Jumping head first

You know people like us are just hurting and in pain at least 150 days in a year, it is almost a given, and I am alright with that. Heartbreaks were always meant to hurt, breakups are meant to suck. But even if cheating became the new normal, when did people who could love and care become the problem.

Even if I end up homeless, alone and miserable, I know what I bring to the table, too bad you can’t match up. I deserve a home, friends and partner who can match my intent and affection, anything less just won’t do.

I am not even asking you to, but nowhere in this you get to tell me I am the problem. You think me crying for a week is a soft weakness, you know what maybe you need to learn to communicate like a fucking adult. Maybe you could learn to tell the woman that you are not in love, without making a scene with that coward group of friends.

I can ask your hand in marriage and also be okay or miserable if you say no but nowhere in this you get to tell me, I need to change. You had bad experiences, trust issues or whatever and can’t fall in love. Okay. But sorry I can’t read minds. And more importantly, just because you can’t manage love doesn’t mean I should apologise for the courage to be in love. And sorry, but I don’t have an expectation problem….maybe you could learn to grow up to learn that the universe doesn’t revolve around your ass and learn to make an effort.

I can love, cry; be compassionate, humane; yet be a total bitch and a firecracker…all at my own watch….I will deal with my life and my pain but I promise you I am not dealing with another person telling me something is wrong with being a human with a heart.

I don’t wanna get married with a divorce plan on my mind. Love is supposed to be like junping into an ocean with your head first.

Right guy, wrong time

Wandering how I wanted to be loved,
‘Maybe a little like you did’ was my answer

You were all that I would want in my partner
Yet we couldn’t even survive three months

I have often wished we didn’t break up
Learned we’re standard situationship

I hate the fact I was a trainwreck then
Yet glad how things never worked out

I deserve someone who loves me 
Someone who can’t help but care

Someone who’d cry a river for me
Yet can’t stand a tear in my eye

Someone who won’t just leave but wait
Yet can’t wait to see me & hold my hand

PS – Wish you well but thank you next! #Chapter-2

“Sensitive times”

I recently saw an alumni WhatsApp group arguing over a 10-second clip of a teacher asking kids to not shout ‘Jai Siya Ram’ in the middle of an event. The intention was simply to maintain decorum, but who cares for the context these days and of course how could she. Fun fact, many, who have been a part of the institution, would argue it actually leans right.

But it was indeed amusing how senior professionals could waste no time in bashing their former faculty over a misunderstanding that could have been cleared in a minute. God forbid, she had actually said it with specifically more secular intention.

It is actually no wonder that in times of alarming unemployment rate, religion & caste drive our elections. The Supreme Court paved way for making details about electoral bonds public, yet it could not even make a fraction of the buzz Ambani’s pre-wedding celebrations generated across social media.

Even Bharat Mata would be like, “Worship whoever you like, pray whichever way you prefer but let my ‘bhole’ people live.”

I am not a fan of either side, but really miss the safety of a civic society. I remember a professor saying how they have to be careful nowadays with what they speak in the class. How easy it is to be an ‘anti-national’ or ‘modi-bhakt’ rather than simply being a person with an opinion.

We are struck in a time when sensitive citizens feel depressed looking at the daily affairs of our country and the most patriotic nationals are staring at the prospect of migration. People who know and understand are too scared to share their opinions while those never completed a book are flamboyant with their gyaan.

So, I pray for hope against hope that workplace market gets better, my friends and cousins soon get a job, and then we will happily plan our Ayodhya trip.

In a quest for home

I honestly think, if someone ever asked my soul, my whole life can be summed up as an ever-lasting quest for home, which almost felt like the unreachable horizon that only moves away further as you think you are getting a little closer. I also think it is a reason I ceased to be ambitious, because I just realised none of this mattered, all that did was the well being of my people and my own joy too.

Unlike most people, I somehow don’t happen to remember my childhood, but for as far as I can, I just remember missing a man and hoping a miracle for returning my dead dad to life. It would take me eight years and seeing that helpless thread of tears in my mom’s eyes that I would decide to leave that chapter behind to never look back.

Even as the world continued to miss my dad, I just knew that those left behind were more important as I finally begin to understand, dead don’t come back. It would still take a few more years before I would truly begin to love and bond with mom, only to thereafter feel entrapped in a helpless paralysis of not being able to get to a place I could make it all even and life a little easier for mom and bhai.

In search of light, joy and peace, yet grateful for it all!!!

It seemed impossible to reach a point my soul could sit in peace and call the moment her home. For the longest time, my only desire to date was a helpless hope for someone else to just come and miraculously take away this pain and fix this for us as three people continued to carry a dead man’s weight.

Many people tell me I am probably too soft, emotional, weak, sensitive and on days too good for my own sake. Over the years, I would learn to better my pretend game. But, on days people try to reduce me to moments of despair and exhaustion or tell me how I had it so much more easily…I wish I could explain how I knew this all and how seeing my mom and bhai struggling when I had a cake walk and me failing to suffice that breaks my heart.

A part of me yearns for a regular life, without having so much to think and worry about. But the other part of me is often bogged down by the guilt of privilege and actually having a good life while mom and bhai remained married to struggles all these years.

I am much older and naturally realistically disillusioned & pessimistic, yet also grateful and hopeful, depending on my days. But, my quest for home remains the only insatiable desire.

But, 24 or 80, I think books and pen would always remain my most surreal joys. The two somehow manage to capture the rare occasions when I feel like I belong and I don’t depend on another soul to find joy and peace. It is an inexplicable feeling, how I just feel subtly happy to be alive…nothing in the world ever moves me like that. For those few moments, I feel like I have found my home. Its almost like a bird coming back to its nest after a long day of flight. I think in paper and pen my soul finds its home, even for a fleeting moment.

How to love me properly?

When I tell you I love you
Let me know you do too

When I casually pass a gift
It holds more love than I say

Let me know that you know 
With a hug, a gentle kiss or
A heartfelt thank you would do 

Take it along as you leave 
Not lingering like my heart

Don't need expensive dates 
Want to hear all your tales

Night we talked till sunrise
I'll need you by my bedside

On days my mind wanders off 
I would like you to sit & listen 
Gently put my doubts to rest 

Match steps, teach me a little
Dance to our favourite tunes

Understand all my struggles
Invite me on your journey 

Let we be our safe haven
Our biggest champions

I want someone to love me 
Absolutely, exactly like I do

PS – A random prompt by Ariana Brown

Just another adulting day

Heartbreaks will take months and years to heal, but chores will need to be done each day. You will yearn for a long warm hug, but would learn to get that cup of milk and just put yourself to sleep.

Your mom will get sick and you would still find yourself calculating your leaves. Yet every now and then you will learn to be grateful for at least having a job. Your insta captions will call your roommates your home, but every night after a bad work day, you will know your home remains far far away. You will run on burnouts for years at end and still hate yourself for being an emotional wreck. They will worry for you and ask you to chill and it will only make your heart feel worse. You’ll need solace and space, but won’t have enough to rent your own place. 

And as you try to journal your thoughts, your alarm will ring, telling you to sleep. A gentle reminder, you could have a bad tonight but still need a productive tomorrow afternoon.

19.01.2023

Some me-time by the moon.

ख्वाबों की दौड़

मैं रूठूं तो माना ले, डरूं तो संभाल ले

इतनी सी जरूरत से कई बेहतर था वो

मिलके किसी से इश्क से गिले छूट जाएं

मानो बिन परखे, अनकहा ऐतबार हो पाए

तुझ से अनचाही चाहत थी, इंकार नहीं, 

बस लंबे अरसे तक साथ की बात नहीं

तेरी ख्वाबों की दौड़, मेरी सुकून की तलाश

बस दिमाग की बराबरी में दिल न काफी था

Distracted

We all live with our set of fears and armour
Can’t help meeting wrong kinds sometimes

But with committment-phyllic empaths
Tiniest bruises leave a mark for lifetime

Sometimes heartbreaks are what you need
Yet they make you scared, doubt your gifts

When it’s warmth that you bring to the table
You wish you could switch off your heart

Your girlfriends giggle about their crush
Catching slightest feelings scares your brain

You know emotions are found on losing side
Wish your heart would let you be in peace

You brush it all aside, put on the mask
But then sprint stops and pain sweeps in

– AWritingManiac #WriteItAway

बस कह पाने की आदत है

जो कह पाने की आदत हो
बिन कहे दिल घूट जाता है

जो कान्हा को पत्थर समझे
तो भी नफरत का मसला नहीं

पर उस पर प्रहार सही नहीं
जो पलट कर जवाब न दे सके

मजाक महफिल में जचता है
या जब साथ बैठे चार यार हों

हमारी शराफत, सब्र की सीमा है
फिर कहेंगे ये बहुत अक्रामक है

मां, बापू, भाई, यार पर
बात का न सब को हक है

आज भी धर्मनिरपेक्ष के पक्ष में हैं
पर मेरी श्रद्धा मेरा निजी मसला है

बेफिजूल ही बड़े हो रहे हैं

अपने घर पर सब लाडले होते हैं
पहली बार दाल सबकी जलती है

चाहत वाली नौकरी घर छुड़ाती है
मनचाही पगार अरसे बाद मिलती है

पथरों के शहर में आए पहले नहीं हो
गम संग मुस्कुराने वाले आखरी नहीं हो

मां की याद यहां सबको सताती है
पिता के हौंसले ख्वाब सजाते हैं

सब बड़े ख्वाब छोटों पर लुटाते हैं
छोटे बेफिजूल ही बड़े हो जाते हैं

कहते हैं पहली नौकरी बहुत सिखाती है
पर तब 5 की यारी, एक बड़ी बहन थी

पहली जितनी लाड में गुजरी
इस बार सबकी भरपाई है

अपनों की कमी इस साल खली है
समझने वाले दूर पर ताकत वही हैं

“After 23 years of pampering, one finally for unlearning.”

PS – Learn to suffice for yourself, it will take you a long way or life will teach you in its own way. बात सही गलत की कभी थी ही नहीं, its only about people who get you and also the ones you do.