I often think...

I often think
A lot; not much at times
Still like the lonely bench
On a promenade
Waves lashing over the reclaimed
Land; under the feet of strangers
Making passages of my story
A chapter of silence often,
Memories like the permanent crease
On an earmarked page
Of my life's book
Filled with words
Of banality, ennui, restless
Nights; and days filled with emptiness
Nerve wrecking pauses.
I often walk, or jog these thoughts
To lose them
Move without a map; lose them at a corner
Of an unmarked lane; a shop selling
Trinkets from someone's past
Pawned for another
These buyers unaware.
I sit looking at the face;
Of a jagged valley crisscrossing
 The cracked mirror
Reflection distorted, million pieces
For a path that may be mine A plan.
To reach there
Following with the finger tips
Blinking. Harsh light from a neon bulb
blurring the scars of time.
Things are incomplete
Unclimaxed; without an end to every evening
Maybe if I couldn't think at all.

...they are boys

So i found place near the door of the train, plugged in my headphone, put a song on loop and tried to forget the various aches i am going through. This old lady sitting besides me gets up, and in a few minutes starts talking.

It starts with its that a phone that works by touching. I did not hear her the first time. So i pulled out one ear piece and tried to listen again. Yes, it is a touch phone. I smile. She goes on about how her daughter-in-law also had one but it did not last for long and it was quite expensive and she had got a new one. I smile and nod.

Another few minutes, my ear piece is back on and another ache is creeping in. She asks me if i work, i nod. Am i married. I shake my head. Am i a single kid. I shake my head and tell her i have 2 younger sisters. Oh she says. No brother? I have plastered the smile on and shake head, no. We are only sisters. So you have to work, she asks. No, i wanted to.
You are like a son to your parents, you are doing a sons job, she adds. (And i try to recollect how many times have i had this same conversation. About not having brothers, parents not having a son, me being my parents son. Do people not realise how annoying it is?)

I keep smiling and shrug.

She tells me how these days daughters are the one who actually take care of their parents. How sons don't care anymore. She has 2 sons herself. She is a widow. None of the sons ask her how she is. If she would want something. Not that she wants anything, she says. But it would feel nice to think someone cares. Cannot argue that now. I smile and nod.

She tells me how she was 6yrs old when she lost her mother. Then was sent off to a boarding school, when she came back to Hyderabad, her father married her off to a drunkard. The husband would beat her. Yell at her. Then she was pregnant with her first son. She came back to her father's place. But then she went back to her husband. She always wanted a daughter. But she had a son again. She got angry at god, told him no more kids. Give to others who are childless. To those women who get called barren.

She tells me don't marry unless you want to. Do not compromise on that. How she had met so many girls who are pressurized by their parents to marry, how they are left with nothing else in their lives. Don't marry if you think you don't ever want to. Make a life for yourself.

[I have gotten my ears pierced again. It is so much easier to be distracted when you are nursing physical pain. The headache from all the anger gets shadowed.]

I did not get to say bye to that old lady. Maybe next time i'll catch the same train and meet her again.

Men, uff.

I have a complicated relation with men which varies from I love them, I love them a lot, oh so much love, stop being annoying love, and get lost. Even though many of the close guy friends doubt me when I check out the fairer sex along with them, I am pretty sure I like men more. Is it due to the fact that I get along with them better or that since I am usually more around men so I get along better with them.


The best friend is a guy and also it was a guy who displaced me from being the first rank holder in class 5. I'll never forget you Rajesh. It was Raj who would tease me crazy with a Jungle book character's name since it rhymes with mine. And the only I love you i ever got to hear was by a guy who I ignored & ran away from since thats what a 10yr old girl would do when an 11yr old cutest guy ever says to you.

And lately its men who are being pricer than the kohinoor who are driving me nuts. It is very difficult to stay unaffected by intelligent, cryptic, emotionally/geographically unavailable men.

They have left me grinning silly at the screens of various monitors, cellphones, opaque windows with their words. Sleepless, wide awake in the middle of the night.

There was this not-too-much-talker who I never talked to what with him being swamped by every pretty girl in college who would make you feel like a total behenji. The BEST bus tickets come with digits which we would add up & then any cute guy who's name would start with alpahabet that it corresponded with was ohhed and aahed about. These brooding kinds are such a hit.

Then there are the charming, will listen to all what you have to say, will send flowers (virtual ones count too), again hit amongst all the ladies around (some of the girls would even be crying in their pillows every night each night), who will be good in everything they do. They read only as prescribed by the government but still seem to know it all. They'll never be serious. And then its someone next for them.

Moving on to them who are all as messy with their emotions as a girl. They get emotional for any girl who tells them their sob story, they'll be nice with everyone, they'll get dumped by their girlfriends for someone else for unknown reasons, and they are much of a sweetheart.

The emotionally unavailable come with dillemmas since they don't seem to be sure or clear what makes them emotionally unavailable. Geography can be worked upon but that takes first place in the "top 10 reasons why I am going to be aloof, stubborn, difficult, ambigious with you". It also lists down "women from the past who were the one and I can't seem to move on" as a very important reason. They'll give you sleepless nights & open eyed nightmares, you'll be pulling your hair in frustation while trying to convince yourself that it might work or might not work out depending on what time of the day you were daydreaming about them. Daytime tend to be optimistic while as the days business (busyness) slips into the plain dark canvas of night you would be on the edge of your bed questioning your sanity.

You see, every last fall makes the next one more easier. To fall gets easier but not when it comes to getting over.

EvilPieceOfHumanSpecies.