joie de l'écriture

The unspoken word or the lack of it
In silence, you fail to find peace
It breaks you down by its stubborness
Piece by piece
Like a word here, another there
That doesn't a conversation make
Familiar faces surround you
And yet you wish...you were alone
Far from the deafening silence
Arriving after the last attempt forlorn
Your desire to express long forgone
It's awkward the way it makes you feel
Eyes wandering elsewhere, lips sealed
Hearts enstranged, farther than miles
Stolen eyes and pretentious smiles
Silence that is yet to be broken
Like a mystery that is waiting to be revealed
Like a land unexplored
Like a face underneath the veil
Like a life yet to be born
Every conversation dies in silence
But you pray it also begins after one

The first rays of the morning sun filtered through the curtains woven from a pale flimsy fabric, setting the room ablaze and waking Saumya up from yet another night of sleeplessness. Her head was heavy and her vision was only a blur. She reached out for her glasses on the side table and in the attempt groped her box of pills, her latest medical reports, her hairpins and dropped them on the floor which still had traces of water spilled from an half empty glass of water the previous night. Her body was stiff and cold but her bloodshot eyes felt warm as she rubbed them with her fingers. She kicked off her blanket repeatedly until it no longer covered her and revealed her poorly toned legs that were a few shades fairer than the skin of her hands and face. Her face had an outburst of acne which drew the onlookers attention away from her otherwise sculpted features. She had dark moons under her eyes from insomnia. On her tongue, she could feel the bitter taste of pills which she had been taking to fight her medical condition. It was the 15th day of October and it had arrived quite nonchalantly making it all seem like an ordinary affair that men and women do as part of their ordinary lives.

She slipped into her house robe and with slow heavy steps walked across the corridor, its walls lined with a series of odd sized frames some inharmoniously blank. They seemed to be epitomizing the void in her life between the moments of happiness. She pushed open the door gingerly and peeped. Rihan, her four year old son was asleep with his arms curled tightly over his stuffed Spiderman. She watched him from a distance as he lay lost in his dreams. A step closer to him and she knew she would crumble like the flakes of the puff pastry she had refused to buy him last night in her efforts to garner the courage of separation, of not letting his tears weaken her. From this day today, she would never see him cry or smile or look at her with his round eyes that gleamed over little joys.

But what she couldn’t wait to miss were his mannerisms which he’d acquired at an early age to prove that he was a chip of the old block. She felt a strong surge of raging anger against his father intertwined with a mad love for him every time she looked at him and his facial features that resembled that of his father struck her - the way his eyebrows met in bewilderment, the longish dimples, his soft auburn hair, his prominent chin, the high cheekbones. Her endurance was tested and the time had come when she had reconciled to accepting failure of raising a child which was as much hers as it was of her wicked past. Five years back when she signed the separation papers with her husband she had resolved to give birth to the unborn child, much against the advice of many. “I was much stronger then”, she tells herself now, consoling herself to not regret the mistakes of the past.

She returned to her room disconcerted by the thoughts running in her head. She swallowed her grief with gulps of caffeine that had turned cold and with shaky hands reached out for the papers of the foster home. As she stared at the forms filled in a neat legible handwriting, her eyes gave way to a stream of tears which rolled over her cheeks and dropped from her cheekbone onto the forms, smearing the details filled in ink. She moaned in despair, loud enough to feel relieved but silently enough to not awaken Rihan. Her maid rushed to her aid. This wasn’t the first time she had seen her so destitute or possessed by the thoughts of her son. As always, she just waited there without speaking a word, not holding her hand, her face bearing a troubled look, until her presence was discomforting enough to make a wailing single mother to stop grieving by being conscious of her presence. She got up, wiped her face hastily with the sleeves of her robe and tore the papers into bits in frenzy and tossed them into the air. The pieces showered on her like the confetti at her wedding quite ironically. The maid left with the mug of coffee that was left half sipped and after having gathered the bits of papers which were strewn on the floor.

Saumya was greeted by a sleepy Rihan who had walked into her room. She hugged him tightly as if she’d never let him go which made him irritable in his stupor. The touch of his soft skin against her made her feel an instant connect to the part of her she had almost decided to let go of. Living without him turned out to be as arduous as living with him and raising him while she was not in terms with herself, constantly at her wit’s end. She lifted him and tossed him in the air until he burst out chuckling. She carried him to the balcony of her flat on the fourteenth floor and showed him the sea, as the waves bounced off the rays of the morning sun. The enormous expanse of the sea and the distant horizon gave her a sense of a diminutive existence. The wind that swept the sea seemed to beckon her to the part of the world that was more peaceful. She looked at Rihan and smiled. He smiled back. When the maid returned with a freshly brewed mug of coffee to the balcony, it was empty. It was probably the emptiness that Saumya had left behind as she carried Rishabh along with her to the more promising side of the world. The wind blew stronger with some sort of determination and the sea chuckled as the wind tossed its waves playfully.

Sometimes its best to be a spectator and watch the circus roll. It would be unwise to draw the spotlight away from the clown. Similarly, as much as you'd like to drive something to perfection you should sometimes just be a spectator and seek recluse from a distance. It's difficult to resonate with people who donot match your wavelength but most of the times you'd be expected to. It's like being caught behind a slow moving truck which refuses to budge from the fastest lane on a freeway. If your ideas seem anachronistic, just be patient. Your time is yet to arrive. If things around seem in disorder, just take a deep breath. It's probably someone elses job to clean up the mess. Sometimes its better to be an unknown face backstage than to be a puppet on the stage whose strings are drawn by someone else. It's better to put your foot down when you have had enough than to try dancing on one foot to the tunes of others. Sometimes you know you are the smarter of the lot and therefore you consider it best to shut up for the larger good. Often the naked truth is the toughest to hide in a masquerade of lies and a parade of surrealism. It takes a lot to standup for what's right but it takes even more to know what's right, to not be blinded by common thinking, to rise beyond the ordinary, to build expectations when none exist, and to brave the truth when the world around is united by a camaraderie stemming from being comfortable in mediocrity.

As age progresses our thoughts tend to become viscous unlike in the younger years when no thought that ever occupied our mind rested in it. It came and it went, like the seasons. But never took as long. Instead thoughts were like confetti that burst from birthday balloons, which fluttered without boundaries, colorful and weightless sometimes reaching uncomfortable territories. Now they seem to stick around like guests who wait until the evening tea even when you had only invited them for lunch. They are heavy and your mind often feels their enormous weight as you lie in your bed. Their fidelity is none to doubt. You'll never find them gone the next morning after you've slept the night over with them. They aren't plesant enough for you to be accused of daydreamimg. They aren't unpleasant enough to give you sleepless nights or even nightmares. It's their prevailing dominance in your everyday life that has to be endured only next to your own shadow and that exactly is what is so that is so discomforting about them. Atleast your shadow disappears at night. Thoughts don't. Each thought reaches its peak and then drops to its trough and then it rises again. This continues like a never ending ride in a ferris wheel that gallops high and drops low in a continuing motion leaving the riders giddy over time as the law of diminishing marginal utility steps in. Thoughts are not bad. They keep your mind working. The mind in their absence would be a useless organ occupying a prime place in your anatomy. All great deeds and all brilliant achievements are only born when thoughts marry a strong willingness to act. Or react. Until then these viscous thoughts are here to stay.

Generation gap is the number of decibles between audible and loud
It is the palette of shades between pastles and neon
The number of inches between baggy pants and skinny jeans
The time spent standing in a line over going online
The choice between following the obvious and questioning it
The tradeoff between security and comfort
Generation gap are the unasked questions in the minds of one
And the unsaid answers in the mind of the other
It is what one generation has missed to experience
The other has failed to understand
And all that passed between then and now..

Here it is. Another train journey through the belly of the Indian mainland bringing with it a whiff of old memories. As much as the fascination of traveling by train has dwindled away, the memories don't seem to fade. Memories of the eager wait for the arrival of the train dismayed by the false arrival of just an engine, the familiar hustle and bustle which doesn't ever cease, the fight for a vacant seat on the platform, the archaic clock hanging precariously from the ceilings and which is invariably behind time making the wait seem even longer - make it all seem like it was just yesterday that you took a train home. There was a time when each summer vacation promised a rail trip. Today as I lay on the lower berth of 1-a.c., the rexin of the seat cover sticking to the bare skin of my hands, the squishy pillow giving little comfort to my head heavy and deprived of sleep, the little midnight blue light breaking the darkness in the cabin, the continuous swinging of the coaches as the train roared it's way through the sleepy towns, watching the silhouette of trees pass by through the tinted glass windows, there was a sudden reconnect to the simple joys of life. The simple joy of life called a train journey. As time passes it would become increasingly uncommon for an average middle-class family to be traveling by train. The paucity of time and the lack of modern comforts in a train journey are discounting factors to opt out of this traditional mode of transport. But then a train journey beckons a traveller and not a commuter, and it's only a traveller who knows that it's good to have an end to a journey but in the end it's the journey that matters.

She hasn't seen a wonder in years
She hasn't witnessed a miracle lately
Her bed is wet from tears of dreams she hasn't lived
And yet parched for memories of those she has
Her motionless body is restless to run wild in the fields
Even though she doesn't remember the smell of the dozen lillies
Her favorite ones
That are now wilting by her bedside
Alongside a picture frame of smiling faces
Basking in the sunshine under the summer sky
Now she sweats even on cold winter mornings
Darkness is her only companion
Compassion her only gift
Life is but an endless story
Written anonymously in monotone
The sweetest melodies, the chimes
The hymn to the Almighty is just a drone
No words to describe the grief of the kin
In her life, whose paths she did cross
For today even in her presence
They have inherited loss

Love is an extraordinary feeling. It only exists in superlative because if it doesn't then it isn't love. I fell in love with the saffron skies last evening and I painted it with purple dreams. Dreams that were too rich to be mine. Yet love makes you dream of such impossibilities and flaws your perceptions of reality like nothing else does. May be TV soaps are an exception. I loved the peace that surrounded me. The touch of the warm air on my skin, the pampering comfort of a bed to rest my back on after a hard day's work and the violent spinning of the fan overhead whose whooshing sound tactfully muffled the noises from the world beyond the glass windows... Almost felt like I was in a snowglass. The moment was so beautifully designed. A moment that was awaited for long to arrive in all it's splendour and make me fall in love with life all over again. It's only now that I know what it is like to 'stand and stare' or more importantantly what it is like to sit and relax and let you mind paint nothing but purple streaks on a saffron sky.

As the darkest hour of the night was ushered in with a crackling sky and a hooting air, I wondered if the celebrations marked the beginning of a new year or the approach of an end the world seems to have been eagerly waiting for. Even as the anguish of an innocent life being brutally slaughtered had not been subdued, even as the fear of the darkest hours and the dark side of humanity had not faded, even as assurances by the police and the politicians had barely managed to reinstill confidence... The new year arrived unaffected and unperturbed making its presence almost ironic in a nation that is trying to cleanse itself of the past and is uncertain of the future. As hooligans came out on the street on their bikes and rode in herds at neck breaking speeds on the longs stretch of road below putting their lives and those of others at stake... I began to wonder were their lives so worthless that they didn't mind spending those on cheap bike tricks. There was no bravery in their acts. Just a strong desire to be 'noticed' and 'known'  even if not 'admired' because to be known for good reasons has perhaps become one of the most difficult things in the country. It's always the bad that has managed to secure the place of headlines and breaking news. I always thought new year was about ringing in the new and the good and ringing out the old and the bad. However, that night as I saw innocent lives at stake and thanked God that my dear ones were safely nestled at home, I wondered if we had anything to look forward to or was the new year just a reminder that it's not over. At least not yet.