The Walk

The wind was blowing a hurricane, driving through the sky big, black, heavy clouds from which the rain poured down on the earth with terrific violence. She was drenched and loving it. She was one with nature… a victim of its tyranny, a messiah of her own fate in her own right this fateful night… Tonight she was going to be one with her first and only love, in this perfect setting…welcoming nature at its fearsome best.  

Such a beast, she thought as she smiled shyly. There was something off about her, she knew. There must be a medical term for it. Insanity? Delusion? What was it exactly? Why did she care? Not tonight. Tonight was hers. The one night she did what she really wanted to do sans worldly appropriate blame.

She was lightheaded. Moonshine reflected from the cut glass filled with beautiful honey colored whiskey in her left hand. Pristine beach, a lonesome night, the voice in her head was clear and crisp, telling her what to do next. Tonight was hers. Sans Guilt.

It wasn’t easy. Her family, her friends… what would they say? Life moves on, but could she add to the difficulty of already difficult lives? She would not allow herself to think. Not tonight. Tonight she loved only one man… cared only for him… As her parched mouth drank in the whiskey, her eyes drank him in…unmatched; he stood just beyond the waters, beckoning her. Five years, she had denied herself the pleasure. Not tonight. Tonight was theirs…

The rain poured, just like that first time. She was drenched. Nature thundered. The sea waves gurgled. Her heart thumped in her ears. And she walked… one step in front of the other. She walked towards him, just as he had always wanted. Going to him, of own free will.

At the first touch of icy waters, she faltered. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t real. Just a mirage. But such a beautiful mirage. She should go back. But to what? And why? A happy content life awaited her… but the mysticism tonight refused to be ignored… Courage… Courage, if only for tonight. And it’ll all be over. With the last drop of honey-warm liquid, the voice got stronger. This was it. No guilt. No more pain. No more compromise.

She ambled into the sea to him. The rain was her only witness. It was appropriate that it ended the way it had begun. Finally, she walked towards what she really wanted. Finally, she had had the courage. One step in front of the other. She silently prayed for her loved ones. Give them peace. She walked deeper into the sea and deeper into him. Finally in his arms. Happy. Safe.

She walked till she could never walk again.

On being Pseudosane

Just like spotting a falling star on a cloudy night, she cherishes the fleeting moment of sweet agony that comes from a suppressed memory. Amongst distractions and chores, fun and laughter she conjures up a dream, a fallacy that is real only to her, invisible to all other. She knows she is half mad, and this knowledge brings her peace… for she believes that only in this madness can she be truly sane.

As she walks along a deserted beach that she once saw in a dream, with white sand caressing her feet and the cool breeze tangling her hair, she feels his hand in hers and she smiles. She won’t look at him, because she knows he is not real… only a mirage, a character from her past, a figment of imagination. She doesn’t want to accept that crass truth right now. She smiles because if anyone knew who she spent her nights with; they would throw her in the loony bin… not that it mattered too much, she felt caged most of the time, anyway.

Her ability to run away from reality was her greatest forte. In the middle of a traffic jam, she would be on floating mountains hugging giant pandas who loved having her around. Sitting alone, she’d be having a life changing experience in her parallel life, one only she could see, furthermore-only as an outsider, and yet she could savor the emotions in real-time.

And because she was so caught up in that parallel life, she had almost always missed living the present life well. The chances that she had passed by return to haunt her. Even though she tried to recreate that magic now and then, she failed miserably each and every time. She doesn’t give up though. She has faith in charms and madness. Just like spotting a falling star on a cloudy night, she cherishes the fleeting moment of sweet agony that comes from longing… longing for something different, something grander, and something exciting. She glorifies the peace that comes from the bittersweet knowledge that her madness is her sanity, and that she’ll never be understood.

Pseudo-sane is what she believes herself to be. Pseudo-sane in a pseudo life that she is forced to lead.

Let’s Play!

 

Sacrosanct, our values

Sinful, our thoughts

Where the good stood to loose

The fight with desire that it fought

 

Where I’m not as innocent as you thought I’d be

Where you are every bit of the suspected liar

Come, let’s play.

Let’s play with fire…

 

Decent, our appearances

Dubious, our acts

My head endlessly calculates its next move

For your well-rehearsed, irresistible act

 

Where I’m not as indifferent as you’d suspect

Where you are the only one… of who I don’t tire

Come, let’s play.

Let’s play with fire…

 

 

 

 

The Happiness Charter

When I was an adolescent, I had a tough time coping with any kind of change. “Go with the flow”, people told me. “Just go with the flow!” But, how could I? I was a swimmer and a strong one at that. It wasn’t in my nature to just flow along. I was a rock rooted deep on the river bed. The current that I was supposed to be swept away with had merely managed to erode me a bit, but I had not been swept away, nor had I been able to go with the flow. So I stood where I always had… strong, tall and none-the-wiser for the experience.

I mused on the various ways to lift one step in front of the other and move forward. Till now, I had never gone to anyone to make me whole and inadequately few had come to me. Like a wayward sparrow, or an albatross who perches upon a peak to greet a short hello to the immovable rocks. Yet, should the stony mass miss the birds, it could never go to them and could do no more than wait for another visit, if at all. It had to be contended within its own gray mass. 

I suspect that I hadn’t been properly socialized in the ways of the world. I wasn’t what I call, ‘people-broken.’ When too much time passes, you realize certain very visible flaws in you. These are flaws that are etched on to you, and can’t be removed… flaws that only become deeper rooted in time. You cease to blame the people around you for not caring enough, because… face it: you never cared enough, either. Subtly and without my knowledge, my definition of what could make me happy changed. I had changed. Had I gone with the flow?

Then came the days of contentment, when everything was in order and there were no loose ends. Logically, I knew I should be happy. And yet there was restlessness… restlessness, which had become more of a habit rather than an effect of some wayward cause. I couldn’t really account for the edginess. I didn’t understand it, either. All I knew is that it was there, omnipresent and omnipotent. Try as I may to shake it off or to find some justification for the anxiety, I failed.  

At the dawn of another year, I still hadn’t found the key to happiness. Maybe, I was just not smart enough to grasp what may be simple logic. Maybe I never would attain the state of ‘enlightenment’… never enough to acknowledge, classify and clean out the cob webs in my head… the busy spiders only surfacing when I sat down to write, their scrawny legs somehow creating clarity and some sense on paper, amongst blotchy ink marks. Futile thoughts still loitered in my head, like they always had and lingering questions still persisted… questions as clichéd as “What is the meaning of life”, “Do I have a higher purpose”, “What is my true calling?”& “Was it too late?”  

Today, right now…I acknowledge that I wasn’t made to live life day to day, in mundane activities and pointless chores. It isn’t fair to the life you’ve been given to not live it well. I believe I was made to lead a happy life and anything that comes in the way of that must be discarded or destroyed.  The entire exercise of discarding and destroying however, needs to be an exercise of great caution, for even if you are a believer of the theory of perpetuation of energy (matter can neither be created nor destroyed), what is once destroyed never comes back in the form it once was… And if it is true, (like I suspect it is) that a perpetual happy state can’t be attained, my current theory of attainment of happiness relies on change and experimentation. 

Try everything at least twice. Don’t go with the flow; create the reality that makes you happy. Let happiness be a floating concept. Let change be your best friend. Give people a million chances for everything except unkindness. Don’t take anything too seriously. A happy life is most likely a well lived life and a well lived life most likely comes from not shying away from anything, even at the risk of embarrassment, failure or death. I’m searching for the canvas fate has handed me so that I can draw my storyline frame for frame. Happiness is an art; it is an acquired taste; it is an exclusive state of mind; it is all they say “all-in-the-head.” If to be truly happy, the prerequisite was irrationality, I know today, without a doubt that I would embrace irrationality.

I have a happiness charter for life. Let’s hope it is a success.     

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it! Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman