Bystander

No.
Life doesn't hold me captive.
Each time it puts me in chains
I wear them, fooling all.
A little bit of me escapes though.
In a bid to help me breathe.
I breathe.
I survive.
Live?
I don't.
I stand on the by lanes.
Welcoming each precious,elusive part of me
that manages to break free.
I stand on the by lanes.
Watching the stooge change the masks
and correct the expressions, perfect the emotions.
So what if I don't always get it right?
The stooge bears the brickbats.
She's learned to hang the accolades
and stack away the slaps
I am safe in the by lanes....
crumbling
growing
breaking
healing...
mothballing me.
The real me.

Hurt

Me: "I'm hurt"

          My Friend:"Oh! So which type?"

          Me:"What do you mean?"

          Friend: "There is a genuine hurt,smug hurt,righteous hurt,irretrievable hurt,irreconcilable hurt,contrite hurt; so what type you got?"

After the initial righteous hurt on being subjected to a clinical examination of my sentiments, instead of a few words of solace,I pondered over her words, trying to ascertain the validity of her question.This was, after all, the first time that I had come across categorizing of a feeling. Not just another feeling but, a feeling that defines most of my existence.

I was very young when my eldest cousin brother had put in my scrap book under,"a line that best describes me", "Fragile, handle with care!" What led him to think of me as fragile back then, I wonder. I was one of the youngest in my clan who got constantly bullied by one lot, then pampered silly by another.So I was on a short fuse more often than not and was perennially upset with someone or the other. I so loved the pampering, it made me feel so special, creating a buffer against life's little games, that I held onto my smug hurt, even when the bullying stopped. It turned into a habit.

Old habits die hard. They should, for life is all about forming new habits to tackle old or similar situations.That is maturity, personal competence, adaptability, emotional strength. My permit to be "smug hurt" was cancelled citing age and the advent of next generation in the family as a reason, before I could learn to create my own buffer. I was genuinely hurt by my world's refusal to accept the fact, that I seldom needed permission to do anything in life, least of all when my heart took over. On one hand, I was grappling with the variegated challenges thrown at me by friends, family, studies and life in general. On the other, I was struggling to create the walls around me that would protect me from my own, blissfully unaware, world. With each brick of maturity and emotional strength I widened the gorge around me that separated and toughened the loner in me. Did I stop reacting to rude indifference, dominant bullying, deliberate ignoring, betrayal or my waking up to my own various flaws? Hardly, but I had learned to cry alone.

That sinking feeling moving down into the heart, that feeling of emptiness, somewhere between the heart and the abdomen, the dryness in throat, those stinging eyes,that stupid smile belying the torment and that incorrigibly fuzzy brain.The more specific and bizarre indicators like blocking out a person visually from a room, blurring out words,specially when the decibel is unbearable, impeding a familiar, comforting smell, the stomach becoming a bottomless pit,the feeling of being pinned down with a heavy load. A large part of my existence has been this tussle between veiling the fragile me that experiences all or some of the above and sustaining that mask with the permanent smirk on, when in reality, life went on.

While life went on, giving me equal number of smiles and laughs, that weak, insecure little part in me lived on, resurfacing at all those old familiar situations.From being taken lightly to the other extreme, of being suffocated with attention. From being taken for granted to being denied acceptance. Or worse still, the realization of having succumbed to my being human and failing others. Contrite,irretrievable,smug or genuine, yes, I have felt them all at one point or the other. So what type is it that brought me here?

Time and again, I realize, I am viewed in parts. People see, understand and accept only certain parts of me and form their opinions accordingly. I am happy-go lucky for some, silly and sweet for few, ill tempered snob for most and patient, matured, responsible for the rest. People accept only what appeals to their eye,understand only as much as their experiences allow, love merely to keep their heart alive. But I am not a sum of parts, very few know that it's all me. Fewer still love me as I am. Most pick a part and romance it, when the rest of me comes in view, they leave. They leave me, confused, broken and hurt. Life goes on and wounds do heal, but repeated crushing makes it difficult to put the pieces back together again.

                  Me: I'm hurt... beyond repair.

Vibes

Happiness, grief, anger, love,
I have felt it all,millions of times.
Where in me do these feelings live?
I see you and smile broadly,or so I think.
For when I catch my face in the mirror,
no muscle has twitched.
So was it a dream, or
can my heart smile?

Feelings are aplenty.
They run wild through my heart
to my head, leaving a bittersweet trail,
of some sniggles, sniffles and some ruins.
They are wasted, for words fail to voice them,
yet I have put it all up for the raving and the rants.
If you could only read my eyes...

I am a creator weaving psychedelic
patterns of love, smiles and laughs
out of a mere hug.
I am a magician conjuring up
paradises out of the ruins.

See my heart.
The tears will not fool you.
Read my eyes.
My smile will not fool you.
My world is a wilderness,
clothes fail to cover my soul.
Walk with me long enough,
you will sense my heartbeats in my shadow.

Preface

I am cosmic.
I have no boundaries.
There is no dearth of loops and rings

that bind into a chain.

The chain that ties me down. 

Fixes me firmly to the ground. 

Lest I fly.

I am flawed. 

I waste my wings. I fumble and grabble,

search in vain to find feet.
The wings rust, I stumble. I fall.

I am delirious.
I love red. Trickling,gurgling deep red.
The weak swathe their lesions.
Not me. I flaunt my gashes.

I am strong.
I dare to reach out and beg.
For a shoulder, a hand, a hug.
I rise when they betray.

I am scarred.
My soul is pockmarked with blemishes.
Of wounds I won't forgive or forget.
They rest snugly safe, deep within.

I am me.
Beyond the blur of constricted empathy,
fogged by soot, drenched in spurious hilarity.
I am me.
A wild child, a fighter, a dreamer, a heart.
Take me or leave me. Change I won't.

I will always be me.

Bollywood and me

It seem's like a topic for a school essay. For a fifth grader at that. Seriously! With 40 decades behind me, why would I spend mind space contemplating the " Effects of Bollywood in my life". I do have a life, though all around me seem to think I don't. It is something that is very troubling though, this effect the B world has on me.

If I look back and see my life, it becomes all the more puzzling. I was born in a decent Bengali family which took it's "culture" pretty seriously. My house looked like a library that had other furniture fitted in, to make it livable. Alternately, it could also pass off as a hangout for musicians. Harmonium, tabla, guitar, sitar, three years of training in Indian classical music, I was handed it all.

We didn't watch Hindi movies. For the heroes "jumped around like monkeys" and the heroines wore loud clothes and louder make-up, bad influence on young minds. I remember the disgusted shake of head and tut tutting. We did watch a few "Bangla bhalo boi"(read Bengali movie), classics, which failed to interest me at that age. Not that I was remotely interested, in the breaking into song & dance (Rabindrasangeet), at social dos, or "sahitya charcha"( discussion on literature)either.
It all changed with the entry of the box in our drawing room. It was a Sunday evening, we gathered around excitedly around the newest member of my family, a TV with shutter doors. After a lot of swinging the antennae around, we could hear the movie but couldn't really see anything. Everyone gave up, except me.I sat and stared at the screen, devouring the "ghost pictures" and listening to "jal bina machli nritya bina bijli". I was sold.

My life started revolving around "Chitrahar" and the Sunday evening movie. I wonder if anyone was as influenced as me. I do have a younger cousin sister who was equally mad about the movies. She is one person I have seen in my life, who watches her movies with full sincerity, fully engrossed, taking in each detail, from the color of the dresses to furniture to the extras dancing at the back. If you have seen Shammi Kapoor dancing in "baar baar dekho" and noticed the dancer next to him making faces and abusing him, you would know what I am talking about.

So, my relationship with Bollywood started with the telly. With each latest technology and clearer picture quality, my bonding grew stronger. I did see a few landmark movies on the big screen and they did haunt me for days later but, then the numbers were very few, I guess just about six or seven for the first 16 years of my life. Thankfully my love for reading survived the onslaught of visual media. So, though the Bollywood drama queen in me had taken birth, the sophisticated and suave protagonists of Jane Austen and Bronte Sisters kept me socially correct. So even if my tears welled up at the drop of a hat, I had enough of Elizabeth Bennet in me to let them flow.

The drama princess turned into a queen when I left home to live in a hostel. For five years, from XIth to graduation, even without parental guidance,I was always first...first day first show audience I mean. Belting out songs and dancing to all hit numbers was perhaps still okay as everyone else did that. But, I didn't even realize, when my mind started playing background score to whatever I was facing at any moment. Like, I was unconsciously running to "Chariots of fire", when being chased by friends for some prank; watching a senior in the kitchen two floors below to "tu kal chala jayega"; "tere jaise yaar kahaan", when Shalu, my bestest friend, would treat me with her pocket money; or the mother of all, "dukhi man mere", walking out of my room after the numerous showdowns!

Not just background score, my dialogues, monologues to be more precise, would have outshone all of Ekta Kapoors serials put together. My best,or maybe it was my worst, was the one I had given my warden at hostel, during graduation final year, only for the poor woman had dared to say, that she could hear my voice above all the din my entire class was creating one evening to click a group picture. No, I can never make myself repeat those words. That she left the room wiping her tears with her anchal (God!What drama!) is a testimony of how mean I had been. I am immensely grateful to our media that back then they hadn't started the 3 gongs with 3 same shots, different angles and heroine going "Kya! Kya! Kya!. I get the jitters worrying how I could have managed that!

Leaving hostel and coming back home saw me leaving more than my dear friends and the best period of my life. My affair with Bollywood was over.I was back to reading classics. I got admitted to a university to pursue Masters. I was among my race. Life again was about the Bard, his works, breaking into songs and witnessing seniors and classmates disappearing behind the "bansh bon" during breaks and emerging disheveled. Basically, there was enough drama around me under the disguise of pseudo intellectualism and incestuous love (yeah!loads address their beau as dada) to suppress the drama queen in me.

Marriage and motherhood followed. The roles of  daughter,wife, daughter-in-law, mother all entangled and pushed me out of my reach for a few years. As soon as my daughter grew a little I successfully converted my family into movie buffs. The multiplexes, the corporatization had changed the face of Hindi movies. Gone were the days of loud dialogues and raunchy item numbers and 30 plus heroes playing college goers or heroines heaving their padded bosoms in front of forty fat extras. I laud the movies that run without heroines and songs and dance. Yet, as much as I appreciate the Anurag Kashyaps and Dibakar Banerjees holding up to the Yashrajs and KJos...the drama in me is still alive. Pure, unadulterated, background score with tear jerking dialogues and running full house bollywood,still ticks inside me.

Realized it only recently. In a lightning flashing, revolving camera moment at that. So,my instructor and another friend,buddies from my fitness class met after a long gap due to my pal being sick, to zumba together. Zumba. the love of their tarantism afflicted lives. As they swayed happily to the loud, incomprehensible cumbian music, right in front of me, I was suddenly aware of my purple devil face, hovering an inch over my head, smirking and singing..."ye bandhan to-o-o pyar ka bandhan hai, janmon ka sangam hai"...  ... ...!!! I was shocked. Yes, with the 3 gongs,3 camera angles,same shot my mind going  Kyon! Kyon! Kyon!
 They say it is easy to get rid of mental clutter if you can reach the root cause. That,my friends is the reason I am trying to discern how and when this happened. I need to get those files deleted from my memory that push drama in me. As I pen this...my mind is playing, "ye kya hua, kaise hua..."

Can we lose love?

"Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost" 

                                                                                                                       Kahlil Gibran

Came across these lines recently and was lost in the significance and magnitude of the meaning. Read and re-read it, amazed at how someone could put into words, a thought of such enormity, in such simple language. The fact, that probably everyone will relate to it, made it more intriguing. The lines refused to leave me. The more I thought about it, the more it engulfed me.

Say what you mean. I do believe in communication playing a major role in relationships.Years ago, my roommate had lamented, that her parents shied away from showing their love in any way, after a certain age.There are many who believe in the same school of thought, that it is enough to just love, it isn't necessary to show it. Given the uncertainty of life, isn't it better to make a show of your emotions?

Show your love, it will only make someone more secure.Vent out your anger, it won't turn into poison, that eats away your bonds. Share your insecurities, your fear and your jealousies too. You might be surprised at the futility of these emotions when the person realizes you feel this way. On the other hand if it doesn't make a difference to them, well, you still realize the futility of it all.

Often we do the opposite.Deliberately say things we don't mean. Hurt,anger,ego...the reasons could be many but, the one constant,almost always, is the resulting hurt. It isn't always possible to say what we mean. We are human after all, at times we are a victim of our own weaknesses. If that makes even a little bit of love being lost... Is it really possible to lose love? 

There has been uncountable definitions, explanations, discussions on what love is. No one single definition will hold true for everyone. Everyone perceives it differently and believes it is the universal way to look at it. The way I look at it, there is no way of love ever being lost. For me, "love at first sight" is highly overrated. For eyes can only see the physical,which gives no idea about the person it holds inside. To know someone better than the person himself/herself; to put that person before your ego; to be able to communicate without words; to not let any words or actions or the lack of it scar but,  strengthen the anchor; to be the reason for someone's inner peace; isn't that love?

For me, it is. Once the shackles and barriers have been broken between two people to build a very strong bond that can't waver at the mere utterance or absence of words; that grounds and anchors them to life, it can't be lost. The pain of being let down might build a wall in between, or create a gorge that is impossible to cross. Will that erase the warmth, the familiarity, the tug the heart feels...ever? It only needs a bit of courage, to reach out and bring it back to life. A bond that strong, that we call love, can't break, can't be lost.  If it does, it wasn't love. 

SO FAR...

Prey to the folly of millions before me,
I began life believing every word they said.
That the first step was sooner; the first words 
clearer; everything a record, that none had achieved.
I was a princess. My life was a fairy tale...

Then Life took over to teaching me.
Each day a new experience brought me 
nearer to the multitude. It clipped the wings
and trashed the crown.Yet I marveled at the 
plots and sub plots...they kept me in the lead
role of my saga. 

I kept turning the pages
and penned down new lines diligently,
day after day, year after year. 
A record. Of my memories.
Happy, funny, heart warming;
Or some that  put in a knife and can still make me bleed.

After a lifetime when I flip through... 
I am surprised. I am sad.
For all the pages are the same!
All that is different is the color, the font, the spacing...
The same actions. Only the faces changed. The same words too...
that brought a smile or a gush of tears. 
The same reactions. Impulsive, tactless or disappearing behind walls.
Never learned anything that life spend years teaching.

For the sheer lack of a melange score
Life! we've let each other down.