Flame or Flicker?

June 13, 2025 — Leave a comment

He texted last night, after weeks, maybe months of silence. Just a few words, nothing dramatic. But it was enough to stir something in me. Enough to feel like hope.

It felt like a flicker of hope. A hope that maybe there is someone who is out there who holds me in their mind. Someone I could, even momentarily, rely on. And for a second, I let myself believe in the possibility that maybe I am not as alone as I often feel.

But when my brain takes over, like it always does, it reminds me that a flicker doesn’t run home. You cannot build a life around brief sparks of affection that come and go at someone else’s whims. As pragmatic as my brain is, my delusional heart reminded me with quiet insistence that this flicker, however temporary, is beautiful. Yes, it doesn’t stay for long, but it lights up the dark just enough to get by.

People around me call it toxic love. They throw new-age-love-language jargon at me, breadcrumbing, attachment wounds, trauma bonding. They say that I deserve better. That I deserve more. More consistency, more presence, and more love that doesn’t need to be chased, love that doesn’t need to be earned. Not a temporary flicker but a permanent flame that is going to be there for me always, without me having to ask or wait, like that background music that is always there, making everything feel more alive. My pragmatic brain agrees with them. I often think of my brain as my loyal companion who wants to protect me at all costs, even if it means cutting off warmth before it can burn. It loves me like no one else does. And yet here I am, being pulled toward a flicker.

Sometimes I wonder if it is less about the person and more about familiarity. There is a subtle comfort in familiar patterns. The anticipation, the attention, the disappearance, the waiting, and the return. It feels like this is something I know how to survive, something I don’t have to learn or explain to myself. A script I don’t have to rewrite. This made me question what love is, not just romantic love, but also the love shared with their family and friends. To find clarity, I tried going old school, reaching for philosophy to make sense of it all. What better than a historical philosophy text like ‘Nature of Sympathy’ by Max Scheler? I assumed that this text would give me an understanding of the philosophy of human connection and would help me locate what I am looking for. But Scheler asked more questions than he answered, reminding me that not all truths are found in books.

When books didn’t help, I went to a different archive, a space filled with knowledge and no judgment. Chat GPT. An algorithm, but also a space where I download my thoughts without feeling seen too closely. Once, GPT told me something that stayed with me for some time, “Unless you let someone in, you will never know what a flame feels like”. But what if letting someone in means being expected to burn just as brightly in return? What if I do not have it in me? What if the idea of sustaining something, of giving and being available constantly, feels more like duty than love?

That is the paradox I sit with. The flicker doesn’t ask me for anything. It simply appears, lights something up, then fades. And even though it is on its terms, at least, I am not bound to it. The flame, on the other hand, promises warmth but with responsibility. You might say I am afraid of commitment, and I avoid responsibility. But it’s not that. It is just that when responsibility starts to feel like an obligation, something about love gets lost in it.

I always wonder whether I will ever allow myself to choose or if I will keep responding to life. Is this longing for flickers a failure to choose better for myself, or is it a quiet rebellion against a world that insists that love must be constant, unshaken, and forever?

I do not have an answer yet, maybe I never will. And I am learning that might be okay.

Being Greedy

August 25, 2022 — Leave a comment

I fell in love with his silver linings. Those blurry areas around the silhouette of him made me feel content about everything I had in life. I never got the chance to put a face to the silhouette. The deeper I went the more blurry things got, boundaries got vague, and at many times he felt invisible. It felt like walking through a cloud, when you are at a distance from the cloud, you feel you’ll touch something, the closer you get to the cloud the hazier things get, and you never get to touch that ball of cotton floating in the air moving along with the wind. And yet, after you have passed the cloud, you’d feel that you have experienced something incredible. I felt the same. An experience that was something incredible. I have never been able to pin point this mysterious something. I looked back to catch hold of this something, but just the like cloud disappears in the wind, he disappeared. And as we keep walking through the mountain, we come across other set of clouds, each of them giving a different experience. But I am stuck on that mysterious incredible experience. This curiosity is never able to accept that a cloud once gone, never comes back. But people, they are meant to stay right?

Or atleast there has to be some specifics. Something more than a silhouette. This vagueness and uncertainty made me anxious. To beat the anxiety, where once I was happy in the blurry pictures, I got greedy. And so I started to draw clear lines, I even wanted to paint the picture with different colours. But it looked like he didn’t like the picture. If only he had said something in specific, we could have made the picture together, a picture that we both liked. But I didn’t even knew if he was even interested in the painting. Again, the loneliness made me anxious. I didn’t want to believe that this was the end of the painting, I don’t want to believe that this is end of the mountain and no more clouds are gonna pass by. The beautiful thing about anxiety is it will remind you that you are alive. Anxiety gives me the push to look for more clouds, draw more pictures, and explore as many silhouettes as possible. But anxiety sometimes is addictive. Sometimes I feel like I want to drown in that pain and loose all the energy I had gathered during the time I was making anxiety my friend. But this is anxiety, not water. One cannot drown to death in anxiety. One day I will have to get up and pickup all the pieces I can find, make a different picture of those old pieces and move on. Maybe try eating different food. God, food can make anyone greedy. It is time to be greedy. I might not find that same mysterious incredible experience again, but I might find something better!

A day with the ruins

October 2, 2021 — Leave a comment

I have this need to be able to speak and learn about things where I have to use majority of my brain. Majority of the conversations I have had with men, it was all about conversations on the surface level. They just kept floating on the superficial level and never went below that. Things changed with Varun. We were able to have conversation about what bothered us in the world of politics, things happening in the world which mattered to us, stock market, entrepreneurship, and most importantly about our feelings. I have learnt about useless machines from him and he has learnt about all useless philosophies from me. I have started to use my brain more than I have to use to solve a sudoku. 

I took the opportunity of being alone in a new city to explore the ruins. I was looking at one of the ruins in the Qutub Minar complex, just admiring the beauty of the place. I was imaging how it would have been years ago. The Jain and Hindu temples in the place, now there are just ruins of them. I was imagining how would the jain temple looked, the idol in the temple, people visiting the temple to worship. The drawings just started to float in front of me as though I was walking through the place wearing a VR box. The whole experience just took me into another trance. 

“I have never seen anyone this excited at any of the historic place!” I heard a voice which made all the drawings disappear.

“Are you talking to me?” I confirmed. I also felt foolish after asking question seeing no one else around.

“Nope, I am asking this stone who cannot respond to me” his attempt to be funny was very successful and I ended up laughing whole heartedly. That reminded me that I hadn’t had such a laugh since a long time. Even the funniest videos of Anubhav Bassi couldn’t make me laugh anymore. “Oh, I didn’t know I was funny!”

“Yeah, you should consider stand-up comedy as a career, if being a tourist guide doesn’t work for you”

“Haha, advice taken. By the way, I am Varun, a mechanical engineer and a part time tourist guide”

“I am Aarzoo. a social science researcher and a part time tourist.” I never thought I would let a stranger break my solitude. But, he looked cute, I couldn’t ignore the handsome face.

And we starting showing each other our imaginary drawings of the ruins, we started to walk into each other’s worlds. We spoke about everything between the land and the horizon. Started with religion, because of the place we were in, moved to history, then swiftly to politics. For some reason I felt relieved when he turned out to be a libertarian. I wanted to know more about him. And so I invited him for lunch. Suddenly, I didn’t want to eat food alone. And the picturesque rain had made the place more beautiful. I was nice to have a partner to walk and randomly stroll around the city. The whole transition from a peaceful Mehrauli complex to the chaotic Parantha wali gully in Chandni Chowk was a little heavy for me to comprehend. He knew the locality very well. The whole noon passed in just like a second. He didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. 

We spent the evening at another ruins. He did know the places and the history. For one moment I felt like he was reading out from those blogs on the internet telling the stories about the places. His perspective was different from what I had read till now. It just felt like I was reading a Manu Pillai book which was taking me back to that time, travelling back in time. If I had the chance to take the trip through the time machine, I would go back in history and want to experience the life back in 14th and 15th century. I want to experience that royalty and loyalty to people they loved. Walking through the history with Varun did give me a surface level experience of it. 

Coming back to the present, we next went to a lake. Watching the sun set at Hauz Khas lake was another serene experience. We sat by the lake in silence watching the colour of water changing with the changing colour of the sky. I loved that the silence between us didn’t become awkward. This evening reminded me the imaginary conversation I had with the mountains while spending a nice evening at a dam in Pune. There weren’t any mountains around, I guess I was associating the memory by the water body. And I realized that only one thing was missing in that beautiful moment, beautiful music. I pulled out my earphones and started my playlist sharing one earbud with him. Now that moment was perfect, sunset by a water body, someone to share the silence with, and Jagjit Singh. Right when Talat Mahmood started singing my favourite part of sham-e-gham ki kasam, my phone rang and broke the beauty of the moment. And suddenly the place felt empty and chaotic. With Varun no where around and one earbud in my hand, I realized I was sitting there alone. I left the lake checking the distance to Varun’s favourite restaurant, to savour his memory one last time before I leave the city.

The Closure

May 6, 2021

The restaurant was expectedly empty. Two tables filled with unknown faces with their soups and starters going on, silent music on the speakers and some cricket match on the television. She prefers to eat out on weekdays because that’s when the restaurants are silent peaceful and less number of people around. She chose the restaurant where they have some good memories, eating together and never ending conversations because she knew that it would be her last lunch at the restaurant. The reserved placard on their usual table reminded her of the day when the manager of the restaurant had saved their table for them on one of the busiest days. He had almost lost his job for doing that. The memory of his cute gesture brought a smile on her face. 

As she settled at her table, the waiter poured some water in a glass and she asked for her regular blue velva martini. She noticed the change in the music that was playing in the background, and thanked the manager. She always wanted to open a restaurant. But her research and conversations with the manager she figured she was a few years away from that dream. She started her laptop to check some emails while day dreaming about her restaurant.

After spending some time replying to emails while waiting for Advik she realized he would be late as always and not waiting for him to come she gave their usual order. And she went back to replying to the emails. After sometime, when she saw the manager sending the waiter back with the soup, she called Advik to check where was he. Now that almost an hour has passed after he responded ‘see you in ten minutes at the restaurant’ to her text, she was loosing her patience. When he didn’t receive the call she had lost the patience to get back to work. She thought of checking out the social media while waiting for some more time. After ten more minutes passed, waiters getting more impatient, and her stomach growling for food, she asked for her half of the order not waiting for him anymore. Next 40 minutes she spent in peace eating the beautiful food she was served. There was no sign of Advik yet. This wasn’t the first time that he hadn’t turned up for a planned meal. Lately it became more of an habit for him to miss these lunches. Today was the last time she wanted to have lunch waiting for him.

She asked the manager to pack the other half of the order and deliver the parcel to his office. She sent a letter along. She thought she would give him that letter at the end of the lunch, but she also knew he wouldn’t be there. The letter read :

Dear Advik,

I knew that you wouldn’t turn up for the lunch, but somewhere I had hoped you would turn up. I will never be able to understand after all the missed lunches, unanswered questions, unattempted gestures showing me that you love me or I was important for you, why did I still entertain the idea of having lunch with you and why did I still hoped that you would come for the lunch you yourself had planned. (for today, I know, I came to give you this letter.)

Maybe like always I ended up entertaining people with empty promises. Now, it’s time for me to break my chain and walk away never being available for those 2 AM insecurities of yours, 5 PM sexual desires, and 8 PM conversations.

I don’t care if you’ve read the whole letter.

I deserve better.

Aarzoo

She didn’t care if he’d read the letter or not. All she knew was she would never answer his calls or meet him again.

So many Meghans around us, but how many of them have their Harry?

March 10, 2021 — Leave a comment

I loved Meghan Markle since Suits. I did feel sad when I read about she will have to discontinue her acting career to marry into the Royal family. And that fact alone reminds me of the phrase ‘things people do for love.’. I haven’t fallen in love to know how strong love makes one take such sound decisions. And let go of things that are important to you. But watching Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey does give me a teaser of it. We did get to know more about the impact the royal family has on its members and their mental health by watching The Crown. The interview did confirm some of the assumptions I had about the royal family and the couple.

The undeniable and strong will of always doing their job of smiling for the outside world with turmoil inside is commendable

The phrase with which Meghan begins her conversation about the misalignment of perception and reality struck me hard. The fact that the internet and the perception of the majority form the basis of decisions of not only the royal family members but the lives of everyone around here is tragic and unfortunate. Before we take any step, any decision of our lives, we take a step back to check how the actions would be perceived by the majority around us or at least thought to think about it even if we don’t care about the majority of the people. A majority of the millennials might not relate to the construct of thinking through the perceptions, and I feel they are growing with that privilege.
It is sad how the internet has reacted the way it has to post the interview, with silly, forcefully made funny, and senseless memes and remarks. It might have taken a lot of courage for the couple to come out and give their side of the story, a perception the media doesn’t allow us to have. With this, I understand perception as a one-dimensional construct. As and when another dimension is being added, the perception changes. It is never a whole. When it is whole, it becomes truth or a fact. Perception is always associated with interpretation. Perception is just an assumption considered as truth without considering other dimensions. It is just sad that we consider perception as the truth and turn blind to the other dimensions after we have made up our minds about the truth.

While listening to their story, we got to know more about how the royalty has impacted the lives of the family members, how they have to consider how their actions would be perceived by other people, how they couldn’t do things they longed for, and so on. For one moment or at least the duration of the interview, we did feel the pain of loneliness and not wanting to live anymore. That pain of being privileged enough to live in the palace, like a bird trapped in a golden cage but not being able to access help is what kills me. That helplessness, of wanting to give yourself one more chance, but how? No one deserves that. This episode shows us why we shouldn’t ignore our mental health and that of people around us. The importance of having someone by your side through the process, the importance of one statement we all long to hear most of the time “you are not alone in this. I am there with you”. The couple is brave of leaving things behind and starting afresh. It is difficult to leave a life behind with people you love and have grown up with and always looked forward to the future with them. But you have to do that to live life with sanity and not just survive, living two lives, one in front of the media and one behind the doors.

The phrase “behind the doors” reminds me of the lives of several women I have come across in my life. Women being in a place they are not wanted by the majority of others. Be it at work, in the family they are married to, and many a times family they are born into. They are never stopped from being challenged. They have to keep proving themselves always. The women living with an abusive family, women married to abusive husbands and in-laws, or in an abusive workplace. This abuse is not only physical violence but being violated mentally and socially. They live a different life in front of everybody else, and another life behind the doors. But they do not have a Harry who would take the brave step of leaving everything behind and starting afresh. And what if that Harry himself is the harm? The fame and their history does give them a voice loud enough or will brave enough to act upon the injustice that happened to them and tell their story. But what about the women who do not have that voice? Who doesn’t even realize they are a victim, they are suffering? Who doesn’t know there is always an option of ‘a way out’? We see so many Meghans around us, but not all of them have Harry. But my question is, should it always be that prince charming Harry?

This episode does remind me of something I will always keep in mind, “make decisions for your sanity and not for other’s perceptions.”.

The guy I failed to characterize!

October 20, 2019 — 3 Comments

You would have heard infinite number of stories about the Mumbai locals, stories inside the train, about the people travelling in the train, stories about various political debates happening in the train and what not. I was using the local train for some fifth time, and by now I was getting used to the local trains, now I didn’t need to ask anyone about which platform should I be on to catch the train to Churchgate. Infact, now I could guide a newbie to the local about which platform to board the train from. I never liked the hustle and bustle of the city, and always tried to keep myself away from Mumbai as much as possible, but these connecting trains and long journeys, I couldn’t avoid the city. And even after visiting the city very often since last few months, I was still at apathy with the city. I didn’t care much about the city. But what kept me excited in the city is the stories every frame in the city said. Yeah frames. I was seeing the city in terms of frames I could pause and capture in a photograph. Sometimes I’d mentally add the various additions I’d add using photoshop and make the frame more exciting. Some frames told their stories loudly some frames didn’t have any character and still told a story about someone, in some frames I made up assuming the characters. It became an exercise for me to characterize people or things around me and weave stories around them.

One person I always failed to characterize was the guy in square black specs. I was meeting him for the first time. I never thought I’d be able to meet him at the busiest railway station of Mumbai while I was waiting for my train to my next destination. I failed to characterize him because he is very much different from everyone I knew so far. He has a very beautiful soul. His smile could spread smiles like happiness. I failed to characterize him because I never wanted to. Because I never wanted to share his story with anyone else. Because this was the beauty I’d want to keep it for myself.

Before that day, I had never seen anyone travelling two hours in a Mumbai local train to meet someone for the first time. We knew each other since some years, and didn’t want to miss this chance to see the virtual friend in person. Though we were meeting for the first time, it was more like we were good old friends and were meeting after some time. Railway station isn’t the best place to catch up with your old friend, but that’s the starting point! Typically railway stations are the spot where I start my journey from. And this was a beginning of a journey within a journey. I still remember my smile reached my eye after seeing him on the station walking towards me. We talked and talked about the good and bad, and why we didn’t like the city and why we didn’t have any other option. Living in different parts of the world, being in the same city at same time wasn’t a coincidence for me. Though we called it a coincidence and continued talking. I learned something more about him during the conversation and tried to use that new information to characterize him and I still couldn’t. I thought I’d use some of the information for the story. I was looking for some thing more. My train arrived and the time was getting shorter. I really wished that the train was late and I could get some more time with him, because I didn’t know when next would this coincidence happen. I was getting my favorite chocolate, sharing it with one of the favorite people of mine. I was overwhelmed with the amount of attention I was getting. That was a beautiful noon I had. When the train was preparing to leave he said,

“Aarzoo, I don’t know how you feel, but I feel like kissing you right now!”

I replied him with a kiss.

I didn’t know what to call that kiss, a goodbye kiss on the doors of the train, or just leave it unlabeled. I then decided to leave this kiss uncharacterized.

Poverty?

February 14, 2019 — Leave a comment

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We were asked to write a piece telling what does poverty mean to us. I don’t know what would I write for that assignment, but that question immediately makes me write this piece.
While commuting from one place to another in the city, we come across many homeless. Some make themselves a tent of tarpaulin or similar fabrics available, some just live on the road. They living on the footpath is harmful to them and they also encroach the footpath meant for walking and bicycles. I come across one such group of 5-7 people living on the footpath on FC Road every day while walking to and fro college. They live on the smart footpath, that has been recently converted in to under the smart cities mission, sleep there, and do everything. I once even saw a teenage couple in the group making love on the footpath. One day curious about what brings them here, I talk to the group. I asked them a few questions like where did they come from to Pune, where do they buy the articles they sell, what do they for food, where do they go for answering the nature’s call and a lot more. That group came to Pune from a village near Solapur. They are living on the footpath because, obviously, they do not have any other place to live. One small girl said, “my other cousin lives on another road like this”. When I asked them about the articles they had which they sell living on the road, the guy said: “I go to Delhi to buy these, and we sell them here”. I clearly didn’t know whether to believe what he said or not. Because with Mumbai being nearer, or should I say, with the local wholesale market, why would someone travel all the way to Delhi to buy these articles which are available here in local areas! I reason with myself that the goods would be cheaper in Delhi, and a group of them would be going together. I continued the conversation with a feeling that I may or may not get the right answers. They claimed to live there for two-three months now. They earn by selling the articles and the kids begging. They buy the food from the shops around and sometimes some people walking on the road give them some food too. They use public toilets a few meters away to cleanse themselves. Though I have seen them bathing their kids on the footpath itself. The encroachment department of the city hasn’t seemed to have seen them live on the footpath that they haven’t been asked to clear the space or got them relocated! All the smartness of the city was gone the moment this group of homeless could live on the roads.

I will come to my question now, what does poverty mean to me?
Poverty to me doesn’t mean a lack of access to basic necessities an infrastructure, it is the lack of will power to always keep on moving to a better place. It has been three months that the group of people have come to Pune, and are selling articles, begging on the road and living on the road. They don’t need to move to a place with a roof because that would come with a cost and responsibility. Here, they don’t have to pay rent to anyone, they don’t have to buy raw food to cook, they don’t need to care about water, electricity nothing. Life is easy for them that way. I had offered a job to the guy in that group who didn’t even know to speak properly, of INR 9000 per month along with good living conditions and food. His work would be working in a cello tape factory, carrying the jumbo rolls from the store to the machines. He refused! saying that I don’t have to work hard here, I don’t want to work in the factory. The group if wanted to keep moving to a better place, would have found a place to live at least in one of the slum pockets in the city, would have found a job or would have started selling more types of articles, and could have done what not.

Before you would complain that the government isn’t doing anything for the homeless, you cannot expect the government to provide the homeless with everything. Government’s role shouldn’t be of a typical Indian parent that would provide everything for their children and decide everything for them, the government’s role should be of Lord Krishna of showing the way to move forward.

Conversations with self

January 18, 2019 — Leave a comment

It is one am during this not very cold January, my favorite month of the year and I am laying sleepless on my bed trying very hard to sleep. Tried reading, listening to soft music and even watched some ten fifteen videos on YouTube about how to fall asleep in ten minutes. After wasting around one hour like this, I just left everything aside and started counting the glowing stars on the ceiling above me. My roommate had stuck them on my birthday to make the room more illuminating during the night. I fell asleep counting stars in the sky many a times as a child when we used to sleep on the terrace during hot summers. Those were the days of childhood. Summer vacations and spending those vacations at your maternal grandmom’s place used to be a thing. Making new friends there, playing their games, sleeping on the terrace under the open sky, and learning a lot other things. And then, we grew up, summer vacations are now converted into summer breaks, grand mom’s no more to visit her, and friends there aren’t the people I used to know any more. Counting these glowing stars on my ceiling and revisiting this outgrowing from people made me ask myself, what have I become after all these years? Have I actually not done anything substantial as my kins point out every now and then? What am I? Why am I even alive still? And many such existential questions came up.

While these questions were coming up, slowly like a snake the last chapter of a book by Devdutt Pattnaik I was reading lately crawls up on my mind. It has a lot of philosophical statements which could be an answer to some of our questions but yet, it’s not the bhagwad geeta which has all the answers. The thought which came up from the book was, our flesh is just a wrapping around the soul. My identity is just a costume the soul is wearing. The soul would either rest in peace in heaven or change the costume once this costume decays. And flesh decays after the death of our body. Just the thought of my identity as a costume for soul is very liberating. It just took me to a trance for a while and then reality creeps in. I live in a society, an urban society. Where validating each an every action becomes necessary, where we need to mend our ways according to the norm of the society we live in, which is again a contradicting to a thought I found comforting me lately, libertarianism. But then, I live in a society, or at least the people I care for live in that notion of society.

If we want to live our life the way we want, we need at least two factors, one, our family and friends accept our definition of life, or the strength to live with the hope that eventually things will fall in place and second, the strength to put ourselves first otherwise, we’ll end up submitting ourselves to what society thinks about us, or what the society needs from us. And a third way to live it our way is just unfettering from the norms of the society when it conflicts with your idea of life. But then, man is a social animal. He needs a companion to survive. The world is turning into an urban society, converting itself into a concrete jungle. For the jungle, it doesn’t matter what form of the flesh your soul is carrying. In the jungle you are either a prey or a predator. Living in a jungle of trees between animals without the materialistic comfort is more than difficult for today’s world, and living our life our way is not less difficult too. Our life can be measured on a scale of living in the jungle of trees to concrete jungle with all the thoughts of liberty and submissions to other’s definitions of life and everything in between. One can live like a saint in the middle of all materialistic comfort and be brave enough to let go of the thought of what the society thinks of him even when they were taught to be what a society wants from them as a child, and I think that’s when you come in harmony with yourself. This thought gives me more strength and reasons to liberate myself from the thoughts of what society wants from me.
The sky gets bluer with the thought from where it all began, what am I? A soul wrapped in this costume who is wandering on earth to find a way to heaven! What is life? The journey of the costume, and all about the priorities and preferences of the costume.

Red wine and Pineapple cake

December 6, 2018 — Leave a comment

redwineandpineapplecake

I love the way winters enter the daily day slowly and silently and make a place for all the warmth in the world. Just the way he enters my mind. The only difference here is, winter is replaced by warmer days and thoughts of him are replaced by daydreams about him. Today is one such day where I am missing him a little more than I do every day. Such is the only time when I wish that we both lived in the same town. Either I had chosen to study in the city he lives in or he chose to work in the city I am studying in.

It is a December night and I am sitting on the water tank on the terrace of our building. I was waiting for my sister to fall asleep so that I could come here and sit with a bottle of wine and pineapple cake. If she were awake, she wouldn’t have let me get out of my blanket, thanks to the cold outside. The peace I find here at this time of the night, I haven’t found it anywhere else. And the new terrace cafe opened in the building close to our building is adding to the feel-good factor of this night. Their guitar day today is filling the void of music I was feeling till now. The chilled air, wine, beautiful music, and his favorite pineapple cake gives the trance I would want to live in a little longer.

“I exactly knew where to find you at this hour if not in your bed,” He said sitting beside me. At first, I thought it was the wine and missing him feeling that I was hallucinating him. When I saw the half-full glass of wine go empty inside him, I realized he was here for real. Though I don’t trust my eyes yet, I wanted it to be true.
“Am sure you spoiled my sister’s sleep for this information,” I said looking at him confusedly not yet able to process what was happening.
“What? Why are you staring at me like this? Am I interrupting your ‘me time’? I can go back if you want to?” he prepared to get up to leave. My instant reflex was to pull him down and let him sit again and this time a little more closer to me. He takes my left arm in his and I rest my head on his shoulder.
“It is my ‘me time’, but you don’t surprise me like this very often that I would let you go.”
He gave me the wine glass refilling what he had emptied. The music from the cafe was getting faster, their customers are very responsive to the music they are playing. Along with faint chatters, I hear the cheers and support the guitar player is getting for what he is playing and his partner singing. The night is so silent that I could even make out some words within the faint chatters. Now, he beside me filled the void of him I was feeling a while ago. We, taking sip after sip from the glass, were talking about various things around. I could suddenly feel chills on my face. It took moments for me to realize that he had applied the cake cream on my face.
“Very playful” I irritatingly tried to fill his face with cream but ended up filling mine. Our laughter made the faint music just disappear. Playing with each other and when I got tired of laughing, I laid on my back facing the sky breathing heavily and he followed the suit.
“So… Why are you here?” I asked him.
“You know why!” I think I knew it.
“I don’t know why you are here!”
“You’ll find that out soon.”
“Tell me, why are you here” I demanded this time.
“Just to remind you something”
“Remind me what?” I was losing my patience now.
“To remind you that, you have a life outside me too. Till when will you be talking to a soul”
“You know how good I feel when you are around. I don’t want it from anyone else.”
“I want something from you. Will you give me?”
“You had never asked for anything when you were alive, now what do you need?”
“Just tell me yes or no? This is the first time I am asking for something from you…” I couldn’t say a no. It was the first time he had asked for something from me. But I know it already what he is going to ask for.
“Should I take that as a no?” He very well knows how to get me to say a yes.
“No no… what do you want me to do? tell me” and I gave in.
“Let me go Aarzoo. Let me go from you. Till when will you keep talking to me like this and prove the world that you are mad!”
“You know it, that I have tried to. And the world has to say something annoying for anything we do. And if talking to your soul is madness, I don’t care.” I sit up and take the cake box, bottle, and glass to leave.
“That night wasn’t your mistake, it was an accident Aarzoo. How much will you punish yourself for something you didn’t do?”
The sounds from the cafe suddenly disappeared. I could hear the sound of empty glass bottles being picked up. This empty silence has been talking to me again. I silently walk back home not ignoring what he said. No one stays forever.

Bitter Sweet

May 10, 2018 — 1 Comment

bitter sweet

He said we’ll stay here till the sunset. The breeze is warm, because of the job the hot sun is doing. The peaceful view here makes me forget about the hotness of the weather. We are watching the river flow while there are people around here to beat the heat. Some are sitting under the shade of the trees that are standing through the boundary of the dam area, some are taking a splash in the river, some are playing frisbee with the kids with them in the little open space there, some are just watching the river like we are. There is a not-an-awkward silence between us. He sitting quiet is a very rare occasion. The silence is just making things to settle in. I am now making assumptions about what he could be thinking about. Now that I am trying to think like an economist, I make assumptions about everything I come across. Though, because this is out of economics, there is an equal chance for all the assumptions to be false. I assumed a few things he could be thinking about like, about the fight we had recently or maybe about the project he is working on lately, or he might be thinking of taking a break from all the mess he feels he is in or so on. When I am out of options to assume, I ask him
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” he says.
I go a little closer to him take his hand in mine and say,
“You know right, what would be my reply when you say that you are thinking nothing!”
“Ya Ya. Our brain is always thinking something or the other. Even for the millisecond, it is free, it is thinking something.”
“Yes. So tell me, what are you thinking?”
“I actually am thinking nothing.”
I nodded to agree with him that he is thinking nothing. I make an assumption that he is thinking about too many things at once that he only do not know what he is thinking about.

The dam was a silent place in the noon. With passing day, the calmness remained to the moving water. The birds started flying around in the sky, reminding me that the sunset is nearing. He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer while I rested my head on his shoulder.
“I am sorry… You know right I didn’t mean that.” I said. I had blamed him for something he wasn’t responsible at all while having lunch. I knew and even understood that he wasn’t to be blamed but when it is anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction, I cannot realize what am I thinking. The silence is now killing me and I assumed that maybe it is because of that conversation we had during lunch.
“I know you didn’t mean it. And I am not at all mad at you. That wasn’t in even at the back of my mind.” I felt a bit relieved.
“Accha tell me if that mountain had the ability to think, what would it be thinking right now?” I point my index finger at the calm and strong mountain at the other end of the river by which we were sitting while asking him. I like such conversations where we can imagine any story and build a conversation out of nowhere and leading to nowhere. Some pointless conversations that might give an insight into what we are thinking about. We have had such fun conversations many times earlier. And he never realized that I could make out what actually is going on in his mind from those conversations. I always told him it was magic ;).
“He might be thinking he is a bigger star than any of the famous stars on the planet because everyone coming here is clicking countless selfies with him.”
“Not only selfies, pictures too. Some even paint him. I must say he has a hell lot of patience.”
“Yeah. But if he notices us, his ego might get hurt.”
“Because we are not going to click a selfie with him?”
“Because we are not even going to paint him.”
“And he might not listen to the song we’d write and sing in the praise of him.”
“I wish, in your imagination, he had the ability to hear too.”
“Well, if he’d be able to hear, then he’d be able to speak too.”
“And if he’d be able to speak, looking at his build-up, he’d speak the truth.”
“And some truth is bitter.”
“The truth is a bitter one sweetheart. You know, I would never want to leave you alone. You can’t keep unintentionally blaming me for that. Accept it. I am not there in a body anymore. Let me go.” I could suddenly feel the weight of his arm around my shoulder lessening, and the weight of my heart increasing.

The breeze touching me was getting cooler now. The sun began to hide behind the mountain. I wish the sun wouldn’t set today. He’d stay with me a little longer. I have heard many people telling philosophically that forever is a myth. I realized that today.

His presence was the truth I couldn’t accept when he was there around me and his absence is the truth I am not able to accept when he is not there.

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