NOT BROKEN, JUST BENT...

“Aunty, are you sure you can come on your own? I can still come to the Rajiv Chowk metro station and pick you up. We can come together.” I bit my lip as I waited for her to answer though I knew what she would say. She replied, “Nahi beta, I’ll come. Now I am learning to walk alone and I know I don’t have my son walking beside me to hold me if I fall. Don’t worry, I’ll manage” and before I could insist, she disconnected.

I had called Mrs. Shreyash almost after a year and had finally called her up to ask her if she could come alone to commemorate her deceased son on his second death anniversary; who was my classmate and happened to be my best friend too. In fact, I had called her last year on the same day, the 5^th of September, 2011. I felt miserable for not having kept in touch with her, but I myself was nothing more than a wallflower; a creeper who’d grow upon her pain and loss too thereby increasing both our agonies multiple folds.

The guilt was over-bearing but I guess we need to fight our own battles and let the skeletons rest in our own closets. Certain losses cannot be expressed shared or halved. After a point, we tend to fall back upon those who support us and then we end up hurting ourselves as they move away; which does happen gradually, intentionally or otherwise. I did too, much before I could hurt her and told her that I’d be there whenever she truly needed me, but for the rest, she’d have to be her own best friend. Of course it sounds utterly rude and insensitive, and many of my friends hated me for this change in attitude in me. However, they never knew the person Kinshuk Shreyash was, and they had no idea of what I shared with him or with his mother.

Of the 5 odd meetings with Ms. Shreyash, two hold distinct places in my memory. One was when I met her for the first time on the 30^th of August, 2010, in the hospital where her son Kinshuk was admitted. I cannot forget how we had held hands in prayer, affirming that Kinshuk would get cured. And the second was on 5^th September,2010 when she clung on to me, tugging at my kurta asking me, “Why, why did he have to die? What will I do of this life when he isn’t by my side anymore?”

Some co-incidences are funny, in a sad way. 5^th September is a special day for a teacher, it being Teacher’s Day. Ms. Shreyash had retired that year from her schooling career in Dhanbad, their hometown and had decided to move to Delhi with Kinshuk, who was planning to give the Public Services Examination next year after he’d be done with his graduation that year. Who would have known that 2010 had so much in store that a future wasn’t plausible for Kinshuk. On a metaphorical note, it seemed like a retirement from her career as a mother as well for Ms. Shreyash. My ‘why’s seemed minuscule in front of her grief.

I distanced myself from her, when problems incurred in her family especially with her elder son not liking my interference in their household matters, in which Ms. Shreyash increasingly involved me. She had been a strong woman all her life; Kinshuk had told me about her everyday struggles in her married life and her ambitions to open a school for the poor someday. Time played a great role; I went into my Masters and she shifted back to Dhanbad. Calls came lesser and soon conversations were about updates from each other’s lives.

And there she stood in front of me looking graceful in an off white saree, smiling at me. I sprinted up to her and hugged her tight. I do not give that hug to many; it was a special kind of a hug that Kinshuk often gave me. The bear hug that pushes every atom of air out of you and the arms cover you in entirety. The hug that fills you with so much love that the strain of the lungs seems nothing and the eyes sting of the warmth that you feel. To find someone to love and to be loved in return are the greatest achievements in life. Kinshuk had a way to make me feel loved. And so did Ms.Shreyash. When she hugged me, I felt that love. Even after months of not communicating, of the conscious self-distancing, here we were bonded by an unnamed relation that no one could define.

Sambhavna, a junior came up to me, “Priyanka Di, Let’s start the program?” I broke away from her embrace and Ms. Shreyash was taken to the area where a huge crowd had gathered in front of Kinshuk’s pictures, lighting candles there. As the program went on, I stood at a corner tight-lipped. I had told myself over and over to not cry. It would look so stupid to cry, it had been two years after all. Not that pain had anything to do with days but people still hope that time heals the pain and I did not wish to break that hope.

Ms. Shreyash was asked to speak. She thanked people for coming and then broke a news that stunned me. She had constructed a new floor in her house and has started a private tuition centre where she teaches poor women and children. Many other teachers come to help her too. Ms. Shreyash had tears in her eyes and the loss was crystal clear; no one and nothing can heal the loss of a child. But she made her dream turn into a reality; she had opened the school she wanted to. In fact, it was running successfully. Furthermore, she requested the Principal of our college to organize a scholarship scheme in Kinshuk’s name for worthy students.

I broke down, perhaps the first time in the two years. Being strong is not good for your public image; people expect you to keep smiling through the odds which is a delirious situation. You want to shriek and cry out your agony but something in you corks the bottle from overflowing. I cried not for losing my best friend, I cried not because reality had stung me. I cried because the mother showed me a strength that I thought neither of us possessed. She was so utterly vulnerable, so alone, Kinshuk was not just a son; he was her lifeline. And yet, today she stood in front of so many people, making all that she had dreamt and discussed with her son come true, all alone. The tensile strength of being a human hit me hard in the guts. How many bridges does a person have to cross and burn, cross and burn before she manages to utter, “I am not broken, just bent!”?

As the program ended, she came to me and gave me that familiar hug. I howled, “Aunty! Thank you! I am so proud of you.”

“I am proud of you too, Priya” she whispered back.

I wish to get my story published in Chicken Soup for the Indian Entrepreneurs Soul in association with BlogAdda.com




ONCE UPON A SKY

Once upon a gloomy day, a lonely star shone brightly in the sky… His beauty so luminescent; he grew and grew with every passing day, pushing all the stars away… The star though beautiful and emitting light would be lonely and cold as those known to him, disappeared gradually. He shone and shone with all his might as that is all he knew; colors red, orange, yellow and white but inside, he’d remain the coldest blue. He asked the Universe for a friend, a star that’d not get pushed away from him but all his prayers would go unheeded. The sun could shine no longer; the pain and the desolation were tiring him out, his colors had faded and he was frail and pale. He screamed in excruciating agony, “Why does no one hear me?”

He heard the most beautiful voice after a long long time and it felt like a balm to his aching soul. It replied to him, “I hear you,” The sun looked with constrained eyes all around him, and there she stood amidst the darkness, the silken moon.  She had been there all this while, waiting in anticipation for the sun to notice her. But the sun was too engrossed in his illumination to see her. However, now while he was suffering from the loss of beauty and shine, she was his only hope. A part of the sun had died down and the moon came closer to the sun and kissed the part and ignited it back into existence. Such unimaginable love for the sun gave moon the power, she never knew she possessed. The sun’s soul sparkled like a crystal, resurrecting in the moon’s love. The moon had loved him for an eternity and though weak now, melting in the Sun’s newly acquired light, could do nothing but align herself into him, dying.  

The sun could not let his only hope die out in his own light and thus made a decision; the toughest decision he’d made. Dying as a decision would have been much easier to make but to live and yet live apart, seemed like a never-ending penance but which seemed appropriate as it promised both something that was essential to their love: Life.

It was life that had conjured the meeting and so would destine their departure.  Love is not like the fairy tales where the lovers live happily together. True love is the love where we think about the other more than our own. The sun left the sky in the darkness to look at the moon gleaming in its place. In between the dusk and dawn, there comes a moment when both are to be seen together, beaming with love in the sky. It has been a witness to so many unrequited love stories, so many bits of realities that become a cork on the mouth of the volcano churning within each one of us. The same sky that blankets us; all forms of life, love and their little Pandora boxes is a testimony to the love that lingers on the face of this earth; the sun and the moon into a twisted essence of togetherness, or perhaps it is the simplicity of togetherness that we, the unwise, fail to coalesce our soul to.

Killing Me Softly..

Tryst with men had not been a new phenomenon for her. But there was something in the way he'd look up while sipping his drink, as their eyes met and time would pause. 

His gaze stripped her off to the very bones, sending shivers down her spine. The very thought of it left her palpitating, as she found herself yearning to touch his skin right along the vein in his arm and see him quiver. 

She was ready to become a nomad, traveling wherever the river took her, the quest to seek and unravel, what lay hidden, unexplored and virgin.

NAPOWRIMO 26: Cold Eyes Pierced My Skin

Today, I challenge you to perform an erasure: you can form a whole new poem just by taking words away!
NAPOWRIMO 26: http://www.napowrimo.net/2013/04/day-26/


I used a long poem written by a very talented poet I discovered online, Jenny Blackford. You can read the poem HERE.

Years ago, my reputation was as yours.
Safe—
A woman's not safe till she's dead
sometimes not even then—
but safe enough. The young men
their tender buttocks
ne'er moved me,
however soft skinned or bright-eyed
nor worn-out older,
tired from scrabbling.

But two haunted,
when I turned eighteen—
were different,
free.

Hair curved like black waterfalls
their cold eyes pierced my skin.
I told no one.
Not even whisper it
at my mother's grave.

Two years ago, my name was clean.
These days, gossip point
at grass under trees
and the boy paying- my son.
The half they know not.

I succumbed
to the lure
of all the glossy parts. There was more—
for any mountain girl like me
who has milked the cow and goat
has seen the ram or the he-goat lead them away in spring
their huge balls noticeable and prim.
The two centaurs
were lovable. They loved me as much
as they love one another.

I truly lived.
My centaurs tickled me 
wherever I wished.
And I laughed and danced with them
in the sweetness of spring
far from father and home
until came autumn.
And I saw the two, make arrows in the sky
they had to leave,
my wild-men from far somewhere.


They stoked the rounded mound
low in my abdomen
I sulked: a fool
they sang me of ruined places
and of stars fallen on Earth.
I could not go
they could not stay.

I lingered for a month
they'd return for their love
but that was a mistake.

Winter came, I had no choice
with bitter steps, I walked to my father's house
did not name the man who took my honor.
How could I?

After the longest day and night in pain
ten little fingers and toes
no curling mane, but a baby boy.
I closed my eyes. Smiled.
My baby. Our baby.

I look out 
as my son scampers around
and smile.
My boy.
My boy alone.