It feels so good to sit here after eons and pen down what emerges in this tiny brain of mine. Yeaa… it’s been ages since I did that for reasons I analyze in my head. Maybe there was a dearth of expression or maybe, I too have become a victim of the expeditious life like 99% of my fellow mates.

I think I have… I have no control over this thing what I call my life. It’s like a butterfly; the moment I feel it’s in my hand, it slips as smoothly as butter and by the time I realize, its gone farther away waiting for me to catch it.

Makes me wonder, what is it that holds and captures me, that I have forgotten the need to lead a quality life? Right now, when I talk about it, I detach ‘myself’ from ‘my life’ as if they were two discrete people. While I write this, my eyes, unharmonious with the wavelength of my thoughts, wander around and my sight falls on a very attractive advertisement of Maybelline Lip color printed on some magazine. I try to eschew my covetous voice that shouts from the bottom of my heart, ‘that’s the door to your happiness’. Suddenly, I want to splurge and my heart begs, ‘Just once…please!’ This, in spite of the knowledge that I am hardly going to use it.

I am not really fond of lip colors, in fact I am not at all an ardent fan of cosmetics; but at the moment, it’s the luscious color that grabs my attention completely because I feel it will help distress me. That’s like the most bizarre thing I have ever heard! A lip color? Distressing me? Yeah right! And I really was Cleopatra!

But I still want it…

Disdaining my voracious intentions, I make an effort to drive back to my thoughts. Sometimes, I feel its all in my head and my only solution is management. Yes, a proper one! It’s as arduous as life itself, but do I have any option other than converting myself to ‘materialism’?

I don’t remember the last time I enjoyed a cup of hot coffee in my balcony that’s an entourage of lush greenery. I don’t recollect planning a languid day; inadvertently, I do end up with one but at the end of it, it’s the guilt that haunts me. Yes, I do remember my last attempt to shop in hustle bustle and my effort to implement last minute plans to rejuvenation that did more bad than good.

Is it because of this degraded quality of life that I lead, forces me to believe in the most unwanted and secondary things? Is it really the sweet miracle water that people are looking forward to or a fake assurance that an upper force exists; a force that will save them and bring them happiness! Some look forward to miracles for solace and some like me indulge in foolish materialistic pleasures to gain a momentary satisfaction.

At the end of it, all of us are running towards one thing, ‘Happiness’! Something that the whole human race has been searching for, but this treasure seems perpetually infinite…!

The religion that I belong to…?

The reminiscence of my introduction to the concept of religion brings back a lot of memories that are better shunned. I always correlate religion with words like violence and incongruity because it was the year 1993, a year of atrocious brutality, when I discovered that there was a term, a name, a fictitious feeling that differentiated me from the world and that was my religion.  It was that period when I had my initial brush with the words ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ and although, quite enthralled by the new knowledge; it didn’t take very long to dawn on me the kind of prejudice time had created in the mind of the adults, thanks to the violence and suspicion spattered around. Suddenly, the child in me yearned to erase the knowledge as the fact had attached a permanent tag that came handy with me. The reality that I belonged to a particular religion didn’t hurt me more than I was different from the people around me. It hurt my idea of a perfect world where all were same and I could see my little shell that I had built, so carefully, tumbling down.

Questions had started erupting in my mind and they seemed totally inscrutable. Absurdly, slowly down the line, I started accepting the idea of belonging to a particular religion and the concept of dissimilarity between human beings, although at an inchoate stage, was settling down in my mind. Thankfully and amazingly, I got my real answers through my brother in the simplest possible fashion in our small bus journey. Fascinated by the idea of being capable of recognizing religion and differentiating human beings by their attires, I shared the same with my brother after exclaiming and pointing at a burkha clad woman. Definitely not impressed by my observation, he simply questioned my thrill and asked how exactly I could differentiate her from us. Not convinced by my answer after I pointed at her clothes, he further asked me if I was aware of the color of my blood. Excited at the thought of knowing the answer, I replied red and then what followed was the biggest lesson that I would always treasure throughout my life. He explained to me that it was the blood that made us same and not the clothes. The color of her blood was not blue or green but like me and my brother, it was red and that’s what made us humans. 

I was just six years old and my brother was not more than eleven. Today, when I recall the incident, I just can’t help but be surprised at the clarity of the thoughts of two young, inexperienced, pristine children. When we were kids, the world and the ideas seemed so clear and the impossible seemed possible; but today, the world is a difficult place to live in and if you survive the daylight, then nothing like it. As we grow up, we undergo a change in our thought processes and a new concept of manipulation is introduced with time. Makes me wonder as usual as to how adulterated we become in the process of transforming to adulthood.  Do we really become matured?

Again the history is repeated today. A disparity has been created among human beings but this time the only difference is that it’s not the religion but the caste of a person’s religion that has distinguished human beings from their fellow counterparts. Abashedly, I do admit, that for a minute or two I will also develop a feeling of hostility towards a person belonging to backward class because of the sudden line of discrepancy created between us. Maybe, it is just a way of venting out my frustration that has been mounting up since the time I faced immoral competition and not out of any personal bias. For that matter, I am sure that the resentment will not provide any kind of encouragement to the student belonging to a different background.

I wonder if we will ever come out of the typhoon of religion and caste and start recognizing ourselves as human beings. Will we ever stop distinguishing ourselves on the basis of background and color and have a country free of any kind of religious bias where human beings greeted each other as human beings? Religion is a beautiful concept in its own but what have we done to it? Like our minds, we have completely contaminated the idea and tailored it to suit our own requirements. It has become our identity than a matter of choice. Something so personal and nice, since time immemorial, has been hugely politicized for vote banks. For that reason, I wish the country was indeed run by children; at least, my dream of staying in a place where my identity was my blood and not background would come true!

Living on ‘hope’

Fearing its crash.

Enticed to risk  

Dreading the drain.

No control on desires

still scared of losing it all.

Resisting the gravity

Shunning the loneliness.

Is that what I want?

Thinking…

Since quite a long time, my life has been running way faster than my mind and the moment I seem to have a grip of it, it slips away from my hand like a butterfly and I stand there wondering again…

Last few months have been the most enlightening months of my life. There has been a major reshuffling of my priorities and for once I have realized its importance! Ok, I am one person who is born to take people for granted and they are always the ones who are never going to turn their back on to me. So you know it’s much easier to take them for granted and I abashedly admit doing it.

Yesterday, I was talking to a very close friend of mine and we were discussing about the urge of talking to people who didn’t really care for us; people who should have ideally been our last priorities; people who came just to hurt us and left. By doing this, don’t we be unfair to people who have been there like rocks for us whenever we have sought to search solace in them?

Is the abandoned fruit indeed really tempting…? Is it really worth the temptation?

The last few months have taught me enough to know now that it is not someone who crashes you but someone who is there for you whenever you crash is important. I have drained myself enough and I am happy I learnt it the hard way. However clichéd it may sound but it is very true that you get to know the real people who love you only during ‘those’ turbulent times and I was elated to find many!!

Today, I know that I can do without someone who does nothing but drain me but I dread the thought of losing that someone who has been there for me all the time and has still not judged me…

One day I was offended when ‘he’ told me to reshuffle my priorities but today I am happy that I finally did it and no matter what, it’s always going to stay this way!

Although, I am still trying my best not to take people for granted, the one who reads it will know what I mean… hehe

‘Load shedding’, something that we, Mumbaikars, have been introduced to very recently. Or have we? Do we actually realize the importance of things that we so conveniently take for granted? My dad’s one man who has been very particular about saving electricity and that has also instilled the habit in me. Not that I am extremely particular about saving it but it still pinches me when I see it getting wasted, more out of habit than choice. I wish I was doing something about it though.

I feel terribly guilty when I hear different experiences of people who are made the sole victims of a so called ‘economic saving of electricity!’ yes; I know it is very vital right now but definitely not at the cost of a fraction of people. Isn’t it everybody’s burden and aren’t we all supposed to share it?  Just because some people stay in the not so prominent suburbs or are not in the integral part of Mumbai, they are the ones who are solely held responsible to save the light so that the whole city can eternally shine.

The scorching heat is increasing day by day and it won’t be wrong to say that practically for any normal human being it will be next to impossible to stay without lights for seven to ten hours! I am simply dreading the thought of going through it. I don’t know if I should be considering myself lucky because my counterparts, in other parts of the suburbs not very far away from the city, are going through it? Or should I be acting responsible and sharing their burden?

I cannot help but recall this experience that I went through a couple of years back. I, along with a group of 8-9 people, had visited this tribal village in Kandivali (for those of you who don’t know, it is a prominent suburb in Mumbai). The village was situated behind a plush line of complex on a hill top at the boundary of National park. The buildings were built on the land that originally belonged to the tribals but with the help of unscrupulous methods, they were thrown away from their own land.

I should say, our journey to this place was quite an adventurous one! I actually felt as if I had gone for hiking while climbing that hill only to realize later that these villagers used to travel up and down daily only to get a pail of water! After around 20 minutes of climb, we finally reached the place. It was a simple place with small huts scattered sparsely. We were taken around the whole place and it was then I was told that wild animals very often frequented the place and were very familiar with the locals.

The families were very much like our normal folks, their children also went to school like ours but they did not lead a normal life like we all did. I was stunned by the fact that their children were never introduced to man made light! They worshipped water like a deity as they realized its importance to the core. In fact when we were offered lunch, they specially requested us not to be kind enough to wash our respective plates because we, urban people, would waste their whole day’s water. How true was that!

 Like everyone, I spent my whole day thinking on how badly these people needed to win their rights. I wondered how someone could ever survive without electricity or water, our two most basic necessities. It’s so true; you cannot really work towards something effectively unless you relate to it. I did not relate to their condition because I belonged to the materialistic world. At the most, I could give them constructive advice but at the end of the day, there was an assurance in my mind that I will be going back to my own world.

However, after coming back home that day, lights at my place went off only for 20 minutes and trust me, life at home for those 20 minutes became hell for all of us. I couldn’t read my book, mom couldn’t cook, and brother couldn’t watch TV and who would forget the temperature in the scorching month of March? And then it dawned on me, what I was taking for granted since the time I remembered!

This experience was one of the best experiences I could ever have in my whole life. I am feeling very ashamed of myself today because in those two years I did slip many times because of laziness and luxury. Today, I am writing this because I suddenly felt a pang of awakening in me after reading a fervently written article on the same.

Isn’t it ironical? I stay in the same city as those villagers or my friends do but I am still pardoned of the torture. I also know that if the current in my house goes at this very moment, I would be the first person to curse every single minister of this country. The thought of it only shivers me as the temperature outside is increasing every second.

I just wish if we were a little responsible in our behaviors. Making a fraction of people go through a torture will not solve the problem permanently. It is every single individual’s responsibility. After all, every drop of water makes a sea.

Hmm… Ben, I surely expected a better one. In fact these days it’s become easier to write on heavier topics than lighter ones. It sounds so easy but u have actually put me thinking, something I avoid (of course I am not successful) doing these days. Since it’s my first, I will have to write something.

Well, if they made a movie on my life, which has been a roller coaster ride (but a good one) till date, then I don’t know who I would choose to enact the role. I don’t really have a list of favorite actresses (not even actors for that matter) as I have surpassed that stage where I was crazy of even brushing past some actor (reminiscing my filmfare days).

However, if I still had to choose someone then I think I would settle down with Konkona Sen Sharma. I find her acting very realistic. As far as she is concerned, then she has that charisma of a plain simple girl like one next door. So I think if I make a film on myself someday (if I plan to cross my height of narcism… lol) then I will surely take her.

I could have settled down with others, like I could have made Aishwarya Rai, the most beautiful woman, enact my role but than she is too far fetched. She is like someone you would love to watch (an eye candy) but can never get talking to you. Then there was Priety Zinta, she is a little like me though a lot not. Bubbly (she hates being called that by the way), vivacious, gregarious are her characteristics but then again she is too glamorous to play my role. Then there is Rani Mukherji, an excellent actress, but I somehow can’t relate to her. Of course, if Konkona won’t give me dates then she will be my second choice! Sushmita Sen, another diva, and that’s why I have never related to her because I love and enjoy my girl next door image.

I wouldn’t even consider others because if I/someone makes a movie on me, I only want the best enacting my role (at least I can dream that)!

Hollywood is out of question because it will be too unrealistic (even for me to imagine). But if I was given no choice then I would choose Julia Roberts. She is one actress who can enact my goof ups perfectly! Lol…

Hmm... one scene I would definitely like them to play woule be one where I royally goofed up a couple of years back (I am a queen of messing up things in my life and then getting out of them audaciously... lol). But I will not be able to delve much into it as its too personal. Of course, some of my friends reading this, would have by now guessed what exactly I am talking about (don't you dare write anything about it)!

Otherwise life has been pretty good. Learnt a lot of good things from the horrible things that have happened. After all that’s what it is all about. I would not want even a single thing to be erased from my life. Thanks to all the bad things that have happened, I am the kind of a person I am today (I was totally contradictory many years back). Hence, looking at the positive side I wouldn’t even call them bad for that reason.

So I hope they make a movie pretty fast… I don’t want Konkona to get older!

Dear God,

Today, I am writing to You, because I want You to hear me. I want You to listen to me. I want You to read and vicariously feel my pain.

You gave me a good childhood. You gave me parents who were proud of me. You gave me a brother who was more like a friend to me. You gave me friends who were more like siblings to me. You gave me a life that couldn’t be better than this. Then why did you choose such a harsh way of explaining me how perfect my life was in the past? Why God?

I was just 23 years old and was ambitiously working toward my goal. I wanted to become a lawyer but apparently You had different plans for me. I was gaining momentum to work toward my aim where I could envisage a positive light. On personal front, I was going to get married within 6 months to a person I knew since the age of 10. I couldn’t ask for more. But that was just then…

I was going home earlier than usual that afternoon from college as my parents-in-law were expected at home. I was already late for home as my mother had called up twice. I, thus, decided to take that shortcut from where I could save my 10 minutes. I usually avoided it as it was a very secluded route but that day I simply had to rush home. I surely didn’t, in my wildest imagination, foresee what lay for me in future. I had no idea that I was being followed…

He attacked me from the back. I was simply stunned. Initially, I really didn’t know what was happening God. I couldn’t see him as he was still behind me. However, I recovered from my shock soon enough and started pulling his hands off me. He was really strong for me but I did manage to get out of his grip and run. My struggle though didn’t last long. He did manage to catch me and this time I did see him. He didn’t really seem the same person I had seen. This person appeared more like an animal to me. By now, he was all over me. He made me go through the most painful moment of my life God and then I was left there for hours in pain…

He was the same guy from college whose proposal I had rejected last week…

I was made to go through a number of tests. That was apparently the legal procedure of my country. I felt humiliated every time that cop asked me irrelevant questions and looked at me as if I was now ‘available’. I felt disgusted every time I was asked to undergo a new test in the name of mandatory system! I felt pathetic when someone questioned my character. I felt all the more dismayed when I couldn’t answer back those questions as I had started developing self doubts. I considered ending my life, the life You had given me, because of the fear of going through the same atrocious incident in my dreams. I felt like I was being choked in my stomach. I felt I was being pierced by hundreds and thousands of needles in my body. Every single breath for me appeared like a colossal fine for what I was going through. But I believed in You and went through the agonizing pain.

The verdict was finally informed after ten years of ache. Ten years of death. He was acquitted because there was no evidence against him and  he was influential enough to get away with it. I have no words to express how I felt that moment when he looked and smiled at me deviously. If there is something hundred times more than humiliation then I was going through exactly that! Tears had dried in my eyes by then but the needles were still piercing after ten years and that day my stomach was almost choked to death.

One thing I had decided in my life was never to ask You ‘why’. However, I am tired now, I really am God. Till date I haven’t stopped wondering where my mistake was. By using that shortcut or rejecting his proposal and insulting his ego? Even if I did commit a mistake God then wasn’t the price that I paid too heavy for it? I have forgotten what smiling really means. I have lost my parents. In spite of marrying the man I loved, I really am not the person I was.

I want to ask You today God, was a man’s ego and false dignity above so many people? Did we all really deserve it? I wanted Justice God but here I was not only raped that moment but I was also raped when that cop was questioning me, I was also raped while undergoing those tests, I was also raped when I was accused of instigating the action, I was also raped by the same Judicial system that I wanted to be a part of, I was raped every second, every minute, every moment since that day and continue being raped…

And once upon a time I thought I was your favorite child.

Forever abandoned,

Riya

Moved on…

I was aghast! He had left me… forever! I didn’t really know how to bear the inscrutable pain that I was going through. I didn’t want to go through this because I didn’t deserve it. But the pain of guilt, the pain of loneliness, the pain of starting it all afresh was too much for me to take! Hence, like others, for the time being and for the first time I decided to run away… in spite of realizing that that was the biggest mistake I was committing, but nothing made sense to me then, absolutely nothing!

It had been seven years… seven really really long years not less than a roller coaster ride for both Adi and me! It had all started with a teenage love blossoming into a beautiful relationship following almost marriage! Yes, almost marriage! And yes the transformation from teenage love to an adult love was not less than a strenuous process, but it was all worth it at the end of the day. Adi made sure it was worth it…

We started seeing each other when we were all of eighteen. I still remember how frustrated I used to be in the nascent stage of our relationship. Maybe I was getting accustomed to the fact as to how different guys and girls were. I would have never gone ahead with this relationship if it wouldn’t have been for Adi. Tall, handsome and with well-built features he was every girl’s dream. But he was just the kind of a guy I had dreamt of having, which of course I realized later, a complete extrovert and an excellent friend. He understood my needs perfectly and maintained an excellent balance between a friend and a boyfriend. Of course there were those ‘petty’ things about him that irritated me a lot, but then I don’t want to talk about them as I want to keep him as perfect as possible!

Our relationship was more like a ride from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood. In our seven year long relationship, trust me we have also taken several breaks so that we got enough space from each other! I was always of that ‘emotionally unsecured’ kind. But he had always been extremely patient with me and waited till I wanted to go ahead in our relationship, and trust me it had indeed taken a lot of waiting on his part! I sometimes didn’t really understand him, on one side he would do all kiddy things for me like even buying balloons for me when he was late (which he always was) and on the other side he would be that patient listener, which I really wanted him to be. I realized this when I had suddenly started feeling guilty of getting attracted to a colleague in my office. I was too ashamed to even mention this to Adi because I was really attached to him. But I simply couldn’t keep it to myself and thus went ahead and confessed it to him. He listened patiently throughout and after I was finished he simply came and hugged me… I cried like a baby! That day I realized how much I didn’t know him and how much I loved this man! Next day he came to drop me to office and while I was getting out of the car he simply held my hand and asked, “You won’t leave me, will you Riya?”  His eyes were twinkling with a gloomy expression and that did it… I hugged him really really tight and said, “Never!”

That was my Adi… caring, affectionate, sensitive and a great friend and an excellent boyfriend! The relationship had started with him doting all over me, but now I simply adored him! I had also started liking his ‘petty’ irritating habits. Yes it really took me a long time to fall in love, but I couldn’t resist the gravity.

It was my birthday, the day we got engaged. And it was the same ill-fated day when he met with that dreadful accident! I didn’t know how to react. I was devastated; I was so used to him! I felt guilty for missing him just because I was used to him! I didn’t leave him, he left me! I was going insane. My Adi…he was no more! I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t be rational anymore, I couldn’t make sense out of anything…anything!

It’s been two years now and I still haven’t forgotten him. I have stopped leading a nomadic life because my life has to move on. This I realized because I wanted to cherish the beautiful moments that I had shared with him and didn’t want to sit and cry over remembering them. I came back from my temporary shelter and started finding solace in my surroundings. Everything seemed so incomplete without him, but I was determined to move on for his sake. I realized that, albeit difficult, all I needed to do was simply change my perception toward everything. I started liking the flower that was blossoming from its budding stage in my balcony. I realized that the same plant was present when Adi had left me but I had seen and liked it after two years. I started enjoying the panoramic view of nature, I started breathing again, I had started loving my memories again Adi.  I moved on... I really have.

Love you forever,

Riya