The new Me

It gives a great feeling when I cook just for myself. I buy only the groceries that I like. There is nothing in my kitchen that I dislike. When I go to super market and see my favorite ice cream- I try to convince how much I want that ice cream and that I request the other part in me to buy that for me,  to which my other part replies and asks me to calculate the calories and then these both parts of mine fight within me and finally, as expected I am seen coming out of the store with a biggest family pack ice cream.

I reach home, I change, I switch on my laptop, wrap myself in my cozy quilt that Mom gave me, and unwrap the chocolate ice cream and with every bite, I close my eyes and enjoy every single bit of sweetness that it infuses in my body, soothing my soul.

I go to wet market alone. I find it so hard to buy vegetable for the other me, you know, I throw so much tantrums when it comes to eating healthy. Like a mother, I buy and like a spoilt baby, I refuse those yukk tasting yet extremely healthy vegetables.

I wander around the florists and deep inside my heart I want to buy those yellow roses and drooping pink coronations, smiling at me. I dont get the courage to buy flowers for myself.

The glimpse of flower excites me and its smell holds me by my arms , pulling me...not letting me go. And this part of the strict me inside, pulls me by my collars and takes me away from the street, asking me not to indulge in this stupid acts of staring flowers.

I go to this park adjacent to my building. Cutest kids play there. I always see myself and my brother playing, laughing, jumping from the bench, inventing the silliest ways to do things and then fighting over trifles, and then not talking to each other and then again seen plucking grass and throwing each other. I smile with happiness and cry out of joy to see those happy kids.

I go for shopping. I don't remember when was the last time when I bought some dress suggested by someone. I just buy whatever I like- whether I wear it or not, just because I like it- just like a stinky rich father asking his daughter to pick anything she wants from the store. And, I do.

I go to Church. I sit there staring at the being prayed figure. I don't burden Him much by asking a lot of things for myself- He is already busy with pending supplications. I empathize with Him, thank Him for whatever He has done to me, and assure Him that I'll keep on surrendering myself to Him.

I go to sea side (when was the last time I wrote something without mentioning sea in it). I see the green waters semi covered with bed sheet of white waves. I stand gazing at it for hours. Sometimes I feel, if I stretch my palms, the waves will touch me in love. I see the moon pasted over the grey sky- it is so real that it looks so unreal. Some airplanes dodge and twinkle like stars. The sky looks like mom's grey Mokaish dupatta that she used to wear while bringing me back from school.

The days pass and the nights are passing. I see myself growing old with someone I am in love with- the new me. 

A late night walk

Night has always been the time best time of my day, for the peace and calmness it contains in its womb. A time when everything stands at still. The world is allowed to take rest, sleep. The pacifying effect it has on every face, is what I love the most.

As a child too, I always dreamt that when I grow bigger one day, and when I'll be able to take care of myself, I'll walk alone on the grey roads of black nights, pocketing my hands, enjoying the star lit sky.

I didnt realise that I had grown bigger. I never fulfilled my dream.

Last Friday, I was coming back home, from Police Station, all alone, past midnight.

Freezing breeze, star lit night, lonely road and the pacifying silence spread around.

At that moment, I realised what is happening now is what I always wanted.

I had grown bigger. I was alone. I could take care of myself. And I could do what I yearned for- a late night walk.

As I walked, behind the swaying palm trees, I saw the sexy hunk Sea smiling like a boyfriend, and calling me by my name, pleading naughtily to make full use of the moment, and invited me.

As I moved ahead, the chilling sea breeze, like flood water, started to rise from my ankles to my legs, to my knees- where the skirt allowed it to, and my legs froze - dont know in pain or excitement to meet my beloved.

I felt the breeze coming from Eastern sky, playing with my hair, throwing my curls on the other side of my face, and picking it up again as I turned my face.

My face glittered and my eyes twinkled, the moment I got the view of the sea. An automatic smile curved my lips, forgetting what all I went through during the day and the Police Station.

I almost embraced the sea with a teary face and he, like my lover, assured me that all will be fine, because we both know that no matter how much you are cheated, words do carry a certain quantum of faith in them, and they are not hollow as we start thinking about them as grow in our experiences in our life.

                                

I saw some ships flashing in the middle of the grey black sea, and the foggy sky over it.

I heard some dogs barking. As I turned to see, a maid with three big rich dogs taking a stroll over the sea side, talking to some super rich man in his extra super rich black car.

I noticed some object kept on a sheltered bench behind me. As I tried to fathom, I found an old man, cuddled up in extra jackets and caps, sitting with a big plastic bag kept besides him. To his left, a parcel of food, half eaten with a plastic spoon kept over it.

Oh, that feeling of insecurity that I keep shooing away, caught me by throat again.

Looked like that oldie had no place to go. And, that I'll also be as alone, as feeble and as helpless and homeless like him when I grow old. 

The night appeared getting elongated. And as if a thousand arms approaching me to strangulate me from the deep corners of the night and the Sea I just trusted.

At the end of the day, and after the night, we all are deeply alone from inside, finding means to trust someone in the world of disbelief and rejection. 

The Experience

Each time something good happens to us, it mostly goes in the database of our memoirs.

And, each time something bad happens, we name it experience.

Off late, I wasn't getting much new 'experiences'  but was continuing with the feeble old ones.

So, I got a new one. A big one. International one.

I was cheated on my money. By a woman I don't know and never met.  Well, I sternly believe in what men staring at the Sensex, smiling at each other, comment at 3:30 pm in Bombay Stock Exchange: Waqt se pehle aur kismet se zyada kuch nahi milta (You don't get before time and more than your destiny) . I too have learnt this hard way.

But getting cheated and making a profit/ loss is different. I tell you how.

Making profit or incurring loss makes you happy or sad. But getting cheated makes you a different person altogether. I don't say that it makes you an alert citizen, the way your local police advertises, but it makes a deep impact on your personality. It makes you a non believer. Negative. Practical and dry. It teaches you to be a grandfather on the road and not to play football like a kid there. It gives you an unnecessary mature approach in all things that you would have wanted to do without thinking. Sometimes beauty lies in doing something without thinking of its conclusion.  This is where it fills ugliness in your life. Which, I think is more than the actual money you lost in cheating.

Of course money does matter. But there are two things that are bothering me.

First, the fact that I have been cheated. I am not able to sleep, eat, sit (and even sh*t, I am serious). I know I won't be able to, till I accept that I have been. And, once I do, all body parts will become functional automatically. It is a temporary phase.

But the second one is not. It is that it has deprived me of my right to believe my decisions. And questioning the fact that I am wrong and incapable. A question emanating my own heart and hitting me where it hurts the most. It has shattered me and I cant let myself heal for the fear of getting hurt again. A high sense of responsibility coupled with higher sense of apprehension. It is like missing something for the fear of missing what I have. This is how  'losing' becomes a greater word than 'getting' in your life. It has made me what I am not and what I never wanted to be.

And yes, the third impact, that I am forgetting to mention. This will advance after I have accepted the fact that I was cheated. Ah that feeling of scornfulness, hatred, revenge with unending curses that your heart secretes for the person who cheated you, that spurns to leave for quite some time. It keeps coming and going at various intervals, till it gets dissolved and you are healed out of this temporary madness effect.

Well, as I know, I am just on the threshold to plunge into this dark ugly phase and have to start from the Step one, and when I reach the finish line, i ll too  have to call it my new 'experience'....