Voices, probing voices.
Voices seeking to change my moods,
My life, my fate.
Voices thinking they are omnipotent
Having dreams for me,
Dreams that supercede my reality
That refuse to acknowledge the boundaries I draw for everything that is not of my creation
I have paved my path
And I shall stick to it or pave new ones.
In the process, worlds shall shatter,
New worlds shall evolve.
And with each step, the world will be my creation.
You can dream for me, hope for me, guide me
But you CANNOT live my life.
It is my own and I shall live it my way.
Respect me for the choices I have made.
Respect me for the person I have become.
Don't try to make me somebody I am not.
For then, I lose what little I am existing for.
Respect my spaces. They are very private.
Respect my boundaries. At times, they are very rigid
Respect my existence. At times, it may seem non-existent.
But if you offer to hold me each time I fall,
My growth will be stunted, my individuality abused and my life a failure.
Monday 19 July 2010
Sunday 11 July 2010
The SMS — a short story
Sheetal heard the familiar beep and chose to ignore it. It must be one of those property dealers building houses in Noida who were desperately trying to sell the stuffy, unaffordable homes by sending bulk messages to everyone who had a cell phone. Or it could also be the Sathya Sai Foundation hoping she would convert to the baba’s ways and offer them a huge donation in return for spiritual solace.
Sheetal wouldn’t have minded parting with some money if only she was confident the solace would follow. Things hadn’t been going her way for some time now and she was looking for some divine sign on where to head next.
Mrinal had not responded to her mails, had changed his phone number and quit his job. Common friends told her he had left the city. She refused to believe them. Every time they said something of the kind, her thoughts would go back to the long walks through slices of Delhi. They both fell in love with each other and the city at around the same time.
Of course, she could not say with certainty which came first, but in the muddled recesses of her over-stressed brain, all of it happened around the same time.
Beep! There it went again. Another annoying message. She stopped herself from uttering an involuntary expletive and ignored the beep.
Nobody she knew messaged her any more. Yes, once in a while her mother would send in a confused, garbled message, typed, mistyped and sent in a hurry. How she wished her mother’s phone came with a spell-check. And then there was this young recruit in her team who had the hots for her. She didn’t mind his occasional forwards and once-in-a-while impromptu compliments.
But, like Sheetal told herself, it was really once-in-a-while. And there went a third beep. Now this, was too much to ignore.
She reached out for the phone, balancing her laptop and her diary between the table and her stomach.
Three messages, the phone said. And two of them messages from the same unknown number.
A frown marked her brow as she checked it.
“Sorry,” said the first.
“Well, first tell me what you did,” Sheetal thought.
“Please come back? Waiting where I left you.”
She leapt out of the bed, pulled on her jeans, changed into a presentable top and rushed out. Slamming the door behind her, she ran into the old woman living on the same floor. Sheetal stopped for a split second to steady the woman, adjust her sandal and mutter an expletive under her breath.
‘Shit! I’ve left the key behind,” she said a bit louder for the confused neighbour to understand. But there was no time to explain or fire-fight. That would have to wait.
Luck was favouring her today. There was an autorickshaw right outside the building. She jumped in and told the driver to race to India Gate.
It was just past five and traffic was thin. “I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Please don’t leave, please,” she prayed.
Holding her breath, the last seven years of her life whizzed past in a haze. Things she’d carefully consciously refused to think about, surfaced in a jumble. The first time she’d met Mrinal, their first date at Regal, their first kiss caught in a fit of passion on a bus ride to Mussourie. The fights, calling each other names, misunderstandings, the pain of not being able to know why love came with so much heartache. The distances growing between them, life slowly taking them their separate ways.
She closed her eyes and felt his warm embrace, taking her away from the present, with the memories she had painstakingly buried in a corner of her heart. Eyes shut, she could feel the tears push their way past the barricade, slipping down her cheek.
Lips pursed, she repeated over and over. “We can do it. We can. We will.”
“Madam, India Gate.” The auto driver sounded almost apologetic at having to interrupt the flood that had just broken. She looked at him with an unrecognising stare, picked out the first note that came into her hands and gave it to him.
And she walked, tripping over her own feet in a hurry. She was no more worried about seeming to be desperate to meet Mrinal. She didn’t think she would be making him feel too important. She just wanted him to know how hopeless life had been without him.
She did not pause to think about all the differences that had arisen between them, about his lack of seriousness about his career, his seeming insincere approach to life, his self-imposed silence, his refusal to meet her friends or family because of some self-imposed complex. She did not stop to think how she would tame her temper, change her overbearing attitude or curb her social life that he so detested.
All that mattered in that moment was that fountain in the middle of the pool at India Gate. The huge mango tree on the edge of the pool, with its motherly branches, still leaned over lovers catching a peck in the setting sun.
All that mattered was getting to that fountain. She remembered sitting on its carved arches and wondering how it would be when the pool would be full. She recalled thinking about how dry the fountain was even as he ranted about how she was too stuck up for him.
Sheetal stepped into the pool and fell flat on her face. A couple of urchins rushed to her side.
One taunted her, “Madam, yahan suicide karne aye ho kya (have you come here to commit suicide)?” Another nudged him and said, “Kapde gandhe ho gaye, ab kya hoga (Her clothes are wet. Now what)? ”
The pain in her ankle started nagging her. Tears streamed down her face, as she tried to clamber on to the bank with the help of the boys.
Another fished out her bag and turned out its contents to examine how much had been damaged. He pulled out her cloth wallet and a small pouch that went beep in his hand.
She snatched her cell phone from the child and saw another message from the same unknown number.
“C’mon Shruti, we’ll miss the train if you don’t come right back.”
Sheetal kept staring as the phone began to sing a familiar tune from a distant past she shared with Mrinal. A by-now-familiar number flashed and she knew she had to take the call and clear a grave misunderstanding. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Someone continued waiting at some station for some beloved who did not know they were missed. And in some other part of the city, a phone continued singing ‘Kya Yahi Pyaar Hai...’
(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to any person or incident is just coincidence)
Sheetal wouldn’t have minded parting with some money if only she was confident the solace would follow. Things hadn’t been going her way for some time now and she was looking for some divine sign on where to head next.
Mrinal had not responded to her mails, had changed his phone number and quit his job. Common friends told her he had left the city. She refused to believe them. Every time they said something of the kind, her thoughts would go back to the long walks through slices of Delhi. They both fell in love with each other and the city at around the same time.
Of course, she could not say with certainty which came first, but in the muddled recesses of her over-stressed brain, all of it happened around the same time.
Beep! There it went again. Another annoying message. She stopped herself from uttering an involuntary expletive and ignored the beep.
Nobody she knew messaged her any more. Yes, once in a while her mother would send in a confused, garbled message, typed, mistyped and sent in a hurry. How she wished her mother’s phone came with a spell-check. And then there was this young recruit in her team who had the hots for her. She didn’t mind his occasional forwards and once-in-a-while impromptu compliments.
But, like Sheetal told herself, it was really once-in-a-while. And there went a third beep. Now this, was too much to ignore.
She reached out for the phone, balancing her laptop and her diary between the table and her stomach.
Three messages, the phone said. And two of them messages from the same unknown number.
A frown marked her brow as she checked it.
“Sorry,” said the first.
“Well, first tell me what you did,” Sheetal thought.
“Please come back? Waiting where I left you.”
She leapt out of the bed, pulled on her jeans, changed into a presentable top and rushed out. Slamming the door behind her, she ran into the old woman living on the same floor. Sheetal stopped for a split second to steady the woman, adjust her sandal and mutter an expletive under her breath.
‘Shit! I’ve left the key behind,” she said a bit louder for the confused neighbour to understand. But there was no time to explain or fire-fight. That would have to wait.
Luck was favouring her today. There was an autorickshaw right outside the building. She jumped in and told the driver to race to India Gate.
It was just past five and traffic was thin. “I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Please don’t leave, please,” she prayed.
Holding her breath, the last seven years of her life whizzed past in a haze. Things she’d carefully consciously refused to think about, surfaced in a jumble. The first time she’d met Mrinal, their first date at Regal, their first kiss caught in a fit of passion on a bus ride to Mussourie. The fights, calling each other names, misunderstandings, the pain of not being able to know why love came with so much heartache. The distances growing between them, life slowly taking them their separate ways.
She closed her eyes and felt his warm embrace, taking her away from the present, with the memories she had painstakingly buried in a corner of her heart. Eyes shut, she could feel the tears push their way past the barricade, slipping down her cheek.
Lips pursed, she repeated over and over. “We can do it. We can. We will.”
“Madam, India Gate.” The auto driver sounded almost apologetic at having to interrupt the flood that had just broken. She looked at him with an unrecognising stare, picked out the first note that came into her hands and gave it to him.
And she walked, tripping over her own feet in a hurry. She was no more worried about seeming to be desperate to meet Mrinal. She didn’t think she would be making him feel too important. She just wanted him to know how hopeless life had been without him.
She did not pause to think about all the differences that had arisen between them, about his lack of seriousness about his career, his seeming insincere approach to life, his self-imposed silence, his refusal to meet her friends or family because of some self-imposed complex. She did not stop to think how she would tame her temper, change her overbearing attitude or curb her social life that he so detested.
All that mattered in that moment was that fountain in the middle of the pool at India Gate. The huge mango tree on the edge of the pool, with its motherly branches, still leaned over lovers catching a peck in the setting sun.
All that mattered was getting to that fountain. She remembered sitting on its carved arches and wondering how it would be when the pool would be full. She recalled thinking about how dry the fountain was even as he ranted about how she was too stuck up for him.
Sheetal stepped into the pool and fell flat on her face. A couple of urchins rushed to her side.
One taunted her, “Madam, yahan suicide karne aye ho kya (have you come here to commit suicide)?” Another nudged him and said, “Kapde gandhe ho gaye, ab kya hoga (Her clothes are wet. Now what)? ”
The pain in her ankle started nagging her. Tears streamed down her face, as she tried to clamber on to the bank with the help of the boys.
Another fished out her bag and turned out its contents to examine how much had been damaged. He pulled out her cloth wallet and a small pouch that went beep in his hand.
She snatched her cell phone from the child and saw another message from the same unknown number.
“C’mon Shruti, we’ll miss the train if you don’t come right back.”
Sheetal kept staring as the phone began to sing a familiar tune from a distant past she shared with Mrinal. A by-now-familiar number flashed and she knew she had to take the call and clear a grave misunderstanding. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Someone continued waiting at some station for some beloved who did not know they were missed. And in some other part of the city, a phone continued singing ‘Kya Yahi Pyaar Hai...’
(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to any person or incident is just coincidence)
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Sunday 4 July 2010
A breezy, pre-monsoon morning
With wind in the hair, sleep in the soul and dreams in the eyes
A river, a non-existent river
With muck clogging its path, choking its flow, stifling our breath
Friends, from shared pasts
With memories, newfound thoughts, unborn futures and dying beliefs
Bonds, tugging at the rising sun
Spirits breaking free, unfettered, direction-less, with hesitation
With wind in the hair, sleep in the soul and dreams in the eyes
A river, a non-existent river
With muck clogging its path, choking its flow, stifling our breath
Friends, from shared pasts
With memories, newfound thoughts, unborn futures and dying beliefs
Bonds, tugging at the rising sun
Spirits breaking free, unfettered, direction-less, with hesitation
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