Frames to walk into

It is one of those evenings of unanticipated happychance. Those rare flashes of light in a thunderstorm. Of having stumbled upon a tiny sparkle of imagined light. Picture a rescue boat in lost whirlpools of torrid sea. I am rambling, am I not? Words don't come that easy. Sometimes thoughts would get interwined in the broad separations of my mind. And then I would often need someone to peel the layers off. One by one. Reason, question, argue and assimilate. Someone to anticipate the unfrequented possibilities. Those are rare occasions of discovering stillness in between a raging storm. It is not often easy to temper yourself to want to slow down. There are those who come to a screeching halt. And then there are those who chance upon a mirage once in a blue moon. What did he think he found, when he came upon her wandering about? Fated mischance or a curious anomaly of sorts? They say that sometimes you walk out of a frame only to walk into another. I often wonder, what if you cease to direct the direction that those walks would take. Maybe in rare cases, one could let the frames decide where not to draw the lines.

Elusive concept that is Love

Somedays I stare at a blank sheet, thinking about what I would like to put into words. There are so many things to talk about. So many stories that I have been a part of. Stories that I had started. Stories that I saw zipping past me. Now when I look at the vapours rising out if my coffee at an obsolete corner of the mountains, I wonder at the elusive concept of love. What is it exactly? Is it the anguish in an unfinished letter jotted stealthily, while waiting at a roadside cafe. Or is it the restlessness on a moonlit evening? Crammed in an overstuffed balcony. What if, it is like searching for a familiar face in a crowded hall. Is it that vague reminder of a forgotten song. The shuffle of stolen feet on a street littered with dried leaves. The whiff of air on a balmy beach. Is it knowing that there is another remembering your scent while flipping through the pages of a new edition. You know, there are forms of loving and leaving. And yet there is just one to stay. Stay put in a mind while the world labors in motions of entries and exits. Loving and leaving are like those solitary walks on an obscure sundowner. Saturated with questions but fulfilled in pauses.

Stuck in Grey

I had not been a believer in anything much. You could say my beliefs were that of an ordinary city bred individual. Until about that exceptionally bright day, when I turned around and sheepishly asked for a bottle of water. A quizzical expression and a disdainful snort. That was my first face off with what was to become imperative to me. To my experiences. My meanings. What would you call her? For me she has been a lot of things over the years. Her role has evolved, metamorphosed, been defined and re-defined. My friend. My confidante. The keeper of my darkest secrets. Basest instincts. You always need someone to make you see who you really are. She was that to me. For the longest time. It is true I have hated her on occasions with a passion I generally cannot evoke. And off course hated anyone who grew close to her, with a white hot rage. There are times when the lines fade between love and hate, and you're perpetually stuck in grey. I have been perpetually locked in grey. I realize that the years are ticking by. But I wonder if she is still there. Locked in my dystopian grey. Unable to move. Caught in the web.

Your window is gone

I was standing at the airport bookstore, in between layovers, trying to choose an interesting cover from the shelves, when I saw it lying there. The book she had said was worth reading a million times over. I didn't pick it up. No. The things she touched, sear through the membranes of my conscience. Like a brand that is only hers. She had come into my life like a raging hurricane. And disappeared like a meteor shower in the sky, with no traces left. I have nothing of hers with me. Yet I have everything of hers in floating whispers. The stories she read, and re-read to me. The chocolate she nibbled on when reading. All of it. And no, I do not touch them on neutral shelves in transit lounges. Lest they conjure her up at that very instant. Sometimes, I do not know whether I am more scared of my own reality or her window of perspectives. For once in my meticulously planned existence, something had felt real. So real that I wish I could frame pieces like postcards in neat little black frames. To be displayed, sprawled across my walls. Your window is gone you know, she used to say. I, like certain windows that stay irretrievably shuttered, jammed on rusted hinges. 

Droplets on my windshield

There were particles in the wind today. Droplets on my windshield. These long drives have curiously become a healing mechanism. And then there is him. I was thinking how lifeless, limbless loss feels. It's like that rotten tree leaf submerged under a puddle full of washed rain, the morning after. One who's shape and color is still vaguely discernible but it is gone nonetheless. As I turn on the wiper to clear my vision ahead, the flip flop with the clutter of fall tells me that in another chance, in another world probably he is doing that too. Or maybe he is, in this world itself. Particles in air that accumulate on my screen like the accumulation of silt on a riverbed. One can trace the path on their backs. Just like fate can be traced by feather light fingers on an open palm. Long drawn out summers, the humdrum of a faded life, distant echo of realities that would have been. Ought to have been. Like sitting cross legged and crystal ball gazing, under the voluminous clouds. Tell me your sorrows, and let me me give you light. I would. If only you could show me some light.

That which is lost - Empathy

Empathy. Pride yourself on the fact that you are tolerant, observant, opinionated. But somedays, maybe on just a handful of them, you are not really empathetic. In between brief interludes of conversations, you come out as someone overtly set in your ways. Too strong. Too condescending. Too patronizing. The world is not a collection of curios to choose from. How would you know the other is not in similar two minds about you? Do you hide behind the familiar warmth of unconscious? Where you bluntly state, you're not sure what you're looking for? The more success we have, the more others conform to us, the more adamant we become in interactions. Is the zeal to push our selves to the forefront and advocate supremacy so great that we forget to put ourselves in another's shoes and think for a second whether we are being needlessly harsh? Maybe something to think about on a spent up morning? There is just not your view point that is valid in the world.

Stranger in my Head

The elevator door was slamming shut as I desperately lunged and jammed my feet in it. A cocky smile, indolent eyes. Every morning, the same time, the same instant as I walk in, he strolls in too. Fate? Mischance? Nonetheless, there he is. A stranger yet I feel his eyes linger. There is a strange feeling of unsettled wounds in his eyes. As if he is lost in a crowd. Standing stiff lipped, mute, when the world around him is rushing past. Ans when he turns his steadfast gaze upon me, I squirm needlessly. What is it with this person that screams damage and yet I want to unravel his mystery. As if his eyes bore into my soul and slowly undress me as I move around fully clothed. His lips scream sin that I want to partake. His presence arouses nerve endings in me that I thought were lost beneath a sheath of exterior. Delectable, forbidden. But that which I want to devour. This stranger that I see everyday. Somehow I seem to know him. As if my heart is putting a tag on him, saying pay heed, this is the one who will be the ruin of you. Yet I can't seem to stop. Turning back is next to impossible, even if I fall off a cliff, I have to discover. This stranger in my head.

Early Oblivion

As dusk sets in I look into your eyes sometimes. I have grown used to sitting with you during these melancholic sunsets and watching the lights fade away into the distance. We don't talk on those occasions. Just sit. Assimilate. Feel. Drown. There are days I don't know what you're thinking. Lost. Withdrawn. Guarded.You know, I want to know. I want to get to discover. Probably, it's just a figment of my imagination but sometimes, I feel you're somewhere else, someplace else. As if you're looking for something, breathing for someone else. It is as if, you're not the person I know you to be, but someone else with a different soul altogether. I know I sound like a raving lunatic but there is a part within you that I cannot touch. And that is what terrifies me. I see that distance in your eyes and I stop dead in my tracks. It would not matter had I been a trifle unimaginative myself. But I am not that. I think and I feel. I sense each time you hide behind those walls and bolt the door. I am not allowed in. This is a strange relationship. If one can even call it that. There are so many trapdoors, vaults and secret chambers. Everyday is like an exercise of hunting for an exit. I know there is nothing overtly wrong with us but why do I feel that you're like a caged bird? As if you're swallowing a bitter pill every breathing second. As if you're suffocating yourself to an early oblivion. As if, for you, I am an early oblivion.

A Duel of wits

On those cold nights, he would often tell her stories. Stories of how he imagines it ends for  him. She used to protest in outrage at the morbidity of his imaginations. And yet he would insist on her listening to the descriptions of a long torturous fall of a face of a cliff. They would go on arguing till the wee hours of the night. One advocating how death has to be assimilated, the other fighting for the myriad reasons to live. It was a duel of wits which held them in conversation for ever. For nobody had challenged the other in a war of words quite so much like. Each of them loved debate furiously and they looked for a worthy opponent in every plain of existence. Someone who could rise up to the occasion and defend the case well. And unfortunately in this instance, the words had locked and matched. Neither had learned to concede well but the banter had won. What if arguments, opinions had ceased existing in modern world? How would you learn to love without the incessant sparring of razor sharp wit? So as the days went on, so did the blurriness of the lines between morbidity and zest for life. I suppose death did assimilate in a fiercely indomitable spirit. That's what debate does. It teaches, elevates but leaves traces of still, immovable ideas on paper.

It's complicated

Complicated is the state of affairs. When life begins to loose the edges, things or rather relationships wane and wilter, you call that complicated. But ever wonder why do things or emotions get so terribly mired into a haze or blurr. Maybe somewhere, someplace, you never gave words to the emotions that you felt. Once long back or still feel every once in a while. I believe expression is critical in every relationship. Even in friendships. If someone at some point in life meant the world, how many times do we gather enough thought to come out and say that, yes you did matter. Life changes. People leave and disappear. Often we are left with that nagging feeling of what if I had just said so. Asked them to wait. Just a bit till I could catch up. It really doesn't take much. Growing up and making peace with that which couldn't be, requires significant amount of effort and control. But every now and then, what if it could still be, if only you could acknowledge and express. Life is long and regret is the biggest tragedy. So please don't. One never knows if there is sunshine on the flip side. You just need to toss.