That day.

After a long time of ten years, I revisited the place where I grew up. Remnants of a misplaces childhood. Scattered. In narrow gullies occurring at unexpected turns on the road. In the soot laden buildings that look haunted. In the once flowery garden that hasn't been tended to in a decade.

People still live there. There's the old Shiva temple that still has its red-yellow lights glowing in the evenings. There's the Mosque which comes alive with a long drawn breath of freshness only during Ramzan. There are ghosts of people, walking absentmindedly with expressionless faces.

I met my neighbours. Aunty, Uncle and 3 people who I called 'friends' before I called anyone else that. These are friends who have seen me walk around in my diapers. Friends I celebrated everything and nothing with. Christmas, Diwali, Ramzan, New Years... everything existed for us kids, just so we could celebrate it. Every firecracker in the sky was for us to see. Every blade of grass, just for us to walk on. The world and everything in it was our plaything. An excuse for rejoicing.

When I went back to their place, nothing in that house had changed. It still felt warm, it still smelt of fresh herbs and there was the familiar aroma of jasmine incense. Somewhere in the kitchen, a broth was boiling. "For you, beta", aunty said. I said I was famished. I wasn't, I had just eaten a stomachful outside but I wouldn't miss eating that food for the world.

There were no hugs, there was no "So great to meet you after such a long time!". We just sat down and talked. I looked at my friends with a gleam in my eyes, which was reciprocated. A common friend was married with a baby. My granny passed away. Their cousin's husband too. I graduated. The eldest of my friends has a job. Her sister is the same height as me. She always had the same height as me. Their brother was tall as an old bamboo plant.

It felt like I had just seen them yesterday. Roads, faces and skies, never forgotten. Always cherished.

As I left, they saw me out to the door. Nobody said goodbye.

A song from the grave

I am but a drifting cloud in the sky
I am but a blade of grasss
I am but a teardrop in a blind man’s eye
I am but a broken piece of glass

I am but a grain of desert sand
I am but a whisper of the wind
I am but a forgotten gypsy band
I am but a loveless soul that never twinned

I am but a lonely house in the bare tree
I am but a ring in a church bell
I am but a low tide in the deep sea
I am but a leaf that withered and fell

I am but a sad song they sing along with
I am but a ghost you can’t see
I am but a lost, forlorn myth
I am but a memory.

Things left unsaid.

She had once told him while they were on the phone, "I don't care if you go on and sleep with random women. Have mindless sex with them. I just don't care because I know how it gets... I am so far away and there is nothing I can do about it. But I cannot stand it if another woman occupies your heart, if your love for her is stronger than what you have for me, I will lose all purpose of life. I won't know where I'd go, what I'd so, what I'd be."

He listened, reassuring her that she was the love of his love. He told her how he could never stop thinking about her eyes that had the depth of a thousand seas. He told her how he loved her hair, especially when she let it flow freely. He told her how he wanted to marry her and none but her because she was everything in his otherwise troublesome life. He told her that he knows that she doesn't much care for children but that he'd want her to be the mother of his child if he ever did have one. He told her about how his love for her was unrequited and how he lived every second to just make the one moment of their rendezvous everything that she had hoped for. He told her that he lives to see her one day, to be able to place his hands on her shoulders, gaze into her eyes and tell her how much he loved her.

She listened, feeling reassured. Hoping that he loved her as much as he said he did because she knew that even when he said all this, she was not the person in his head. He was speaking to a lover. But he wasn't speaking to her. He was saying all the right things but they weren't directed at her.

Then one day she asked him, "You still love her don't you?"

He did her the favour of being honest. He said that he did and that she knew he did. He had told her before that he'd never be able to forget her.

"Yes, I know", she pressed, "But you would you go back to her if she called you back? Would you give me up?"

He sighed and told her that he couldn't lie. He told her how they were together for five years. How they sat next to each other at work and looked at each other all the time. He told her how they were inseparable. He told her how she had been a huge part of his life and how she took a portion of his heart all for herself. He told her she was his companion and he was hers.

She understood completely, swallowed the pain that filled her up. Her senses, her body, her mind, her brain, her soul. She was a bundle of pain. Suffering. She was loveless. She was a lot of things but she wasn't non-understanding. So she told him she understood. She told him that she thought it was wonderful that he could love someone like that. She told him that it only made him more admirable in her eyes. She wasn't lying. She meant every word she said. But she left some things unsaid.

She didn't tell him that the rest of her life she could only pretend to be happy. She didn't tell him that she craved for someone's love. She didn't tell him that she wanted someone to love her as he loved his ex. She didn't tell him that she was devastated. She didn't tell him that she wanted to cry. Because for the first time, she felt bad for herself.

Then one day, she left. She didn't say where, she didn't leave a note, she didn't give him a reason. She just disappeared like she was never there. She left no traces of her presence. Nothing for him to remember her by. Nothing to remind him of her.

Ten days later, her brother called him to tell him that he could come to the funeral if he'd like. She suffered from a vague illness for which the doctors couldn't determine the cause. That was just another thing she didn't tell him.

Knowing her... knowing me.

"I need to get my life together", sighed Andrea, her head rested on my shoulders. She was my age, shared the same dreams as me and liked the same things I did but unlike myself, Andy had a face as perfect as a painting, never sang in cacophonies and actually had a heart which I suspected was made of gold.

I patted her shoulder and tried to think of something comforting to say. "Andy I've known you for donkey's years and I know you will find a way out of this mess.", I said reassuringly. Andy shook her head and smiled. "You say that only to make me feel better"

"No I mean it."

"I don't think so. I'm nothing but a little dot on the vast planet trying to make my mark in this world even though there are people way better than I am, doing greater things than I do with a greater degree of perfection. I suck. End of story."

"Well...", I began and she cut me short immediately. "Don't!! Please don't say anything. I know what I am. I am a small fish in a big sea. If I dare venture outside of my little shell, I know I'm going to be eaten."

I sighed. "You're right Andy. There's nothing you can do about it. I guess you're just going to have to accept that you're good but not good enough. Not everybody makes it to the top of the ladder."

She looked askance at me, rubbing her thumbs together. She always did that.

"What do you mean *not good enough*?", she asked, careful to stress every word in its utterance.

"Just that... not good enough."

She stood up, arms akimbo and stared right into my eyes. "Look, I don't know about your standards but let me tell you... I've been published in more than one renowned journals, I have had three exhibitions of my artworks... two more on their way, and I have been invited to be the lead for the nationwide dance extravaganza. So if you wish to tell me that my accomplishments are *not good enough* I will need you to place on record your own. And after that you can badger me with your aspersions but until THAT happens I will *NOT* be abased, you hear?"

I allowed myself to smile a little and then stood up myself. "Now that we have this sorted out, you want to go to Ranger's and get pizza?", I asked averting a direct gaze at her searching eyes, fumbling with my purse. Andy stayed quite for a minute and then we both looked at each other and laughed our lungs out.

"You are such a piece of work, you know that?", she asked squeezing me into one of those girly hugs that I have never grown quite comfortable with even after ten years.

"Thanks Andy, I can say the same for ya."

She nodded and we walked hand in hand to the pizza restaurant down Baxter's Road, talking about horrible Mr. McMath at school and how difficult it was to find good looking boys to go to the dance with... and suddenly we were ten years old again.

My entry for Jhankar 2009-10 poetry writing

Inspiration: Hypnogaja - (Talk to me) Like lovers do

So we were given this topic "Can money buy love" and an hour's time to write our poem. And this is what got me the second place. Only goes on to show that the others really sucked =P 

Can Money Buy Love?

I’m a rich kid with a lot of money

I have a personal bodyguard and three cars

But I sometimes feel strangely funny

When I lie awake watching the stars

For I may have a playstation and the latest game

And all the record labels in the store

Yet I sometimes wish that I could claim

That I have something I want evermore

 

I dream of lovers holding hands

And kissing gently beneath the sky

Or sharing their tacos at the stands

But that’s something money can’t buy

I dream of gardens and the sea

And two souls oblivious to all that

Whispering sweet nothings softly

Lost in their subliminal chat

 

I have a fast bike that can fly

But I have no one to share the ride

I have company in laughter but I’m alone when I cry

I wish I had a lover by my side

If I could trade all that I possess

For a humble wish from Above

I’d forget about playthings and fancy dresses

And wish for one true love.