शून्य

शून्यता घेरे है
हर ओर छाए अँधियारे हैं
मन में घहराते काले साए हैं
ना कोइ रोशनी, ना कोई चिराग
निसभ्द, निश्बद
हर दिशा से आहत
मन को तड़पाते मेरे ये विचार हैं
नीरस निर्जीव से मेरे भाव हैं
कुछ उधार की मुस्कान
कुछ उधार के सपने
कब तक मुझे उभार सकेंगें

अब बस

बस अब और नही

ना अब और छटपटाना 

ना अब और दिशाहीन भहाव

बस और बस सम्पर्ण

समर्पण इस संघर्ष से

दिल

तेरी यादों ने तड़पाया बहुत है,
इस दिल को हम ने बहलाया बहुत है|

जब भी यह शाम ढली,
हम ने ख़ुद को समझाया बहुत है|

तेरी याद को हम ने दूर किया बहुत है,
मगर दिल ने हम को किया मज़बूर बहुत है|

काश तुम्हारी आँखों से छलकते ना वो मोती,
हमारे दिल ने हम को छला बहुत है|

हर बार हुई ईक दस्तक,
हर बार हम ने खुद को ही धोखा दिया बहुत है|

and she smiled

I worked in a small office where the only employees were me and Rae, sometimes joined by our boss.

It had been a long day. The office work was becoming... well the usual.. boring. I could only do so much to keep my eyes open with the ceiling fan trying its best to put me off to sleep. It was a hot sultry summer day. The kind of day when even the time forgets to move.

Each agonizing minute was very slow in its passing, there was still another hour for me to get free from the work. I looked at the clock on the office wall, which seemed to tick-ticking away with the speed of a turtle.

The traffic in the office was slow, may be even people wanted to stay indoors, safe from the sweltering and min-numbing heat. I looked across to the other side of my table. My colleague, Rae, seemed to have fought a similar battle and lost. He was dozing with his head thrown back, mouth open.

I shook my head, to dispel the sleep from my brain. I though of getting up and going up to the cooler, at least, I might be able to wash the sleep away. The laziness was trying to envelope me in its embrace. I took one last look at the office, it was eerily silent with only sound being that of the wheering fan.

All I wanted to do was get back home, start the AC, and plop myself in front of the TV, with a drink to give me company. It sounded an awesome plan.

The doors slid open, just as I was getting up from my seat, welcoming the incomer. I looked up and found myself staring at the most beautiful face that I had even seen.. (ever?... okay.. may be in a long time).  She had the most beautiful brown eyes, which seemed to have a life of their own. Her face was framed by long brown hair, which she had tied in a plait, from which tendrils of hair had managed to escape. It was like a dream of mine had come alive.

She looked around, trying to find a person who might be awake to help her out!

I willed with all my heart for her to look in my direction. When her eyes met mine, I felt my heart doing a crazy dance, which honestly had not happened in a very long time. The monotony of daily office had marred the excitement.

I smiled. Waiting for her to return the smile.

She looked at me.

She asked about where she could find the office of Advocate Raghav. My heart plummeted.
Here I was, making plans, asking her out for coffee in my dreams and here she was asking about Raghav. I cursed and kicked mys elf mentally. The letter 'R' was becoming my nemesis, Rae, Raghav... how many more R would I have to suffer.

Pasting a smile on my face, I told her about the next door cabin.

She left.

I collapsed on my chair, all thoughts of coffee.... 'voossh'.

I stared at the clock, there still was 20 minutes to go. Rae snored softly, with drool dripping out form the right corner of his mouth. Any other day, I would have found it funny, may be would have taken a picture for Instagram. But today I found it all jarring.

I got up, irritated, kicked Rae's chair, bringing him back from the land of semi-dead, and told him gruffly, "I am going". He looked dazed at the clock, raised his eyebrows in a question. I replied with the shrug of my shoulders, dug into my pocket, picked the helmet and left.

I could hear Rae's gasp. I had never done that. I was always the 'proper and perfect' employee. I felt elated.

Leaving the office early by 15 minutes was giving me happiness!! I cursed myself again, I needed a life!!

Reaching home, I immediately plunked myself on the couch, opened the drink and immersed myself in the TV. (I had no life. All I had was office and TV).

The bell rung, awakening me from my dreamless sleep. I staggered to the door, opened it and found 'her' standing in front of me.

I shook my head, trying to clear my head. She asked me the same question. I answered mechanically, he is in the next cabin.

She asked if she could come inside, it was very hot outside.

I nodded. All power of speech and thought had flown away by now.

She glided inside, looked around, and proceeded to sit on the couch. Picked up the bottle that moments ago I had been holding.

My mouth went dry. Questions should have collided with each other in my brain. "What is she doing here?, Why is she here? etc. etc."

All I did was stare at her.

She looked at me as if I was a specimen.

Suddenly, I was not feeling sleepy.

She looked at me.

I walked over and sat next to her on the couch.

She looked at me.

She smiled.

I cringed.
I wanted to crawl away.
wanted to run away.

She smiled.

I realized what I had done.
I had invited a demon into my house.
I could not move.

And she smiled.

Woman's Day!

As if we need a special day to be reminded that we are women!
As if we need a special day to remind all around us that we need to be respected!
A day which is celebrated like so many other days,
with pomp and show
with words which are 'politically correct'
with words which tell us we are empowered

How is the day any different from the 364 other days of the year
when we have the women degraded, mutilated,
sold and bought like cattle,
when even the decision of what to wear is made by another,
Another who I may not even know!

When words around us are enough to mar us for eternity
When the 'look' that we see in the eyes of the beholder shame us
When in actuality it should be the other way.

When all that the men around me want to do is 'protect' me
When all that the society wants me to do is 'be coy'
When all that the society demands is for me to 'toe the line'

Why? Why? Why?
Why does it have to be 'woman' every time who has to give in
Why does it have to be 'woman' every time who has to play coy
Why do I need to avert eyes
Why do I have to play ignoran

Life - ups & downs?

Life is tricky and ever changing! What one wants and what one gets are often two different things.. in-fact these are often diametrically on the opposite ends!!

Me bring no exception to this great life have had and do have my share (trust me it is a pretty big one at that) of the mighty upheavals... the kind which want to make you feel like chucking it all away and say out loud, 'That's it! I've had it! No more! I give up!'

But these mighty upheavals, when these move into the past, seem to be so minuscule, that they don't seem to be worth the effort I had spent on tearing my hair out for!!

These appear to be so petty, small and of no major consequence in the larger cycle of life!

On a scale of 1 to 10, a problem that seemed to be 11, looking back on it, it appears to be 1 or may be a 2.

So does our memory plays truant on us, and reduces the complexity of the problem or is it time which makes a fool of us!

I'd say it is a combo of both - human mind tends to dim the memory of the angst, fear and panic of a situation, making it seem more humane under the dust of time, while time makes us more understanding, more experienced and less finicky.

There might have been studies carried out by scientists and psychologists upon the tricks that our mind plays! Studies which would have dissected each and every aspect of a memory, situation - to compartmentalize each feeling, each shiver, each smile into neat arrays making it easier to lay out serious sounding hypothesis, which then would have been studied further, to propound theories.

In-fact I am quite sure, that is how it must have happened.

I don't know much about such studies, since I don't move in such quasi-intellectual circles and know what I know from the lessons I have learnt from life. Life is a great teacher - it has told me repeatedly why I make the mistakes that I make, why do I choose the way I choose, why I loose my cool when I do (trust me I do, and a lot), and much more has it told.

It has also taught me how to extricate myself from these situations, how to react to a situation - fight or flight. What I choose - to fight or flight - is my decision.

So now my decisions are less of flight or flight but more along the lines of being savvy enough to preempt a problem and stay on to solve, instead of getting into a fight mode.

Honestly, life doesn't seem like to be of ups and downs - only of situations which need a calm mind, a detached view of being in the situation, but not be in the situation!

And once you decide to buckle down, then don't run away at the first sign of things erupting around you!

OCD

So here I was yesterday at a hospital (another day another story), when the observing kind that I am, I saw that there was comma which had been placed incorrectly in the poster displayed....

Tried to tell my brain that it did not see it, it was just a figment of imagination, not real.. no, did not help. My eyes strayed back to the error, giving a confirmation of the error spotted.

Drum-roll! 21 gun salute! That's what my brain told me. It was correct and I, the lowly being, had to go along with its findings.

Okay so what does one do when one notices an error in the poster which has been displayed for the longest of time, in plain view.. any normal person would have ignored it, which giving the credit where it is due, I did try and failed!!

So, I tapped my foot, looked everywhere for help in any form, may be an angel, anyone, someone.. but no-one was getting stressed over a comma which had missed out the correct place.

I tried to mentally will the comma to its correct place... used all my mental faculties (whatever is left of that!!).. and failed.

Traveled back in time to the time when it was being proof-read and finalised... picturing the proof-readers, bosses, approving, and trying to tell them that there is an error.. a big glaring error which would mar the beauty of the otherwise a perfectly structured poster... tried to send mental waves...

The reason for my visit became redundant, becoming a measly second ranked citizen... with me trying to fix that 'comma'...

But dear friends I failed...

And the comma came back to haunt me.. has been following me around, telling me that it is still in need of help... still in the need of being corrected...

Intends to stay as a ghost limb... till I find something which is amiss.. and then it would not be as lonely as it is feeling right now.. should not feel that way, since it has the August company of a chair with a slightly out of sync design, a zebra crossing slightly not straight... a stray hair which is running amok from its owner's neatly combed hair...

Journey

I have thyroid, was diagnosed for the same about 7 years back. Since that day every morning I pop a tablet for keeping the thyroid levels in check. There are days when I forget to reach out that small innocuous looking tablet. Those days are not painful, but do remind me in subtle manner of the over-sight committed; nothing serious.

It has made me realize how easy I had been taking things which concerned me. Everyday is becoming a little more of a struggle, a little more of a daily fights, some wins- some losses. The memory fails me, the words which flowed into sentences, now often fail me at the crucial moments. I am left trying to second-guess the name of a thing.. and seem to resemble more and more the side-kicks in old B & C grade Bollywood movies who are stuck over a word, and need prompting every sentence.

I am unable to recall names of people I work with, and yes it sometimes becomes downright embarrassing when I am mid-sentence and need to emphasize a point to a particular person, and the name just does not come and fits itself nicely into the gap. It remains just that a gap - leaving me to fend off the oncoming panick attack with closing of eyes, concentrating hard, but 'nada, nothing' - I mean nothing happens, so I open my eyes and try to fumble on with the sentence.

As if this was not sufficient, I loose the thread of a conversation, mid-way, and so I often find myself mumbling my agreement to God only knows what and trying to get back into the conversation as smoothly as possible. Quite an interesting scenario it becomes!

The sudden lack of hunger for days and then a gnawing hunger which, mind you, is satiated with only something sweet- go figure! The constant feeling of thirst, which does not go away even after guzzling down of 3 glasses of water. And then forgetting to drink water, since the thirstiness is always there and end up not having even 2 glasses of water in the whole day. Where does this leave me? Well, it leaves me being a yo-yo, where one week all my pretty dresses fit me and the next even the baggiest of clothes do not fit.

My body seems to be a host to many aches and pains which come and go as they please. They seriously do not ask for any permission. One fine morning a crick in the neck will come and stay there for what seems like ever, and whatever I do it will not go away with the best of efforts. And then after over-staying its welcome(?!), it leaves, making way for a creaky knee or an ankle, which will creak as much it wants to- obviously - these are so deep seated in the inner realms of my body that there is absolutely no way I could do anything at all.  So my conscious looks at it from a distance trying to keep it under control and not to allow it to decide to move to another location (some hopes!!!).

 Over the years my lusciously thick hair have become so sparse that at a stage I had decided to just go bald - Bald and Beautiful!! Now that would have been something. Not that can not happen now. My son likes to play with my hair, a habit he has had since he was born. I never did like it, but he as a toddler had his own mind, which I could do nothing with. Was I concerned? No, 'coz, I had strong hair, right! Now, I am often found asking my son not to touch my hair in the fear of him tugging out a bunch of them and me having to struggle with the attempt at covering the bald patches. I have taken to keeping my hair long, might as well enjoy them till they last.

I loved to listen to music at full volume, still do, but now the loud sounds and strong lights make my head go thud-thud, boom-boom after sometime. At movies, my son often pulls my hands away from my ears in the fear of being embarrassed with an old lady (aka me). I oblige him, but slowly and steadily shift in my chair to sit in a pose where my hand is on my chin and my thumbs are covering my ears... yes!! Some peace - till he catches me again.

One would think that would definitely imply that my ears are okay. Naah! I have an issue which is known as 'Tinnitus' or to layman - the ringing ears. So here I am mid-conversation, and my ears hears that fictitious bell, I move my head which I hope is imperceptibly to the side (which to an onlooker must seem like what is she trying to listen to) to try and lessen it. Does it help?? Nope. It does not. The bell rings loud and as long as it wants, with me listening to it and the person with whom I am in conversation - quite a balancing act.

My list of weirdness is long and variegated... rest for another evening!