‘Always’.

 

[Image taken from artpicsdesign.blogspot.com]

It’s been a while now. I’ve mourned enough in my own way. I’ve tried to draw little Snape-like figurines in my doodles. I have gone back in time and reminisced how I had diary full of Harry Potter things and how carefully I had written chapters from different PoVs. I have revisited my memory of drawing the Hogwarts seal on a friend’s birthday card. That was how much it means to me. Yesterday, I felt moved. I wanted to hug all the seven books. Yet now, as I look at my news feed overflowing with Snape and Rickman, somehow that makes me wince.

I don’t know where it is rooted, this wince. Maybe it is because I think I am too arrogant to believe that so many other people are feeling the same sense of loss. I have found myself thinking, “Did they even really feel the loss like I did?”. My loss is more infinite than the others’, my arrogance thinks. It is a little ego-crumbling to see so many people post and feel the things I thought only I felt so deeply. Funny thing, arrogance. I feel like they are throwing buckets of water at my colors of loss. My sense of loss feels so diluted. And then rationale knocks at my door.

Knock. Knock.

Rationale asks me what is so wrong with me. It’s a man I didn’t know. It’s a character which isn’t real. Rationale tells me to calm the fuck down. People die. They just do. Rickman did. Lemmy did. So did a lot of other talented and extraordinary and ordinary and forgotten and forsaken people. Rationale asks me to relax.  People die. Rationale barks like a mad dog to my mistaken self, “You think you understand loss?”.

I listen. I don’t agree. But I don’t turn away either. I stay. Rationale is an old friend. Rationale understands when it’s not time to come home. Rationale let’s me curl up in my bed imagining there is a book underneath my pillow.

Rickman, I know there have been more movies to your list of wonder than Harry Potter, but Rickman, I will miss you the most for your gift to my world. The character was undoubtedly wonderful, but you brought him to life. You gave him form. You blended into my imagination like a breeze. You are one of the reasons why I think I understand love a little better. You are one of the reasons why I never grew afraid of loving someone. Whenever I am a lover, I will be a little of you. Sounds like a lot coming from a 22 year old, but hey, look what you’ve done for so many like me!

As I write, I appreciate the fact why people want to mourn you so much. Because I was not alone in this. We’ve lived different hells and heavens, but we’ve all felt overwhelmed by your existence and its absence alike.

If many years have passed and someone asks me if I’m still a Potterhead, I’ll take a huge puff of breath and say like you did, “Always.”

Always.

 

 

 

 

Life, Dimensions and ΔE

So there is this make do lake near my place of work, which incidentally also happens to be near where I stay. I just felt like going there for some fresh air and peace of mind and body (which, by the way, I did not find, thanks to the overgrowing weed and highly ambitious mosquitoes). I was accompanied by a friend and we sat there talking for a good length of time. It led us to a couple of very interesting discussions. It’d be a shame if I let the conversation slip into oblivion and not write about it.

This is more or less what the gist of the conversation was like.

“I wish I could paint.”

“Why do you want to paint?”

“Because it’s very frustrating when I can see a painting in my head, things I can imagine, but can’t let them on paper as a painting.”

“If you can see in your head, what the painting looks like, why’d you want to put it on paper?”

“Because some time later, when I am no longer this person, I want to remember the way I felt and the way I wanted the painting to look like. I’ll never get this version of me again. The painting will get lost somewhere.”

“Hmm, makes sense.”

“It’s a relief I can write, though.”

“So isn’t that enough? Why paint?”

“Because writing is one dimensional. And painting is not. It’s two dimensional.”

“How so? What dimension are you talking about?”

“Okay, well. Look at it in terms of a lag between translation of emotions to the medium which we choose to express them. When I choose to put something in writing, I am going to touch only about a very small fraction of the mind. The one responsible for associating words to meaning. That is it. You don’t touch any other part of your mind, you see. But when you paint, your mind interprets colors, dimensions, brush strokes and more. In turn, paintings stimulate our brain more than writing. It’s like a sphere becoming a circle. Lost information. I can describe  a painting in thousand words, yet that’ll never be able to capture it in its complete essence. ”

“I see. So what is the lag here you are talking about?”

“The lag, yes. The lag.” I paused to wave off a scandalous  bunch of mosquitoes away from my feet. “So the lag, let’s call it ΔE, is a measure of how insufficient a form of expression is.”

“So what after painting?”

“Dance. Maybe Dramatics. Dance and drama are immediate. They are the full body being aware of everything going on. I can actually stretch my hands out in bereavement when I want to express pining for a lover, and not just paint and write about it. I can project everything I am feeling in the twisting of my limbs and the changing of the lines on my face. The translation is a little less incomplete. ΔE is minimum.”

“What after it?”

“Life, maybe. Life being lived completely. Doing exactly what you want to do, being exactly where you want to be. Happiness. Absolute joy. Utopia. ΔE = 0. Living, not surviving.”

“So are you living?”

“Ummm, I don’t know. Maybe in sprints, yes. Not completely. There are responsibilities, things holding me back.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know, maybe the need of money, important yet mundane things, things that need me to take ownership.”

“Why does that keep you from living, Rya? Are you happy?”

“I am!”, I said, feeling a little offended on having my ideals questioned.

“Then according to what you believe, you are alive in whole. What sprints are you talking about? Who said you can’t be alive with responsibilities? Who said anything about renunciation? Right?”

I smiled. I knew this. I knew the thing he said was correct. I knew even before he said it. I was just blanketing myself in shrouds of self-made anxieties.  I smiled a little more. Then we walked for about a kilometer and called it a night.

One of the most wonderful conversations I’d had in a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

शह और मात

तुमसे मिल कर वापस लौट रहा हूँ मैं,
दौड़ कर मोहल्ले तक की बस ली है
हांफता हुआ सा खिड़की के पास बैठा बेशक़
मगर पड़ा हुआ हूँ आधा कहीं तेरे पास |

न जागा हूँ, न सोया हूँ,
तुम ये कैसे हालात दे गयी?
हम ने प्यार में पड़के तुम्हे शह क्या दिया,
तुम मुस्कुराकर हूमें मात दे गयी|

नहीं जानता हूँ मैं उलझी बातें,
सीधी-सुलझी बातें करता हूँ|
घर बना बैठा हूँ दिल का
तेरे आखों के आस-पास कहीं|

जिन्‍हें शब्दों में मैं क़ैद नही कर सकता,
कुछ वैसी सी तुम मुझे बात दे गयी|
हम ने प्यार में पड़के तुम्हे शह क्या दिया,
तुम मुस्कुराकर हूमें मात दे गयी|

क्या है मेरा, क्या नहीं है,
कौन ठहरेगा, और कौन बेह जाएगा
वक़्त की लहरों में, बन एक मुसाफ़िर
नहीं जानता हूँ मैं, नहीं माँगता हूँ मैं|

फ़िर वही बचपन के उतावलेपन से भरी
तुम मुझ आशिक़ को इश्क़ की रात दे गयी,
हम ने प्यार में पड़के तुम्हे शह क्या दिया,
तुम मुस्कुराकर हूमें मात दे गयी|

Blackbird

There is a blackbird stuck in my throat. She’s forgotten how to fly. I hope with an earnest heart that when I actually manage to cough her up, she splatters on the paper and becomes words in ink. She sings a long forgotten song within the unholy walls of my throat. Not knowing that sometimes she makes me want to throw up remorse and truth like splinters after a bomb has gone off inside my heart. You blackbird, why did you forget to fly? Blackbird just sits and watches me bleed at the feet of strangers’ names. Blackbird is a witness. She knows. She understands it is simpler to unwrap at new doorsteps, to fall like ashes off the sides of burnt paper. Blackbird doesn’t let me swallow words as easily as I could before. There are more and more thoughts getting lost on their way out. Blackbird keeps a count. She knows. Blackbird can afford to just lurk inside me like a parasite. Sucking voices away, making thoughts disappear. Blackbird watches me crumble like a building blown up with dynamite. There a moment before, and suddenly now, gone. If someday I manage to cough her up, I hope she splatters on the paper and becomes words in ink. You blackbird, why did you forget to fly?

ज़ुर्रत

आज जब नीदं खुली तो लगा
जैसे एहसान हुआ होगा कहीं सपनो में
कि दिल भारी नहीं आज इतना
कि बिस्तर से नीचे ना उतरने दे |

आज कई बार इरादा बन सा आया था
“बस, आज तो जी लेना है खुल के!”
पर फिर हमने और इरादों ने
करवट बदल ली मुस्कुराकर |

खुशनसीब हैं वो जिन्हे डर नहीं लगता जंग से
हम जैसों से तो
कागज़ पर चाँद शब्द नहीं लिखे जाते बिना रुके
कि ना जाने कौन सा बाँध टूट पड़ेगा आज|

मगर आज शायद ज़ुर्रत कर लेनी चाहिए
उन आधी लिखी कविताओं को पूरा करने कि
आज शायद ज़ुर्रत करने कि
ज़ुर्रत कर लेनी चाहिए |

If You Didn’t

Did you take a good look at her before you left her?

If you didn’t, you should have.

Because eyes like hers will change as people like you will come and go.

The clouds of doubt in her eyes will rain tears

and leave her cheeks a colder place to kiss the next time.

Her hair now erupts into curls a little more sadly

now that your fingers run through them, no more.

Her color is blue, that of numbness and dissociation.

That of forgetfulness and despair.

That’s the only color you left her with. Blue.

Did you touch her intently before you left her?

If you didn’t, you should have.

Because a body like hers will take the beating of time.

When you run into her thirty-eight years later, she’ll be sixty.

The skin around her lips will no longer be taut and welcoming.

She’ll have wrinkles beside her eyes and scar tissue inside them.

Her skin will hang lose, as if it has given up, just like her.

Her body will no longer be the wonderland.

It’ll be an abandoned city after a long war.

That’s how you left her feeling. Like a war zone.

Did you seek forgiveness before you left her?

If you didn’t, you should have.

Because you don’t break something she called her heart

And walk away without an apology good enough.

Wait. What’s which apology has ever been good enough?

You can’t unscatter people. They’re just gone.

Just like you.

That’s the only gift you left her with. Your absence.

Did you take time out to cry for her before you left her?

If you didn’t, you should have.

For all the conversations she wanted to have and you didn’t.

For the things she felt deeply and you did too.

For all the things that got lost between silence and sleepless nights.

You should have wept, for the damnation of incomplete love.

That’s the only constant you left her with. Incompleteness.

Did you say a goodbye before you left her?

If you didn’t, you should have.

Because dreams that die young haunt the worst.

She feels like a book you started reading

And never finished. You just left her on the bed, open.

Near the window, from where storms and rains

Came in and tattered her pages

and yet, no storm could close her.

That’s how you left her. Without a closure.

The Parting Gift ( Part 4 )

She woke up feeling restless in her bed. Her legs were aching and her hands felt like lead. Her head hurt and she told to herself bitterly, “There you go! Again such a great start to my day”.
This was how her days started lately. She would wake up feeling miserable. Every day. Every single day since the past few months. However, she was a tough lassie. She was the kind who would not give a damn. The kind who would look at the upside of things.Though, this once, it was becoming difficult for her.

Chitra got down the bed and walked to the mirror to look at herself. She was apprehensive of looking at what met her eye. She was barely 20 and her skin had started losing its glow. She did not have those rosy cheeks she was once so proud of. But she still had her smile. She flashed it across her pretty face and her big Bengali eyes curled upwards very graciously. She let loose her hair and saw the locks of her hair slowly reach down. She took her hair from one side and tucked it behind her other shoulder and looked at her neck. She ran her hand down her neck and shoulder and wondered if she was pretty. She looked at herself and wondered if any guy would ever love her.

She had been with a guy once and that nitwit had ruthlessly broken her heart, stomped on it, and left her alone to gather the pieces of what was left of her. Not that she was a sad wreckage or debris, but her heart ached in the most loneliest of times. She cried for three days, and the fourth day she did not give a fuck. She was that girl. Not that she did not flinch when old memories came up, but then,”retrospection was for morons”, she told herself to keep going.

But today it was strange. She did not know what was going on in her body, why she kept growing so weak, why her skin didn’t glaze any longer… It was driving her crazy. So many tests, and medicines, then again some more tests and more medicines. She never really bothered to know what was up with her, but now she was getting restless.

However, these were the things she admitted feeling. What about all those things she felt but did not agree to feel? What about her parents? What about the divorce? What about the fact that she hadn’t spoken to her father in years, not even met him despite all the efforts he had made to make it up to her?

“You never get to make up a broken marriage Baba. I’ll never forgive you”. These were the last words she had told her father many years ago, when he had come to meet her.

But she had. She had forgiven him years ago. She just did not want to admit it. But why?
She did not know. Maybe because forgiving a father who walked out of years of marriage seemed like a very un-cool thing to do. Maybe because books and movies and friends had told her that she did the right thing by not forgiving.

But then why did she forgive him at all? Maybe because, she had realized what many people fail to. That forgiveness is easy. At least easier than hate. Forgiveness must be extended to a father who had loved her. To a father who had been trying so so hard to mend things with his baby girl. Maybe she did not want to do both the things, the forgiving, and the admitting. So she continued to be that grumpy girl who never ever talked to her father.

She brushed these thoughts away as she took a heavy breath and sat down at the edge of the bed. She felt tired from all the standing and she hated it. She was tired and angry at God. Very angry. Her wrists were tired from all the writing she had to do in her class. Her eyes were tired from all the drooping in the lectures. Her back hurt when she sat up for long. But what hurt the most was her soul, too tired from holding behind her tears that had been wanting an out. She was hoping for a miracle. Her miracle. That one miracle that would change her life.

Little did she know that the next few months would bring a change in everything. How she looked at her father. How her mother looked at him. But what none of them knew was that all this came at a cost none of them were willing to pay.

The Parting Gift ( Part 3 )

They were sitting at the table by the window. He looked out and he could see raindrops trickle along the glass looking like random tears. The raindrops played with the lights of the cars, shining at places and then glowing very bright before they trickled down and could not be seen anymore.

He could not make himself look at her. It ached him. He felt like he was staring at the biggest mistake of his life. He knew he broke her. He just did not want to look the wreckage in the eye.

However Asha seemed indifferent. She was looking at his shirt and noticed that he had tried to iron it and had failed miserably. It had the creases at the wrong places, the cuffs were badly done too. However when Arush cleared his throat, her thoughts shifted back to why they were there that evening and her heart sunk. ‘Chitra , my little baby girl.’ She thought to herself. They had been to the doctor and he seemed worried by the results. Chitra had been getting a lot of tests done on herself. The results weren’t pleasing any one. Her WBC counts had increased alarmingly. The doctor wanted to meet the parents before any decision was taken. She was immersed in her thoughts and didn’t even realize what Arush and Viren had been talking about. All she cared now was that her baby wasn’t okay.

There was a sudden shuffling of feet and when Asha looked around, she saw that both of them had got up. She turned to Arush to ask what happened.

“We’re going to meet the doctor now. Come.”

She walked behind them as they walked to the car. It was still drizzling a little. She sat down in the backseat and started thinking about the articles she had been reading over the Internet. Increased WBCs were not a good news and she was trying to prepare herself for some pretty hard stuff to deal with. All this while she hadn’t said anything. But now she chose to.

“When can we have the other reports , Arush?”

“They must have come by now, we’ll pick them up first and then meet the doctor.”

“Hmmm.”

Their car smoothly stopped at the entry to the hospital. She and Arush got down.

“You both move to the lobby, I’ll park and come“, said Viren.

She kept on walking till she reached the help desk. She was so preoccupied that she quite involuntarily went up and asked the lady who was noting something down at the help desk. “Excuse me, from where should  I find the reports to a test we did early this morning?”

“Ma’am, take a left turn from straight ahead. You’ll see the pathology labs. There at the desk, you may ask for the reports.”

Asha turned away quietly without a word. She walked as told and found herself standing at the desk.
“I’m here for the reports of a Chitra Ganguly.”

The person at the desk shuffled through a few brown envelopes and handed her out one with a lot of cold indifference. That man there, with those envelopes , had so many stories sitting at his desk. The story about the father who has cancer, the story about the grandmother who’ll live a few more days. The story of the son who needs and Appendectomy, and the story of the teenage girl who was unaware of her Leukocytosis.

Pink Fingers

I came back home with pink fingers.

I was five. I had gone to my friend’s place that evening and he had taught me how to play with rubber bands.  He would hold one end and I another, and we’d count till three and take turns to let that red rubber band slip off and hit the other one’s tender hands. It was fun. Maybe those were the signs of a beginning of a lifetime of sadism. Maybe I was plain stupid. But every time I knew he was going to let it slip from his fingers onto mine, I’d squeeze my eyes shut. Praying for a moment that somehow that rubber band would get caught up in mid air, or he would change his mind and just stop it with his hand.

He never did. He rolled from one side to another in innocent laughter as I braved a ‘Oh-that-didn’t-hurt’ face. I didn’t want him to know that my eyes were cowering in pain. I hope he’d notice I’m flinching with closed eyes. But he never did. I’d laugh it off, because come on, who makes a puppy face after taking a hit? That’s shameful.

When it was my turn, surprisingly enough, I used to flinch too. I used to flinch thinking that my dear friend at the other end of the rubber band will feel what I felt, and how could I do that to someone, knowing how much it hurts? So instead, I’d just tilt it someway so that it didn’t hurt him as much as it did to me.

That’s what life is about in the toughest of moments in my belief. About flinching at the thought of the pink fingers in someone else’s hands. People forget how they might impact others. They remember only their own pink fingers.

Funny how today I am five no more and I can relate rubber bands to words and sometimes their absence.  People remember what words do to them, and forget what their words do unto others. But here’s the catch. Be careful, all. Stretch the rubber bands only as far as your friend at the other end can take. Because if someday their fingers bleed and they choose to let it slip at their end and walk out on you, that day what you’ll have is a broken rubber band in your hands and you’ll be sitting friendless in that playroom called life.

Who will you share your evenings with and who will you steal candies from?
Nah, you’ll probably find new playmates and buy candies all for yourself.But what about your pink fingers then?

Truth is, no one would give a damn.

Funny thing how I came back with pink fingers today and I am five no more. Funny thing how I didn’t care as I let slip the rubber bands and walked out of the door.