TROUBLED

Only the deepest of love can bring about the deepest of hatred and only the heights of hope can land you in fathoms of despair.

"To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life". What would you do when the love of your lives begins to ignore you. When she tells you that she doesnt want to even look at you? all hope seems lost when this happens

                She was ignoring me, not even looking at me. She just walked past me as if I was nothing, a no one. I just couldn’t get my head around the fact that I had been dumped. I raised the bottle to my lips and took a swing, felling the warmth of the single malt spread through my limbs on this icy winter night. The night was as cold and cruel as her eyes were when she shouted at me “leave me alone. I hate you”. She hates me. All the diplomacy I tried through our mutual friends failed and faced with the hostility that a novice climber would have faced when asked to scale the K2 without any help, the hostility a traveler would face when asked to cross the Thar Desert with just a bottle of water. The chill I felt emanating from her when I asked her why, made me wish that the Russian’s would put me into one of their gulag’s in Siberia. The fury of her response made me wish for the hottest part of Sahara for that would be moderate when compared to what I was facing here. The extent of her emotions made me feel that heel would just be a walk in the park. And just like the calm after a storm she settled into indifference, she blew me off completely. We worked in the same team but she never even  as much as looked at me. It was as if I never even existed. The girl I love, was just becoming the girl who didn’t even care a damn, but I couldn’t even get her to look at me now. Her thoughts occupied my head all day long but it looked like she wasn’t even wasting a thought on me. Not even a thought of a thought of me was crossing her mind. I had to get her back and for that I had to do something before she totally erased me from her memory. I had to do something before I ceased to be even a memory of  a memory.

                The next day I showed up at the office after staying awake all night thinking of her. I hadn’t combed my hair, or shaven myself or even ironed my shirt. My friends and colleagues were surprised on seeing me that way. I was usually meticulous. To put what everyone said in a nutshell ‘I looked like hell’. The hangover was just passing over thanks to the two disprin I had taken in the morning. I passed her in this disheveled state thrice by lunch, but for all of my efforts, all of my modifications to look more miserable: loosening my tie, putting a dead beat look on my face, she neither acknowledged me nor even gestured that she might have given a dam about what happened to me.

                The next thing that I did as soon as I got to my apartment was getting drunk. Then I drove over to her apartment and started banging on her door. The pent-house apartment was isolated from the rest of the building and also had an expansive open area in front of it almost like a porch. The door was answered by her roommate. The roommate told me that she had left the apartment to stay with her aunt, whom i know she hated. She was choosing that evil aunt over me, I wondered what I did to have deserved that. Unable to do anything else, I borrowed another bottle from her and she very generously lent me a single barrel jack Daniel. I sat down or rather slumped down in the expansive courtyard right beside her door recollecting the beautiful conversations we had on this rooftop. Of the time when we watched the Leonid meteor shower, the consolation that I was able to provide to her when she cried her heart out when she learnt that her granny had expired. This was a private heaven for us located away fourteen floors above the ground. I toasted to the thought that now the same piece of real estate had become a personally tailored and customized piece of hell. As I emptied the  1700 rupees bottle of whisky in a toast I fade out and passed out cold right beside the door in that embracing chill.

                Damn it, I was cold, I was dripping wet. Someone with a very bad sense of humor had just splashed cold water on me. I looked up angry and asked “was it really necessary?”. All I got in reply was a goofy grin and a smart ass answer “Yes, for the state you were in, Yes. By the way how’s your head? On ice?”. The guy taunting me was her roommate’s fiance

and a close friend of mine. He carried me into the apartment and plonked in front of me breakfast for hangovers consisting of scrambled eggs and orange juice. He said “I’ve called your office and informed them that you won’t be coming in. Stay here. Use the day, use the bed, get some rest and clear your head bud. I’ll get going I’m already late. See ya.”

                Mid afternoon and I found myself looking at my phone, my head in a much better place after sleeping thorough most of the morning but my heal still in the same place as last night: In deep turmoil. I started reading through all the messages we had exchanged, her cute smileys, her challenging and yet taunting words, her playful replies and her voracious language. All of still stored deep in the memory of my phone, right from the time when she had lost her way reroute to that dingy restaurant where we were supposed to meet for our first date. It was when we were still in our final year of study and I ran out of the restaurant to collect her before she panicked. The date in itself was a very short dinner but the very long walk back to the restaurant from where she was when I picked her up was worth remembering. I cherished the moment when she replied to m question of another date through a text even though she was across the table from me all the while acting as if she was considering saying no. The smile on her face at that moment was what was wonderful and I was sincerely hoping to regain at least some of that.

                The call that night was purely out of instinct and need. She answered the call but before I could speak she started shouting “Its over, I told you to leave me alone. I don’t want to even talk to you” in a tone that was more heart wrenching than anything else. She disconnecting the line still ebbing that fury from her that I could feel it at the other end of the line. I didn’t even have a chance or the courage to answer her after that. I realized it was done.

                Fine, I decided, If my life had left me, I wouldn’t let life exist. I began planning. It was early next day when I started consuming every bottle of spirit I had stored in my apartment. I drove in that state to office wishing some policeman would pull me over and effective prevent me from doing what I was doing but it looked like I wasn’t that lucky. Every person in the office looked at me disbelievingly; a few brave gentlemen came over to try and stop me from creating a scene and tried to restrain me but instead they ended up being involved in a brawl with me and one of them suffered a broken nose. By the time security came over and dragged me into my boss’s office most of the damage I had intended was done. The words I was waiting to hear were spoken ten minutes later. I was fired and I was asked to clear my desk out. I went over to my desk cleared it and in the process of clearing my personal files from my office PC I loaded a ‘software’ onto the company’s system. Every person from my team was watching these proceedings from outside my office. I saw contempt in every one of their eyes and that was all the justification that I required.

                I was sitting on the railing outside her apartment, at the edge of what was our private heaven. I was watching my last sunset on this planet. I wasn’t gonna be alive to even see the planet complete one more rotation. The reason for my living was her. As an orphan I hadn’t loved anyone else, but her. She was my life but she had left me, my life had left e but physically I was still living, my heart was still beating, my lungs were still drawing air knowing that they shouldn’t.  I looked at my watch waiting for the ‘software’ to take  effect and destroy the company  that had turned all my sweetest of memories into the harshest of them ever possible. That revenge of using a virus was a sweet one. That company had affected my life and I was infecting them. That job was now done and I had no other qualms.

                So I slipped happily from the railing towards the waiting abyss below, the thoughts of her lips on mine, that feeling was all I was feeling  as I rushed towards the unforgiving stone below me. I had tailored my heaven and hell and I had tailored my life so far but the outcome wasn’t happy. I hadn’t felt in my heart  for al my life until she came along but  the first time I did it wasn’t worth it. I was the man who built my life only to have it collapse, I couldn’t start over so the only choice was to end it. The last thing I thought before I landed was the feeling of her soft hands lovingly caressing my cheeks while giving me a kiss suddenly somehow turning into the same hands that was trying to choke me to death. And in those last moments of my life i tell her through the world "Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. --I shall feel it"

The Drama of Destiny

Over the mountains mighty hold,

Through the dungeons dark, deep and cold.
A traveler, on a crossroad stands,
In search of fairies land,
For a city built on ageless sand,
To the tunes of an eternal band.
But, is this a game being played by destiny’s hand?

Enticing to the thoughts sway,

Influencing the route of the man's way.
"To infinity and beyond" making him say,
To reach his destiny his hair turned grey,
Giving him solace was the love he found,
To which he was mortally bound,
Making him regret all the ones he lost.
feeling death's chill like a cold frost,
He remembers all the heavy cost,
Of a journey that left him a broken mast,
Only to be replace by new wood,
so over his journey he did brood.
Going through life's memories,  like a file after file,
Saying "Its  the journey that makes the destination worthwhile". 

ERGO

The grass is green
splashing across it is some spleen
To a ravens’ feast
Filling the hearts of mighty beasts

Two giant armies fighting in vain
Their  fires smoldering despite heavy rain

Bent on winning over the other
mighty falcons fighting to their last feather

Peace wasn’t an option visible
even though it was quite feasible

To use every sinew of their strength
On destruction they were hell bent.
To push each other, into a deep gorge
Instead of a lasting friendship they could forge
Now all this cause for battle
That they could easily settle
The reason for that amigo
Was something called an EGO

THE WISPERINGS OF A DAWN

The mornings first rays

lighting the old sparrows many ways

and just like an old master would say

never back down sonny because every fight has its sway

Before the weak rays of dawn

so says story teller fronn

the night is at its darkest and as terrifying as a beast at its best

but as every dawn arises to a masters worthy praises

as the cuckoo sings every spring to mark the end of the cold raging winds

like every calm before a storm

I am strong so dark informs 

but as certain as its return

its strength shall depend on 'the whisperings of a dawn'

Stronger for sure will be the dark upon resurrection

 so will light upon dark's dissipation

in this endless loop

i fell the need for some soup

for in this battle between good and bad

the mightier wins and is the merrier lad

and this full ring of fate is the

spawn of the whisperings of a dawn 

REGRET

Sitting on the ledge, looking out at the city spread out under my feet, like a sparkling carpet sandwiched between the starry land and sky, suspended in between the two landscapes of heaven and earth, was a great feeling for most. The smell of the dam earth, moist from the evening showers after being scorched thought the summer, waiting eagerly for the rains which followed. The heavenly smell of the flowers blossoming in the gardens beside the Chamundi temple helped me get a clearer head to contemplate my thoughts.
Sneaking out of my uncle’s sub-urban house, climbing down my cousins window using a rope fastened just a minute earlier, taking care not to make a sound was hard but it was worth the spectacular view lying in front of him. The city of Mysore, spell bounding in every aspect couldn’t help take my mind off the problem or rather my torment. The quote “the minds torment is the only one which can affect a man, not any other” came to my mind as I began placing my thoughts in order. It all started when he truly began understanding her for who she was and what she had faced. But trying to disassemble thought s from the middle is never productive, so I went back to the start of the thought.

                That morning was just normal. Walking around with all the people that were new, like him to this alien place where for four years we were gonna learn all the skills necessary to live the rest of our lives out. Making new friends, listening to boring speeches by old men, taking the grand tour, all of it routine and all of it unremarkable except for the one person that would cause me to stand here reciting this story. But she never entered my life for another two months, she was there in that room, I met her but she was just an acquaintance. The two months when everything went as planned, where everything just fell into place. The play changed it all. Asking her if she was interested was maybe the biggest folly and my biggest right choice all along. But it all happened due to that dammed play.

                The play was a chance for us to showcase out talent but as most play’s go this wasn’t a one man affair. There were quite a few of us involved and she was one of the people I had roped in. My only reason being that she was intelligent and that she spoke good English in a place where the dictionary was being laid to rest every single second. The play was where she put her talents out and that was where I began to take interest in her. The way she delivered her dialogues, the way she carried her character, her confidence in front of the audience was just mesmerizing. That left me to think that this girl isn’t perhaps what I had pegged her to be. The play went of well and by the end of it we went form being acquaintances to good friends.

                Secrets are dark, deep and ugly, that is the nature of secrets and that is the selfsame reason that they remain and should remain secrets. But when someone starts confiding in you, you become comfortable enough to confide in them. You confide in people you like, love and trust. One evening as we walked away from the campus, walking on the gravelly path lying in between the autumn trees, I learnt her secrets as she poured her heart out.  Understanding what she went through wasn’t hard as someone who had undergone equally grueling albeit different circumstances. Watching her walk down that path pouring her fears out in a flood made me realize that I was talking to a person who had been through hell. She was a piece of coal who had endured through the burning heat and enormous pressure only to come out as a diamond. Those pink cheeks flushed from the wind hollowed out in a sad sarcastic smile as she concluded her troubles and just balked beside me her head held high in spite of all she told me.

                Damaged as she was, there was sincerity in those bright brown eyes.  Eye’s which still haunt me as I stand beneath this starry sky. Her reaction as I told her I loved her was “not unexpected’ but like all humans I had hope. Hope, that eternal illusion that at least a few things might go our way, just as we wish they do. She ran away from me, the girl I gave my heart to ran away from me, the girl I gave my heart to her and she ran away from me, taking my heart with her leaving me a heartless wretch, dammed forever. I had no heart and no immediate purpose. The impending sense of doom that hovered around me in the air was visible only to the best of my people. A dear friend who cared told me “Take a holiday Bud, will help you heal your heart” Little did he know that I was missing my heart and that there was not a bit left to heal

                But this friend always had my best interest at hear and taking his advice, I had come over to this picturesque town. All of the town picturesque had no effect on the gaping hole left in place of my ripped heart. When she ran away with my heart I sincerely believed she erased me from her memory. I walked past her when we were there and there wasn’t a flicker of emotion in those chocolaty eyes. There was just the blankness of indifference, the absolute enemy of love. These thoughts were heavy on my mind. These were precisely what I had come here to help clear from my mind so that I could fill the hole of my heart and go back. The starry night of the chamundi hills helped reflect back the deep thoughts in my mind as I felt someone approached me.

Family are the first of the friends we have as we grow up and those bonds are the one’s which are usually the strongest. My cousin, whom I had tried very hard not to wake up during my descent from his room where we had been sleeping, had unceremoniously followed me here and had been sleeping had arrived. He had emerged now to help me as the turmoil had been  going on for quite some time. A couple of hours  more would bring the rosy red sun, the colour or her flushed cheeks and also my uncle and aunt. He sat beside me and said “ Man, if u can’t bury it then move on with it. Don’t let it occupy a majority of your brain. Remember her, but also remember you still have a lot to achieve, she is not the end of your road. You are in pain, I understand that but as one of your favorite quotes go “Pain is temporary, Pride is forever”. Overcome your pain man. There’s plenty of game out there and for guys like us it shouldn’t be a problem.

Don’t forget her or what you fell about her but always remember even she wouldn’t be proud if you threw away your future just because of her. She would in fact be ashamed of you, she would probably begin to despise you utterly if you throw your life. So let go home and get some sleep, so that I can stop worry about you running away”.

Laughing at his weak humor and thinking, well he does have a point. I will not give up just because of this, but it doesn’t mean that I will forget it. As we approach his house I engrave and sear into my memory everything I remember of her so that even if I want to she would  be something  I wouldn’t forget. She would remain in my memory as something sweet, sour, tangy, bland, hot and yet cold in my life.

As I watch the sum rising bathing me in the golden rays, I realize she is my regret and my release. She is a regret I shall draw my strength from. She is a regret I will have for now gained. She is a regret I shall strive to overcome and she is a regret I shall never forget.

A Journey’s Guide

As I walk down a lonely road,
Looking back on all my decisions I bode,
hesitating at, which of life’s bus to board,
worried about all the past one that I rode,
Bleeding from all the wounds inflicted by swords,
wandering about trying to decipher life’s code.

Taking the journey along its destined way,
The thorns pricking me, right under sun’s rays,
Languishing around in every pains sway.
From destiny , I will myself to run away,
So that, no longer can I myself betray,
That all through my life I was happy and gay.

So ran did I

Until I came under my master’s reach
All my fears he helped me clear,
Only so that his wisdom he could preach,
Guiding his pupils through channels far and near,
To help me live my life at  its best, did he teach,
only to let me go ,with I hope was a tear.

Wading through the difficult tasks,
I succeeded walking through hell with a smile
Wearing at different times, different masks,
So that I could walk horrendous mile after mile,
Only in glory to bask,
Hoping that I had been worth my masters while.

THE FORTY MILE RUN

A quiet peaceful spring evening, surviving in the wild was an easy task. The water flowing in the crystal clear stream was cold and refreshing. The air was crisp and fresh, devoid of all the pollutants present near a human civilization. The fruits they had collected that morning still tasted just as sweet and heavenly as they did when they were separated from their parent tree’s, sap still clinging to their stems. They were effectively in their own sphere of heaven on the planet, isolated and happy. As the sun silently slid down the western sky, bathing him in its golden rays. He turned his head in response to the rustle behind him, only to find himself wishing that time would freeze itself eternally in that instant. Watching her perfect profile thrown into sharp contrast in twilight's golden rays, he told himself he was the luckiest man alive. The smile dancing on his wife’s lips was both shy and yet inviting to him in an intimate way. The look in her eyes told him that all his love had indeed found its way to her heart and that she was equally besotted as he was by her again. He then started regretting the fight he had with her just before they got here. She complaining about his long absence for country and he trying his best to explain to her that it was only till his service to country ended.

Pushing out the unpleasant thoughts he held his hand out for her, like the gentleman he was and said “Good evening love. Can I get you anything?” In reply she took his hand, reeled into him and said “only yourself darling, Only yourself” and rewarded him with a kiss. Looking into each other’s kiss they re-discovered their love that they both had so generously cultivated since their first encounter, arguing against each other in their college debate. Reminiscing all that gave their love its old spark back and hand in hand, heart in sync with heart they walked slowly back to the encamped tent that was straining to contain their love. They spent the night re-discovering each other and enjoying each others company. They slept entwined even in their dreams for not even the realm of senseless sleep could separate them from each other. Both of them happy that they took the 40 mile hike to this scenic location to understand each other.

Their isolation rather cost them heavily. The rains that started lashing their camps wernt to stop . The clear stream they so dearly like turned brown with anger and flooded at once carrying them away in its fury, awakening them just as violently, wrenching them apart to his despair. Fighting was in his spirit, so he rebelled against nature herself to get closer to his second half. He kept a close eye on her , His fear : lest he lose sight of her. He applied every ounce of his formidable strength to get closer to her, but to him she seemed only to be drifting further away.

She saw him struggling against the ferocious stream to try and get to her and felt calm knowing that he was still there for her. Only when she couldn't see him after he went under did she start screaming wondering if anyone could hear her.

He had found a way to reach her  but only if he went under to the calmer parts of the stream from where he could swim faster. When he surfaced in between his blood ran cold, when he heard his love’s scream of sheer terror. Gritting himself he doubled his effort so that he could get to her before something happened for which he wouldn't be able to forgive himself.

So terrified was she that she gave up hope and stopped looking for him, wondering what it was that was left for her to live when the one she loved the most was taken from her. She felt a sudden blinding blow to her head  and felt the darkness descend upon her.

He came up to find her close, only horrified to watch a branch sticking out strike the lovely head that was the source of all his happiness and entangle itself with her body. He swam faster across the devilish current thanking god that at least now he could reach her fast enough.

Reaching her he found her unconscious and in need of medical help. With nothing to do to help her he did the one thing he could do, lifted her onto his shoulder and began running down the wilderness that surrounded them to the closest possible help that he could find. The first few miles of running were fine but after sometime the shadow of pain started to appear. Her weight started becoming a heavier burden by the second, but no burden would be too great that he wouldn't carry it for her. His hamstrings began to burn, but he kept running because the pain now would be incomparable to the pain he would feel and would go through if he lost her. He ran through the pain reminding himself of all the happiness that he felt when she said “yes” to the little question that he has asked her after getting down on one knee. The support she gave him when he was injured from the bullets of his country’s enemies during his assault. The pillar of support that she was when she helped him recover and rejoin active duty. The way she looked at him when he did something for her. That tender smile that lit his world up every time that curve appeared on her face setting everything in his world straight. He knew that he would never forgive himself if he gave up on her

He had promised to keep her safe and sound, to protect her from everything. He had failed in that but he wasn’t about to make a second mistake which could cost him his wife. He kept going on giving himself every other reason he could think of, the way she crinkled her eyes at him when he cursed, the music she like and even their favorite dishes kept him going through all that pain and beyond. He didn't stop even when his legs began to burn beyond a point of human endurance, his energy began to wean but nothing , not a force in this world could stop him in his forty mile run to save his love’s life.  He thought of the look on her face, the calm relaxed happy face that she had when she slept. The way her hair spread himself across and the way she ordered him to brush it off her face. The long hours that he spent watching her sleep so that he could be rewarded by that dazzling smile when he awoke and saw him. For that he said A man would run through hell and that was what he said he was fighting to keep. That was the cost if he failed in his forty mile run.

The run ended just as noon approached. The time he ran were all his effort. He was exhausted and yet he found the strength from love to get her to a doctor’s hand. His faith notwithstanding, he prayed to all the gods known and unknown to spare the life on his loved one.

He waited for her to open her eyes when they brought her into a whitewashed room. Seeing her awake and safe gave him a happiness that he couldn't describe. He knew that the run was worth the smile he loved and the one she gave him as she was wheeled in and asked him “good evening love. Can I get you anything?” Smiling to that he replied “Only yourself darling, Only yourself”. Entangled in their embrace he thought of nothing but her sweet smell, the smooth satin like skin as he held what was most dear to him, what he had almost lost but also of all the love yet to be among them as he murmured to her “only yourself darling”

To Fly High

Flying in the high wind
Rising on a thermal he grinned
seeing the world spread out beneath him
Swooping down just on a whim
To rise again on the strength of his wings,
Flying through all the loops and the rings

In clear blue heights he flies
Dodging the clouds dotting the skies
Gliding to a destination so far to reach,
With a will even a diamond couldn't breach
On and on through turbulent weather,
He flies on without a shiver in a feather.

His destination guides him forward
On his journey home , northward
To a place of cherishing hope
Where opportunities are in abundant scope,
But, In his mind lies a lingering question,
The answer, probably out of his comprehension,
But as they say ‘To be wise old man,
You must first be angry and young, but always with a plan.