Purity.

I don't want friends with ulterior motives. Somehow, in this world cascading into utter darkness, I found three of those who have stood by me since I first met them. I'm not going to tell you who they are, though. They know, if only because our friendship requires no effort. There's no drama, no questions. Just being there.

I haven't cried in a while. Been on a hunt for the most depressing movies and haven't shed a tear. Couldn't even bring myself to 'feel' sad. Wonder if I've turned utterly, completely numb. Nobody's capable of that in all entirety even though I tricked myself into believing so.

Sometimes, something inside nudges me into old habits- okay, so dog movies will make me weep no matter what. Especially if the dog dies (Marley and Me, anyone? Even worse- Hachiko). This randomness apart, more truthfully, when my friends go through hell I feel helpless. Know that feeling when you don't know what to do so you go with instinct/gut and say the most appropriate or just do something completely, infallibly stupid? Went from being "she gives brilliant advice" to "oh man you crack me up!" I gotta say, the latter owns.

Then, I break the chain. Watch a movie like The Cure, and the tears just flow. If I had to lose someone close to me, would I ever break out of it? My people magnet doesn't let me "just be". They either mean the world or they're nothing at all, unless they mean something to someone- then, they somewhat mean something to me and those are the only people who get to be in-between.

I want purity. I want innocence. I want to look at my friends and go ""Okay, I have to deal with them laughing at my idiocy, losing it when I do something completely unforgivable. . . Shit, he's going to slap me this time I think (never happens). . . I am never going to hear the end of this!" instead of "will he still stand by me after this?"

I want those little moments to linger and never lose their sweetness. Have a copious number of those. Like, our emotional sponge, LOG, drunken endeavors, dropping fried rice and attempting to pick it up, sitting on a mound in the middle of the road and yelling at everyone each time mom called. . . Have them lose it and go "Okay"or "Whatever" when I cancel out on a plan. . Their surprised looks when I actually turn up without a fuss! Those bloody bear hugs- can't breathe sometimes.

This city. . . overflowing with memories both bitter and sweet. Brimming with hope and so much pain. . a constant reminder of the past that seems to never stop haunting.

Above all.

Love.

Purity in overdose compared to anywhere else.

Here, I don't have to try being me simply because I can be shamelessly so and never have to wonder twice if I'm pestering them with the texting, worrying them when shit hits the fan, losing them when I spill the beans.

Here, I'm me. All me. This is home.

It doesn't get any better than this but I'm afraid it gets worse.

Hello, Stranger.

Hello Stranger,
 How have you been? I have quite a lot to tell you, the words tumble over one another to gain the advantage. I suppose I'll just go with the flow? Or perhaps, chronologically.

Yes, chronologically seems more logical right now.

I've lost you. I've lost track of the time we spent together, I was so absorbed in what was happening around me that I never paid the tiniest bit of attention to you. I believed you'd be able to fend for yourself. I'm sorry that I misjudged that. I can't ask you to come back to me. I reckon that'll ruin everything for us. We'll fight, that's a given but. . I do miss you. A lot.

I miss your laugh. I miss how my stomach would fill up with butterflies every time I laid eyes on you. I love, yes, love, that look in your eyes when I'm laughing uncontrollably. I miss your warmth, the calming rhythm of your breathing every time you held me close. Your quickening heart beat when you'd bend down to kiss me or just say how much you love me. Loved me.

I wish it had all turned out differently, but I suppose it couldn't have. I still talk about you. My friends know your name. They know you left that void inside of me that nobody can ever fill up. I wish it were easier. I wish that void was part of the past, just like you are.

I wish you were here to hold me and tell me it'll all be alright. Like you used to every time I broke down. You're the first person I've ever cried in front of without a second thought. I told you every thing. You were my best friend. You meant the world to me.

I suppose that was my mistake- letting you know just how much you meant to me.

I met this girl. My psychology teacher reeled me in to help her with a visually impaired student. I ached to just dial your number so your voice could calm me. It worried me. What if I did something utterly stupid? What if I used words like 'see' or 'visualize'? What if I can't get through to her, if I let my teacher down?

So many what if's. I forced myself to stay in control and not call you up but I suppose by now, your number must have changed. I met her, finally. She's brilliant in ways I cannot even begin to describe. She knows such a lot but her low self-esteem seems to be her undoing.I MUST get through to her. I have to. She can be SO much more in life! So very much more!

A puppy I helped save and raise in college for the few months I was there passed away the day before yesterday. He had the clearest blue eyes. We named him Butterscotch, but he was also known as Tipu. He was ever so gorgeous. He was run over by a speeding car and people stood by watching helplessly.

What has become of this world? It used to be so beautiful, with the trees swaying, the leaves rustling! Birds humming. . everything was so musical. So. . lovely. Clear blue skies, unadulterated innocences! Discovering each other, discovering ourselves. . Now, it's all just gloomy. Everybody's dying. . The animals are suffering. I was so blind. I must do something about it. I have a plan but I can't tell you now. Perhaps at a later date. You know how I've always been reluctant to disclose something till much after it has happened.

Well.

I met this guy. Don't know him all that well, don't trust him all that much anymore (he broke me once already) but I know enough to know I adore him. Yet, every time he tries to get close, all I can do is push him away. I've begun to do that with all of my friends. I don't want to talk to them. I don't feel like seeing them, being around them. I just want to be left alone. I bet that sounds pathetic but it's just how it is.

I've let so many people down that I'm unable to forgive myself now. Not being there for my best friends when they need it the most makes me feel so utterly useless that life seems redundant yet again. Forgive me, I'm ranting. You've always known how to stop that without cutting me off. I've forgotten though, memory evades me presently.

I miss you. It's been over 3 years, and I still think about you, of you.

I wish it had all been different.

But this has to be the last time I speak of you.

I love you, A. I wish it had all turned out differently, but I suppose this is life and even though I've moved on, your memory lingers. I hope you're well. I truly am sorry for everything. Just know. . . none of it matters anymore. The shards cascaded deep enough to cause me pain every day but the scars have begun to fade.

Well, it's time. The thoughts have been put to rest at last. The war has stopped.

Goodbye.

Glittering Blackness

Nothing’s ever calmed me like “The Only Moment We Were Alone”, “Your Hand in Mine” "Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean" and “Day 2” by Explosions in the Sky, in no particular order- save recollection.

I’ve been ranting a lot lately, to the walls. I haven’t particularly been euphoric or- conversely- miserable (‘cause that’s the closest opposite I can think of right now, my brain needs a break).

The book I’ve been working on since forever- which initially started off in the confines of my childhood-adolescent basement-turned-bedroom (MASSIVE bedroom, at that) in order to distract my mother from my hitting-rock-bottom grades in 7^th grade- is now on a hiatus. I can’t seem to process emotion let alone feel it. It’s just numbness that somehow takes over, and some semblance of calm. Is it even possible being calmly numb. . . or numbly calm? The latter would be closer to describing how I feel more accurately, I reckon. Then again, I don’t think too deeply anymore. Just the surface, scratch it, and bolt.

I don’t even find happiness when my dogs are playing with each other. It makes me acutely aware that I can take only one of them with me to the wretched city I am obliged to study in, whilst leaving the other two behind. My heart shatters every time I think of it. Maybe I’m not all that numb or devoid of emotion. At least I can control it better, fake happiness or joy at will.

That’d make me a liar, wouldn’t it? I guess. But I’ve been called worse.

I think I take too many things to heart, unlike most others.

At least I’m still alive? That IS something to be thankful for, right?

So many people die around us, most of whom we don’t even know. Till someone we do know dies. Then, our world somehow begins to gain more meaning, momentum, and even makes sense for a bit. . . till that monotony sinks in, and our cognitive shortcuts kick in and re-enforce that belief we instilled in ourselves that we’ll live forever, that time is not fleeting even though the proverb states otherwise. Sigh, humans. Then again, we’re the ones that make a big deal about death. Perhaps because we don’t have all the answers. Perhaps in order to spare ourselves any pain of dying and disappearing into oblivion, a state of permanent non-existence. And we do it to save ourselves those dire thoughts so that we may live each day “to the fullest”, whatever that means. Leave it to your own interpretation.

My thoughts tire me, so I bid you adieu for now.

Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow. Maybe I’ll throw a disappearing act for till I’m back in college or later.

Whichever seems more plausible given my state of mind and the environment that surrounds me.

“A Song for Our Fathers.” “Snow and Lights.”

“Magic Hours.”

"Look into the Air".

Solitude.

“Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.” 

-         The Book Thief, Markus Zusack

Life, in all its turbulence, teaches you a lot till one day it seems like this pointless, unending journey. Small fact- we’re all going to die yet we act like we’ll live forever. I don’t. I just take death for granted. I don’t live life to the fullest, but I do what I want when I want to. That’s more than enough for me.

People can walk away of their own free will as and when they please, and I will be coerced into believing I made a mistake trusting, loving them for a while. . . till they become people I no longer recognize- strangers in a crowd of familiar faces. . . but that’s okay. It happens.

No running  away this time. I haven’t the will to. It has failed me this time.

Right now. .  I eat loneliness ‘cause it’s where I find comfort. Somehow, I manage to survive through the worst in my life when I’m the most alone. I find that strength to deal with whatever Fate has decreed to throw my way, or rub in my face. No need for friends whom I adore, no need for family to teach me to stay strong. No need for people who can make me cave in, shatter my barriers. No requirement for human company. They’ve been pushed away till I find myself capable of human contact again. And I’m glad, I think, that most of them allow it, understand it, even if they dislike it.

For now. . .

Just books. Music. The wind. My dogs.

Sometimes. . . just nothing.

Nothing at all.

That city I now live in changed me. Made me someone I grew to despise. Someone that wasn’t me. . . someone I managed to slaughter, cold-heartedly whilst enjoying every infernal moment with grim satisfaction.

It feels good being this girl again.

Feels good being that Bangalore girl I thought I’d lost somewhere.

I’m still here.

I’m still me.

I can never be anyone else.

“Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.” 

-         Fighting Reuben Wolfe

They Always Know.

I love my dogs.

Love isn’t an easily definable word, but it’s perhaps the only one that comes close enough to telling anyone on earth just how much I would do to keep them happy.

It isn’t easy.

Being away from them for the most part of the year. More than my family, it was them I missed ‘cause I knew they might be neglected for a very long period of time- generally till I call and scream my lungs out at someone for not petting them. Yes, they need food and water to survive. But more than that they need a hug, a kiss, someone scratching their ears at least once a day. They yearn for it. Pet a starving dog, and you have filled his stomach enough for him to want to try harder.

It isn’t difficult.

You just need to reach out and they come to you- in leaps. I was a street away when those two sat at the gate awaiting my arrival. The minute I opened the gate, I had to deal with a truckload of slobber and I nearly broke down for leaving. Tuffys warm snout on my skin again, driving me into bounds of laughter with his licking. Bruso being the jealous one sitting in a corner ‘cause I didn’t pet him first. Took me over 6hours of begging till he finally let me pet him. 3days before he let me pick him up. He really does know how to make me repent!

They’re not much different from us human beings. They feel. More than we do. They whine, every time I walk out the gate- for fear I won’t come back again. I think they know.

I love them.

They have taught me how to be strong when the very foundations keeping me up are crumbling beneath my feet. They have taught me that it is alright to break down and cry now and then- they'll always be there to lick my tears away and do something completely psychotic out of the blue that'll get me laughing till my stomach hurts.

They have taught me to keep mum about the pain when it's too much to burden someone else with. . . To hold on to them when I can't breathe 'cause they will breathe slowly till I can catch up.

They have shown me warmth in my darkest days, and taught me how to forgive those who ought not to be forgiven. They have taught me that letting go is the easy bit. . . It's moving on that's hard. . . That if I let go, it's alright 'cause I don't have the fight inside me anymore and there's no point fighting for something you no longer believe it.

They have taught me it's okay to be human.

A few months ago people asked me why I care so much for people who do not deserve it. My dogs love me ‘cause I’m human. They have witnessed atrocities that human beings resort to, but they love me anyway. They would give up their lives for me. . they would protect me from every kind of harm. Every sort of pain. Why can’t I do the same, no matter who it is?

They have forgiven me for so much. . . and rewarded so little.

They have taught me over and over that it's okay to be me.

That they love me. . . for me. They’d never hurt me. In any way.

I would die for them. I really, really would.

I wish telling them that helped. . . but they know. They always know. And finally, I get to take them with me. 4 more years of college, I can battle with like it’s a cakewalk. . I’ll have my babies with me.

I don’t need anything else.

Anyone else.

Just them.

Shades of Grey

The hardest part is growing up, knowing things will never be the same again, no matter how much you retain that attitude, or how much you manage to refrain from change.

It’s taxing. Memories imbibe themselves in your system, some of them deeply embedded, most others lost to repression. Control evades you when pillars crumble before your very eyes. Strength seems a myth, fear blankets and blinds everything that could help you get past the anguish.

Strength. . . is lost to the environment around you. Dissipates into the air, slowly, surely, ensuring the painstaking process harms you. A cruel jape played by Fate several times.

Hushed voices, whispered words, speculation, surrounded by disjointed hands of faces filled with a concoction of expressions- fear, hatred, ridicule, anger, panic, sadism. Yet, not a soul moves to try and set the wrong right.

Life is not black or white, it’s several shades of grey.

I say that for two reasons I have pondered over for several years, but never quite voiced out.

1.      Our cognitive short cuts (more commonly associated with the lay man term of stereotypes) cause us to think of black as dark and brooding (a sign of evil) and white as pure, peaceful, ideal (angels, anyone?)

2.      Grey, no matter how bright or dark, is gloomy right through.

There’s something about the color that appeals to my senses, and honestly, not in a morbid fashion. It is the ONLY color, right through its gradience that is gloomy. It is never happy, but never quite sad, put simply.

Human beings are neither fully content, nor quite completely unhappy. They are, somehow, always caught inbetween.

For instance, in the day of any average human being, they experience a tumult of emotions, micro-expressions, without so much as realizing it. To a third person, they appear a certain way. They themselves probably don’t even realize it most times.

Think of THE happiest person in YOUR life. Everyone knows such a person- someone who hasn’t deal with much in life, lives the perfect happy life, is protected, sheltered, so on so forth. The instant they have to deal with something a little outside their comfort zones, they become insecure, hyperventilate. Nervous. Slowly, they fall into this pattern wherein it causes some amount of sadness in them.

Yeah. Not quite the “I’m going to kill myself because this isn’t going to work out and it’s the best thing for me” sad, but sad enough for them.

I remember how, during Psych class, a friend and I would mark everyone as excessively neurotic, or majorly depressed (no brownie points for guessing which one I was). Then, on exposure to the bipolar disorder in all its glory, something clicked in our dormant minds. We realized that everything is put with respect to everything else- but our cognitive shortcuts don’t allow us that element of doubt. Our cognitive shortcuts tell us, owing to (yes, wait for it. . .  ) laziness, cause us to compare everyone to the ‘ideal’ happiness or the horrific depression.

That’s just it though, just like how norms are subject to change with respect to the culture, or country, the people or more broadly, the environment- so too are humans and their emotions!

Yes, we really ARE different from one another. What makes me happy, might not apply for you. What makes you sad, might not apply for me. Most likely it won’t.

If, for instance, you’re aggrieved by death, in all likelihood, someone else is least concerned (and I’m not referring to cold-blooded murderers, assassins, or any of those exceptions). It’s really just as simple as that- what works for you, won’t work for me. And that isn’t a newfound idea , really. I’m sure you’ve thought of it more than once in your entire life. But honestly, we’re a bunch of ignorant farts who need to realize it applies universally for more than just the reason that I like dark chocolate, while you hate it.

Life really IS that grey.

Coming back to the point- growing up.

In my head, we all start off with the lightest shade of grey. By the time we’re teens, we’ve managed to enter the darker shades of grey.

By our 30s, it gets darker. . .

Surely by now you get the flow.

Then, somehow, people come along and add that 'color' to your life. . The reds and purples, blues and greens. . The eloquent and the mysterious . . The pale and the dark. That zest, pizzaz. . . You name it.

Somehow. .  .

Everything in life comes down to colors. Everything. Just like every government ultimately boils down to economics, and every child's upbringing boils down to environment.



We recognize colors 'cause they have universal meanings. . They transcend borders, and go beyond language. Perhaps, if we didn't have language, every color, every shade would mean something. Maybe that would have been our language- a world full of colours. Rainbows. Leprachauns. Pearly whites and pools of black. . . Bubbling blue waterfalls, and black nights filled with twinkling spots of silver. Not that it isn't already. . but most of us don't communicate that way. . . Some of us, still do. . albeit not entirely.

But no. That's not how it is.

Life's grey. It just has its moments. . Like we have ours.

Conversations

Matthew 21:21

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.

“What happens when people die?”

“They go to heaven or hell.”

“What if there isn’t a heaven or a hell?”

“Well, their souls go back to God.”

“And if there isn’t a God?”

“There is.”

“If there isn’t?”

“There is.”

“What IF there isn’t?”

“Maybe their souls float around.”

“So, once they’re dead, they go to heaven or hell or to God, else they float around. So, there are probably 6billion souls floating around amongst us?”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe that signifies the end of the world. When it’s too congested to live on, it ends?”

“No.”

“Why not? Maybe the humans choke, and die. Maybe that’s why we have tsunamis- maybe someone fought and it isn’t really plate tectonics. Or even if it is, maybe someone moved them. Maybe it’s just a game the dead souls are playing on us. Maybe they control us.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Cause God controls us, ‘cause Fate decides and Destiny is decided.”

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“Maybe you are.”

“I know I might be, but you won’t give anything the benefit of the doubt.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t”

“Why? ‘cause God will punish you?”

“Yes. And ‘cause the Faith keeps me alive.”

“So you cling onto that Faith in order to survive?”

“In order to have something to live for.”

“People or dreams, goals or objectives should be reasons you live for.”

“They are. But the Faith gives me hope that I’ll make it.”

“A friends Faith can give you that hope too.”

“Faith in God allows me to never falter.”

“Even when someone close to you dies, or you see your dog run over? When you fail an exam you worked for, when someone in your family falls horribly ill? When you do not get what you deserve, while everyone knows you deserve it, and you have made no mistakes to have it taken away from you?”

“Yes. Faith in God gets me through all of that.”

“And if God doesn’t exist? If God isn’t Krishna or Ganesh, Christ or Allah?”

“God is all of them, and more.”

“More?”

“God is the sea that surrounds us, the land we thrive on, the sky above us, the air we breathe.”

“Maybe it isn’t God, and just a celestial being?”

“It’s all the same.”

“How?”

“It keeps me alive. Keeps my Faith strong. Gives me hope, let’s me survive.”

“So, God keeps you alive. Nameless or not.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Till the Faith is shattered.

Till you falter, and lose hope.

Till you no longer have anyone to blame for all the bad,

Or thank for the good.

Till it’s too much to bear.

Till you die.”

Matthew 14:31

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"