How the mind of a failure works?

I have walked past the stage of sanity at this phase of my life. The dos and don’t are not very clear and yet clear. The lines are vivid and vague. How one can be so confused beats me, but I am or shall I just say, I did this to myself. Then why crib? Why fight the soul and make it a bitter day for others. I am not an escapist, but I shall run from all this. I am not a bad person, but I have committed a sin. I hate crying, but I know how much I have cried in the past two days. It is enough, this life! How long do I have to wait to see the light? How long… how long… how long?

I shall not...

I shall not believe what I see in the dark forest till I touch every fruit, leave and the untold strangers. I shall not go back till I see light from far-far land, which promises hope of life. I shall not cry till I have the love to stop me from it once I do. I shall not fear for what more than death could come to me. I shall no pray till my questions are unanswered. I shall not speak till everything else in my heart and mind is quiet. I shall not stop walking till this earth stops to revolve. I shall not sleep till my eyes close because of no breath in my body. I shall not let rain drench me till someone promises me that there will be a bright sunshine when it stops. I shall never fall in love till I am promised it will not hurt. I shall not write the words you want to read because this is my blog and it is my life!

WORDS

Words: This is my way of looking at these words that can be most common used in our daily lives and yet I don’t, sometimes, agree with the dictionary definition.

Change, it is always welcome people say. But yes the way they change is something they don’t have to bear the brunt of. The people around them have to, because they notice it and sometimes they have to face it as well.

Truth, it is bitter and yet a lot of us need to face it some day. It changes the whole perspective about a person, who you were before the truth came out in open and who you are after that. The only thing remains the same is your attire that you wear over your form.

Mistakes, we all make them and some people say that we need to make them so as to learn for future. Some of us make mistakes and don’t acknowledge them and some of us live with it for the rest of our lives. Then were does the learning come from?

Success, everyone dreams about it and yet only some of us achieve it. A friend of mine even writes about his unsuccessfulness (if there is any word like that), yet I know he will make it to the top of the mountain some day. As for me, I would like to climb, for as long as I can and cherish it.

Morals, we make some and we break some. Some of them are like legacies, comes to us from our folks, friends and even bosses and some are self-made, self-destructive nuclear weapons.

Time, it never stays and yes as the saying goes it never waits for anyone. And yet we go back in time to remember our joys and sorrows. I wish we could bend time the way we want to, but then time values nothing but its own self.

Promises, are they really meant to be broken? Or it is an inherent part of human nature never to keep them? This is one word that makes me question a lot of others, for I have never been able to keep a promise. Even the ones that I made to myself!

Forgive, is what we must do to be the good human beings list. However, the ones with great memory, like myself, generally forgive. But don’t forget!

Love, is a myth that only can be explained by those who think they are in it but don’t know how to define it. I see it makes people cry more than it makes them happy, so what is the point of being in it? Maybe for the sale of tissue!

War, can be between hundreds of people and can with within. The toughest war is the one, which you have to have with yourself because in that case you will end up gaining and loosing at the same time.

I could never send this one!

This is just a mail that I was never able to send someone I should have long ago. Now when I read it, it all sounds so stupid. But if I am getting everything out of my system, I should at least make a fool of myself publicly first. Laugh if you have to, call me name if that helps, but do read to do all this. Here it goes…
Hey Spikey,
I really don’t know what to write. This is my first mail to you and I am clueless. But just to remind you I have pasted our first ever chat record (the only one I have by the way so don’t jump off the roof), this is where it all began.
I really don’t know why I came to Goa!!! Was scared till the last moment. Then when I saw you at the airport (white shirt, blue jeans and the spikes, can’t miss them can I?) I realised I had come to meet someone from my yesterday. But I hardly knew you, actually never wanted to know you till august last year. But that little moment of awkwardness when we met and didn’t know how to greet each other, that told me there was something more to all this. I still remember the rose, the auto ride, the stop at the bus ticket shop and the breakfast. I really could have eaten the hot dog, but I was nervous. I don’t know why!
When I first entered you house, there was this breeze that welcomed me... it was as like a welcome home sweet breeze. Your room was, just as I has imagined, a bit messy and also showed the signs of an attempt to make it look like a presentable room. I still remember the silent moment when we were watching the TV and suddenly Di, Smt and Cha came in. I had told Cha that I love her for having pink in her room. Inside I was scared. I was thinking, “Would they like me? What are they thinking right now?” outside I was this confident girl, who knew what she was doing. Actually I did not... I was just blindly following my heart. I wanted to go to Goa to discover myself. But I had never imagined that you would be the one to help me realise what I actually am. The bus ride... oh I can never forget that. My first kiss! First I thought it was wrong, but then u and me who could not stand each other in TODAY, and that day kissing. I could have sung miracle that day. The whole night when you slept, I was holding u tight so that you don’t fall off. My one hand was on you and the other on the grill of the bus and the moon, which gave me company the whole night. I couldn’t sleep that night.
Then of course the whole time you holding my purse outside the lady’s washroom and the guy running behind you and saying, “sirji woh ladies hai!” oh by the way did I tell you, you look adorable when you are asleep.
Then you know what all happened at Goa. For me the beginning matters a lot.
Even when I write something, the beginning has to be different and very attractive… our beginning had no reason. Therefore, we have no reason to end. Strange how life works. I will never promise you to be a perfect girlfriend or whatever in future. But yes, I can promise to be a good one, the understanding one and the loving one.
The best part about you and me is the silence. The silent talk we have when we are together. You know what this means? This means that you and me don't need words to explain what we feel; we just need to be together that's it.
You know I have some hang-ups in life, but you also know I am trying hard to get over them. I have really never fought for anyone or anything before this. But I also realise this is not a battle-field. Do you know what gives me strength? Your naughty smile, the way you look at me, my head on your shoulders and child like face of yours when you sleep.

Slowing down...

I don’t remember the last time I spent time with myself. Quite, alone, doing nothing… just staring at a wall blankly. I hate crowd, where people just want to scratch themselves, look at you as if you are the last women on earth, treat every corner of the city as public convenience and just be a part of the crowd. I want to step aside and be away from this crowd. For a change when they all wear saffron, white and green; I want to wear pink. When everyone is jumping into the pool of success, I want to just pull my feet up on a table and scream, ‘I don’t know how to swim’. When everyone is racing to take the bus, I want to walk so slow that I miss it. I don’t want to sound like a looser, but yes I am tired. At 25, I already have droopy shoulders, and white strands of hair, a prominent laughter line and no urge to PMS anymore.
My god, I know what is wrong with me I am growing old. I have reached a stage when I can’t blame my parents for hyper ventilating for changing my single status, can’t blame my friends for not being in touch, can’t blame my maid for not coming everyday as I forget to open to door for her and definitely can’t blame the God… I always knew the rules of being a human. Aging is something that I can’t stop, but yes I can stop cribbing.
I wrote all this because I am not the only one going through these mini frequencies of strange behaviour. We all our, but we never stop to realise that we were not always like this.
I am a very carefree person, smiling all the time, making people smile and the only odd one who loves Sunflowers. I had just forgotten all this. I am planning to slow down a bit. Take time to look at my frown lines and smile to enhance my laughter line and even take pleasure in that. Today I got time to remember myself. And so I write this to make a confession that I am not insane… I am just a human being. Damn… where have I heard that line before?

Free from another bond...

I have done it again. After 11 years, I have done it again. I hope god forgives me. But human emotions tend to make people do strange things. I am a human being too. I get hurt too, have faith on a person and get betrayed; even I get chocked because of see my dreams get crushed. 11 years back I had stopped talking to the father of the one who gave me form and identity – my mother. Stopped taking to a man who said he loved me more than any of his own children. I stopped talking to a man who left his wife for another woman, without explanations, without saying a word. He expected her to understand every silence and every action. She tried and eventually died. I am glad she did, because with her died the nightmare that she saw with open eyes. I stopped talking to a man who never bothered about the six children he had. His hand was never there on their back to pat them, to slap them when they were doing something wrong or to stop them from going on the wrong path. The fact that I write about him without really caring about the fact that he is still my mother’s father says it all. I don’t hate him, I love him no more. For me he does not exist. But a very strong emotion can do this to anyone.
I have done it again. I have stopped talking to that child who I thought was her shadow. Through him she still lived for me. I still haven’t cried because of disbelieve. I still can’t believe that Pinku masi died. But now her son has killed her again. She scarified every moment of her live when she was alive, so that he does not grow-up to become like his drunkard father. I was scared for him I loved him. He was my younger brother more like my son. But he has forgotten what his mother was like. And what she used to do for him. He made promises and at every step kept failing to fulfill them. He says he will become someone big one day, but still does not work on standing on his own feet. I can’t jolt him anymore and remind him. I can’t dream for him anymore. My eyes are tired, I am tired. I felt the same chocking feeling today as I had felt 11 years ago. I wish from god that I don’t feel like this again. I have cut him out of my life for not respecting the values, dream, morals and hard work put in for him. Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I am doing something really wrong. But I have done it and I am too stubborn to go back now. I don’t regret this and I never regretted what I did 11 years back. I am not a great human being, I forgive but I don’t forget. I don’t scream, but I go quiet. I don’t cry… I just cut the person out of my life. I am not hurting anymore…

The perfect welcome

I haven’t seen sunrise so often as I have seen in the last fortnight. Reaching home at 5 am every morning from work and then sitting in the balcony just to see how the sky changes the colours from a dark moonlit sky to a chirpy blue with a lot of white mixed in it. It is hard to look at the sky directly. I guess I am too used to the shades and the tinted glasses of the car. Or rather I am too used to seeing the dark sky where I keep waiting to see the stars.
Yesterday morning I again reached home around 5.30 am and there was chammiya at the gate welcoming me home just as Diana at home would. Chammiya is the street dog I have adopted. She is just too sweet. After meeting her when I walked toward my apartment, there was this morning breeze that welcomed me back to abode. It was nice to know that the breeze, the green hedge and chammiya were happy to have me home. My room always has the traces of my hurried mornings when I am getting late for office. My living room has the traces of the last evening’s episode of FRIENDS that I missed. My housemates must have sat on the beanbags and laughed and adored Joey and Feebe.
I dragged my pink beanbag to the balcony and sat there with a bottle of cold water. Everything around me was so sane and beautiful. Wish life could be the same. No confusions or complications. Just as plain and simple as the blue neat sky, chirpy birds and the breeze.
I have to force myself everyday to leave all this and sleep. And well the newspaper wala helps me to doing that. He is the reason I have to leave the balcony and take refugee in my room from the lechery of this world. And eventually sleep does over power me. What next? Just a repeat of all this!

Pearl Jam's Last Kiss

I was not surprised to see his number flash on my phone, but yes I did have those butterflies when I saw his name. Why was he calling me? What does he want now? Why do I always pick up his phone? Uff… what the hell! I picked up the phone; he apologised and then asked if we could go out drinking. Drinking… sounds good. But drinking with him, for what? What will we talk about, or will we talk at all? I don’t know, which nerve in my body screamed, “YES” and he was here within 10 minutes.
I was the one treating and he had made it very clear from the beginning. I checked my pack of smokes, “I would need them tonight for sure,” I told myself. Standing just a little before my office’s building he was standing with someone with both know. Our ex-colleague Jo. Jo the sweet fellow, did he know about us? Had he known that Spikey and me had dated each other for 6 whole months a year back? Naah… whatever it did not matter now. Because earlier when I used to see him (Spikey), I used to go numb. This is after the break-up. But now when I look at him, he is just a part of the crowd. A crowd that I look at but don’t register a face in my mind. A crowd that walks past me everyday, and yet everyday fails to make an impact on my life.
Spikey has grown a beard, looked drunk already when we met. His car, the car that I chose for him, this car was dirty. Well, I am glad about one thing, I am not an adviser of Maruti Esteem. “I am already a few pegs high!” he said. Well he didn't really have to say that? He looked so lost! “OK” after this we debated about the place where we wanted to drink and finally landed at Café Morrison. After entering the Café he, like always, chose the seat from where he could see the entire place and I could just see him. BORING, and PREDICTABLE! After a point of time, your exs do forget that you used to know him/her some time back. Anyways, I ordered some beer for myself and he ordered single molt on the rocks. I was beating the heat and I really don’t know what was he trying to beat. He spoke to someone and said, "I am not ok." I agree, he did not look ok. But I was too lazy to ask, because by the end of the day after work, I don’t like to tax my brain. Especially not by helping people out! He asked me if I could ask the DJ to play Pearl Jam’s Last Kiss for him. I wanted to scream no, but I thought to myself that the DJ would not even look at him in that condition. And so I requested the DJ.
Crib, crib, crib and more crib. That has been the sole motto of his life. You just have to look interested in listening and he would go on and on about how the life has been mean to him and how he is a gentleman who has never cheated on any of his women and how he can never find the right job.
I was getting bored! Then finally he made me wake up, just like he used to. “She is a Punjabi,” he said pointing out at this girl sitting behind us. I agreed with him, the streaks in her hair, the length of her hair and her ugly slippers attested the thought. But she was not a Punjabi, I chatted with her before she left. Well, then one after the other we scanned the room. He like the girl sitting right behind me. She was pretty, but she was doing the one thing he detests in women – smoking. To me she seemed nice and if he would have stopped being so stubborn about the smoking bit, I might have helped him out in getting to know her. We had also sent her a drink, but she declined. Well finally the Last Kiss was played and Spikey started singing in his usual Santa Claus voice. To which I had to just pray, “Only if I was drunk enough!” anyways it was time to hit the road home. He had to go and meet another friend for more drinks. “We had fun, this was fun!” he said. I agreed! To my delight, I could just think of all the happy cold beer in my stomach and my bed. After winding past some HR registration trucks, we reached my place. The evening that I was dreading would have been about crying, making out, kissing and screaming; finished with, “I am sorry for everything!” from his side. And, “You and me was always a bad idea. But at least now we shall not make this mistake again. Drive safe!” from my side!
Mandy

oscillating thoughts!

I got a message 4 am this morning. I was half tempted to read it and half tempted to sleep and ignore it. But then I finally gave in my inquisitiveness and read what someone, who was thinking about me at 4 am, wanted to say. It is always a strange feeling when one gets a call or a message at strange hours. Though my profession is such that I should be prepared for it, but I still get butterflies in my stomach when this happens. It is like remembering how I used to get a message from my ex or how one day we had heard about my baba (granddad) had died. Within seconds I oscillate from now to then. It was from a friend who is worried about his mother’s sickness. I have realised that only a mother’s sickness or insomnia can keep you up all night. I am partially insomniac, soon to master the degree. But sometimes telling a friend that everything is going to be fine soon gets very scary for me. I have a designer friend, whose dad was really ill. I prayed and always cheered her up that one-day uncle will walk home and everything will go back to normal. We all feel good about hearing things that we want to hear from another person. She felt the same way and we spoke everyday. Me motivating her and she getting motivated! Soon she called me to say that uncle is much better and might be discharged from the hospital soon. I was glad! But the very next day I got a message saying that her father had died. I felt cheated, felt like the one who had cheated and could not fight or explain what I felt. The parameters of my good and bad, God and human, love and hate just come and meet at the same point in such situations and like I wrote earlier – I go quiet. Sometimes hide from the world and sometimes hide from myself. I was hiding from her, for making her believe in what I believed in.
I met this friend of mine after 4 months. In those four months I had cursed myself a million times, rehearsed how I would talk to her a trillion times and changed my job. Met her at a party and there she was. A smile that I knew was to hide all those sleepless nights, a smile that I knew was fake but the world bought that, a smile that she wore on her face pretty well. We met and hugged each other for a whole 5 minutes and it seemed like ages of explaining and crying and talking. But we actually had not even spoken a word. We understood everything and there were no sorrys and thank yous pending. I was very proud of that moment. I was proud of the fact that I have a friend who understands my silences. Just like once I had this chemistry with someone. But that’s history and I have a feeling my post is sounding like history as well. Well there is more to write and more to elarn. I just hope my friend’s mother recovers really fast!
Mandy

The year of no words...

It has been almost a year since I wrote a post here. In this very year, I must have still written millions of words about people who make headlines in my paper every day. And yet how I still feel that I haven’t really written what I have wanted to write. Like in this one year, I wanted to so badly write about the urge to question a lot of people for their behaviour. Like the urge to tell everyone about my first ever trip abroad and that too to the city of love – Paris. Like I wanted to write about my ex-housemate and the apprehensions about the new one. And about counting pennies and about my new tattoo. But more than all this I also wanted to write about the silent moments, me the ‘chatter-box’ had in the time that has now become history for me.
A lot of people won’t believe this, especially the ones who know me, but it is true I had so many quiet moments this year that I have started feeling like a stranger trapped in my own body. I go quiet when I am too angry, I go quiet when I am too sad and now I also go quiet when I am not heard in the first go. I know I am not the same, but I have seen people change drastically as well. I have been asked, ‘have you thought of writing as profession?’ and I have also been told, ‘you can not write!’
I still feel the high when I get a pen and an empty sheet in my hands. And I still get tears in my eyes when I read the most powerful words. In this year gone by, I have met a woman who has had an extra-marital relationship with a man I thought is a waste. I know that our society does not accept this, but did I accept it? The woman is my friend and I have seen the man cry for her. But does that justify? It’s over now and she might one day wake up not to think about him. But that I know will come only with another man in her life. People have tried to cross the sea, so that they can’t yell and call each other.
In this year gone by, I have also learnt what freedom is all about. And with freedom come responsibility. After cutting the chains of emotions myself, I have done almost everything. Accept for flying, I have felt the wings and touched the sky. Took bath in the rain after years of longing, have been up till 6 am in the morning without the nagging, have put my head out of a moving car to feel the wind in my hair without the frown. I have walked bare feet, I have soiled my clothes, I have smiled middle of the night to myself in the mirror and I have given way a lot that might not have been approved of.
In the year gone by, I have lost a lot as well. Lost two friends, lost some love in the relationships I have, lost respect for someone I had great regards for and lost a bit of myself each day.
There is more to be written and there is more to be heard, there is more the be smiled at and there is more to yearn, there is more… there is more… there is more… to come!
Mandy