Showing posts with label Nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nostalgia. Show all posts

THAT WEIRD KID



So there I was, mind-numbingly scrolling down through my timeline or as GRE folks would like to say, ‘staring into the abyss’, when I stumbled across her status update. Man! She can write some crappy status and still manage to entice 390,408,532,064 ‘likes’ in a flick of her hair. Now wait, this post isn’t about my ‘growling-under-the-nose’ for this unfairness and the stupid sycophancy but it’s about that weird kid who had this major-raanjhana crush on her.

The kid! He was a normal teenager. And by normal, I mean below average. Replete with the oiled and immaculately combed hair, he looked an exemplary model of those dweeb-ish students who raised their hands to answer every question of the teacher. But this kid was no Chatur-Ramalingam (3 idiots) even, coz he sucked at studies. On top of that he was short too. So short that during assembly he had to stand at 2nd or 3rd in line, which he obviously hated because that girl used to stand at the end of her line. He was frail, debilitated and may be even thinner than that Sméagol (Lord of the Rings). Okay I know I’m turning this into a full-blown cliché of a high school loser reminiscent of American Pie-esque movies. But he was all those things. He sucked at sports or you name any other activity. So in a nutshell, yes you said it right, he was a LOSER.

But the kid was a dreamer. Not that John-Lennon’s-imagine-song kind of dreamer. No he had dreams and imagination running wild like a dog swirling round and round to bite his tail. From love stories, to adventures, to glorious tales, to dirty wet dreams, to death wishes. The Kid had ’em all. He would imagine himself as the famous Harry potter, playing Quidditch, fighting the three-headed dog, saving the stone from Voldemort, and I might add winning over the witty little thing, that was Hermione. So all he desperately craved for was that wand and the owl, with his joining letter from Hogwarts.

Okay, I agree, he was a bit loony. I mean normal kids would think about, why apple drops down from the tree or why sky is blue in the day and dark at night. But our kid! Oh, he would smile like an idiot with one finger in his nose and ponder all day about weird stuffs. Like, like he would ask elders about the guy, who first discovered milk from the cow, what was he doing there in the first place? And you should read his poem about how great it feels to pee after holding it for hours. Yup crazy!

But above all he was crazy about her. Every night, he would sleep himself to stories of adventure and deadly foes and monsters. And of course, every fantasy would feature her as the damsel in distress. He would jump in front of fires for her, drown for her and protect her from that evil fat kid in school. He would do anything to watch her smile. Oh yes, those were the simpler times when it used to be all about her smile only.

The smile, which could redefine sweetness. Smile that could dampen the din of melancholy. Smile which was the most updated version of Life! Everything was a cliché compared to her smile. For him, she was the most beautiful girl in the face of earth. Beautiful in that 5am songbird way, slicing the air with the first call of daily life while everyone goes on to sleep. Beautiful in that hazel-eyed way; Beautiful in those rose-lips way; in that spicy chilli way that make boys blow out forceful huffs of breath and make tunes that follow the curves of her body. I don’t know whether to call it love or just some hormones going crazy but clearly he was smitten.

She would pass by him chit-chatting with her friend, unaware of his physical existence but that didn't matter to him, because those fleeting two seconds would be the highlight of his day. In those moments when she would cross him, he could hear his own heart echoing from his ears to his tips of fingers. The little torpedoes in his chest would almost give him a cardiac arrest. He never wanted anything more than a single sight of her. All he cared about was how he wanted to drown forever in the vast ocean of unfathomable emotions that he felt for her.

But one fine day, somewhere above on those clouds, that cupid in his undies with his diabolical plan and that wicked smile, thought to meddle in this perfect unrequited love-story. Before the kid could fathom what hit him; out of nowhere, she came up to him to talk about something-something.

His respiration was rendered. Senses momentarily disabled and legs refused to stand. His every part, every fibre of the body was involuntarily falling apart, piece by piece. He couldn't even squelch a sound or much for a word except for once in a while the awkward nodding. I think even Mr Bean would have uttered something after a while.

But alas! What could have been the best opportunity knocking at his door, turned out to be a beautiful angel with electric shock, leaving him all sweaty and setting his heart into arrhythmia. And as once said by the great wise man, Eminem, “You don’t get another chance, life is no Nintendo game”, after that episode, opportunity never knocked at his door, not even a window.

Now you see life is not a theme-park-movie where some way-way-out-of-league-kinda-hot-girl would fall for a weird-mediocre guy like our kid. No sir. Nice-hot girls fall for assholes, who turn them into cold hearted bitches, who nice guys fall for, till they turn into assholes. That’s the cycle of life, my friend. But the guys like our kid are always the one wandering far away from this cycle. They are always the fourth person in every triangular love story.

But all said and done, I think a true love story never ends and never starts. The kid, now in his twenties, stuck in the complacent cobweb called life, refuses to grow-up. Every now and then he goes through her Facebook profile. He doesn’t know why he does that. May be to keep that ‘Princess-Fabulosa’ in his life or may be to just re-live his crush. Unflinchingly, every year he remembers her birthday without any Facebook or mobile reminder. But even now he can’t muster the courage to wish her directly or utter a word in front of her.

Epilogue:

The kid is still that crazy dimwit dweeb, always lost in his fantasy world. He is still waiting for his owl with the letter from Hogwarts. He says this is his lucky year. 


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Love: Unreturned and Incomplete



Standing on the ledge of hostel’s rooftop it’s all quiet up here. There is no glittering moon, or the stars. The sky is swelled by the thundering clouds.  This has always been my spot, away from everyone in solitude, where I can be all by myself and be as I like to be. But I don't know why it is as such, that the way it used to lighten up the mood is not same anymore. Everything has changed. Time has passed. I never thought it would fly that fast. It’s been a year now but it still feels like yesterday when writing Shayaris, bunking classes & waiting for her to be online (while listening to some songs like ‘Dil Ibadat’, ‘Tere Mast-Mast Do Nain’, ‘Top of world’etc. etc.) were the only activities which kept me busy all day. It was nice to have someone around, whom I could trust and can talk about anything.

I still remember every moment I spent talking to her. From teasing to cracking silly jokes, listening to her nonsense and talking nonsense back, I never knew when she had carved a space in my heart. We shared poems, even discussed technical subjects or deep philosophies for long hours… and when the verses had ceased to flow and there was nothing left to talk about, we just flirted. It was nothing serious to begin with, but looking back now, I miss those moments every day.

Since then many things have changed. This wasn’t a No String Attached situation. There was more complexity than I could anticipate. Something I hadn’t given a thought. Scars left at that point of time have deepened, countless tears have been shed. Her laughter still echoes; her smile still lights up the dark corners of my heart. I think about her and remember her lines “Yaar! Hamara to Make up se pehle hi Break up ho gaya!” Sometimes when I lay awake in my bed in the midst of the night it feels terrible to know that I will not be able to be with her ever. In such moments of anguish, I repeatedly dial her number; only to disconnect before it starts ringing. It hurts a lot not being able to talk to her. It hurts to lose a good friend like her. Most of all, it kills me inside as I struggle to cope with the depths of my loneliness.

Can you imagine the heaviness in your heart if you were to walk along a dark road with the rain thrusting heavily against your body as you cried? You shed tears for her; every droplet of it longing for her; for her well-being. You pen down many a Shayaris as memoir to her love. Your friends praise you for it; trying to comfort you, trying to cheer you up, but you remain completely empty inside. Battling the pangs of separation, as you replay the conversation you had with her, you wish if it could be changed. You wish if the situation could have been different. At that very moment you yearn just to be with her… hold her hands or watch her stroke away the curls from her eyes. God, you want to hold her, hug her with all your love, and never let go. But then, like a sudden bolt from the heavens, it strikes you that it’s not going to happen. Dreams, fantasy and imagination never translate to reality. 

You stand there on the wet concrete, feeling the hardness of the rain against your body while it soaks through every inch of you hushing into your consciousness; you wonder if she loves you back even the smallest fraction of the love you have for her.

She might have moved on in her life, and this might have been just another case of one-sided, unrequited love. But she will always have a special place in my heart. She was the one who made my Shayaris come to life. She is the one who made possible the transformation of a nascent poet, buried somewhere inside me, into the Shayar that I am now. Whenever I will look back in time, revisiting those wonderful moments in my solitude, I will remember her as the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

Back to the rooftop, I am still standing here all alone; while the cold breeze caresses my body, while the world outside is buried in cold slumber. It seems I am the only unhappy soul on this earth. Looking up at the night-sky, I see a flash of lightning, followed by the roar of thunder. And in these moments, I can feel the rush of a thousand heartbreaks as I breathe heavily with the realization of a love unreturned and incomplete. 

 
Dil Ka Har Kona Ab Viraan Hua Pada Hai
Teri Umeed Thi Jo Hasa-Khela Karti Thi !!



Painting Credits: Amrita Sengupta




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The Dark Hours



Hell no!! Not again. It’s well past midnight and yet sleep continues to elude me. All I can do is lie awake restlessly on bed. My roomies are comfortably asleep and I wonder why I can’t. Tick-Tock tick-tock. The clock ticks like it’s mocking me and time passes by me as I continuously turn sides on my bed. And then there comes the train of thoughts. The race from one thought to another never seems to stop.

Sometimes it’s so much chaos inside me that I just want to get out of my mind. I wonder how it must feel to be free from all these thoughts, to be free from why, what, when and how; to keep distance from all this crap that creeps into my mind. Many a times these thoughts turn rampant, raising stupendous sandstorms that seem to roll me upside down from within. I can’t even close my eyes because I am afraid that I might get lost in the clash of these thoughts. I wish there were some kind of STOP button for this. Life would be bed of roses!!!

But you can’t do anything about it. The more you keep running away from it, the more it irritates you. You can just be a mere spectator of these thoughts; the thoughts which are always either about past (regretting about it) or future (worrying about it). Your heart wants to cry out loud. It wants to break out of the moth that has wrapped it completely. You want this anarchy to stop.

So desperately I plug in the headphone and turn on some hardcore metal songs, just to outdo the thoughts (give me a fucking break man!!). The song plays. My subconscious mind chants the lyrics. But damn it!! The thoughts won’t go away.

Sometimes it suffocates. I feel the stiffness. I feel as if I am packed inside like sardines. I won’t be able to withstand it for long. I feel like running away from the room. Run away from my fucking life!! I want to break free far away from all this agitation, this restlessness. Does that mean I need to commit suicide? No way!! That would cause more problem than solve any.

One must be thinking one can easily escape, that one can throw out these thoughts just like thrash from the Recycle Bin. One click and it’s gone!!! But my friend Life on the contrary is not that simple. Whatever you try to do, wherever you try to escape; it comes back to you and sits on the most highlighted area of your conscience. One moment it’s all gone and you think it’s all over, but one second later as you turn around it surprises you with it’s even more wraithlike image. 

You start trembling and are scared of this pitfall where you are tossed. And in these darkest hours of yours, all you are left with is a shudder, numbness & a dark blank unknown place where you wish you had never fallen to!!!

So you decide to fight back. You want to get out of this trap. But the Catch-22 is that it’s your own mind; your own mind has entrapped you. You have to fight with a part of yourself. So you fight anyway and you fight like a bull, but alas! There comes the moment when there is not enough fight left in you.

You feel weak and broken. You just want to lean on someone. Someone who can hold you, hug you; someone who will tell you that it’s all going to be okay while caressing your hairs as you lay your head on those heartening shoulders. Someone who will make you laugh with some silly jokes when tears start to roll down your face. But there’s no one here. You are all alone walking along a never ending road.

So you turn your face into the wind, hoping with everything inside you that it will not only blow any trace of the tears from your face, but blow away this feeling of restlessness… blow away the feelings and emotions that caused those tears to be there in the first place.

Unfortunately, the pain inside you overrides the strength of the winds and all you are left with is more tears. More tears and the knowledge that there’s no one to wipe your tears. It’s only you and your loneliness. So you force a smile on your face and just like that you walk away from everything but the restlessness.

"Khush Dikhta Hoon Main Agar , To In Alfaazon Mein Ye Dard Kaisa
Chup-Chaap Rehta Hoon Main Agar, To Ye Dil Mein Macha Shor Kaisa“





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Left alone !



So today I woke up with a weird feeling that I am really a ‘loner’ and I am going to remain like this forever. Now why did I feel like this ? Oh! Because of what happened yesterday.

I found my long lost childhood friend, thanks to Facebook. He was my neighbor, classmate and we were friends till 3rd/4th class when his father was transferred and he had to move away to a new city. It was nice to be in touch with him again. We started talking about how we were back in those days. He told me a lot of things about what we used to do together, most of which I didn’t remember (I felt bad). I was wondering that he remembered every tiny little detail which made me feel worse. 

So we were talking for about half an hour and then as usual there comes a pause (awkward sometimes) in every conversation where you don’t have anything to say and then I don’t know if it’s weird or kind of sweet but out of nowhere he said, “I love you” and I was like …………………..what should I say – I love you too or I like you or ……………... I was out of proper words and so just to make him feel good and to avoid the awkward silence I said “Same here”. I hope that’s not Gayish and my roommates are not reading this because then it will give them another good reason to call me gay (It’s a long story).

Anyways, after that he asked me about my family, I replied and then I said “okay, I gotta go“. I don’t know why I did that. He was being nice to me. Obviously he didn’t mean it in that way (I hope not), but I just shut him down. Now this was not because he is a guy, because there were also two other sweet girls with whom I did the same thing. The first one was my phone-friend who started liking me and after going-on for a while I did the same thing and with the second one, I even dated her  for couple of times(Again a long story, some other time ) and I always tried to ignore her.
I don’t know, what is my problem? Why I shut down people when they get close to me. What is this thing/phobia with me?

There are some people who have given big contributions to my life, they are the big pieces of my almost-complete life. I never thought that I would ever realize that they are actually amazing people. And all this time, I never realized that I'd let them go away and yet keep letting another ones go away out of my life, one by one. I have some people whom I never contact anymore. I don’t know where they live, I don't have their facebooks, they have changed their phone numbers, I don't follow their twitter, totally lost them. And today morning, I felt so stupid for letting them disappear from my life. And now I want to change things, I want to try to contact them, I just don't know how.

See, there are some parts of our lives that we are going to lose. People we know are going to disappear and live their own lives without us, without you, without me. Everything is bound to change and so I think that maybe all we need to do is to love people we have in our lives right now, people who still say ‘hey’ to us, even though not every day, people who still smile at us when we see each other, people who still care about us and say “I love you”. Maybe all we have to do is to tell them back that we love them too and we don’t want them to disappear from our lives, because we don’t want to regret for being so stupid to lose them, because we don’t want to miss them terribly, because we don’t want to wake up in the morning, feeling left alone.




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