Of Broken Bones & Heart

I like to think that there is a formula for pain,

A formula that balances your broken bones with my broken heart.
A formula that makes it evident that sounds of silence,

Are the same as loud jarring noises on lonely nights.

One that rolls up all the soft tendrils on the edges of the garden

And makes them as comprehensible as the flowers growing within it.

It turns and twists with the sad comedy,

That comes with the undeniable truth that “pain demands to be felt”.

One that sits neatly balancing the sorrow & despair, limitless,

Within this limited world.

One that makes it easy for me to hold large lies in my small hands,

And yet fight with closed fists that cannot be broken open by the toughest machines.

I like to think that there is a formula for pain,

A formula that balances your broken bones with my broken heart.

A formula that strains into existence the reality that an injury from a wayward branch scrapping your knee

Is just as awful as the desolation that crept up in the cells of my body after my first argument with him.

A formula that equates your agony while eating pizza alone after being fired

With my heartache while having dinner with friends and family after the breakup.

I like to think that there is a formula for pain,

A formula that balances your broken bones with my broken heart.

A formula tells you & me that the maps our arteries and veins have designed on our bodies

Are the only ones we should truly follow.

One that tells you as much as it tells me 

That there are affable beings and surreal happenings,

Waiting for us on the other side of this brokenness 

That is consuming us one heartbeat at a time.

I like to think that there is a formula for pain,

A formula that balances your broken bones with my broken heart.

To The Shore

I left you on the shore: To wash yourself, to let you live your life your way. I left you there because I saw no other alternative. I left you there because it was the only way for a peaceful existence. I left you, yes I did, because that’s what you wanted. We’d been trying so hard for months to fit in, to make it work for us, but it never did. We were always weirdos for the world. And it is the bitter truth that the world doesn’t want diversity if it threatens them, it only desires diversity that it can co-exist with, understand, and if required overpower. There is no place for two green skinned humans to survive here. There is no way we would be accepted for who we are. The world here works in weird ways you see - humans are divided into so many divisions of race, caste, sex, nationality and so on that it at times makes me wonder if they do really remember their true purpose, their true nature. I guess we’ll never know. It as mystic to us as we must be to them, if they knew us. But they don’t. Nor will they ever know.

You remember when we first woke up to our reality? How frightened we were? How afraid of not only ourselves but also of the world we were? I remember you said you felt “different but in a mixed way”. I’ve always wondered why you said “different in a mixed way”, it wasn’t until our argument few days ago that I realized what you truly felt. I did know but I didn’t. I hope you get it, because it is the only way I can put it in words. Your elation at discovering that we were the ones who were supposed to better life here was un-miss-able. You sang your plans to me for a long while. After that, I saw you grow sad. I didn’t comprehend. But now I know, I feel your inhibition and I’m so sorry to say that it is your inhibition which has made you leave.  To be frank, I understand the world doesn’t want to see us for who we are or get to know us, it just wants us to get into the existing groove of monotony that their lives are. So we paint ourselves. We paint ourselves every weekend from head to toe in paint, into a colour that not only covers our skin but also makes it impossible to distinguish us from other humans. I remember when once the post man saw a little of green on my palm he cursed at me and threatened to shoot me. This was when he wasn’t even aware of the reality of my green skin. We have to live a false life. We have to.

To be honest we were doing so well. Waking up every morning, getting dressed, going to work, coming back and sleeping at night. We had fit in amazingly when suddenly you began to feel different about our mutual plan of living as normal humans do. You started yelling about “not fulfilling our real purpose”, of being sucked into the luxury, of forgetting our roots, our mission here. You wanted to remove the paint, go out in the green coloured skin and do the work you were supposed to do. You wanted to be yourself and were tired of putting up a facade. But. What you don’t realize is that this is the only way we can survive. This is the only way we get to live. If we bared ourselves to the world we wouldn’t receive appreciation, admiration or anything positive that you have in mind; we will instead be ridiculed, punished, interrogated, looked at with suspicious eyes, be subjected to researches and tests. We won’t be able to live.

I’ve tried so many times to make you understand these tiny truths that people appreciate you until you threaten them. I’ve told you there is no place for being real, living without a facade here but you won’t agree. You’ve set your mind on being “The True You”. This hurts my chances of survival here and puts me in the direct purview of suspicion if anything were to happen to you. I’m going to go back and live on with the paint. It is the only way to survive. I cannot allow this. I can’t allow you to be you. That is why I’ve brought you here today, to the shore. To the place where you said you feel nice and real. I’ve brought you here so that you can feel that way always. I’ve brought you here so that you can wash off your paint. So that you can be You.

 

Two Boats

Well it’s been a long journey. And I’m not yet tired. There is still so much left to explore and discover, and even if we run out of things to explore and discover we will have a nice time basking in the memories of our journey. Although a part of me wants that this journey never end, and we travel together all the time, but another part of me knows that this will not be possible. We can’t be in the same boat when we have to travel to different destinations. So unwillingly I have to accept the inevitability of the fact that you and I will travel in different boats for quite some time now.

I know that even though our destinations are different and we both are equally unsure about our reaching them in time, we are guided by the same drive: hunger for achievement. All psychology students will tell you there are primarily four drives in a human being. I consider the drive for achievement to be the dominating one in both of us. After all, we didn’t come onto earth to live and soak in its beauty without contributing to it in whichever way possible. And when we have a chance to choose the way, why not choose the best and make it large?

At times, the way we’ll choose will make us run after it, run all through the day. There will be a point where we’ll feel like giving up on the chosen way and also, on ourselves. Ah! But that is the real test of passion, to hold onto your choice even when nothing around you seems to be making sense. To stay with your choice when the world is telling you to give up. To stay determined. There are ought to be moments when you feel down but remember your greater purpose, the reason for your drive and keep moving. There is no problem if you move slowly; the problem arises if you refuse to move. So don’t.

There will be moments of utter happiness and satisfactions too, enjoy them, but also know that they too, like moments of sorrow are temporary. Remember when Chandragupta Maurya won a battle he did not spend away all night celebrating, he rather started to plan his next move. We need to move with that focus. We need to make our names that large, so that kids centuries after us, know who we were and why we were.

Needless to say there will always be up and downs and we have to face them both with equal courage and foresight. The reason why a term for a roller coaster going only up isn’t coined is because it is highly improbable. The two have to co-exist, up and down, black and white, sweet and sour; that’s what makes our little time on earth worthy of remembering.

We both are similar and not same. I don’t expect you to take the same decisions I consider right, but I do expect you to not take a different decision just because I chose the one you wanted. We can share.

What remains at the end of the day is only how much we contribute, in our own ways, and how close did we get to our greater purpose. I hope we both always remember this and keep moving. After all, there is going to be a time when we both will be on the same boat, for the same destination, again.

This is a piece of work I wrote for my best friend an year ago and never had the wish to email it.

 

Travel, Just Travel.

Travel my dear child, from this end of the world to the other,
and then realize that there is no end- the world is round.

Travel meet new people and hear their stories and realize that everyone though has different embellishments the emotions are same.Travel, climb mountains, ford streams, chase rainbows
and then realize the climb is the same.
Travel, breathe in the air of different places, of cold lands and that of hot ones and then realize that you just breathe it in,
Travel, wear different dresses and accessories, roam around in them, then realize that every cloth is for covering one's body
Travel, learn new languages, speak them, realize that they express the same emotions in every language.

Travel, play new games and indulge in varied sports and then realize that all of them are for the purpose of human fitness and entertainment,
Travel, see new roads and lanes, follow them or let them follow you endlessly, and realize that they take you only where you want to go, all of them.
Travel, look out at the trees, observe their minute differences, then realize how man everywhere has used them to his own benefit,
Travel, look at the different animals, see them walk around, realize all exist for the purpose of existing,
Travel, see different lands, high and low, and realize that ultimately you walk on them or at least desire to.

Travel, go to new countries, live in their environment,  then realize that no country is free from troubles and all of them are trying to tackle them,
Travel, see new pieces of art, appreciate them, and realize that they are all expressions of human intellect and are all inter twined,
Travel, eat different foods, relish them, and then realize that they all exist to satisfy man's hunger.

Travel, see buildings, malls, schools, shops, realize their importance in our everyday life.
Travel, look at the mountains, rivers, falls, clouds, feel them and realize that nature has its own way of expressing its love and intellectual capacities.

Travel my dear child, feel new emotions, make memories, capture them.
Let them become a part of the mosaic that you are.

And then realize they made you a richer and better person.

A New Morning #2

This is a continuation of a post I wrote in February, click here to read the preceding part.

It was her first day in the college and she had, in her excitement, forgotten to silence her phone.
The phone rang all of a sudden and everyone stared at her. She was too embarrassed to return their penetrating looks. Her slim hand with the blue bracelet which clearly showed her eclectic preferences in fashion, jerked rather roughly, as if it was awoken from a long peaceful slumber. Her fingers groped the phone and she rejected the call before unlocking her phone and activating the silent mode. She promptly got up after doing this, adjusting her blue jeans which hung attentively at her waist and pulled it up for better fitting and apologized to the professor in the classroom assuring him that such an incident would not be repeated.
The professor spilled a few words in anger and then said to her, "Sit down."
The class was over within an hour and she grabbed her classmate-cum-roommate-cum-friend, took her under the shady tree which was first among the line of a huge number of trees and was nearest to the entrance gate of the college. She pulled out her phone, which bore enough evidence of having been purchased recently, and checked the person who was responsible for the happenings of the day. Seeing the name, her face slowly lit up.

She pressed the call icon on the screen and waited to be connected. Each second of waiting made her more anxious, she hoped it was good news on the other end.

Suddenly a rough voice shook her out of her worries, "hello... Hello?"

"Hey Sam, it's me.", she said rather softly "sorry.. I was in the midst of a lecture, had to reject the call. Any success?"

The jarring voice spoke again, this time more tenderly, " Well yeah, I called to inform you about that. I got the number; should I message it to you?"

"Sure, do."

She saw a petite figure approaching in a saree with a purse at her elbow, the sunlight made it difficult to discern any more. The figure was approaching them and her friend, being the adventurous one rushed to find out who it was. She could see her friend folding her hands into a namaste, then turn to her and wave her hand across her neck to motion her to end the call. She understood the signal and hung up after an abrupt bye. Her friend reached her within seconds of her ending the call. With the figure.

.... to be continued.