You, the reminder of those sweet moments,
Happy Birthday.

Downfall

The shadow of grief gets inside and pinches me here and there to announce of it's triumphant entrance. I stop moving my jaws to make a steady hold. I look sternly at things I once dearly loved. My mind goes blank from thought. The shadow makes its move forward to nip my heart like a cruel murderer and blows it into nothing. My poor heart looses it's heart in the midway. The victorious shadow dashes in to block my nostrils and to put me to suffocation. My head weighs a heavy load and tears roll off my cheeks from the swollen eyes just to make those wretched dry marks. At that moment of self-pity, I only wish to fly to my mother and sob in her lap. When I realise I cannot do that, I write here hopelessly for I can extricate myself from this pain in no other way.

Kerala trip

Many a times, when we are bored to death, we guess things of no-importance, we guess things of discreet nature just to entertain ourselves, But in this game of guessing and playing with those ideas, sometimes we miss to mark the clues from within. Later on, how much ever we contemplate on ourselves, we'll never be able to capture those lost clues until a day we surprise ourselves with a double personality.

This is my first tour with friends. I enjoyed each moment of this journey. Dirty sleeper coach, Beautiful Athirapally waterfalls, Romantic Munnar, Girly misunderstandings with Nashi, brightly lit guruvayur temple and not so exciting rope way in malampuzha, bits and pieces of Malayalam we learnt on the way from Soumya's dad, and the dumbo Franscis who will not understand a word of any other language except Malayalam, the melodious malayalam songs(believe me, Pradeep bought those CDs from Franscis on the last day), the houses you dream often to own for yourself, the vibrant colours of those houses, terrible food with coconut oil. And also, there are few more which are either trivial or things that are better be remained untold. Thanks Pradeep and Nasheeda for making it happen. I cherish these days we spent like a family.

Now, you must be wondering how this paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 are related? Yes, there isn't much in common. I just met an other me over there.

PS: More details of the trip are available here in Nashi's blog.

Not yet!

A month passed. I hadn't written even one post. According to the resolution I have taken, today is the deadline to fill this place with some crap. My mind is a bit unstable with happiness. But still I write.. not for the sake of writing as somebody saved me from doing that.

I am happy for many reasons. Today, I met an old friend Smitha at Sowmy's wedding after months. She is not certainly of my kind. But I heavily get influenced by her. She criticises curtly, but she talks all the logic of some perfect world. I admire her for what she is. She threw her ideas to me, after which I wanted to re-write the story 'Lonely Together'.

Before I go re-writing it, here are few more reasons for my happiness.

I fell in love again for the fifth time. You must be knowing by now, that I can fall in love 1000 times(less??) before I die. Have you heard of Nikolai Gogol? The author of Dead Souls. He is the mixture of all my previous crushes and much more. The only bad thing about him is he doesn't know the marketing strategy. He picked up a scary title for such a nice book. If only I am his adviser, I would have given the book a nice title and made him as well-known as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I recommend this to all the book lovers. Thank you so much Nasheeda, for taking all the troubles and being subjected to suspicious looks to gift me such a lovely book with a not-at-all suited scary title.

Yesterday was Dostoevsky's birthday. I celebrated with eclairs. Laughing?? Why shan't I? He is the one who kept me busy enjoying the troublesome phase of my life.

We pick out only few from a bunch of friends and call them 'best friends'. When we pick them, we really won't have clear reasons for 'Why?'. We do it blindly with intuition. But when they stand up for you and think what is best for you and keep you to the path when you are straying away, that brings a kind of satisfaction and happiness you can't easily express but can only wipe off the happy tears in embarrassment. Lucky is me to have my best friends.

Today, Sowmya and Ram got married. Their wedding is a simple and happy one. Ram's students made it all bright shouting and dancing. I am happy for both of them. They make a good couple.

Now to the story editing.

The lady of the story, how much ever is she attracted to somebody, she knew when to stop getting the 'crazy excitements' for her mad love and when to stop running after somebody without their consent. For her marriage and love are two different things. They can be put together only when everything goes in sync. She thinks love is full of transient emotions and marriage is only the practical one. She chose not to choose her partner with emotions and chucked him out of her life.

She got married to someone(the same poor fellow of the original story), but why she chose that 'someone' we don't have a clue. She was happy about him. But he remained like the same gloomy poor soul of the O.S(shortcut for the Original Story. I may have to refer to this many more times for it is merely the comparison of the choice consequences). She laughed at his silence. but why? Don't ask me. I am only as much knowledgeable as you are in this matter. What I knew is, she didn't act like his wife but someone he should play his cards right to pursue her. Of-course, he didn't give any heed to her. But she is not disappointed. Why should she be? It is not love to feel that insecurity. She always kept herself available for him with open arms.

He was OK to talk to her as in-charge of the house(as in O.S). In-fact he started liking her, but our hero with torturous conscience felt it sinful even to think of his wife as his own. But everything that isn't yours will pass off. His emotions for his wife took over his gloominess. He courted her with flowers and hummed songs in casual manner but were only meant for her. She smiled to herself with peace at heart that could come only with a wedding.

On 21st December, 1988. he bent his knees to propose to his wife as childishly as a 17 year old will do to his 16 year old girl friend. He changed his lines from usual "will you marry me?". You must observe, they already got married and there is no point in asking her to marry him again. So he said "Forgive me my wife. I had been stupid and took this much time to enjoy the life. I am not as boring as you have seen till now. I can make a good husband."

Now when she is 42(as in O.S), they celebrate their wedding anniversary on 21st December. When they get compliments like 'ideal couple', they try looking pleased for they don't really care for what others say about them. They are happy with themselves.

PS: Title is chosen to shout aloud that I am 'Not yet' dead.

Perceptions

I was back home unusually early at 8.00 in the evening that day being a Sunday. I put my book and bag on the sofa and went upstairs to get refreshed. By the time I re-appeared in the hall, my younger brother was browsing my book of Dostoevsky. He asked me what the story is about. I carefully briefed him what I read. He being a history-lover, asked me few more questions about the author. He still had my book in his hands while I was answering him.

Suddenly, my aunt had come from the kitchen and flared up shouting at him "Keep that away, That is from Satan. Not for you. You must not read any other book than your class books and the 'holy' bible. Have you already forgot the sermons read by 'Brother Someone' in the morning?" I was shocked and quivered. She called my book 'Satan', She called my dear Dostoevsky 'Satan', who wanted to be with Christ rather than with truth, if in-case they two are separate. Though being insulted directly or indirectly, I pitied my brother for his life sentence for no crime.

I didn't speak anything at the dinner even for courtesy. I was baffled to such level. I slept vaguely dreaming of my aunt-like figure burning a pile of books with so much hatred in her eyes which slowly turned to pleasure when there were only ashes left. It is not an exaggeration, if I say, I checked in the morning if my books were in place and were not crumpled with anything 'holy'.

PS: Ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies.

Error in connection

I hated her on our first meeting because she refused me to try her sandals as if she was a Cinderella. But she loved me all the time, may be because she knew that she'll be involved in the cause of my pain and took pity for me. While I started getting symptoms of my pain, I rejected her affection and hurt her as much as possible. I just wanted her away, but even after all the trials, she never left me.

I took a special day, to feel this pain completely and get off with it. I felt it in my tears, flowing uncontrollably onto my cheeks soaking my pillow. I believe, wet cheeks are the best way to exert the coldness. We shall not carry the resentments forward, they spoil the mental health. Then she came. She bent over me brushing the hairs (that fell on my forehead) backwards with her fingers. She forcibly made me sit, not considering the repulsions I posed and hugged me caressing my head with affectionate patting. This humiliated me very much. If I had not accepted her love and ask for forgiveness then, I would have treated myself a heartless now.

I rested my head on her shoulders taking her as my best friend and resumed to weeping. This was continued for a while. When she thought she gave me enough time, she took my face in her little arms and wiped off my tears telling me 'everything will be OK'. Then I saw her eyes suffering more than myself not even having the comfort of tears or a caring companion. I replied her 'Yes, everything will be OK'. I kissed her and she paid it back.

The next three days were just crazy. All the day, we sticked to each other. Talked restlessly about everything. Ate together. Neglected everyone else. We even shared the bed and continued talking till the eye-lids were tired and sent us requests to shut our mouths. Our friends gossiped we might have turned lesbians. It reached us soon. We laughed at the idea. She looked at me asking impishly 'Are we ..??'. I answered her pretending to take a serious tone 'Aren't we..?'

Though we brushed it aside laughing, I feel we would have been proved lesbians unless we got the stopping signals in the form of scary gossips.