Known city's unknown hour

I had an early morning train to catch to a place I don’t like going back to.

This is pointless saying now that I got so tired of my own city that I ran away to this place in the first place.

But pangs have its own wicked way of creeping into us.

The moon was still up, and just a day post the much-talked-about super moon, it still had her large shell on, and was oozing out light like a big-damn nature-electrified streetlamp.

The sky was yawning its wake, and the sun needed more volume to kill the moonlight and fight its attention in.

As the car wheeled through my known city in its unknown hour, I saw it in attire I’ve never experienced.

And that was when I knew exactly why it is home, and why people keep returning back to.

It is the city of nostalgic returns, more than fancy goodbyes.

I, since childhood, more found more fascination in the rearview mirror more than the broad windshield; looking at things getting smaller with distance than gazing at things getting bigger and detailed with speed.

Through the known roads, often the known lanes the car went in its own mood and velocity. John Denver in my ears, visuals fed me with extremities of beauty; my time of leaving the city and it trying to seduce me back in.

One hour from the commence, I saw an entire city stretching its arms, throwing off its blanket and getting out of the bed. The sky had finally veiled the moon and applauded the entrance of the sun.  The skyline to my left was blood-red, and occasional trees in the vicinity with their silhouettes created a frame that you don’t just see, but you breathe in.

People, very finite in numbers, in their tracksuits and hyper-active limbs, started to be seen, trotting the lanes. The teashops saw shopkeepers lighting the stoves and sometimes, simply struggling to blow and light the chullah. The vintage almost-breaking-yet-standing-upright housings to my right looked down at me, drinking the city-wine, like a voyeur.

By then, I was on the Howrah Bridge, and just when I saw the Ganges and the Howrah station outline in that 5.30 in the morning, I knew why this city is not over-hyped, in fact with all its beauty, is indeed less talked about.

Birthday, away home.

I am going to sulk for the next few paragraphs.

First birthday away home and there are so many things I miss right now.

My grandmother would prepare the payesh for me every year only to have a hard time pushing a spoonful through my tight lips. Right now, I would catch any damn train to go back and have a bowl of that.

My mother would hug me on this day, bit tighter and longer than other days; maybe it was her way of saying that she is glad I messed up another year and grew older by one.

My dog cared no shit about the birthday. He would let me slip my cold feet under his belly and make them warm. And sometimes, when he would be bored, he would go from room to room, find me, encircle me, find him a good spot, place his paw on my thigh and sleep on it.

My siblings made me feel, it was more of their birthday and less of mine. My brother would take me in his arms horizontally and go round and round screaming birthday. He would also dance weirdly but let’s not get there.

I still remember my last birthday with my grandfather. There was no one home and I was as usual sulking. He called me to his room, and pushed money and a piece of paper in my palm. When I asked him about the paper, he told me to make a list of the favourite things I want him to bring home for me. I couldn’t write a thing. He died exactly a week after.

Four years later, there is nothing I would not do to go back in time, and write on that paper, his name.

My mother would come from office all sweaty and tired, and still would cook up something favourite for me.

My father would take us out to eat; I would order the same mainstream Chinese, and the day would end in happy burps.

Precisely, miles away from home, and the first time at that, wishes from people I don’t even care for the rest of the 364 days, choke me.

This place, I am at right now, there is not much wrong about the place, but probably the only right thing is, it made me write a blog after almost two years.

Pangs work in weird ways.

Going away.

I have been trying to get the hell out of home for a long time now. And we all know, when we try to get 'the hell out', a long time seems a really really long time.

Desperation has its own way of stretching time. Desperation is a bad bitch of only one kind.

And now I have a way out.
And only when there is not even a full twenty four hours left for my much awaited way out of home, do I realise so many things.

I realise how I would miss the way my mother would let me sleep on all days. I have this one kind of mother. I have people complaining how their moms would wake them up early; my mother would let me sleep instead. Everytime i asked her why she doesnot call me up, she would smile and say, 'afternoons are morning for you, I know'.

I realise how for days, I had only woke up on afternoons and binge watched friends, in a locked up room; and noone bothered me.

I have this habit of kissing twice my dog, before going to bed. Twice, always; on his head. I realise how from tomorrow, he would wait for that kiss and I won't be there.

There had been days when I would just stare at the wall. I did it today while lying on my back and I saw that little cobweb in one corner. I realise it had been there for days. I would not get to see that from tomorrow.

My grandmom makes sure I have my morning tea; even if that's 1pm when I leave bed. Noone would care to slip the cup from the door to my bed without making a sound, because I would be too damn busy watching friends, from tomorrow.

My father has been giving me money; more than I need to survive for a month. I keep telling him that I can always withdraw from the ATM. But he is like, shut up and take this. I realise he cares.

I took a stroll during the dusk around the house today. I saw moss at places, places where noone cares to clean. Beneath water pipes, corners of the boundary wall, behind the hypotenusely placed ladder. I realise they have grown when I was home. The next new moss that grows here will grow in my absence.

I gazed at the streetlights today, infront of my home and it took me some time to fix the focus of my eyes, because by then emotions have been the bitch, tears have started coming and I have became volatile.
Whatever.
I realised how beautiful streetlights can be, and how heartless have I been to never have appreciated it.

And just when I have to leave, do I realise that there had been so many things I took for granted all this while.
All the times grandmom wanted to tell her little funny story and I was busy texting, all the times mother came home and I was too lazy to make her a cup of tea, all the times my dog wanted to play but I just let him sleep on me, all the times brother wanted to spend some more time and I was not feeling like.
All the times, I took love, care and home for granted.

Going way might be adventurous they say; Going away is difficult too.

Love: on fire!

She rushed through the stagnant traffic, crossed the street, almost ran through the thin lane, onto the shortcut, and found her man staring at the river, checking his watch occasionally and fiddling with his phone.

Just as her phone rang, she tapped on his shoulder with that bright smile.

He knows this touch.

He looked back with a forced-straight face hiding the excitement. ‘You’re late.’

‘Damn! Like always?’ her words came out in a mixture of sigh and smile.

‘Like always’, he spoke through the dusk light making way through the leaves, creating patterns on his face.

She smiled back, and stopped midway, at the view that unveiled.

The sky had numerous hues making love with one another, with the sun playing magic. Sunlight through the leaves created geometry on their faces as she held his hand firm and stared at the dusk-bathed sky.

And he stared at her. How the wind dipped through the river came and caressed her face; how her strands of hair kept coming on her face; and how her beautifully done kohl-smudged eyes fed itself on the river-side view.

Slowly the streetlights came out, and it was surprisingly quiet that day.

She broke the silence.

‘You never told me till date.’

He took some time to register. ‘What?’

‘Why do we meet here? Always?’

‘Why? Don’t you like it here?’ He played with her fingers.

‘I do. But the burning ghat beside; it send chills, sometimes.’

He had an unusual confidence suddenly, ‘I swear this is the last time.’

She smirked mysteriously, ’You never know, love. You never know.’

As the night started absorbing the lovers into its veil, suddenly there was chaos all over.

Hymns, chants, cries, conversations, scream.

They broke the closeness, and walked towards the source of the noise.

By the side of the river, two bodies were being put up on the consecutive pyres. Each of the pyres was surrounded by a crowd.

He smiled at her, ‘So the poison worked.’

She held his hand and kept staring at their dead bodies.

As the fire from both the pyres disturbed the darkness of the night, somewhere above, their smoke intertwined into an eternal embrace.

Only the pyres have known, some love stories do not die with death.

Tu nahin samjhega..

I have waited years for this Shah Rukh Khan. THIS one.

And when I say that, I don’t mean the one who wears gold-plated dresses, dances with scantily-dressed girls, jumps through air and lands perfectly, or walks on water.

I mean the one who cries in the jail in a way he hadn’t cried for long.

I mean the one who screams his name out in front of Mannat.

I mean the one who grins in a way that you can’t help but fall in love with the one creating all the menace.

And through the film you end up taking the fan’s side and never want the star to catch him; simply because you don’t want the movie to end.

And mostly because the fan does everything that you want to do, and everything that you wouldn’t.

And you see your deepest cravings, unfold.

I won’t say what happens in the end of the movie; because that doesn’t matter. Because like everything, this movie will do its part, score, and then get under other movie posters.

But what would forever remain is perhaps this feeling. This feeling of this certain actor called Shah Rukh Khan groping your heart and scooping out your deepest emotions, all from across the screen.

And through the first half, the glass barrier between you and him, breaks. You are no longer the one on the audience seat. You are the one cutting the pictures out of the newspaper. You are the one frantically screaming in front of Mannat. You are the one getting into a fight with whoever says negative about your hero. You are the one who have loved his star for too long; so long that he has become a part of you, you can’t part with.

As I write this, I know people will call me superficial because, with so many grave topics to talk about, how can I chose to write about someone who doesn’t pay my bills, who has nothing to do with the coming elections, or the Parliament, who doesn’t know I exist, and who is ‘Just a movie star’.

But well, people, that’s where is the misunderstanding. I, like most of the sensible fans, might be an admirer of the person who wears make-up and entertains people, but I am a FAN of the person he is beyond the glitters and the stardom. I am a FAN of his journey more, and little less of his destination.

As I write this, I know thousands of people are screaming in the first scene, thousands crying in the climax, hundreds of people coming out of the ticket stall with heavy breaths because they couldn’t manage a ticket, lakhs of people falling in love with the actor Khan, a few hundred sitting at home trying to find faults in the movie, and thousands who can’t wait to see the movie again. Also, thousands of people are comparing him with other actors, criticizing him, and staying happy for doing so. And the other lakh whose day is made . And all I know, I have waited for this Shah Rukh Khan.

Also, I am writing this totally with the knowledge that Shah Rukh Khan might never know that this blog exists. But years from now, I want to open this one and tell my kids, how we have waited for this person to create magic, and he didn’t let us down.

And how in love, you wait; you trust. You keep the faith.

P.S.: I am so emotional right now; I am letting my raw emotions get its way. And I can’t, right now, care about grammar, spellings, typos and every rule needed in the language. But all I know is, people who are FAN would understand anyway. And people who are not, ‘Rehne de.. Tu nahin samjhega’.

Wow-men!

I am hugely against naming a day for women.

I am hugely against celebrating womanhood for a day.

I am hugely against women’s day being more hyped than men’s day.

Just like I am hugely against ladies special trains and how men are not allowed to sit in ladies seats in buses, but women are allowed vice versa.

I am hugely against women claiming advantages just for the sake of being women.

I am hugely against feminists seeking justice through ways that only make us look like asking for sympathy, and mostly attention.

Just like I am hugely against sex without consent, I am against women throwing looks at every man as if they are all molesters.

I am hugely against violence against women, just like I am hugely against men being laughed at when they cry.

I am hugely against marital rape, just like I am against little boys being molested by their female tutors.

I am amazed how a women saying ‘all men are dogs’ is not an issue, but god forbid a guy says ‘all women are bitches.’; might land him in jail, with a few feminists turning up naked, few candle marches and what not.

I am amazed how fathers are always the less-talked upon, less-thanked to people, and it is always the mothers. Yes, well mothers carry you for nine long months, almost push their damn life out while pushing you out of their womb, and always has the most to contribute in your growing up, and obviously loves you unconditionally. But that does not mean fathers are not important. And just because there are cases where fathers are torturous and leave the family, does not mean ‘all fathers are dogs’, right? Does not mean mothers don’t do the same.

I understand how girls go through the painful menstrual cycle, and how they are being victimized by rape, and how since the beginning of civilization, women have been looked to as an object of sex, does not mean men haven’t changed. Does not mean we still look at them as if they are stuck in the same Adam mindset, while we Eve’s have moved on to modernization.

Because someday, we all are going to be with another men, maybe husband, maybe son, or maybe our father, and we will see them going through it. Imagine our loved ones getting inflicted by things that we consciously or unconsciously do to other men?

To get my stand right, this is not about disrespecting mothers, this is not about portraying women in a light that may not be accepted, this is all about how men are not supposed to be subdued. If women claim equality, let’s please start with giving up the ladies seats.

If we call ourselves 'Men', let's just start being equal to 'Men'.