The Story of Her

I looked down at the yellowing page of my journal. It had been a while since I sat down there under the pale yellow light of my desk lamp staring at the lightly dotted page. My pen cannot catch up with the steady thread of thoughts flying through my head. I decided to just sit and watch as the thoughts passed by, waiting for it to slow down enough for me to write it down. This is what happens when you have been holding back your thoughts way too long. That was another thought that passed through me right there. Where do these streams of thoughts come from? Is it the brain that’s churning them out? Or my mind? Maybe my conscious? What is the difference between the three anyway? No, it’s not going to work out. I give up! I threw down the pen and closed my journal. It looks like this is going to be one of those thought days, not writing days. I heaved a huge sigh and sat back in the chair tilted my face upto the ceiling and watched as the fan whirled on and on above me. I’m not sure how long I sat there like that before sleep took over me and I fell asleep.

It’s the last stretch. Past one hour of hardwork is going to culminate in this last 15 minutes of 45 degree climb. I try to steady my breath and concentrate on the rhythmic fall of footsteps. My backpack must be wet from the sweat washing down my back. But the pain on the side of my stomach and my legs where masking the wet mess. Last stretch, almost there I kept saying to myself. Not bothering to look back at Madan who I assume would be right behind me. Trekking is a form of meditation. Walking in silence is what we both prefer. From the beginning we have shared this level of mutual understanding that lets us feel comfortable with each other’s silence. With him there was noneed of making small talks and there was no compelling need to break awkward silences with random chit chat. We were totally comfortable in each other’s silence. 

Puffing and panting, we fell into the clearing. We had reached the top. I threw down my backpack and let the wind soothe my tired limbs. Bliss! The opium of every trekker. This rewarding moment. Madan and I stood there for a while looking at the beautiful scenery ahead of us. The majestic green mountains standing tall and proud, light blue sky and the soothing wind. “Sun is going to set soon, lets pitch our tent”, said Madan and I couldn’t agree more. Like a pair of worker ants who just got the queen’s orders, we started our work. And in no time the tent was up. Right in time for sitting down and watching the sunset. I took out a blanket from my backpack and we sat inside the tent snuggled under a blanket watching the sun vanish from the sky. Leaning my head on his shoulder I sighed. This must be how heaven feels. Stars peeped out and in the complete darkness of night, they shone bright like a bedazzled black gown on a pretty lady. We spread the blanket on the grass and lay down staring at the galaxy above us. It was getting very chilly but that didn’t matter. I didn’t want to move a muscle and spoil the magic of this night. We lay there for a while holding hands in silence. “Are you happy Nanditha?”, Madan mumbled in my ears. “Yes, I’m Madan. Right now, right here, right this moment, I’m happy.” “How is Raghav?”, he continued. “Somewhere in LA. Some business trip. It’s been few days since I heard from him. But we are pretty used to giving each other space.” “Did you get everything you wanted from this marriage? Are you happy in the States?”. I paused for a minute and listened to the crickets chirping somewhere to the left of us. Lucky crickets, wish I could be worry free like you and chirp away in this mountains forever, I thought. I could feel Madan’s body tensing up from anticipation as he waited patiently for me to wake from my reverie. “ I got more than I wanted Madan. I got a husband, my freedom and a credit card. Maybe not the prince in shining armour and conventional marriage that I always dreamt of as a kid. It was a shock initially but I soon realized it was better than that. Open marriage has given me complete and unrestrained freedom to explore myself and I have learned to understand that true love is completely free. You let this person fly and you watch and feel happy.” “Maybe I’m a little too selfish to understand the concept, Nandita. But I’m happy you are here with me sharing this tiny speck of your life with me. Just mine for these few hours. After this moment passes, I don’t know when we will meet again. But no one can steal the memory of this moment from me. You, me the mountains and all the stars above us”. Madan gently kissed my forehead and wrapped me tightly in his arms. I closed my eyes and let the feeling of warmth and peace wash over me in this moment of pure unaltered love.

A sharp pain in the neck suddenly shook me awake. My head had just hit the side of the chair. I looked at the clock on my desk. Half past 4. I had slept for a good few hours but it felt so short. Let me jot this down before I forget. I grabbed the pen and opened my journal and started scribbling down the story. The story of Her..  

The Knight in Shining Armor

Once upon a time in a small village tucked far away in a beautiful green country, there lived a girl. She was just like all the other girls in the village. She liked playing in the park, she liked laughing with her friends, her eyes lit up when she gazed at the stars, she liked flying high on the swings, she loved playing mother as she made little blobs of mud cakes for her make believe family and she loved spending time with her story books. She had a perfect little life. But then slowly the demons of society started catching up with her. Soon she realized that her body was a thing of beauty and pain. Grown men would lust after what she never thought would matter. She didn't understand what really happened when for the first time a man groped her. It felt weirdly uncomfortable and strange. She never felt weird when her mom bathed her or her dad carried her on his shoulder. Neither did she feel uncomfortable when aunts pinched her cheek or uncles patted her head. She couldn't really place this new feeling that she was having. Should she feel ashamed or should she feel sad? Or did she just have a bad dream and mistake it for real. She couldn't really say. As she grew up, her mother taught her not to trust men. And she took it to her heart as slowly she started seeing the filth in the society around her. Her fight or flight instinct would kick in at the slowest provocation. Being alone in any room with a guy turned her senses on over drive. She would feel a lump on her throat and she would gulp down her fear. But she was a brave girl. She stood strong and took on her fear. She let her self believe again in the goodness of people. She convinced herself that not all men are bad. She took down the demons from her mind. She was a happy girl again. She let her guard down and let herself fall in love. It was a beautiful feeling. She started smiling to herself all the time. She woke up with happiness in her heart. For the first time she felt the need to look good. She would catch herself looking at her reflection on the small puddle on the way to school. She would write her eyes with jet black kaajal and put on her light pink lipgloss to give her best to her love. She wanted him to love her like he had never loved anyone. She wanted to call him her own. She wanted him to have eyes only for her. She would gaze at his strong hairy arms and would dream of holding it all day. She wrote his name a hundred times behind her maths notebook. It felt like every waking moment of her life was spent in the anticipation of meeting him. She wanted him to be her knight in shining armor, protecting her from the big bad world. She was ready to give her whole heart and soul to him. But he wanted more. He wanted her naked body. Her body didn't mean as much to her as his love. She was willing to give it to him for his love and affection. And for the first time in her life she felt the pleasures of flesh. She felt the pleasure of naked bodies touching each other, the pictures we draw with our mouth, the heat of a man's breath against her face. She felt it all that day. And the next day he was gone. He left without a trace and she was left standing alone in a very large and menacing world. Her heart broke into a million tiny pieces. She felt guilty and ashamed at herself. The shame overcame her sadness and spread a gloomy veil over what was left of her heart. She blamed herself for letting her guard down. She blamed herself for trusting. Her knight in shining armor had just turned back and stabbed her. But our little girl was brave. She knew she had to move on. She couldn't tell anyone her secret because she felt deeply ashamed. So she collected all the million pieces of her heart and glued it together the best way she could. And life did move on. She passed out of school and college with flying colors. She was extremely happy when she landed her first job. She was ready to join the league of adults and explore the world beyond her small village. With packed bags and eyes full of dreams, she boarded the flight to the land of her dreams. The big city overwhelmed her with its bustling streets and crowded shops. But she loved every bit of it. She loved her job, her new friends. Life was beautiful again. She spent hours shopping with her hard earned money, she started going clubbing on weekends and on long road trips with her best friends. But the demons were still waiting for her in the dark corners of her tiny little world. And they found the right time when her male friend from back home decided to visit her. She was happy to see an old and familiar face in the big new city. She welcomed him and happily showed him around the town. But he was barely amused by the city. What amused him more was how the little young girl from his childhood had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. For her he was still the young childhood friend with whom she grew up playing cute little games. She was unprepared to face his lustful advances. She didn't know how to react when he tried to forcefully kiss her. She was lost and utterly speechless. The power of a male's grasp scared her. She had never felt this helpless before. She felt scared and desperate. She pushed him away with all her might but her mind was scarred forever. She cried in her prayer. Where is my knight? She wondered. Where is the person who shares my rib and is sworn to protect me from this big bad world. As if in answer to her prayer, she met someone. He was handsome and loving and he loved her with all his heart. She loved him too with all her heart. But was it real love or her need to find a protector? As time went on, their relationship saw many springs and winters. They fought madly and loved deeply. She felt she could get lost in his arms and he felt he could never live a minute without her. Time ripened their relation but fate challenged it when he got transferred to a distant city. With tears in her eyes and promises to never let the distance break them, she bid him goodbye. True to their word, the love was strong and they spent their nights talking and making up for the distance. But she was again alone in the day. She had friends but everyone was busy chasing their own dreams. She would spend the weekends walking alone on the beach and reading books by her balcony. She would occasionally go out for a movie or try out new restaurants. She missed her love but she missed companionship even more. So when her colleague and good friend of long time asked her if she wanted to check out this cool new bookstore, she was happy to go along. She had known him for a long time now and he was a good friend of her love. So, she suspected nothing devious in his invite. But the demons were smirking at her from the corner of the artfully decorated bookshelf. As if to grab a book behind her, her colleague leaned over and  pressed his hand over her body. She froze as she realized what had happened. He acted like it never happened and she felt disgusted. The same old feeling from her childhood creeped back into her. The confusion, the disgust, the weirdness, it all came back in an instant. She felt betrayed. She felt angry. She felt scared and helpless. She felt angry at her colleague but she felt even more angry at herself for not slapping him. She felt angry at not reacting to him the way he deserved. She felt angry that even after all these years and so many mistreatments, she still didn't know how to react strongly in these situations. And she felt angry at her love. Where was he when she was mistreated. Where was the guy who is supposed to protect her when she was shamed. Where was her knight? She cried herself to sleep. Next day she called her love and told him that he had failed her. He didn't understand her mumbled words and misplaced tears. He didn't know what to say. She felt betrayed by him. But he didn't understand. She didn't love him anymore she told him. Love turned sour and then bitter over time as the trust was broken and more broken was her scarred mind. He never understood what he did wrong. But she had lost the faith. Our young little girl tried to be brave. She started questioning herself on why it was happening to her over and over again. She pondered over the question many times running different scenarios over and over in her head. One day while typing away on her office computer, it dawned on her. She was the knight in shining armor that she was searching for. She was searching far and wide for her protector while all along, the knight was in her. She thought her love should protect her from the big bad world. But she was the only one who could do that. She had to build the strength in her to fight back. She had to train herself to fight back. The story books were wrong. No knight in shining armor would ever come. The knight was in her all along. Our brave little girl will keep fighting for she has just discovered her knight. Life goes on and so will the fight..

Yearning For Home

The wind of this land can touch nothing but my bare skin

The rain that falls softly just cools my tired limbs

Birds here sing sweetly but their language I do not know

The land my feet touches, crunches in a strange whisper

The people smile broadly here and land stretches beyond sight

The food and the drinks whet my appetite but doesn't quench the fire

My eyes keep searching for that bright array of in-congruent colors

My ears can't stop listening for those blaring horns and tingling bells

I love this land that feeds me but its not home

I love the people, the food and the warm greetings but its not home

I love the birds, the dogs and the kittens but this is not home

I can leave my body and soul here but my heart is far away, in my home

In Pursuit of Originality

I've been off the blogging world for a while now. My regular readers ( I hope I have a few! ;) ) , might be wondering where I've been. To them my reply is, I was wandering in the pursuit of originality. I've been facing an acute shortage of ideas for my literary rampages. Ok.. that was not the only reason, I was feeling damn lazy too. But lets come back to the point.

Lack of novel ideas is one common problem faced by all writers. I wrote a few articles and then deleted them completely because I felt that they lacked creativity. Someone, somewhere would have already talked about it or talked about something similar. Now if I say the same thing, won't that be plagiarism? I wouldn't wanna do that, would I?? Definitely no!! So I've been stuck in this cult of originality seekers. 

Then it got me thinking. Well is plagiarism of ideas that big a crime? Shakespeare is supposed to have ripped off plots for his plays from Greek and Roman mythology. Our very own  Mahathma Gandhi has said that there is nothing new in his methodologies and that everything he has ever said is as old as the hills. If these great people can do it, why can't we? Is there anything new in this world? No idea or thought is new. Everything under the sun has already been spoken on written by someone or the other. Haven't you all faced a situation where you thought up some new, superb ideas and later found out that someone had already thought of it. What makes an idea or thought unique is our packaging. Our very own twist to the story. Ripping off an entire article and claiming it to be yours is definitely bad. But borrowing an idea from someone and then reconstructing it to suit our style is definitely not that bad.

Knowledge of the fact that its ok not being completely original all the time, has lifted a huge burden off my shoulder. I feel happy and all ready to kick start another string of my random thoughts. It feels great to be back here.. :)