Innocence is alive!

I was on my way to work today morning standing in the local in my characteristic, music in ears, book in hands pose, oblivious to the world around me. Then two little school girls got on, about 5-6 years old, probably hailing from the slums. I was oblivious to their presence too. I got a phone call and one of the girls turned to look at me, and during the course of the call, I noticed that this little girl kept staring at me watching my lips move in fluent English and then looking me over in my corporate formals. I was little peeved because I hate eyes on me. Anyway, so I ended the call and returned to my book, but I kept feeling her unblinking stare still on me. Then finally, I decided to do what I generally do to make people stop staring, stare right back into their eyes, challenging them. So I raised my head, put on my sternest face and stared the little girl back in the eye. And then, she did the most unexpected thing. Instead of looking away embarrassed, like most people do, she broke into the most innocent, most endearing, unguarded smiles I’ve seen, and I melted. In return I smiled back, but it wasn’t half as pure and uninhibited. She brightened up my morning, that sweet little thing. God bless her.

It got me thinking, why are we always so on the defensive, why did I mistake the completely naïve inquisitive, admiring gaze of a little girl to be malicious? Why do we always think the world is out to harm us? The sad thing is, somewhere along the way, that girl will also lose that beautiful innocent, full smile and become an untrusting old soul like me.

To whomsoever it may concern

I will run away one of these days, and I will appreciate it, if you didn’t pursue me. Let me be for a while. Let me find me. I cannot find myself; think for myself, if I am constantly thinking about you. I am not running away from you, I’m not running to somebody. I just want to find myself. I would like to say ‘again’, but I don’t think I ever did find myself. Not in 24 years. How long can I go without knowing the one person of crucial importance to me? My fear is that, I’m already giving up the quest of finding myself. I know that once I do find myself, I’ll find everything else. I’ll put a rest to this constant restlessness, vengefulness, disquiet and unhappiness. I have everything I need for a happy life and yet I am so agonizingly unhappy. I am bitter, unjust and selfish. And I am achingly aware of these facts. I am so tired of looking away and pushing it to the back of my mind.

My soul is like a little child seeking attention from a parent, but the parent just never seems to find the time. It’s so wrong. My conscience is appealing to me time and again for some time, just some time alone. It is not too much to ask. But I just don’t have it. I don’t have time to spare for my core being. It’s the saddest thing. How can you go on when your core, your roots, your soul is dying? Nothing that comes out of such a being can ever be right. The basics, the foundation, it has to be strong and not shaky. I have to find myself. I have to know what I want. I feel so unhinged. I am tired of being a drifting leaf, detached from my tree. I feel like an orphan. I have to find my roots, my parents. How can I do that if no one just lets me be? I hate it when I step into a room and eyes turn to me. God damn it, DON’T LOOK AT ME. I just want scream into their faces “WHAT? WHAT’S THERE TO STARE ABOUT??” Why can’t I just be invisible? The attention, I hate it! It messes with my personal space, my personal sense of quiet.

And so, I’m going to run away one of these days. I will return, I swear. You might not want me then. But, I do hope you would understand someday. I might lose you, but I might find myself. For if I don’t find myself, I’ll have neither me nor you.

Relationship Mantra

No man can destroy me, no matter how madly I love him

No ex-girlfriend’s ghost will haunt me, no matter how insecure I am

No boy nor girl is worth my precious tears

No angel nor devil is worth my sleepless nights

I, a wonder of the world, God’s own creation

I, a miracle of two incredible humans to walk this Earth

I, a joyful, lovely, enigmatic flower child

I am above jealousy and pettiness

I will not cry for that which is not mine, or for that which is

For that which is not mine, I cannot trap, and that which is, I cannot lose

And whatever/whoever stays or leaves, it will be my destiny

And I’ll still be here, shrugging, accepting, and not crying

Pink, yellow and blue

I saw bubbles floating in the air

So pretty and dainty, they bounced about with flair

Out came a fairy when I burst one of them

Said it is lovely on the outside, inside it is prison ..

There's the optimist, there's the pessimist, and then there's the third kind

11.49 on the clock. I got work to do. The boring research report on the real estate sector in Mumbai stares up at me. I read a few pages. Needs work. Definitely needs work. Mind wanders. What does the future hold? All this hardwork, what for? A year-end appraisal with a cost of living increase?

The noisy fan, the ticking clock, the heavy breathing, they all seem to be drawing life to a close. My life to a long drawn out close. Drawn out over 50-60 years. Dying every second of every minute of every day. Happy birthday to you they say. I say happy one year closer to death.

Why all the struggle? To hit the base of the coffin at the end? Or rather, in my case, to be buried in logs and go up in flames? My train passes a crematorium every day. On most days, its empty and quiet. On those days, it leaves me sad, heart wrenchingly so. On some days, there's a fire burning. Even though I can’t see it, I can tell from the rising smoke. On those days, I'm filled with a sense of peace, eerily so. As I watch the wafting smoke, I pray for the spirit rising with it.

I want to do that. I want to rise up in fumes and kiss the skies, liberated from all this sorrow, all these desires, all these bondages. It seems so tempting. But I’m crazy, not stupid. I can wait 50 years. And when my time comes, I will happily lay down on the logs like I happily lay down on my bed at the end of every tiring day. I’ll happily pull the kafan upto my chin, the way I wrap myself in my warm blanket. I’ll look forward to them (whoever) giving me fire on a cold chilly morning. It’ll be one of those rare mornings when I’ll be allowed to sleep in late, really late. I’ll look forward to a night of dreams, like I do every night, hoping I’ll see dad tonight. This time, not just in a dream. This time he won’t dissolve into molecules when I touch him.

So every morning when some optimistic loser wakes up and French kisses the morning and announces to the world that it’s a new day and a new start and crap like that, I will rise out of bed, kicked about being one day closer to my ultimate freedom.

I'm like a bird .......

Every night

And when I turn out the lights,
Quietly I spy from the shadows
Lives inside those brightly lit windows
Happy families, complete families.

I draw my curtains
To hide my own incompleteness
To keep the spying eyes from the bright windows
From peering into my dark ugliness ..

The time they told me the truth about Santa Claus

Growing up – it’s that phase of life that you never fully understand until it happens to you. It is something that was quite alien to me as recent as a year ago. It’s funny how things change so rapidly in the span of 12 months. I don’t even recall when it started. All I know is that I am 23 and that I am growing up and that I truly and completely hate it with the fire of a thousand suns (that’s a stolen quote and I know it). Growing up has so many definitions in so many contexts. But to me, growing up is none of those things that are defined by others. Growing up is a very personal experience/stage in one’s life, different to each one of us in terms of the period, the emotions, the experience, etc. You can be 40 and never have grown up and you could also be 17 and be growing up. And until and unless you admit it yourself that you are infact ‘growing up’, I believe nobody else can determine it for you. You can’t wait for it; you will never know when it is coming. It just arrives without warning and when it does arrive, you know it.

Growing up to me isn’t passing out of school, or growing a beard or consuming alcohol or starting to date, etc as popular belief goes. Growing up to me is wondering if I’m too old for that kitten T shirt. Growing up is for the first time worrying how that butterfly tattoo on the back will look in a sari. Growing up is watching your best friend get engaged and wondering if you’ve missed the bus. Growing up is for the very first time wondering if being a rebel without a cause is a stupid thing after all. Growing up is watching a cousin you’ve grown up with, get married and move overseas and wondering to yourself if you wasted all those years being self involved instead of spending it together. Growing up is watching people pursue what they believe in and wondering, whatever happened to my beliefs?

Growing up is wondering if you should’ve been more involved in sports when you had the chance. Growing up is rethinking the choices you’ve made. When you are young, you just assume that mid-life/old age will never happen to you and you make all sorts of rash decisions at the spur of the moment, completely ignoring its long-term repercussions. Growing up is that stage in your life when you have no one but yourself to blame for not grabbing life by the throat when you could. It’s when you realise that life is not kind. Infact, she is one hell of a b***h, robbing you of your youth and zest every minute that you weren’t paying attention. And those minutes amount to a few billion.

Sometimes growing up is also supported by certain external elements, for eg, my family keeps screaming into my ears night and day to stop acting like a child and ‘grow up’. Your face starts reflecting hints of maturity and age and you wonder where your innocence went. Well, the b****h killed her too, in one of those few billion moments. You pile on 2 kgs and find it just impossible to lose. Stomach crunches give you back ache and you hear mum snigger and say, “Chinnu, your bones are not so young anymore, better take more calcium”. So you do what you never did in 23 years of your life, become nutrition conscious.

Growing up is when you have 3 day weekends and no particular plans. Growing up is when friends are not just a phone call away because they are working shifts or overseas or married. Growing up is not finding the butterfly pendant in the Airtel ad cute that your 18 year old cousin does. Growing up is thinking ‘What the hell was I thinking buying camouflage pants’. Growing up is disposing off even your favourite clothes because you finally accept that you will never be thin enough to fit into it. Growing up is when full volume on your headphones hurt your ears. Growing up is accepting that you are not as brave and strong as the front you put up.

Growing up is checking out the incredibly cute new recruit and realizing to your disappointment that he is probably a couple of years younger to you. Growing up is when eye candy seems plain silly. Growing up is finally realizing that being nocturnal is not normal. It is realizing how important 7-8 hours of sleep is to be fully functional during an 8 hour day shift.

I spend most of my waking hours just wondering at this transformation. Standing at the crossroad of life, wondering which way to turn, wondering if I’ve missed my exit a long way back. Key word – wondering. You are just constantly wondering at this not-so-wonderful and completely sudden phase of life.

I’m sure there are plenty of good features about ‘growing up’ too. But I just can’t think of too many right now. Let’s see.

Growing up is being able to pay for that upcoming mountain biking trip J. Growing up means being able to forgive and forget all those times when you thought your heart was beyond repair. Growing up is giving your mum a hug and saying sorry for being so difficult to deal with. Growing up means valuing your family enough to avoid using the word ‘tequila’ on Facebook because it angered them the last time you did.

There’s got to be a lot more positives to growing up, and maybe I’ll jot them down as and when I find them. I also believe life will be awfully easier and smooth sailing once I learn to accept this inevitable stage as a part of life. But then the transition phase is just so difficult, feels like all the foundation of what makes me who I am has been shaken. Then again, if the foundation can be shaken so easily, it probably wasn’t so strong to begin with, huh?

It is time for introspection. It is time for acceptance. It is time to welcome maturity and bid farewell to childish innocence and watch it walk into the sunset. Life does not end here; it is merely the end of an era and the beginning of another. I’m sure the b****h has a lot more antics up her sleeve for the coming years.