This mess or that

To be or not to be

To see or not to see

To do or not to do

To live or not to live

Each day is the beginning of a new turmoil. Dates change, weather follows, but what does not change is the feeling of being sucked in. The pressure keeps rising and pushing me to do things that were not on the list. But the show has to go on, somehow.  

My hands get dirtier with each passing day, my soul corrupted with each passing minute. The need to be, in and of this world, is rooted deep within but not understandable. It comes as naturally as the air I breathe but why do I have to. Using the permutation basics to evaluate combination of the choices I made in the past, I wonder what difference I could have made. But the truth is that I would have been stuck in a different kind of mess but mess after all. 

Lucky are those days when I get the chance to question myself. I know I can’t change much but at least I get to push the pause button and let the turmoil wait for a while.

A holiday (continued and ended)

The much needed fall

Nina didn’t realize that the fall could be so lethal. Blinded by the flowing water, she hardly had any control to remind herself the emergency protocol. As she fought for breath, her life jacket gave her full support. She gulped down the water, a sip or two, before managing a constant air flow. But the battle was still on; she was still unstable and drifting further away.

The raft came closer and the guide threw a rope in her direction. “Watch out you moron!” Nina shouted as she thought the front of the rope could hit her head. (It looked like she still had to learn she wasn’t the queen of this kingdom). The guide ignored the attitude and did his best to help. After a countless gasps from the ones still on the raft and Nina’s brave efforts, she was pulled back, though still in the water but now holding the rope fixed on the raft. She requested to stay like that and float along, smirking to her friends and then laughing at her silliness.

“Hey, did you know that the Ganges tastes sweet!” she exclaimed and this is what she got in return – “Did you know that you are total freak?” from Sharon, and “Could you act any less proud about what just happened?” from Aneesha. But Nina loved it all; right from the fall to this moment where she felt so small. The river, the mountains, so big in front of her—they didn’t care whether she was even there or not. It felt so real, and it just took one slippery fall to break free from her inner toil. 

A holiday (continued)

Rarely does it happen that one is happy to realize the contradiction between reality and dream. Nina’s first holiday morning was one of those.

It took but a moment for her racing heartbeat to reach back to herself; the picturesque view in front of her was to thank. The swishing sound of the river against the still and silent surroundings was overwhelming. Nina forgot all about the uncanny visuals from her dream. She was witnessing heaven in between the hustle of her hectic life and she didn’t want to give it up to participate in the group’s chaotic discussion of an adventurous plan. However, she knew that whether she pitched in or not, what’s inevitable will happen.

“Who said that camping would be fun?” one of her friends (Sharon) exclaimed while marching towards their camp.

“I did. In fact we all did. You got a problem with that?” another one (Aneesha) defended.

“Well, try to poop in that gross toilet, and let me know if you could even manage to make number one”, she shouted back.

Nina’s urge to pee just got worse. She, like all other girls, could not stand unhygienic sanitation. What the heck was she going to do for the rest of the trip? She took her chances and began her exploration. To her relief, it wasn’t all that bad. Talk of number one, she even made number two in one go. Hurray! This was a going to be good holiday.

Soon they all wrapped up to jeopardize their lives for seeking pleasure from a bit of adrenalin rush. They were not alone. It looked like the whole town was there to relish the adventure of water sports. With their life jackets on and matching helmets buckled tight, the girls looked cute and the guys an admirable sight. Feeling estrogen-drained, Nina sped up her way to the raft. She hadn’t made love to Abhay in a while and she didn’t feel a thing being around that hunk of a pack. Was something wrong with her? She thought the same. But there was no answer, at least not right there.

They all lined up on the shore, sincerely listening to the rafting dos and don’ts. Nina got shit scared and almost backed out but her friends didn’t let her and instead promised her a safer seat on the raft. And it began. All in that group were losers in the name of sport; the raft didn’t even move a few meters when the guide had to pull for a stop. He pumped some motivation, or at least he tried, and they were slowly moving towards the right side. Excitement heightened when the first wave hit them in the face, except for Nina who tucked herself further in the raft proving to be a joke for all of them. Maybe for all except one, a guy leading the group seemed quite interested in her from the instant the two groups were merged for the rafting trip. Somehow Nina didn’t like the extra attention, and manned up to face the silly tides on her own. She managed to love them one by one and eased her grip on the ropes that held her in.

The flow was treating them good and it looked like the group had picked up on the skill. Nina’s eyes met Aneesha’s and they smiled. Aneesha was admiring that she could make it here with her friends and that she could witness them all having so much fun.

But to make it last, their eyes had to be on the road (or river). There came a big tide and that smile turned all white. It took Nina along with it drowning her in the river upside down.

A holiday

She didn’t see it coming.

Nina was running in the mountain fields in the middle of the night. She wasn’t sure of the time but with the intensity of darkness and the fritinancy that surrounded, she knew it was surely past midnight. Fear had consumed her to an extent that she had forgotten what she was running from or where was she heading to. She could stumble upon a rock or fall in a pit as the starlight could hardly find its way through the dense forest.

She could hear the waters flowing somewhere near, but wasn’t sure exactly where. It could be a river or a waterfall, but she thought that it was enough to help her find someone or at least a way out. Running and gasping through an uneven path, there came a point when Nina thought she would lose her conscious. She had to halt, no matter what, to get a little rest. The waterfall was still far but she could hear it splash clearer this way. She gave her panting a chance to ease and tried to examine which one of the two will make her squeak—a wild animal or a ghost.

And as if they were listening to her thoughts, a spine-chilling shrill-of-a-laugh came from her side. She screamed aloud and charged her body to run against the direction of the sound. The sudden burst of energy caused a strange reaction—she woke up to a clear sky, outside a camp in front of the Ganges. Shudders went to her heart when the screaking laughter did a round two; it was Nina’s friend who was having an overjoyed conversation with the rest of the holiday crew.

A long awaited holiday had finally begun.

Been there, done that

There’s déjà vu and then there’s the heightened yet subdued version of it.

I was hungry, and there was food—a lot of it but I couldn’t eat. I knew the taste of each dish but I didn’t want to savor it. I walked around in my dirty pajamas and a complimenting pair of slippers, going from one stall to another that offered the usually-tempting delicacies but couldn’t bribe me anymore. A spicy platter was finding it hard to win over a bland porridge.

I saw pretty faces with even better clothes on, and for the first time I didn’t mind the lounging attire that I had put on. No perfume shop could turn me on; no shiny shoes could steal my glance. I was hungry but I couldn’t eat at all.

Suddenly everything—cheap or fancy—was losing its grip on me. The highs and lows were staring at me but the lines defining them were fading away. I could work on and on without needing a break (thinking of a holiday didn’t really make my stomach churn the funny way). I was standing far away from my emotional self, not finding it wrong to feel, for once, the mechanical way.

I saw my future as if in a flashback. Guess I am an old soul, been living too long to now feel old.

Darkness: my better half

I read somewhere that if you live in the state of solemnness all your life, you would need to depend on great companionship to come closer to yourself—to grow. A traveler in the desert will find peace to see greenery and abundance of nature; it doesn’t matter if he really finds it or just imagines it. Peace will come. And for those who have lived in the lap of nature, they would not like to dream of greenery anymore.

I agree for it to be true as I can relate to the latter. Raised in a joint family, I was loved by all (major credit goes to being the youngest); I was blessed with umpteen, good friends; I faced no major restrictions be it monitory or mental; I was given the authority to choose a candy from the store or a career out of my average qualification. Life has always been smooth. But when I shut my eyes, I see darkness: poverty, abandonment, sacrifice and death. They suck me in; I see them coming.

I have been preparing inside, crying since I was eight. But I’m still not ready. I don’t see how it will make me grow but how it does help, is by making me aware of the life that could be. It has never let me become greedy for happiness; I do long for a life full of it, though. It has kept me vulnerable and emotional to the situations I have never come across.

I have also heard people say that a day full of laughter is followed by another full of tears. And I have found myself burst out the next week/month (if not the very next day) of a zestfully happy one.

I wonder if it is helping me out at all. 

Where it all starts or where all it could have started (continued and ended)

After meeting Abhay, there was no looking back for Nina. He was the one (if that meant anything at all). But could that one be the one for someone else as well?

The evidence for Nina was still a blurry image for the world. Acknowledging the endangered devotion towards her friend, and the ever-growing love for her boyfriend, Nina stepped up to break that slender thread of bond between the two of them. She took Saanchi from Abhay's arms and freed him of the responsibility, noticing his gestures in detail as if those 2 vodka shots and a glass full of screwdriver never went inside. Abhay played it cool.  

"To hell with all those who called her skinny! Come, hold her and try saying that again." Nina screamed inside but didn’t let a drop of her trouble show. She didn't take much time to become a pro (at handling drunk, short-skirted girls who can barely open their eyes but are still standing somehow).

After handling Saanchi for about half an hour and being the good, responsible friend, Nina’s conscience started to question her. Abhay didn’t seem to take the role back, and Saanchi was comfortable in her arms. Soon, it started mocking her but she wasn’t planning to give into it without a one-on-one with Abhay. But that had to wait. Nina was doubtful of asking someone else to manage Saanchi. She was apprehensive of the thought that the kind king himself might not intrude her plan. With every passing moment, her list of questions-to-ask-Abhay kept growing long. And when the time for handcuffing the convict came, the roles interchanged.

Abhay’s outrage at the accusation made her whiny expressions turn weepy. She forgave him (in her mind) in one-tenth of a nano second and apologized (out loud) like a school kid to the teacher.