Is this what life is going to be about? A repeating loop of events? Or do we feel so because of social media? Watching people trying to stay relevant, become relevant, achieve glory, have it all only to detox their way out of it.
Flames flirting over Instagram stories, upping their simping game, moving over from the talking stage, to majorly crushing on each other, getting all high on vibes and then closing their chapter.
A good time ends, life goes on and on and on and on and on and another song trends on Instagram. A music that never took off that well suddenly hits top 10. A music that you swore you’d never succumb to becomes an earworm and you find yourself grooving to it as you swipe up.
Netflix catches your attention and you watch a nice series that you can finally brag about to your friends who kept debating about it all weekend only to find out that they discovered another cool one.
You put up a meme on your IG Story and people respond to it, reactions keep coming in until they stop. And then you’re left with a void – that’s okay, life goes on and on and on and on and you look up.
You’re in the bus, you look around; everybody around is on their phone. They’re all a part of the same loop that you are in. The same loop that you and I will continue being into until; well, until, a song long forgotten becomes a trend and joins into the loop.
We’re all in the loop. We’re all in the same loop.
Is this what life is going to be about? A repeating loop of events? Or do we –
One of the best feelings in the world is when you feel the nectar of healing all across your senses. You’re happy by yourself and feel the love that you receive from the people who love you.
You’re no longer forcing emotions, friendships and relationships. You acknowledge that every thing that has happened in your life during this entire period – whether good or bad has led to you to this peaceful version of yourself. You understand that things and people change for you when you change your perspective towards them.
You are free. Free from your past, from regrets, guilt, mistakes and trauma. Free from unwanted desires. Free from that baggage you carried all along. You’re free and you feel the beauty within yourself. You feel beautiful inside-out.
This feeling is not far away. Just hang in there. Don’t give up.
A glimpse it was supposed to be – a mere reflex of an action, that the eye beholds, when it comes across another form.
A glimpse that turned into a thousand heartbeats, leaving me smitten after a very long time, as though I came across a magical being.
Eyes so dark, if I had another glance, I’d surely discover the universe. An aura so, so bold, strong and mystical, as though he were sent from paradise.
A glimpse that turned into a frozen moment leaving me asking for yet another glance.
‘That one’s a bit of an asshole.’ A guy at the back said to me as my friend and I lined up to pet the big fat fluffy cat sitting on the boundary of the grassy area in front of us.
It had been a nice evening, Mohil and I met after about 2 weeks. It was not like our usual evening plan where we have an impromptu meet, walk around Hiranandani, catch up on what’s been going in life. Saturday was about that too, except that we did it in style. We did ‘Cafe hopping’ from Starbucks to Aromas and had the plentiest of deep conversations about life, career, finances, etc etc.
The last time we went to our local Starbucks together along with another one of our bffs Smruthi, who recently got married, it was 2014; a few days before Mohil took off for UK to resume her graduation courses.
‘How bad could ‘asshole’ even mean?’ I thought to myself. Before you judge me on my interpretation of Cats-being-Assholes metrics, let me put across that I am not one of those people who grew up around cats and could recognize cat behaviors and stuff like that so I just assumed that Fluffy probably didn’t want to be affectionate enough that time. I have come across him before and petted him before and he’s been fine.
So let’s see what this is about. I went closer to him and sat down, resting my left knee on the ground and slowly petted its head. This is how he looks BTW:
Fluffy cat
So cute right? All Fluffed up and black and white and soo chubby. I went on petting it for about 8 seconds, 8 seconds of Fluffy nicely enjoying the petting until suddenly it snapped on my hands and gave me multiple scratches on the back of my hands đ
‘Asshole’ meant that.
I was taken aback and I deeply felt the transition of my state of mind from happy to shocked that happened within a span of a few seconds.
‘How bad is it?’ Mohil asked me. ‘Just a scratch, bleeding slightly.’ I said.
‘He scratched me too.’ said the guy who had initially warned me about Fluffy.
‘Don’t worry about it, its just a scratch. To be on the safer side, just get yourself a Tetanus shot.’ He said.
We left quite amusingly shocked at whatever we had just witnessed, especially me – in my case I felt like I got scarred for life. I’m not sure if I’ll be ready to pet cats again any time soon! xD
Also, this incident made me realize some facts on a deeper level. Fluffy clearly was not at its best today. He was eccentric today, probably tired of all the people passing by and petting him and leaving him once they’d have enough of it.
That day, Fluff set a boundary. He thought that the best possible way to stop this was to scare humans so they don’t repeat it any time soon. Fluffy snapped, I got scarred. Fluffy may have forgotten whatever he did shortly after that incident. But I’ll most likely carry this scar (not only on my hands) but also on my heart for quite some time.
I used to not be able to comprehend the impact on people when they’d say things like ‘I am scared of cats/dogs/ because of some frightening experience that may have happened with them as kids. But now I know, this shit is as real as it can get.
Also made me wonder, how some times we do things like what Fluffy did. When we don’t like the way somebody behaves or talks, in order to make them remember the consequences of their actions, we attack people with our words, hurtfully, in a harsh manner so it affects them in a way that resists them from acting in that manner.
Could Fluffy talk to me nicely to stop petting him otherwise? No he couldn’t. But if he could and if he did, could we have avoided this consequence ? Yes.
You send me a âGnâ on Whatsapp. I donât blame you, I deserve a âGnâ especially after I broke your dreams. What were these dreams anyway? Werenât they fuelled with the memories we shared at the starting few years of our relationship? Is it fair to let memories drive the future?
Certainly it wasnât just the past that kept us dreaming. We also saw a future together but where were we in the present? Hey – I am the bad guy they write about so you may think that I donât deserve a story, but I do; of course this involves you getting hurt more than me, but I have also hurt myself and dimmed my inner self to make the future happen because I believed in the future with you.
Sometimes I do think about you then I shake my head and try to stop thinking about you. It works mostly, I have always felt that I would deal with pain strongly; almost ignore it at times but often I forget that I have been victorious only temporarily and that some time down the lane, Iâm going to pass through the places we visited on our dates and listen to the songs you recommended to me, and regret breaking our dreams.
Then Iâd probably find out through social media about how you are doing and check out your happier pictures and realise that us separating was the right thing to do even when it felt like it was the wrong thing to do in the present.
Did I break our dreams? No, I think I woke you up from what you thought was a dream but it was just a nightmare dressed as a daydream.
I hear the loud banging against the bed, our maid Malti and my beloved husbandâs laughs while I sleep in the next room, while he thinks I am sleeping.
He enters our room, and falls to our bed, falling asleep in a very short while.
I gather myself, from the shock that I cannot afford to express to anyone, not even to myself. I breathe carefully, trying not to let him know that I cried.
Our landlord brought Malti to our home, 2 days back as my husband thought I needed a maid. She was a Vidwa, a Widow, whose husband died and she was rescued by our landlord to protect her from the Sati pratha. She was beautiful with very long hair, I wondered why they didnât cut her hair since
That is what they do with widows, cut their hair so theyâre âfar less prettyâ enough to be safe. They believe a womanâs beauty lies in her hair, the bigger it is, the prettier she is. I always felt it was in their eyes, that say a lot about women.
I wait patiently for the morning, so I can confront Malti about what happened earlier.
I wake up early the coming day to finish up all my house chores, my Husband, wakes up at his leisure and finds his way out to the Verandah, to read the paper.
I enter Maltiâs room, she is dressed in her regular Crimson red sari covering her head, the dressing she is expected to adopt after becoming a widow.
With all my anger and frustration I hold her hand and drag her out of the room, slap her. âHow dare you get close to my husband?â âDidi, I swear, nothing happened between us, I did not even touch him.â I slap her again and drag her towards the entrance. âGet out and never show your face to me.â âWhat happened Dear, why are you hitting her?â my Husband asks, I look down and take a deep breath, âShe stole my money. I cannot let her stay in this house.â My husband smiles, âAlright.â He says and goes back inside. Malti leaves, and I sit on the swing, breathing heavily, enclosing my emotions, a little proud of myself about how I solved the âproblemâ . . Adapted from a scene from a very beautiful Movie ‘Tumbbad’.Â
It was that time of the month when our bank account makes us hopeful. Salary day. I would rush to my favourite restaurants and treat myself with my favpurite dishes. I used to visit these places with my friends too and enjoy but going on a date with yourself is also one of the best things you can treat yourself with, particularly when it is pehli Tareekh, or paachvi Tareekh for most people.
It was February, last year when I went on one such date to a local Dominos pizzeria to treat myself on salary day. So I went to this place and I ordered my regular Margherita pizza and I searched for a place to sit but couldn’t find any. I came across one seating area where only 1 girl, who looked almost about my age was sitting. I asked her if I could join her table, to which she said ‘Sure’. For the longest time until we waited for the counters to display our magic order numbers we didn’t speak at all. Which is normal actually, I am not a big fan of talking to strangers but somehow this time I felt that maybe we could basic talk. Making friends used to be easier before right? When we didn’t have phones and were left to make new friends for real and ask them the 4 magic words that sometimes formed the foundation of our friendships. ‘Tera Naam kya hai?’ (What’s your name?) sounds funny now right? But that sincerely used to be the golden ice breaker sentence until we slightly grew up. At one point the silence got so awkward I just finally broke the ice & asked her, ‘What have you ordered?’ & then began our conversation, We spoke about things, we had a real conversation & we even shared our pizzas. It was during the time when sharing was considered safe, it was 2019, that year was awesome.
Her office was close to my place & my office was in the area she lived in, which was quite far away, it was a nice coincidence. We missed exchanging numbers but it didn’t matter as this was a usual go to place for both of us & we could catch up some other time coincidently but after a few months Domino’s unexpectedly got shut down and I could not even eat that #onelastpizza in the place I grew up eating pizzas in.
Nevertheless, occasional self dates do give you good experiences. Sometimes you learn, sometimes you make new friends
I am one of those 9 million Indians who fight in Wars everyday. Yes I do, let me tell you one of my many war stories.
I stand with my fellow army, ready to fight and claim what isn’t mine, tighten my fierce hands to protect my precious belongings, hands ready to push and battle my aggressive enemy.
Our nemesis arrives. I judge from the distance through the lot to see if there’s an old lady or little kid participating in the fight, and I mentally strategise the orientation of my defense and agression around them in order to protect them.
And they’re here. Struggling to move out of our way, for their survival. A lady loses a little strength and falls prey to the over zealous army of attackers and almost falls midway, only to be pushed around without any help from the ruthless. Another lady who forgot to drape her scarf appropriately for this very occasion was then on the verge of getting strangled because of it but nobody cares to save her life, for they care about what lies beyond it. I help her out to pull the scarf away. She survives, I sigh in relief; now focusing on my goal. Achieve what lies beyond their lives.
I’m almost there. At this point I’m fighting it out with the army that was on my side. I witness a few of us get through to the goal whilst I search for it desparately. And there it is. I rest myself against it. Comfort worth every hardship.
.
âNext station, Parel.â The lady on the local train speaker announces.
He had looked away when I caught him staring. Thatâs what most of them do. But I would have not appreciated this if it was somebody else. But it was him. Him, who was cute, charming and talkative, never had I seen him aloof or in a lonely mood. He was the one who could make a boring person talk like crazy.
We werenât best of friends to describe him in this way, but I was just a keen observer. I honestly never felt any kind of attraction towards him; he was just some chirpy cute guy who gave good company, to everyone actually.
However, somehow I just cherished the fact that I had caught him staring at me.
But then he had looked at her too. I couldnât help but observe how differently he behaved with each of his colleagues and yet kept conversations interesting.
With her, he was calm; he didnât always tease her but always found ways to be around her. And she wasnât as shy and sweet as she used to be around him. But was it not always about her?
She had the most amazing features on her face and most women in the office were envious of the curves on her body.
She was in my high school for a year. We were close then too; but most of my high school memories I have of her comprise mainly of my crushes trying to hit on her. 8 years later, it was happening all over again. The only difference was that I wasnât exactly crushing on the guy who liked her.
But I wanted him, I wanted him to like me and behave with me the way he behaved around her. Why could it never be me whom guys she liked flirted with? Where was Karma then? Why could I never be âthatâ girl?
I had spent days stressing over this, trying to make him like me; but I never could. That was not what my heart wanted any way, but it just was something that I could never get that made me want it all the more. Havenât we all been there?
Itâs difficult to make peace with such situations, especially if youâre not that girl. I realized then that I could never be that girl. And for once, I was glad that I wasnât. Trying to be that girl is annoying and frustrating, isnât it? I learnt to let go of unwanted desires and letting go felt peaceful.
Her and him â theyâre engaged now. All memories of me trying to be something I was not and failing and the pleasant feeling of letting go; came to my mind when I got an invitation for their wedding. Ironically, my friend asked me to be the Maid of Honour at her wedding and I couldnât be happier about it!
Now when I think about it, Iâm proud of myself for letting go of my stubbornness, for had I kept trying to be that girl, I would never had met the Man of my dreams, the kind of man who doesnât even like the idea of that girl.
Of Lilies And Marshmallow 