see this moment, to see her. He was feeling weak now, he actually was not believing what he was seeing but he came to sense and saw a face which he has seen a lot many times in his dreams. She was standing in front of him unaware of him. His mind stopped working and heartbeats became more fast. He was in a state which he had never felt before. He wanted to escape from the situation. He was not prepared for this moment. "GOD, you can't be so kind with me" he said with closed eyes. He hide himself behind the stall away from her vision. "what to do?? what to do??" he was in a twist but neither his heart nor his mind ready to answer.

"Is that so happen in the love??" Why heart and mind don't work together when people are in love?? You craved for your love when you are far away but when your love is in front of your eyes why your mind and heart don't support you at that time, why??

He was standing behind the stall. He felt a silence around him. And again for the moment he closed his eyes. He found this silence threatening this time and suddenly his heart broke the silence with the something, something even he didn't expected. Heart has a complete control on him and he decided to broke the barrier. He don't wanted to loose this opportunity as he had lost last time.

He was moving towards her slowly, his mouth was drying, he was falling short of words, he don't know what to speak? how to react? what to say?? It has been ten years now he was waiting for the moment and when moment came he was not prepared for it. It took thousands of thoughts, ten years of memory to take those ten steps towards her. Finally he reached near her back was facing towards him. "she was wearing same color kurti which she had wear on their first date" He noticed.

"Hh h iii", he said in very faint voice with all courage he has stored for this moment in last ten years.

She heard the voice, she knew this voice. She had heard this voice so manytimes. Her heart missed a bit for moment. "He can't be here, he can not be here" she grumbled these words and turned back.

For countless seconds she kept starring him, she could not able to utter single word. She kept starring him. Her eyes filled up with the tears, He noticed it, she knew it.

She said, "Hi" after almost a minute.

He found her fumbled with the words. He acknowledged it what she wanted to say, He knew it.

And suddenly both recovered from that moment, a moment which can not be captured in the words, that only can be feel with the emotions. Both of them will not forget that moment. The moment which pulled both of them a close, they felt last ten years like a last ten days. It was those moment where you froze the time around you. Because it was the indifference of the world that they watched passing by, but not he, not she, not their silence, not their distance . . .

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End of Part - 5
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