To the one I miss.

For some reason you have fallen silent, for some reason you have become wordless. For some reason you have left me to the narcissistic ranting of "I", "my love", "my pain", "my joy" around me, for some reason you are on your own. Silence has become you...you have become the silence.But you wouldn't tell me why. Why would you tell a stranger?  

There are no nostalgic moments that once arrived as mystics and raptured me with their recitals, no more breeze that moved like a widow's walk, no kindred spirits over the rocklines, no love, no longing, no sorrow that pricked the me who lives underneath me. You have fallen silent now...wordless.

Why, did love fail you? Did someone fail you? Or was it the other way around in both the cases? But you wouldn't tell me. May be you have become the tenant of vacuum bubbles. May be you have found your space on those billboards where you used to lose you adventurous eyes. And now you are wordless.

Can't say when will you return but I will be waiting. Can't say if you ever will return but I will be waiting. See, there's no attachment between us, there's not even the chance of a spittle-thread that we are related but somehow your words bite into my skin and nibble away my sweet flesh.

A VERY HAPPY DIWALI TO YOU!

The Long wait.

It was raining today. Behind the glass panes of a bakery, this slender girl of 20 something waited for the rain to stop. Or was she really waiting for it stop? Sigh! Love was in the air...Gosh! That's so cliche`! 

But heck~ Love is in the air. But who is he, I don't know! How strange that I feel romantic but I don't have a face to romance with...My diary is filled with mushy confessions about faces, all the charming, young men who can steal any girl's heart but none of them close to mine the way I desired. Yes, they have made this girl clutch her pillows tight and and close her eyes tighter at nights, yes they have sometimes sprung straight out of some line of Norah Robert's novel, forcing me to underline that line again and again with my Bugs Bunny Pencil! But there's something missing in them, something that is necessary for their existence when I move beyond such fantasies. Something...that only a girl knows. She knows when she finds that missing something. But she doesn't know in what package will it come, a skewed smile, a casual wink, a touch, an embrace, a ruffling of hair, I don't know!

So my search is still on. Despite of those two heartbreaks, despite of those few guys who gave me false hopes of turning out to be the perfect one but who ended up being such jerks and gave me quite a funny, ticklish kinda sting to my heart; despite of the loneliness, of all the sobbing and sniffing with Sunshine, despite of mom's scary, now almost an accepted but yet to be proved ranting of "Iss ladki se koi ladka shaadi nain karega!", despite of all the despair, the tears, the buried pain that sometimes explodes from inside and crumbles me like a clay doll, despite of all the cynicism that the world is preaching about love, and despite I being Sneha, I am hopeful! Love will find it's way to me and I have to be ready for it! I can't afford to show him my puffed up lips, my swollen eyes, my sunken cheeks! I have to be pretty and smiling and jolly good! Sneha madam! Tere ko chudail nahin, superhit dikhna hai! Right now,  all this girl misses are two cute dimples on her cheeks! I am jealous of girls who have em!

Pain, it's inevitable. And there's no choice but to face it, to cry, to break under it, to let it coil around you and strangle you till you gasp for breath, and you have to hold yourself when you shiver. There's no escaping the suffering. The one who gets the wounds she alone suffers.  But then,  I won't let it win over me so easily, I won't. I will love and like everyone I too deserve to be loved. And someday I will have it.  I am waiting and I am happy waiting for it. I am happy doing all the calculations, the permutations, the combinations! Hell yaar!

A friend tells me, " You don't know anything about love and it's pain. How can you be so happy after you had a break up? Don't you miss him? Don't you remember the moments?" Well, Sri (Oops! I just took her name! But she doesn't know about my blog! ;-) ) I loved and my heart bled like every heart does. When it ended, i was shattered, i was broken, and oh yes I cried. But I don't know how to express it, I don't how to tell it to world how I suffered. So you would be happy if I tell you that for a week I missed my classes just because I was stoned with grief? Will my confessing that I had to take sleeping pills to sleep assure you that my love was real and not just a fling? But why should I do anything to prove anything to anyone? It was my love! I loved him and I loved him with my life. We separated, I suffered and that's it. I don't need a "Certificate of grief" to quantify my love for him! I LOVED HIM! That is all you should know. I didn't get what I deserved but I am hopeful that someday I will! :)

I am waiting for my time...AND ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOSE WHEN I WILL FIND HIM! 

 :-D

Excerpts

1:

The dug up roadside has dried too,looking like a miniature mountain range of valleys and dried rivers.The potholes have dried and the pebbles in them lay like unearthed treasures.  When the trucks ride across these holes they thud and throw dust in the air but no splashes or artworks of muddy water on tarmac roads. Rain's gone. Look how the panes collect sheets of dust, as if waiting for someone to write a name or just daub at them. And there, I have written my name, the curves so distinct before another layer would smudge them. Look how every morning the sun glows against them and each mote of dust shines like gold dust. Look how the rain left without warning.

It now fogs late at night and the streetlights release a hazy light. Every smell hangs close to the ground, every 

2:

It was quiet; kneel and you could hear the moist grass  crunch under their shifting feet. It was that quiet. The wind blew, gently drawn towards the vast empty stretches where it could go wild. That night it was as dry as a spinster's love but as gentle as a widow's walk, crisp with longing. It was warm though, as if it had escaped from under the folds of a Kashmiri Shawl. The park bench was lit by the solitary street-lamp that bent over the the bodies as it eavesdropped. It's nocturnal company, the mangy dog lay curled next to it with it's ears up in distrust for the unlikely neighbors at such an hour.

3:

But every evening, we smuggle ourselves, steal each other from under the weary eyes of the day and come to this place. For a brief moment our worlds touch each other and we shiver, as a welcome intrusion flirts with our closed lives with unfamiliar caresses.

We watch the lovers hide in their niches behind the rocks and hold a conversation with the sea- a triad symphony of unfathomable depths. We stand on the rocks and watch the tumbleweeds roll along the sandy shores, sometimes getting entangled but pushed along by the strong wind and our cheers. We exist on these rocks as anonymous, unnamed silhouettes grazed by the wind and spoken to by the waves. We watch every thing till it ignores us and the moment we feel that we are stared back, we turn our faces...we turn our faces. And when the night decides to cave in, afraid of losing our identity as shadows by the rocklines, we fade, we vanish, we break into a million wispy fragments....

4:

About a Prostitute and Beggar:

I am a beggar Rukhsana. I live close to the dust, the spit-balls, the leftovers and the licked clean leaf-bowls,the torn clothes and the split shoes. But I am fortunate that my only hunger lies below my chest and above the waist, where the insides churn and burn for a morsel. But then I see that we row the same boat, we stitch the same torn clothes. Deprived, dispensable gobbets of flesh to be used or mauled and then despised at the end. We both are paid only when we put ourselves down in our own eyes,and we have our defenses against our guilt. And one day we will die a famous death, I'll be on every pair of lips-"The man who crawled the streets died today." and so will you. But our fame will be short lived. And one night, under the same stars, the same sky and by the same alley one more of me will be asking the same questions to one more of you. We both are the indispensable and inevitable parts of our worlds...the deprived, dispensable gobbets of flesh.

That Blogger

There isn't much to life and it's intricacies. We are the ones who make it complicated. Life always poses us questions with "Yes" and "No" answers. It's we who taint it with a thousand shades, prolong the decisions and let cobwebs hang from it; we love making things difficult for ourselves. That is what I think of life. But then you seem to be a master at denying every thought of me. You have showed me that how relationships as simple as love can be filled with so many layers. You write in layers...The conversations you write have so many layers.No wonder the world, overfed with simplicity and obsessed with self , can't understand. Even I am one of them. When I read you, it all begins with jealousy, "Huh! What's so great about it! Even I can write like that!" But it's only after I close the Chrome Window that I realise that it was not about the language I should be concerned but about what were you trying to say. I shouldn't have been a critic, a reader, a fellow blogger there but a quite listener. But am I the only one like me?

Well, that's what I guess when I find no comments on your posts. May be what you write are too far fetched and only a dozen in a million would understand and relate. 

You are different from the rest. You are not like them, the ones who cry for love and do so with Cliche`s. I don't know who you are or from where you are but you are an intrigue to me. You write about women, about Prostitutes, about girls swooning with pride, about girls like me and unlike me, you write about love but then not about love. You are the only one I read who touches lust with the softness of love, who just adds a tinge of insanity to purity, like a drop of ink to a bowl of milk. That's what I think of your writing.

You write about nights, your lonely walks on the footpaths, the pariahs, children...You write about dispassionate love but only as conversations. I don't know who you are but you certainly are not one of them...

I haven't found you following anyone, you rarely comment and it's not strange that, no one comments on your posts either.  So, you are one of those "I write for myself" types. No affinity for the audience. Then why write at all? I know, no matter how many times one says that their Blogs are their personal space where they write about their personal feelings but the moment you put word to that page nothing remains personal. There's always that audience who controls your words. But you are different...

You don't wait for people to read you, you write almost everyday, sometimes twice a day and sometimes for days you just disappear. One needs to stalk you though, to keep track of what you write. You have this habit of sometimes removing the posts...

You use the most outrageous of metaphors.Most uncommon I should say. You are not like the rest who can't help write about froth when they write about sea, for whom the longing brings the word "Miss you" and whatever else they write sounds nothing more than that word ...you write about tumbleweeds rolling along the beaches, you write about whole gardens of silhouettes, you write about intoxicated men in sinful casts.

I wish I could meet you just once, I wish I could talk to you at least once. I am intimidated to even comment on your posts. You come to me as a stranger who better stay as a stranger.

"...wry notes of saxophone..."

Keep writing...for yourself. :)

Sneha

Boyce Avenue - Not Enough

The girl you thought you knew

You always knew her. You always knew her as a girl who can't pretend to be pretty and can't either to be good, she turns evil when she wishes to ;who acts brave in front of everyone but when the doors are closed she runs under her fleece blanket and hopes that she remembered to latch the doors tight. She is one of those girls who puts her chair next to the windows and flings them wide open when it rains.
But she never claims to dance in the rain though she knows the one she adores loves girls who do so. But this girl jumps puddles on the sidewalks, splashing the ones that are large and too tempting for her dry feet. And this girl is loved by an idiot like a true idiot but never wants him to confess because she knows that that would break not one but two hearts-his and hers. She can't take the guilt of breaking two hearts. You always knew this girl didn't you?

This girl used to sit on the backseat of a Bajaj scooter, clutch on to her Papa's paunch and fall asleep. This girl loved crayons and drew nothing more than mountains and suns with blue clouds her entire life. This girl never heard a lullaby but slept to her mother's hum when she did the dishes in the kitchen. Her mother still wipes the soiled dining table with her bare hands, she still tucks her saree in between her legs and wrings the wet clothes even after they are spun dry in a drier and she loves watching her do that.This girl who the world thinks, is the hippest chic in the town still sleeps in a T-Shirt and Salwar and snores the walls weak. She still thinks getting a runny nose is worse than a heart break and she uses her mom's torn sarees to cream her nose red when that happens! May be you never knew me to start with. :-)

She knows she isn't the best looking thing in the world but she has beautiful friends who make her feel like Cinderella. How can she not wear a glass sandal for them? Yeah, she is the beauty queen when she is with them! :-) To hell with the boys!

 She loves to be looked at her but not at the price of what she really is. She wants to be known by the name she has earned and not by her hair or legs or waist size!  And she wants to be loved for the girl she is and not for what she sports in her jeans and T-Shirt.

She loves her Sunshine. And Sunshine he is. She came to know of men from him and she learnt that men are not what her heart-broken sisters filled her ears with. In the entire world every woman wants to be loved by a man and she learned why.  :)

She loves to pull his serious ears, she pulls his leg, she wants him  to do all the crazy things he sometimes confesses her about.She knows that he wants to go crazy, he wants to go wild and free but is too wary of her. Idiot! But sometimes she makes him do all the crazy things, yes she does. She made him sing 3 songs in a row in the middle of the night. She knows that he loves her and she uses him to her full advantage! A bitch she is! She loves him after all but as a friend for a life. That's what she ever asks from him and he never disappoints her.

Me and my Sunshine! ;-)

She knows she can't change the world with her words and she doesn't want to either. She doesn't want anyone else to change her world too. She just loves to cuddle up in the arms of the ones she loves and spend the rest of her life dreaming with them. That is all she dreams about. Yah!She spares a minute or two for her Prince Charming! But why should she care so much when he isn't? Some crazy Cinderella she is!

To you

I won't say that I love you but I'll say that I can't be without you. You are inseparable but detached, like my shadow. With you I would go crazy and without you I would go crazier.
When we fight, when you give me hints of what you feel, when we spend weeks in silence, you think that I don't care. And may be I don't. But I know you keep thinking about me, you make me feel like a temptress who has seduced you into this. But as I have told you before that you can leave when you find me slowing you down. But hell! Don't take it seriously will ya? I haven't got any replacements for you! :-)

When are you going to put a chic's pic in that empty space in your wallet? You aren't waiting for me or are you? I won't look good there, believe me! My wiry hair, my dry lips, my walk like a scarecrow brought to life, my eyes swollen with tears of a billion heart breaks, you can't fold all that in your wallet. And I hate leather wallets anyways! So, pick someone and leave just a li'l place next to you. I can't be without you. I can cramp up there, thanx to my zero-waist! Selfish bitch I am!

 Does this mean anything to you? No, stop giving me those looks! They make me guilty! You know I can gouge your eyes out if I want to and to add to my guilt even then you wouldn't say anything! "It's Okay Snehu! You did what you thought was right and I did what I thought was right for me!" I can seriously hate you for all that!
I am a kid yaar! I know I keep hurting you, hit me if you want to!Slap right, slap left and don't touch my ear-rings! You have tolerated my heartbreak stories for so long, and look at your shirt-it smells of my snot! Thank you now! Thanx a lot. The rest were busy with their lives and I got you busy with my sad stories. Were you mad?
 But tell me when I hurt you! No matter how brave and tall I look, I ain't that brave when it comes to saying sorry. So tell me! That would be less painful than when I realize how I leave you every time there's sunshine. You are my sunshine. How many times you have made me smile? There's a difference between making me laugh and making me smile. Smile lingers while a laughter topples me for a moment and then vanishes abruptly. But I have a bad memory you know! 3 years and I wished you birthday after the day passed!(But you have 3 gifts, don't forget them!)  Strange I keep doing it when I know where I am wrong. I am like that! Uh! Don't say that, "It's okay! I like you the way you are!". If you want to stuff me with guilt and make a pie out of me then go ahead! Hmpf!

You are the best thing that happened to me, you are the only thing that I wish should happen to me(besides I getting a hunk! LOL! ) and you are  the last thing that I would share with anyone( besides your girl-friend!)

Thank you!

Snehu

Friends! You are the cute dog and I am the cute kid! Keep watching over me! :-D

Shall we move on Ladies and Gentlemen?

Psst! They have a racket! An entire freaking racket! All they do the entire week is watch 3 mushy movies where characters cry out in every third minute after the second half ,read 2 mushy chapters from a novel, read 7 posts from each other and voila! I present to thee another rip off about love! I can't help laughing! LOL! Or may be the stuff comes out naturally? :-P
And the pics that are put up! Horrible! But mind you, some great control over language they have and if there's jealousy in this world then it's my face you should see when I read them! But... read on!

 They are each other's followers, they comment on each other's posts and they tag around like crazy! LOL! Some support system there.

Someone writes a real tear jerker and they all rush in for free doses of sympathy and the next day the perpetrator stands up, wipes his tears and says, " I am all right! I am fine! I think "I will live!") and guess what, he acknowledges by writing an even more sobbier stuff and the episode is on a rerun! Sheesh! Dude! Where's your self-esteem! Have you sold it at Palika Bazaar for the price of Lifebuoy Soap? 

And hither lies the epitaph on the poor chum's grave of love where his beloved writeth:-

1. "I understand what you are going through.Almost"

2. I know, I know. I went through the same thing.(Of course!)

3. You almost wrote me out.Yeh to meri kahaani hai re!

4.Some weird philosophy that the writer acknowledges with, " Yes. I understand."

 And the thing goes on for years!Arrrgh!

ROFL!!! :-D

Sigh! Girls, my sweet loving sisters, the confidants of my fantasies, the bearers of my inner self,  my strength to stand against these chauvinists, why do you glorify your misery? Ekta Kapoor isn't our Godmother!  Does love makes someone weak or strong? And about being lonely, it's a choice that you make and if you really love a solitary life then I am not getting this whole publicity thing! But I understand, we all need attention.Even I am a publicity whore at times! I can get down and reach below my sandals for that attention! Can't help it!  ;-) What's wrong with that huh?

Last night I spent an entire hour reading 10 bloggers from a guy's follower's list (Yah! I didn't know even the guys can go so pink with mush!) and OMG! Can there be things so similar! They all write such long posts(some write strategical short ones meant specially for commercial self-promotion because they cramped up with such heavy romanticism that even Cupid would throw up!) that ugh! my eyes! And they all were either about falling out of love or about missing someone or about asking someone to return, or about waiting for someone, or about love being torn apart! What is happening to this country!!! We are humans who discovered the beauty of love for crying out loud! I bet if I read their posts of an year older they would turn out the same! 

"...like love...the time had stopped!". Move on! Shoo! Let me give you a push! Let's write something else! I wish I could have the ability to express in words as you do, then I would have explored everything beautiful in world and shared it with everyone, and that includes love too!

What's the point of writing so much about being a cry baby!!!Gosh! So lamely vela! And guys, stop this nonsense please! Can you at least write something more matured! I mean come on fellas! You are in a college, reading may be Political Science or Physics or Economics or something that needs brains and all you come out in your free time is this?"Break me,shake me, take me!" ?  And don't tell me that it's your sensitive side! Ghalib had one but not you my Facebook hopping, tweeter friendly, chic friendly friend! And i fyou have one why are you robbing the stores off tissue papers? I need them when I get a cold!

I mean being a girl I do find myself swooning over mush once in a while BUT as I said "ONCE IN A FRIGGIN WHILE!" Guys don't disappoint me! I am going to marry one of you one day so puhleaase! Stop writing such rouged stuff! Leave it to us will ya! And girls, don't overdo the self-pity thingy please! We are supposedly strong, uber-hip, gurls of 21st century! Not this crooning over a particular guy for 99 weeks who didn't deserve you anyway or the nth guy you met in a theater or a bus stop or a coffee shop!  

By the way boys, you are smitten by the "I've got the attention of ladies" thing aren't you?Believe me, we aren't so lame! I understand that you were deeply in love with your sweetheart and she royally ditched you and now you need time to recover but dood, you are taking a really long time to come back!  Reality check-You suffer from Attention Deficiency Syndrome and I would love to give my precious attention to someone who deserves it not asks for it! You're not gonna get this girl alright! And girls, "I like guys who cry their eyes red over my shoulder because crying guys are honest", please tell me I am wrong coz I love being rationally sensitive!
And you don't have one, borrow this from me. I have a full set ! :-)

STOP!

Argh! What is wrong with all these bloggers??? Why can't anyone write something good about love? Ugh!I just hope these people don't decide to go for anti-depressant pills or people who really need would end up going crazy! Love isn't a gate to hell of suffering,longing,crying, chest-beating,drinking,smoking,cursing, singing pathetically depressing Operas and just "dreaming" romance! And when I tell this to a fellow blogger, she says, "Shut up! This is what I experienced!!!" You loved someone and you remember just this part? How he left you or why he can't be yours or why you guys can't be together? So shall I take it that all of you were pulled into a theater and shown this really long movie called "LOVE" and you were really pissed off about the movie and then decided to review it such horrifying language that people like me who still haven't fallen in love would be scared shit to do so! Believe me, the stuffs that you guys write I don't think even half of it is real! If all that were true then you have spent a good part of your life sulking and wetting pillows! Gosh! Did I give you one more topic to regret and sulk!
I have read so many of your posts and all of you write the same way! So love has committed a mass-murder? What is it? Some Chinese Whisper without the whisper? I am getting serious doubts about love now! Is it really worth it? May be yes! If it can cause a mass-hysteria of such scale then it's worth a try!
But for once can anyone write how beautiful love can be? Write about yout Papa-mama's love then! Ugh! Love and victimization!
PS: Sorry guys. I am just someone who is trying to figure out life and it's complications. I truly believe that you guys are great and lucky that you write so beautifully. Bloggers like Raaji, wildflower(wrote your name with a 'w' :-) ), Mayz are so good that after reading them I start questioning my own beliefs. And reading so much bad about love just gave me an upset tummy! And so I puked. If so much and so "not good" goes inside then it surely would give serious "burp" issues. Sorry if it stinks!  :(
You guys taught me to write honestly and I wrote what I felt I should!  SORRY! I sorta worship you all! Forgive me! I am just a toddler! :(

The inexplicable, unavoidable

I stand in front of the mirror, combing my hair and thinking of him at the same time. I notice that the two buttons at the top are not buttoned and I blush. What is this feeling Saira ? How can I be shy of him when he isn't here?

I then see the reflections of the bougainvillea blooms at the corner and turn around, startled to find them by the window. Strange they have been there for years and stranger that they surprise me every time. I walk to the window and reach out to pluck one off the branches. But then my arms don't reach the flowers. I can see them and their reflection but I can not touch them. Is this a message Saira? Why have started slipping into such thoughts? 

I pull out the strands of hair from between the teeth of the comb, roll them into a ball, no, in a ring and slip it on my finger. My thick, oiled hair in the shape of a ring around my finger and I am amused as if I have been touched by the finality of an event. Isn't it insane of me Saira? Isn't it crazy the way I think about him? We haven't even stepped into the rain and I am already drenched. I don't even know who is he but I think I have all the answers. Is it love? Oh! You must meet him! I can't tell you his name! We haven't met each other but we meet everyday. I hope you understand...you have withstood my crazy talks for long and I know that you would understand every bit of it.  

Till now we are just strangers. We have just talked for a few times, and a few times we have exchanged a few soft glances. But then do you really need someone close to you all the time to feel close? I don't know but the distance  pushes me close to him.

I don't know Saira, but I am scared. This isn't the first time I have felt this. How am I going to trust this feeling then? I can't let that happen to me again, can I? You were there when it all happened. How could you smile then? How could let me do this to myself? But I shall give myself a chance to explain myself. I am not a kid anymore.  
But yes! It's so true a feeling! I love this feeling! Who cares what it would bring, I will take in what is beautiful, what's worth keeping, what's worth cherishing! Oh Saira! This love...doesn't matter it becomes painful at times but then what about those moments that leave behind a tingle? The feeling of falling in love, in love and the being so close to someone who isn't next to you! This is what love is made of! This is why it is so beautiful. And why not Saira? Love broke my heart once but I know how all it was, how beautiful it was, how it helped me face the sun and the storm, how beautiful it made my nights! Oh Saira, fall in love once! For me, for your friend!

First scribble!

Gawd! I don't know if should be here! But hell ya! I already am feeling good about this! Now first of all I am not that much of a writer but still I am gonna give my very first post my very best shot!
Ok, so I am an aspiring journalist and hold the wish to turn this whole world upside down with my Reynolds! But then it isn't that easy. Everyday I wake up with a dream of being everything that my pocket diary hides in its pages. The small diary inside my jute jhola keeps reminding me about my dreams, the big dreams of a small town girl. But what are my dreams? They are not just some cosmetic parades of some high flying wishes. No, I never dream of sitting on a plush chair with an editing desk in front of it and surrounded by glitzy decors of a cabin with polished wooden walls. But I do dream of walking out tired from my office, which still is a bit hazy (I haven't even chosen the wallpapers of my office! ;-) ), take a cab to the necklace road and spend rest of the evening watching the sun disappear behind the concrete jungle. And my dream finishes there, right there, with the setting of the sun I am jolted back to reality, to my single room that I share with my roommate and all I have got in the name of sun are the rays pouring in through the half open ventilators! Sigh!
 I still haven't figured out my plans about life. Still haven't figured out how my prince charming would look. And still haven't figured out the stories that I would be writing here. But that should be left to life isn't it? Who knows, may be someday, in some godly hour, I will figure out all of it!