Thursday 26 February 2015

Simultaneity and the beauty of imperfection.

She took her t-shirt off
The color of her bra clasps
colored the room grey
I moved my eyes away

He took his slippers off
lay on his subtle paunch
got lost in the darkness
between himself and the bed

A long slender back 
rested on a dreamy waist
the valleys of the body and
the non-existent curves of chest

some traces of hair on his arm
brushed against mine while walking
nicotine, nicotine, caffeine, nicotine
scratches from the bed bugs last night

this poetry is going nowhere
getting entangled in the imagery
of those two people i met
who could never be mine

I imagine them in my existence
Playing with their toes, 
to be near the hills,
In the rains.

I, I want to play with their toes
Make love to them as we sleep
on a hammock, under the warm sun
just after the heavy downpour

creating rainbows without touching 
feeling the love without seeing
erasing the grey-ness around us
omitting the labels that surround us

My two friends. 









Tuesday 24 February 2015

He said, She said

She said, "I will do it again."
He said, "It's pointless. It doesn't exist."

She said, "You should try believing in us. For once."
He said, "There is no us."

She said, "I will not fall for you."
He said, "You will get over it soon."

She said, "I like the lights dim."
He said, "Then how will I see the depths of your skin?"

She said, "Let me love you."
He said, "There you go. Again the same mistake."

She said, "Let me hug you. Let me wrap myself around you from behind. For a while."
He said, "You are clinging onto me again."

She said, "It makes me happy."
He said, "Get out of movies,
there is no happy ending in life."

She said, "I know better. I just need mine.
Not ours."
He said, "Don't drag me in your life."

She said, "Don't enter mine."
He said, "People change."

She said, "I have never met a coward like you before."
He said, "You killed the romance."

She said, "There was romance even in the way
the red colored bus arrived at the bus stand today.
Falling leaves took the attention away from the annoying
heat as the driver pressed the break and put the vehicle to a halt.
Time stood still.
The leaves fell happily in the invisible arms of the tar road.
I never felt that with you.
What do you know about romance anyway."


Sunday 8 February 2015

Don't forget how to Human.

PART ONE

don't do anything stupid.  just don't.
That's all I can hear my mind say to myself in my friend's (bhagwat's) voice every time I see an ex's unwanted, pity filled message in my inbox. Or every time I see his recent pic with the guy i'm a in corrosive relation with at the moment.
I say to myself that it's the retrograde perhaps, making me go through such emotions. But Swaroopa and Pragya made realize how i am falling in the same circle again. I have been watching two-three films daily to shrug that thought off from my mind.

On the morning of 26th january, I had just returned from breakfast. And I was going through a few posts on fb. I had still not switched off my fairy lights on the desk. The sun was bright but thanks to the suffocating room i have been put into, there wasn't a need to shut them off. I was sleep deprived and had to see off Piyali Aunty that afternoon. Suddenly a message showed up in my inbox, by a person who himself deleted me from his friend list, for his own spiritual reasons, said the most hurtful things to me one day post my birthday and consequently ruined my relations with people who meant a lot to me. Well, I don't care about his side of the story because mine never mattered.

this was the message:
hi shubhanshi
I recently attended a vipasana course
I feel it might be of help to you. 
Check it out if you want to whenever you can. 
The main center is in Igatpuri.
(the site address)
all the best

No need to reply. 


now later that night when I was over the trauma of going through this message, Mehul texted me saying 'usse bolo aap vipasana apne andar lelo'. 
I like it when your friends make issues like these feel trivial. And insignificant. Infact that day itself was quite an opener to me. 
I immediately read the message. for some reason went into a frenzy. Called Swaroopa. And cried. I had not cried for this entire time about this particular man. Either friends or my own self took care of me. Not to forget the cold waters of the swimming pool. But that morning I cried. I had not slept the entire night. I was writing my BA assignments. 6-7 hours at a stretch. If I got bored from one subject I switched to another and started finding the answers. I realized how fucked up the European History is. I felt how amazing drama is. I realized I have still two more subjects left to write and finish off. 

Swaroopa stated the obvious saying that he is a chut. Of course, the female genitalia is a LOT better than a fucked up confused horrible being who calls himself a human. And that I could come over to her house anytime and just vent myself out. Now that's one thing understandable. Staying in that dinghy room of my hostel wouldn't help me make myself feel better about anything. I had to meet Rudy and his mom at the station anyway. So I just packed everything and left for the night. Took a bus, reached the station and said bye to Piyali. She showered way to much love on me that day. I think if there is really any thing that matters to me is the love of my elders. Hope I never stop counting their blessings. I just fail to recognize the same from my own set of elders. 

I had a small chat with Rudy and took another bus to Kothrud. I swear those 2 bus rides were important to me. 
I felt good when Rudy told me how much his mom adores me. And the fact that I took time out to show her around camp, or help her buy books from the raddi shop and the sarees from the store. 
I think there isn't any greater gift than investing your time into someone you care for. My efforts seldom go unnoticed and mostly seen as obsessions. Hence it's a breather when I am acknowledged for my unconditional love to those who matter. 

By the time it was night. I was in a much better frame of mind. And I was amazed how I hadn't done anything stupid so far. Hadn't sent a stupid bitter cuss filled letter to a friend, had not slapped that bitch, who well of course, is a bitch. Did not tell loks about it and went mad on not seeing his reply on the matter.  I had just been into a retrospective mode all day long. throughout those journeys. From questioning myself as to why he sent me that message to what was the need to even mention 'no need to reply' in the end. It is all over. Why the fake concern. Nikki doesn't talk to me anymore. Why the fake concern. I did a pretty good job of picking myself up in the past few months, got my heartbroken twice and still I am alive like everyone else. And living happily too. I had deleted all our conversations. Blocked him to spare him the need to even write ' no need to reply' from that moment onwards. Fb is seriously a life complicator. 

Then I remembered one thing. And it changed my entire perspective about the life I lived with him so far. I was proud of that man. I am proud of him. 

I had a history in stammering as a kid. i somehow recovered with regular practice.
it was directly related to my ability of maintaining confidence in unexpected situations.
what followed was only moments of blank-outs in which not just speak abut i could not even process anything. And such phases used to take place for 30 seconds to1:30 minutes.
but It was never a problem
In my second sem i met 'him'. And i was blown away by is ability to speak publicly so well with a stutter. I think i fell for that. That was the pure reason i fell for him.
I fell for his disability which he could wear it on his sleeve so easily. Only i dint know that it wasn't really easy for him. After an year when i confessed my liking for him, he was taken aback.
We started spending more time together and it was like, if he had to say something and used to get stuck, i used to finish his sentences. Im sure he never noticed that though. I knew what his next word is going to be. Then another dark period came in which i started to know about his deepest fears and insecurities and slowly without realizing, his fears and all those insecurities, started to rub off on me.
I became more dependent on him. My moments of blank-outs returned.
The more intimate time i started to spend with him, the more i zoned out.
The more i started writing and stopped speaking in public.
I used to be silent when he used to be around. And the moment he used to be back in his room i used to flood him with my messages. I started hanging on to written words and clang to literature.  That started to frustrate him as well. He even told me once that he stutters with words, but if I continue doing this to myself, I will stutter my entire life with my thoughts.
Then i told him about my history,it was like a mental stutter i was going through in which i could not articulate nor process anything. And then we started to research on it together. Whatever new book or article he used to come across, he used to share that with me.
Those six hats and what not. I still have those pdfs man.
He used make me sit right next to him in the lab and make me read from page so and so to page so and so. He told me about how he has to join these couple of meditation practices to work on stutter and other therapies in bangalore. But he could not as that would mean missing out on college
He said he wont be able to work in the industry if he hasn't cured his stammer, as no one wants a stutterer on sets. And then one day he just told me that he is leaving college. In fact that too I predicted right at his face when he was about to tell me about it. And then he just left. We still remained in touch and his stammering increase. We were physically close than ever. Then whatever the shit happened next year. He started to do random photography jobs. Whatever the shit happened last year in 2014 and eventually we stopped talking.
he had come to college this year in Jan for a friend's shoot. He behaved very unprofessionally with me. it was so bad that i had to withdraw myself out from the shoot. I wasn't doing anything major anyway. Plus i had to work on my own edit Then post the shoot, he vanished for this course apparently. In which for ten days people dont speak and practice intense discipline.  
I was proud of him .
i just couldn't figure out why i was really doing it.
all this while in the bus
when its the only time i can think freely.
I realized, that power of love is always greater and much more bigger than the power of hatred. 
I have a feeling u won't agree with me. But then that is your take.
I could recover from him dumping me because I truly loved him.
The line which says, that u have to learn to let go the person u love, made sense to me at that very moment.
I don't even need to brag the same to hundred people here
even if he sent me the message for showing off, that's his level of maturity. And that's sad.
I would have still been proud of him hadn't he told me about it. And requested me not to reply.
If tomorrow he actually recovers from his problems, i will still be happy about it.
After blocking him he must have felt that i hate him or whatever, obviously i do.
But i love him beyond that.
I gave him whatever he wanted me to, and I always gave what I want to. All these months, i never tried to contact him. I practiced moving on.
I just know for sure now that he has no place in my life and neither do I have in his.
We were like mirrors and if you keep two mirrors in front of each other, there is only chaos.

Closures are not for real, but I am sure it was his way of doing it.

Bhagwat's Bday gift. 
Piyali's Byloom gift to me. 



PART TWO.

The same weekend. I met Kanu Bhagwat. A confident n cheery positive vibe wala person ( I always end up befriending the likes of those) who has some real good shit planned up for the future. 
We spoke about films and business and all things young. And of course, love. 
She mentioned no matter how many times we fail in love, it surely does end up building our character. Only if we let it happen to us. That horrible relationship you came out of? You must have learnt something from it. Even if it means that you were stupidly in love and made chai everyday for a person who you were mad crazy for, at least you perfected the art of making that cup of tea for that person. The prize is in subtracting the bitterness and see to it that you have one bonus life skill to yourself. If I can confidently take friends out to the city and make them and their parents enjoy the hidden gems of Pune today which is still alien to me, Is because of that douche bag who messaged me after so long and asked me not to reply to him. Our walks and rides through the streets haven't really gone to waste. They continue to still live in my experience of expertise in loving someone. Be it a person or a place or a feeling. 

Now I need to stop at this point. As I am in the middle of yet another phase, yet another corrosive and emotionally vicious cycle of happenings where I cannot decide whether to completely lay off from the situation or just go with the flow. 
And that is something which is not making me feel very happy. I had a resolution this year to just be selfish and stay happy. And as it is already Feb and the point where most of us break our resolutions, I see mine going down the mula-mutha river too. 
So maybe some other time and day of a different point in my life, I would like to complete this post. Hope I reach a decision. As I had told Pa last night, that there is no good or bad decision, but the lack of one is what creates the fuss.