Tujhe sab hai pata

   
Her head bowed low, a breath she gasped,
A picture of sorrow, hands tightly clasped, 
She shuddered a bit, willing back a tear, 
Tried to summon grit, to restrain fear,
In utter vain though, her efforts spent, 
To the heavens in woe, her trembling eyes went,
A question they asked, they begged a prayer,
Unrestrained, unmasked, fell a thousand tears,
Ma hugged her close, when she shattered so,
When the terror rose, when it wouldn't go,
When into ma she curled, like a scared child,
Clutching onto her world, with a fierceness wild,
Ma held her tenderly, smiled a small smile,
And whispered to her baby, “sleep for a while...”
She raised her head, and looked into ma's face,
A fearless fighter beyond the weakness she could trace, 
A vitality so true, a love of life so free,
She wanted, one day, too, exactly like that to be, 
To love with such abandon, to laugh without restraint,
To battle every demon, and to never give up faith,
Ma summoned her strength and whispered to her baby, 
“I will love you forever, please don't worry...”
Ma was determined to battle a victorious fight,
To emerge from it certain, to be with joy alight,
She smiled, comforted, up at the warrior, selfless so,
Her ma, her joy, her pride... she'd never let go.

Mumbaichya Mulga

I will begin by stating unabashedly that I was a blob of butter on a plate of pav bhaji in Bombay. Correction: Mumbai. I had to say that, or some people-who-must-not-be-named will eat me alive. I was that nascent, untouched, hopeful globule whose doom is both inevitable and glaringly obvious to everyone staring at it in drooling anticipation. Shady connotations aside, I arrived like a breath of fresh talcum powder, a guy crazy enough to believe he could stay alone in this city and live to tell the tale.

Frankly, the BEST bus gave me a scare the first time I saw one. No, I hadn't been living under someone's rickety floor tiles, so the concept of transportation wasn't entirely unfamiliar to me. It was just that the little town I came from had neither the good fortune nor the adventurous inclination of hosting these 'bus-ke-naam-pe-dhabba's which looked like their singular ambition was to cheerfully burst apart at the seams.

This great metal survivor had in it about a million brave people battling either to stay upright (swaying like pendulums, their hands glued to hand rails), or to not get squashed under the tremendous pressure most of their fellow daredevils were subjecting them to using various parts of their bodies.

The bus conductor was very busy ordering this horde to 'pudhe chala' so he could furtively try to sit on someone. His look of utter disgust at being addressed in any way was only rivaled by the bus driver's one of complete triumph when he managed to leave a huffing, sweaty chaser far behind, enveloped in a cloud of smoke. He then smirked widely at his pitiable million-strong audience via the enormous dusty rear-view mirror. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the sole purpose of its dull existence. I witnessed everyone from poor bespectacled students to ancient grandmas pressed up against the red beast's innards like peas waiting to burst from their pod. I was nearly launched out of a window myself, but a kindly stranger's shopping was wrapped too snugly about my ankles. And the bus conductor was furtively trying to sit on me.

This was just the start. I hadn’t been to the local train yet.

You’ve probably heard it all before. But if you haven’t actually experienced it, you have no chance of even beginning to appreciate the fact that if you survive the local trains in Mumbai, you’ve conquered the planet. The first time I was on one, in the second class compartment, any vestiges of wide-eyed belief in the good of humanity remaining in my twenty-eight-year-old head were promptly shaken out of me and left behind somewhere on those long, winding tracks.

One of the first to climb into my compartment, I was the lucky guy who gets to stand right in the center of all those bodies, getting sprayed from all sides alternatively by dripping red paan and oh-so-fragrant sweat. I also happened to be the guy who was obviously a stranger to the lifeline of Mumbai. Don’t get me wrong: even if you were born on one of these locals, you could be robbed of everything you hold dear. I was just easiest. I felt a hand groping me in unmentionable places, and thought with a jolt that I was being molested by some sick psycho. Then I felt my wallet slipping out of my pocket and twisted around, determined to catch the idiot. I found my face inches from a pimply innocent-looking teenager’s. His hands were empty. Next to him was a paan-chewing, mustached, red-faced, hostile-looking fellow about three times my weight. All around me were close replicas of this guy. I sighed in defeat. I knew a lost cause when I saw one.

My station finally arrived. I longed for the fresh air outside which I was close to believing had been a dream. I tried to push my way out of the solid, indifferent paan-people’s wall. Milliseconds later, I heard the familiar rattling of wheels beneath me, and every nerve in my body screamed in protest. This could not be happening to me. A few stations along, I was gradually pushed out, and fell on all fours on blessed solid ground. I was lost, hungry, and worse, had no money to buy a ticket back to Andheri. Not that I ever wanted to see another local again in my life.

I saw the train pull away from the station, taking with it the hanging-by-the-tips-of-their-fingers mass of people who gambled with their lives every day. I groped inside my pocket for the phone they'd spared, and called my only friend in all of Mumbai. He sighed, said grudgingly that he'd come fetch me, and muttered some nonsense about how someone called Dadar would have swallowed me whole.

Daring Greatly

Humans are beautiful beings. We are capable of so much. Of love, of compassion, of sympathy, of understanding. 

You are capable of feeling all warm inside when mum says she loves you so much and wants to be there to take care of you, always . You are capable of feeling warm inside when a tiny kitten stares up at you and shuts her tiny eyes in contentment as you tickle her little ears. You are capable of feeling warm inside when you see a truly selfless act. You are capable of loving someone so much that you cry your eyes out worrying over them, hoping they'll be okay. You are capable of withstanding the kind of emotional pain you never thought you could survive, and coming out the other side, still believing in the beauty of love, and of life.

It's how it is supposed to be. You are supposed to love fiercely, to fight fiercely, to express however you best express, and to know when to let go. Letting go is not losing something. It is freeing yourself. Freeing your mind of the tethers that hurt you, and of the false dependence you have on those tethers. You are capable of flying without them. They will only hold you back. So let go...perhaps, one day, they will come back and be the strength in your wings.

The power doesn't lie with the one who cares less in a relationship. They are just better protected from emotional pain. The one who loves wholly, freely, and selflessly is the one who dares to do so. The one who puts themselves out there, knowing the chance they're taking. The one who discovers the extent to which they are capable of love. So even when they are cast aside, when they are told over and over how much more in love they are than the other, they have a reason to smile through the tears - they are, at least, capable of so much love.

Lightening up doesn't imply caring any less. It means seeing the beauty in things and being happy with them. It means seeing things for what they really are, not what you want them to be, and smiling anyway. It means knowing that however bad things seem, they are shaping you into a stronger person. It means realizing that you learn something from every experience. It means taking chances, and not being devastated when the chance doesn't "work out". It means knowing that even if things don't work out, it is always worth the fight. 

Theodore Roosevelt will always be my favourite quoter: 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

No place for cold, timid souls.

For A Lady

Well, this was written to help a couple friends with their tentative love lives. Yes, I've been courting women.

Here I am, with a heart beating fast,

Staring at these blank pages,

Thinking, wondering, debating just how

To pen what I’ve felt for ages…

A rush of emotions, so far unknown,

And a million thoughts leap to my mind,

But my ink and pen, they quiver so,

As the perfect words they try to find…

My senses wage an internal war,

But I had better initiate a try,

To make a start, a little beginning,

Before my head asks too many ‘Why?'s…

But a little voice utters in a whisper,

How can I possibly describe thee,

And capture that enveloping radiance,

Of the being who is an angel to me…

With that unique delicate beauty,

Your hair is like the twilit sky,

Mysterious, exquisitely compelling,

A potent sight, but always shy…

It shimmers like a curtain of gold,

Its dance is both mesmerizing and bold,

Your smile has the glow of a thousand suns

Your eyes, the life of a thousand more...

Your silent laugh, it delights me so,

Your lovely face half-hidden,

In your tresses flying high and low,

The sight enchants me, unbidden…

Splendid as God has made you outside,

I admire you a whole lot more,

For what you’ve made of your soul,

That deep, selfless, thoughtful core…

Your vividly strong personality,

The dogged persistence of your mind,

The intensely alive curiosity,

That is a jewel, so rare a find…

Your particular way of facing any situation,

With a true, brave sparkle in your eye,

Handling it all with a soothing calm,

And a hidden subsurface fiery fire…

That perpetual, alive, simmering heat,

That intense passion of your will,

Your simple, sweet, charming grace,

A thousand stories beneath a façade still…

Your voice’s brilliant complex melody,

Tells an ancient romantic tale,

The feelings the strains invoke in me,

Are matchless, as are you, my nightingale…

Now I hesitate and pause, yet ache to say,

To be with you, to never be apart,

To feel for you as I do now, forever and always,

Is the dearest darling wish of my heart…

I miss you

I miss you. Every single day of every week. I cannot describe the heart-rending, intensely disabling, crushing pain of being apart and knowing I can never see you again. Never hear your laugh, never feel your loving, tender caress, never hear your stories, never be rocked by you to sweet, blissful sleep, knowing I’m safe. I hate the fact that I could not even say goodbye, that I had to hear of it, that you went so much before your time.

I cannot stand the fact that you had to suffer so much, you, the very embodiment of all that is good. I hate the fact that you withered away into a shell of yourself, a mere ghost of the laughing, happy, witty, vivacious, strong, loving, brave person you always were to me. I hate the disease that did that to you, that caused you so much pain, that took the light out of your eyes, that killed you a million times over before you finally let go.

I could see, throughout the ordeal, how you were still trying to be brave for us. You wanted to brush it all off as if it was nothing, a mere hitch in an otherwise perfect plan. But then there came a time when the horrid disease broke the strongest spirit I’ve ever known. I remember gritting my teeth, hoping against hope God would be fair. This amazing person deserved none of this. This brilliant, saint-like person deserved the very best in life. But no. God would take the person I loved most away from me, away from the world, in the worst way possible.

I ask myself why. Every day, through a haze of tears, I ask myself, and demand of God, why my favourite person. My inspiration in life could not have done anything to deserve this. No one deserves what the bravest person I knew went through. And it’s an unstoppable force. You can’t tell it’s coming, you can do nothing to impede its relentless destruction. And the helplessness is what I can’t forgive myself for. Even though I come up blank when I ask myself what I could possibly have done, I can’t forgive myself for doing nothing.

Irrational as that sounds, I wish I could have been there more. I wish I could have held you, and comforted you, the way you had done countless times against my childish fears. I wish I could have made you feel safe, secure in my arms. I wish I could have taken some of your pain away, could have fought with you against the monster. Above all, I wish I could see you, just one more time…

Over-analyzing a Take-Off

It’s going by fast, it’s going by slow,

Racing on and on in a blurry glow,

Still dragging its feet, hovering over its seat,

Refusing to stay, refusing to start away.

Life seems confused, disjointed scenes,

My last year in the happenin’ teens,

It may seem odd (you may secretly nod),

But sometimes I feel old, already draped in mold.

Is that strange? I haven’t even begun,

I ain’t seen nothin’ solid yet, it’s all just fun,

I have a careful tread, but this unshakable dread,

That I’ll soon tire, lose all that fire.

A light that keeps me going, in the nursery of life,

I’m terrified it’ll be but a wisp amidst real strife,

All this waiting around, waiting for a dream to be found,

Am I wasting away, wasting every single day?

Wasting every day I wait to grow up,

Waiting for experience, in a magic cup?

Or shall I shake it off, stop awaiting a take-off,

Enjoy being naïvely gullible, before I have to be responsible?  

One way or other, happiness is what we seek,

Worry and frowns won’t help the weak,

If I think I’m not smart enough, I’ll try harder with stuff,

If you still think I’m a child, a mild rethink wouldn't be wild!