Remnants

Most people sympathise with you but very few help lessen the absence of a lost parent. Warm thanks to all those in the latter category.

I wonder many times daily, how would my life be like if he was around. How our phone calls would be like? How often would we video chat or how would he react to my updates on fb.

I usually walk near a cemetery because the path is serene and majestic with a lake on the side. I imagine if my parents were visiting, I would go on walk with Papa.

The other day I was doing my evening walk and decided to read the many headstones there. Loving fathers, mothers, grandparents, heroes, rockstars! I read them all.

I kept walking and crying slowly. Felt this urgency to get to see him once more. Tell him how much I love him. That’s the last thing I told him in the hospital after kissing his forehead and telling him ‘I will see you in the morning‘. He heard me and nodded even though he was heavily sedated. The next morning was ugly.

Kept walking and reading the headstones. Read what legacy people had left behind.

As per Hindu traditions, everything is donated once the soul departs. My mom gave away everything. I remember fighting with her in Haridwar when she gave away his glasses. I cried. I screamed.

What no one knows is I stole one of his kurta. It is still with me. I smell it. After 7 years I still try to smell him.

I often think what all I could have done to undo things. Frankly. I could have done nothing.

Then I thought what can I do so that the life he left incomplete gets completed. Kept walking and reading the headstones.

Then I realised his whole life was spent in doing things for others. He never got to enjoy his own life.

I promised myself not to do that. To be selfish and live not little but lot.

I looked up in the sky while thinking what if he also had a grave that I could visit. A grave that was his remnant. That point I badly wanted some legacy, a remnant of him to touch and cry. Then I touched my heart.

I realised I am my father’s most precious legacy.

I have to wear the best shoes because he wore torn shoes.

I have to see the world because he told me he will not be able to come to NZ because he won’t live by then.

I have to be happy because he told me how he felt unloved.

Don’t worry Papa, I will be happy because whatever that is left of you is the entire me who has to live royally for both of us!

Getting over

I will get over you. Even though there was no closure, I will. I will let my heart prepare for excruciating pain that will last for months. But this pain will be less painful than the pain I get daily from not hearing from you, not looking into your eyes, not telling you silly things, not letting you go.I will be fine. I guess. I am hopeful.

The mere thought of stretching this comatose relationship while putting it on odd messages’ ventilator support is inhuman. It needs to be set free; to be euthanised – into an indefinite dead stage, where you and I could breathe finally.

We have been choking on each others’ monumental expectations, on each others’ time windows. I beg, you yearn – this needs to be stopped. We need to be brave. We need to mingle in our own social circles to help us fill the vacuum we have left in each others’ laughter. I will be slightly tipsy while dressed looking all sorts of gorgeusness. Not thinking even once about clicking a pic for you. Not thinking even once if you could be there in the mix of crowd as my comforting face telling me shhhhhh I know you way more than these morons.

I will be fine. You will be fine too. The feelings will remain forever because ‘we are each others’ that single person we will always have feelings for no matter what’. 
Just that we won’t be talking. We won’t be expecting anything anymore. We will find another person who will help us fill in the large vacuum.

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Currently listening to – Sau dard hai.

Behta hain paani behne de, waqt ko yuhi rehne de

Dariyaa ne karwat li hai toh sahilon ko sehne de

Sau hasratein par tera gham nahii

Sau dard hain,sau rahatein sab mila dil nashin ek tu hi nahii

 

Originally posted here.

Come back to me

Come back to me. I want to see you, take that warm palm of yours..that is full of so many complicated lines that intersect at so many places. I wonder where I fit into that fate line. Let me hold your palm. It is bit rough and I like it. Makes it even more inviting to hold it.

 

Let’s spend some time together. In the same coordinates of the universe. Spend a day together. Just talking nonsense. Or even better, don’t say a word. Just make few shapes with our fingers and play with their shadows on the wall. Just find something new about each other. Notice a mole or a scar on our skin. Notice how the lines on our faces changed since the time we met.  Just watch each other breathing. 

Then fall asleep when the eyes would give up after staring. Then let our dreams continue our story.

 

Partners in rhyme

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Currently listening to – Your body is a wonderland // Something ’bout the way the hair falls in your face 
I love the shape you take when crawling towards the pillowcase //

 

This post was inspired after some heavy J. Mayer dosage. I am trippin’ on Born and Raised. Hey, he got me out of oblivion on this blog space.

 

 

 

Tears Taste Awesome

To deny herself the pain of missing him was like denying her the privilege of getting up and facing each new day with misery. She wondered what had transpired. When did the positions got swapped and when she got to be on the other side of the court in this relationship?

Frivolous thoughts crossed her mind. Of checking his old text messages and the several old voice messages on the answering machine. There was again a struggle to find a tone that assured her he was pining for her as well. The fake self-assurance and the burden of her forgiving attitude was driving her towards finding a new level in the courtship. She knew that this has been cruel to her and him. To find a comforting voice or a calm assurance was the sole motive left. Love indeed does strange things to you. It might make you happy but with it, it brings a whole new set of illogical arguments that gets you to support any idea or thought that will make you feel assured that the other person is an equal stakeholder as well. It makes you calculate fake assumptions that the other person knows you as much you want him to know you. This is where the expectation nudged in.

Expectations and calculated assumptions tethered the sanctity of their relationship on the public front. On the personal front, it had reached the status of ‘taken for granted’. The over confidence of not ever losing touch and keeping the flame alive was stamped with a degree of surmountable trust. They had reached a point where they knew what words were coming out of each other’s lips and what thoughts crossed each other’s mind. The predictability had created rough edges around their daily communication. This is where the void peeped in.

Emptiness was always there. But this time it was different. It was sonorous and pricked their hope of making things work like the last time. He knew that the status quo of hope was a banality that any long term distance guaranteed to its holders. He had spent many dull evenings being carefully careless to avoid another mock confrontation of saying a vacuum laminated I love you. She had also felt her stone eyes devoid of any more emotions. The tethering was a continuum for him as it brought stability to his severely routined life. The tethering was a continuum for her as it occasionally brought tears to her stoned eyes.

This is where the commitment swayed in.

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Currently listening to Tera Bina Zindagi Se Koi Shikwa To Nahi (Aandhi)

 Story title is as per Fubar69’s 100 blog topics. (Topic #31)

The Dreaded Phrase

As the bubble wrap got over, she realized there were three more items to wrap and kept in cardboard boxes. They would be coming any time soon. Was it the low quality tape or the old newspapers or the thermo-col pieces flying as the fan creaked on speed 1 or the fact she hadn’t eaten anything or hadn’t slept for a day was boggling her tired frame. The time was scarce and the to-do list wasn’t looking generous.

Taking a minute out to ponder over the list was something that she was carefully avoiding. There were things that were far important than cursing how humid it was that day or how the room reeked of that smell. She gathered those last three items and looked at them for couple of minutes. There were countless memories attached with them, funny anecdotes and priceless tags too. Her phone was ringing and she looked around to reach for her handbag. Her mother had been calling her and she was avoiding her like the list. ‘Hello, yes mother I am fine. Yeah I am still at the apartment. No, they aren’t here. Yes I ate something. No, I didn’t see your previous calls. Yes, I will call you as soon as I will reach there. She stopped to hear another round of twenty questions dreading she’d say that any moment now.

It all started with when she first told her about the whole thing. At first she thought she had her at the customary affirmative nod. She was wrong like always. Her mother’s queer view on just about everything and about this whole thing was much expected. To avoid it and yet be a part of the tension in the room was her skill. That evening came to an end with them saying good bye to each other while she looked at her wrinkled face and a look that said what she always dread.

Yes mother, I have kept everything. Yes, I have called them up to confirm. Initially it sounded like a convenient option to just respond in monosyllables but that was perhaps a bit rude considering the sanctity of the relationship and the assumption of protocols it carried. She was now waiting for her to end the call so that she could  scream loudly and throw her scratched cell phone to the wall as soon as the dreaded phrase was uttered. It had taken another three minutes thirty-six seconds for her to say that.

The phone was damaged beyond repair, a fact that made her happy in a far corner of heart. That dreadful phrase had ruined too much of it already to have enough corners for happiness. She had learnt her first lesson as a mother of her yet to be conceived child.

She had learnt to be kind enough not to say, ‘ I told you so’.

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Story idea came after looking at the picture above (courtesy: Eternal Click of a Spotless Lense ~ I saw, I captured). I told you so is a cruel phrase. Yes, it is almost like rubbing salt in your wounds. Avoid.

-md610

Win

Girl: I am sorry, but I don’t feel the same love anymore.

Boy: I know. I just want you back.

Girl: I need some time. You know na first time it took me three years.

Boy: (aghast but laughing)

Girl: (laughs) not that I am saying I am going to take another three years. But you know what I mean.

Boy: Yeah baby, I know what you mean.

Cheated

Cheated

Gyanji were looking at her. She was quiet and unusual. She didn’t get him tea this morning. He was worried, he shook her fragile shoulders. She didn’t reply.
54 years and now this deal was broken. He felt angry and betrayed. He felt cheated.

Worth the risk?

‘Sameer, Sameer Malik, Technical Analyst‘, she said the name putting her lips closer to the mouthpiece. The cooing engines made it difficult for her to listen. She was crying when the operator said – sorry this person is not working for us. Were her friends right – was he really not worth taking the risk for?

(Image Courtesy : Getty Images)

In my own little world

The date was now ending after saying bye to each other since last one hour. The gotta go and bye take care were coming after each interjection of missing you. The vibes were mutual – of not letting go off that moment – the precious moment where they two were in their own little world.

Music mood : currently playing – Haare haare haare hum to dil se haare (OST – Josh)

Implications of a kiss

He was still confused. He couldn’t understand what was that that happened five minutes back. Was it a lucky streak or a sheer banal expression of affection from her?

He was holding his right cheek and trying to figure out what that kiss meant, when did it happen so suddenly and what it really implied?

(my first attempt at 55ers, a story woven in just 55 words – what do you think?)