WAKE-UP CALL

Fresh beginnings.

Brand new starts.

Sound so tempting, don’t they?

But are they possible in a place you have spent the last four years in?

I discovered the answer to that today – YES.

Cos the change is not in the place, its buildings, its furniture, the people inhabiting it, the new faces that have invaded it or the old ones that have faded away.

It is not about the people who now suddenly seem too far away.

It is not about the change of attitude of your friends or peers or colleagues or subordinates or seniors; or a lack thereof.

It is never about ‘the without’.

It is always about ‘the within’.

And change ‘within’ can stem from anything and nothing.

A book.

A break-up.

A friend turned foe.

Discovering anew that you don’t really hate that cousin anymore.

Realizing that you are living without something or someone – forget whether you could, should or would.

Doing away with your prejudices – even if only to replace them with new ones.

Or just getting off the wrong side of the bed someday.

Change comes to you when you are ready for it. It won’t before that – no matter how hard you try or struggle. And it won’t fail to when it should – no matter where destiny puts you.

It is nice to know that the opinion of each and every person around you doesn’t really matter or bother you anymore. It is a relief to do away with peoples’ expectations from you – especially people who you had raised and put up on a pedestal. It is never too late to come to realize who really matters in life, who shouldn’t and who never was a part of your world at all.

If you don’t love yourself, who will? How can you even expect someone else to love you when everyday you torture yourself, worry yourself sick about what unnecessary people think about you, give unfair importance to things that are not even sure to be with you in the next moment, burden yourself beyond capacity and reason with your own concepts of right and wrong, worthy and unworthy?

Everybody wakes up to that moment at some point of time, when they realize who’s in, who’s out, what’s more important than what and who they really want to be. What one should do is not shut their eyes and pretend to be asleep when one does truly wake up.

THE LEAP OF FAITH

Today was the third time that I heard the same thing coming from three different friends of mine who'd been through three different situations recently -

I don't let dependency on anyone grow too much.

I smiled. Sometimes thats all that you can do - smile.

I have let dependency on people take its toll on me. I of all people have every reason NOT to let it grow in me.

But even then I really feel for these friends of mine. These cautious friends of mine - with all due respect to them and whatever it is they had to go through to arrive at that conclusion/decision - are NEVER going to know what it is like to totally surrender yourself to someone, something, anything... a situation, a lover, a time, a habit, an enemy, a feeling... for it is not only people we are dependent on. They will probably never know what it is like to put yourself in someone else's hands and then just close your eyes and wait for whatever it is they are going to do with you - toss you out, raise your to their lips and kiss you, or keep you like a rose in a diary... treasured but out of sight.

It takes strength - a lot of it too - to do something like that... to let someone control you completely, even if for a moment... to know that no matter how cautious we are, we are never going to be cautious enough for LIFE... never prepared enough for death - of people, of relationships... we plan and construct and design and strategise for a tomorrow that we do not even know is going to be there. And we still think we've got it all figured out, we've got the answers, the keys, the secrets; so sure we have it all...

Its like the leap of faith in dance... you could never have practiced it enough to be sure your partner is going to be able to catch you when your feet leave the ground. But you still do it, hoping he will... and thats how we are all living life... breathing out every moment, though we are not sure if we are going to be able to breathe in again the next moment...

ON SMOKING, CONNOTATIONS AND BEING AT PEACE WITH YOUR ISSUES

I had a wonderful evening with one of my childhood friends last evening. It is amazing how you just tend to bond with some people and how some people, the mere sight of, can repel you so strongly. We’d placed our orders and come and sat at our table when she asked me –

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

And I almost instantly said – ‘Not at all.’

She may have been quite surprised with my response, because she soon told me of a number of incidents when the same question had evoked a string of unpleasant feelings in the person who she had asked the question to. But I was only partly listening to what she was saying; rather than her, it was me who was quite surprised. Until yesterday, or rather up until that moment, I had big issues about smoking and smokers and people who smoke in public. But I still said ‘Not at all’. I don’t know why. I honestly don’t.

What I do know however is that something changed in that moment. I don’t know what or how or why, and I don’t want to delve into it either. But today when I think of it, I am more at peace with my issues.

A lot of times people don’t really let themselves react to a situation, or other people around them, as individuals. People always relate everything to something in the past – an incident, an accident, an upbringing, it could be any of these and a number of other things. Connotations. I’m not saying I don’t – I do it too sometimes. And up until yesterday I had never given it a thought. Just as my friend took the first puff (I’m not even sure if that is the right word/phrase – I am completely alien to smoking) a couple of heads turned, even subtly, to look at this attractive female, who was smoking at a coffee shop. I can sort of comprehend what must have been going through the minds of those people. Some just glanced at our table and went back to what they were doing the next instance. Some kept staring till it was embarrassing. And some even stared at me – with eyes that said ‘Eew-how-gross-get-up-leave-do-something-stop-her-girls-today-the-friends-you-keep’ and the like.

But I was so much at peace with my qualms – it was as if they had never existed. Yeah my friend is a girl and she smokes. So? That doesn’t make her any less likable, or friendly, or fun to be with, or talented, or attractive, or honest, and scores of other things. And even if it does for some, I would like to ask – is it really because she smokes? Or because the things that smoking implies? Things like she is available, loose, cheap, a speed-dater? Who associated all these tings with smoking? And forget about who and why – do you really believe in all that? Have you ever given yourself a chance to think, question what you really believe?

It is the same with smoking, as it is with a number of other things – girls who always hang out with guys, girls who drink, girls who live in hostels. It is a crazy thing, this whole connotations business. Not that I am defending my friend, but if I were to say anything in her defense at all, I would say that – smoking, like eating with your hands even at a restaurant, or wearing only black, or washing your feet every night before going to bed, or biting your nails, or being obsessed about your hair looking perfect, is just a habit. And it implies nothing. Nothing at all. Period. Yes I would like it if she quit – it is not a healthy habit. But in the meantime, I am not going to let the connotations associated with smoking worry me about whether I should hang out with my friend, and allow her to smoke in my company or not. I have known other people who smoke. Hell, I even once got up and walked right out of the same coffee shop because the guy I was with – meeting for the first time in fact, if you must know – just pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it and started smoking, right in my face. Without even asking me if I was ok with it, or if I had health issues, or anything. My friend was at least decent enough to smoke away from the table and not right into my face! And as luck would have it, she had a pack of the same brand my dad used to smoke…! Funny coincidences.

In the end it is all about how you carry yourself, how you project yourself, where you draw the line, and how honest you are to yourself. Cos at the end of the day, it is not the society that you live with – it is yourself. Nothing we do – and that includes smoking in public – or don’t do, should be because of the connotations it implies. Cos that is a sure way to hell. What matters is your peace with yourself and who you are – your peace with the good and the bad in you. Parents, relatives, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, society come later – come after yourself. Give it whatever name you want to – conscience, sense of right and wrong, your soul – I like to call it ‘you’. You live, eat, drink, travel, and go to movies, smoke, with yourself first. And what matters is your peace with your own company. At first it seems/sounds strange – your own company? What the hell has that got to mean? But sit on it for a while, and it makes perfect sense. At least it did to me. And I hope it will to you.

RETREAT

‘Then why are you doing it? If you know it’s not good for you?’ he asked me.

And I couldn’t answer.

Try as I did to make my best friend see why I was back in touch with my ex, it was a weird experience – weird because I had never had a problem to make him see my point before, or to explain my side to him. But exception proves a rule, and me getting friendly with my ex again was one of the exceptions, clearly.

There are things in life that you just have to do sometimes. You don’t know why, but you just feel this obsessive compulsive need to do them, and that is reason enough to do them.

No one can really judge or even fathom to figure out a relationship. Not a best friend, not a parent, not a relative; and least of all the people around. What goes into a relationship, who draws the line where and puts up with exactly what and how much… no one can really tell.

One can’t understand, and one shouldn’t even try to make sense of it all. Not if you are a third person, and not even if you are the person; for it is easy to want to believe we are always either black or white. But it is not the truth. Everyone has a shade of grey, no matter how small it maybe, how insignificant – it is still there, unmistakable. And it is good if you get to know this side of you. It humbles you. It makes you less judgmental. It makes it easy for you to consider people’s mistakes.

And most importantly – it helps you forgive yourself.

It makes ‘the after’ easy.

Only you know what you have given to a relationship. And only you know what you can’t get back. Only you know how much you miss that someone special. Only you know what it means to not have that person in your life – what that emptiness feels like.

And only you can comprehend the need to want to be with that person again. Only you know why you want to go back to that person – to give yourselves a second chance, or just to have that person back as a friend, whatever the reason. For sometimes people you have had a relationship with become your friends in a very different way that is both weird and nice at the same time. It has its own comfort zones, its own ‘being yourself’ feel… and there’s nothing that can equal or replace it. Emotions, feelings, can never be right or wrong – they are either there or not there… that’s all.

Sometimes even your best friends fail to see your point. Or understand you. The one person who you thought knew you better than yourself can also not be able to comprehend your acts at times. But you shouldn’t let that bother you. Some paths you have to tread through alone. And it can’t be such bad a thing, right? It isn’t.

AN AFFAIR TO FORGET

What surprised Kamini was the fact that even the realization of not being disgusted about it today didn’t surprise her – as if she had known all along it would come down to this. What seemed like torture, an unbearable ordeal until a couple of weeks ago was nothing more than a job for her today, a task she had to perform to get Karan out. Yes the fact that she hadn’t come to visit the police officer and pay him her respects last Tuesday and Thursday guaranteed the fact that this last encounter was especially going to be something she’d carry the scars of for a long time – but it was the last time after all. And she was ready for it.

And yet somewhere deep down she knew – that wasn’t the only reason she felt different about it. Point in fact, that was not one of the reasons at all – although there were several others. Like the fact that the police officer had grown milder and didn’t hurt her anymore; and the fact that there were no subordinates placed outside the cabin to keep a watch; and the fact that the cabin to which she had been coming twice a week, every week for the past seven months itself seemed a little cleaner now than the first time she had entered it and laid down on its dirt laden floor, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to ignore the stench of her surroundings or the pressure of the police officer’s body on her own – chanting incessantly in her mind ‘I am doing this for you Karan, I am doing this for you my love…’

Whether the subordinates were relieved of their duty to save her the embarrassment, or to prevent them from lusting her she’d never know. But yes, there was an unmistakable change in the police officer’s demeanor over the past couple of weeks.

And still nothing in the world could ever make her think of any other man even for a moment – or so she thought until two weeks ago.

The police officer heard a rap on the door.

‘Come in.’

The door opened. Kamini stepped inside. She shut the door behind her and began to unbutton her shirt.

‘That won’t be necessary.’

Kamini froze. Her hands dropped to her sides as she looked at the police officer.

‘Sit,’ he said without looking at her.

That’s when she looked around and realized – the place had been thoroughly cleaned. There were clean sheets on the cot; the junk was gone, and there were wild flowers on the table.

Kamini tried to absorb her surroundings, still rooted to the spot where she was standing since she came in.

‘Sometimes you can’t explain why you do or don’t do things in life,’ the police officer began. ‘But what you can at least try to do is understand situations – for they are the fact. Not like your emotions – something that even you yourself can’t be sure of at times.’ Pause. ‘I fucked you – I fucked you over damn hard. But I had my reasons, twisted as they were and still are.’

‘Just as you made me construct and come up with mine to comply with your demands,’ Kamini thought, as she recalled the day Karan had been dragged by his arms by two of the police officers subordinates and dropped onto his chair across the counter. She had sat and watched him bleed and cry, slipping in and out of consciousness, as the officer’s voice rang in her ears – ‘You just wait and watch what I do to your sweetheart now.’

‘I am not going to try and explain or justify what I did,’ the police officer continued, ‘for it can’t be explained or justified.’

Kamini waited for him to go on.

‘That’s all.’

Pause.

‘You may leave.’

‘But what if I don’t want to?’

The police officer glanced at Kamini. Her face was blank – at least it didn’t look like she had just said the words he thought she had.

‘I think – did you just –‘

‘Yes.’

Kamini’s posture was still absolutely composed and calm, and self assured, and everything that her voice was not – which was insecure, sad and hurt.

‘Twisted as they were and still are, you had your reasons. But what reason did Karan have to call me a whore?’ Kamini said.

The police officer got up from his chair and walked over to Kamini. He allowed himself to look at her for the first time since she had come. He saw her shirt was still unbuttoned – but the bosom that awakened his deepest, fierce desires didn’t even tempt him today. He slowly pulled her shirt together and buttoned it up. Kamini didn’t move even as he finished. He hesitated for a moment, and then lifted her face to look at her – and the sight stabbed him.

For he was looking into the eyes of a woman defeated and crushed beyond he thought was possible. The faith, the determination that the big black beady eyes had carried all these weeks and which drove him mad and to the extreme were now replaced with a sadness that was unthought-of to ever be able to be possessed by them.

‘Kamini!’ he exclaimed.

And their lips locked in the most passionate kiss ever.

And the passion was on both sides.

Tears streamed down Kamini's eyes – the tears she had fought back all this while, and which she knew were to betray her as she faced the police officer today. He tore himself apart from her and looked at her face again. And he pulled her close again and put his arms around her and held her as she cried and cried.


– x – x –


She looked at the man coming out of the door.

He smiled at her.

Her mouth curved in a semi smile.

He walked upto her and hugged her. He had gone over this moment in his head scores of times since he entered the prison cell, and every time she went away after their visit, and every night he slept. He had gone over it while eating his food, while exercising, while being beaten…

But it didn’t feel anything like it was supposed to.

And he knew what he had done.

His embrace loosened slowly.

His arms dropped.

And he watched her as she slowly walked away…

ESSENCE OF EX-ES

‘so…’

‘no Sojwala is not here…’

‘oh come on…’

‘no yar… we just got back na… I don’t want to go anywhere now…’

‘ok the beer’s getting to you…’

‘come on!’

‘what come on! You were the one who said you don’t want to go anywhere!’

‘I know, m just sayin we’ll go chat in my room… mom, dad, bro are not used to this kinda stuff…’

‘why they never had a best friend?’

‘maybe they did. I dunno… we never talked…’

‘my god! How have you been managing to keep mum past 20 years!’

‘it wouldn’t be so difficult for anyone you know, if they had my family.’

‘oh well, to each his own…’

‘her own, you mean…’

‘are you sure? Why does it have to be ‘his’ or ‘her’ all the time?’

‘yeah like we don’t know ‘they’ exist too…’

‘god is the beer getting the better of us or what…’

‘how would god know?’

‘god knows…’

‘no he doesn’t! he wasn’t there lifting up his glass n saying cheers to us!’

‘oh he was… didn’t you see mutthu?’

‘oh mutthu darling… don’t you remind me of that devil…’

‘and his devilicious smile…’

‘MUTTHU! MARRY ME!’

‘oh he might just say yes…’

‘is he single?’

‘oh yes…’

‘you bitch! Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘cos then you’d go be the bitch right there and then!’

‘n what is wrong with that?’

‘nothing really…’

‘give me your mobile.’

‘I don’t have his number…’

‘n you call yourself my best friend! You can’t even hook me up!’

‘whatever…’

‘god… I can’t stop thinking of him…’

‘hmm I can’t stop thinking of him too…’

‘lay off woman! He is mine…’

‘sure…’

‘oh by the way… give me the bill, we need to split it.’

‘gosh! The beer was on the house!’

‘now you are really drunk darling…’

‘you know…’

‘yeah I do.’

‘what?’

‘a lot of things…’

‘go on… tell me one…’

‘I know you are my best friend…’

(Kissing sound)

‘yeah… ever the bitches, aren’t we…’

(Laughter)

‘you know, I know something too…’

‘what?’

‘we’re drunk and talking shit.’

‘oh no we are not!’

‘come on! Of course we are drunk!’

‘yeah we are, but we are not talking shit…’

‘prove it…’

‘well, sameer does really not love me… its true.’

(Silence)

‘and I don’t love him either.’

‘oh now you are talking shit.’

‘no.’

(Silence)

‘well good for you then…’

‘now you are talking shit. This isn’t good for me… its not. In fact it’s a total 100% complete the opposite of good for me.’

(Silence)

‘well you know… that is actually feeling good.’

‘what? Talking shit?’

‘no. accepting it.’

‘shit.’

‘what?’

‘you are losing the whole essence of our evening…’

‘what essence?’

‘getting drunk… talking shit about our ex-es…’

‘well we are, aren’t we?’

‘we are?’

‘yes.’

‘how? Enlighten me!’

‘aren’t they in deep shit that they’re our ‘ex-es’ already?’

(Laughter)

‘yeah…maybe you’re right.’

‘I’m always right!’

(More laughter… and ribaldry of course…)

LUCK BY CHANCE

Ever wondered why we just lose touch with some of the best people we meet, and yet stick to some others we don’t really want to...? Some people you just tend to not be able to get rid off, in spite of a thousand things that happened… and some people – they come in our lives for a short while, and then just disappear. And we never see them again…

Do you believe in karma? Fate? Destiny? Luck? I do… I think everything that happens in our life has at least a little to do with either or all of these things. At least the part about meeting the right people at the right time – or even the wrong ones at the right time – at least the part about who we meet in life, get in touch with, befriend or don’t has got a lot to do with either or all of these things.

What triggered me to rant about all these things right now, you ask/wonder? Like everything else – or most other things – that I rant about it, this train of thoughts was triggered by what me and a friend of mine went through recently…

He was an online friend... but someone I went to school with for a couple of years, until he changed school. We were pretty dormant for a while... there in each other’s friend-lists, but conspicuous by our absence in each other’s scrapbooks – which is to say we hadn’t really ever had a conversation, or so much as even exchanged a few words online. Then one day we just hit it off – just like that – and got along so well, we wondered why we hadn’t done this before!

Now in a short time we got along really well – with similar interests, same zodiac signs, roughly the same attitudes in general, same experiences as school kids... you get the drift, ya? Then one day he told me about this friend of his that he had had a big row with and was not talking to since a very long time. I having gone through similar situation just a few months back, felt really bad for the two of them. With considerable possibility of sounding like a Grandma, or like a ‘been-there-done-that’, I am going to say that, I know what it is like to lose a best friend. So I kind of tried to persuade him to talk to his friend. Of course I didn’t do it too passionately, just a little elbowing, if you know what I mean... but nonetheless, it worked. The next time his friend was online, my friend talked to her, and they talked and talked and talked. And the bitterness dissolved somewhere in between, and they became friends again.

And as if that completed my role in his life, the very next day my friend sent me an e-mail, to which I gave a strange funny reply, and then we had a fight, and he chose to break it up. And I didn’t resist.

It seemed so strange to me at the time it happened, that I didn’t know what to make of this whole thing. The way I had reacted to his mail was not me – that person writing a reply to his mail was not me. The person who spoke to him when he called after reading my mail was not me. The things I said were not my thoughts! It was incomprehensible. I don’t give up on people so easily, never on friends at least! But with him, I let go like I never knew him.

As you sow, so shall you reap; tit for tat; karma – there’s a lot of ways to say it, but it all means the same thing. But sometimes it is beyond our control to explain things that happen around us, things that happen to us. I have had and lost some of the best friends life can give anyone... but one thing I have learnt from all this is to not feel bad if at some point of time, someone just drifts away from you – or rather when people leave – and to not try and hold on to them when they do drift away or leave. Of course there is a difference between trying to make a friendship – or any relationship – work out, and to cling onto something that’s already not working out. We are all after all instruments who carry out, work for and work against each other’s destiny’s... all of it, or part of it. Sometimes people enter in our lives only to make us experience or face or go through something, and that is all that their role is in our lives... our paths stick along as long as this purpose is fulfilled, and then, life just moves on. Sometimes we are meant to be cheated by our most trusted people, or be surprised by the most unexpected… or even be loved by the ones that we never thought would give us a thought, or someone we’d never give a thought to ourselves... that’s just how it is, nothing official about it!

But if there’s someone out there, keeping an account of all this, phew! He’s gotta be one hell of a mathematician...