ArHi: The Blue Sky (OS)

Part One

Collecting souvenirs. Little anecdotes. From people of all kinds, you know- the rebels, the lines gone astray, the misunderstood, the unfathomable and the off-beats who don't create a rhythm with the mix they're placed with. With time, realized the compassion I harbor for the self-inflicted lives, for the loopholes as they say. Let me dissolve into the idiosyncrasies and glories of history. Lead me to the path of self-discovery while I unearth my life, learn to struggle, get to the peak or even regret with my choices. But let it be my choices. Let me be free and set no obligations, set no estimations, set no standards and no comparisons, let me grow and fly, let me accept my individuality and don't bind me to your social dogmas. Don't label me. Guide me, give assistance but don't be the shudder of my ship. Have faith, be there when failures depresses me, inspire.

Let me not live with fear, the apprehensiveness, the low self-esteem, the unending contradictions of my own heart- of failing, of not being of any worth. The indecisiveness arises because there's this fear lurking beneath, that interrogates one's choices in life- the same fear that makes one have no faith in themselves, that deviates them from their true desires.

Let me not be another guinea pig in this superficial societal experiment of manufacturing the socially elites and successful with horizons too narrow and motives just to please the un-important ones.

Let my words not disappear in their murmurs and whispers.

***

I have hurdled through the labyrinth of my mind for past few days- in between reading books listlessly, almost restlessly. I have but sidelined the dizziness, the slight headaches or the fact that my body shivers almost involuntarily in the middle of the days or how I'm getting increasingly forgetful and how I don't realize I'm staring at a insignificant thing like the pattern on the bedsheet. I have but rubbed off the sensations of currents I feel in my brain as I sleep- like my heart is placed in my head and it thunders dangerously. I have but tried to understand why I don't feel insomniac but fall into deep slumber, feeling weary and tired, even after sleeping the whole afternoon. It's almost like I've lost the energy to go through another day, faking normalcy, faking that everything is fine and I am fine. I have not yet dared to speak about the void I feel in the place of my body.

I have revisited the past to understand and evaluate when and how it started. I was very exuberant as a child, always jovial, always happy. I am still cheerful if you meet me- oh, it's almost unusual when people see me not-smiling. But one day, in the middle of conversations, someone says something and I am pushed into my hell, where anxiousness grips my entire being and I'm left gasping for breath. I feel suffocated, literally (as I write this to you, I have to stop in middle because I feel like I can't breathe). I have talked about this to some good friends but they won't ever understand me, I know. They ask for reasons, they ask 'why'. Heck, I can't answer the question why. I have been f**king circling around that question helplessly, every single day. So, it's you fighting your insecurities and your vulnerabilities and you who has to overpower it yourself. And it's always easy for other people to stand at the other side of the road, give judgments and suggestions but hell, they won't understand you. They cannot. They don't go through this. They don't know.

I have always chosen to be on the safe side. I am but afraid to think that I am depressed. I prefer it as 'over acuteness to every stimulus.' Well, I always over think. I have tried to de-fragment myself and concluded that I am hypersensitive and little things affect me a bit more. But who am I to run away from what I am? Who am I to ignore the truth that my life is? How far can I go away ignoring what's so perceptible? I have to but accept it and come out of it because well, there are no escape-routes.

And there are days where nothing gets into me- I almost feel devoid of emotions and there are days I can't look into the eyes of my mother while I talk, because I may break into tears if I do. And I have come to realize that everyone around me is a catalyst, and I am somehow letting them fuel what has already been lit. And I'm afraid, at this time that the fire that has grown might engulf me completely. Because now, I feel either hurt or aggression. My anger is but directed towards people in my everyday life. It's directed towards that one friend who's thrust me into that pool of self-loathing, that feeling of low self-esteem with everything but her unintentional indifference (to the point I once wanted to die). I can't understand why she thinks she gets to miss me when I'm not around or why she feels that I hold her equally important in my life when she is the last person whose company I'd seek when I am sad. I am but angry towards another friend who along with the first one, f**ked up with my emotions when I was deep within my misery and why does she think she still gets to love me or care for me, after all that? Why do they, who haven't stopped to ask if I am okay, who hadn't 'assumed' I could be unhappy until I told them, expect me to owe them answers if I choose to shut them off from my life? I have but concluded that I have been expecting too much from people I've known for lesser time. Well, playing the blame-games helps me to ease the tension. Overrated trick, actually.

And then, I had heartbreak as well. Not that I didn't see it coming. It was plain obvious and I was okay with it till he (he happens to be a really good friend as well) told me that although the girl he loves didn't decline his proposal, he has myriad of emotions going on and talking to me de-stresses. I was but angry. Not at him. But the absurdity of the whole situation- why does he get someone he loves while I, although being sincere in my emotions, am left to wallow in the misery of my self-depreciating life? Why do I never get to feel the freedom, the independence of being an individual and not be bonded by any social ties? Why do people around me expect this much from me when they have clearly not known me and been able to see through my camouflage? Why do I have to invest my time and emotions in people when at the end of the day I'm but being stranded in this f**king desert of loneliness left to find my path without any help.

I'm but damaged. And there are times like I'm being melodramatic and I let this go only to come back here again.

First step- Acceptance. Done.

Second step- Confession. Done.

I want to be happy. Truly happy. Not because of anyone. Not because of the grand scheme of things. I want to feel happy, Shyam. Just happy.

-Khushi Kumari Gupta

***

What I didn't tell you, Khushi.

It's a beautiful day; the black clouds towering above, the subtle whispers of the thunder, the unexpected chirping of birds, the voices of children playing cricket on the open space below our house, the yesterday's incident of a little kid smashing the window of my room with one of his sixes (as the other kids looked at him in admiration and then panic and there were no kids since all fled away and I was lucky enough to skip those shards of glass even though I was sitting dangerously close to the window), the strange conviction of that kid as he himself replaced the broken window with a new one- asking for markers, cutting the glass to the proper size, hitting the wooden framework with the back of the screwdriver, ducking behind the wall so that his aunt wouldn't see him fixing it (and then would know about the incident), that strange smile as he told me how he bought the glass with the money he had saved and how he could do more works just than fixing the window and how he was used to it.

-Arnav Singh Raizada

***

Part Two

A bolting thunder and I hear the rhyme of the rain echoed by the earth. The tiny drops are illuminated like crystals when the lightening embraces them. The soil is swept away leaving a damp smell. I can sense the newness of aura.

I charge out of my house vaguely and by lighting the torch I had brought with me- I stare at the leaves of the small rose plant beside my house and then the grass. Youthful, I think to myself and turn my eyes towards the sky.

As the raindrops fall on my face, a novel sensation grips me. A few wet hair strands are haphazardly glued to my face and I do not bother to manage it. I can feel the excitement and the enthusiasm in the surrounding. I smile.

As I lay on the wet grass hugging the ground, I hope for my distress to pass away. The torch which lies beside me stops glowing letting the darkness engulf my entire being. I feel my insides twitching with remorse, guilt and pain. I let out a loud scream. I weep. I hit the ground with my hands in anger. The tears beautifully camouflage as raindrops.

The rain has turned now into a slight drizzle. I feel cold. I hold the torch with my right hand and stand up straight. I rattle the torch and hit it with my hand once. It starts glowing again. With drenched clothes, I walk towards my house with traces of tears and ghost of a smile.

***

'Can you just go out of my life and let Drishya in?' holding 'Palpasa Cafe' in my hands, I scream exasperatedly.

Shyam pretends to cover his ears with his hands and says- ' Calm down, you woman. You are bound to make me deaf this day or the other.'

'No, I'm serious. You're no good. I want Drishya.' I say grumpily.

'Really? He's fictional. And I don't think he'd want a grumpy pregnant woman anyways.' he smirks.

'I smell jealousy.' I pretend to glare at him dramatically.

'Jealous and me? No way. I'd happily offer you...' He stops mid sentence as I punch him in his belly. He lets out a theatrical 'Ouch'.

'You never loved me, did you? You'd just let him have me so easily? You douchebag of a husband! Now go away and do your work, you lazy ass. You're disturbing us- Drishya and me. We were having such a great time together and you messed up the whole thing!'

He rolls his eyes, takes up his laptop, gives me a filmy flying kiss from the door and disappears into the other room.

I can hear him singing a very cheesy romantic song. I growl- 'Will you for please bless me with some moments of silence for god sake?'

He stops singing. I smile a victorious smile and resume reading. But soon again- he starts singing in over prettified voice- 'This thing, called love...'

This time, I smile.

He comes into my room, singing and half-dancing (he looks so funny doing that), kisses my forehead, leaps me up in his embrace (while I scream and blush) and ends the song with 'And I'm in love with this crazy crazzyyy womannn...'

***

Part Three

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'When I was a child, I saw the world without faults and any loopholes and growing up I realized I had only seen me, without my own faults.' Arnav lit the cigar and inhaled the smoke, and sighed deeply. 'That was strange. I couldn't sleep for two nights.' he added.

We four always met on the very last weekend of every month- and spend a whole night at a local caf and then at pub- smoking, drinking and talking about women. That was a thing upon which all of us agreed once we completed high school and understood life would be an ass and we'll all be f**ked up in it. Nothing better than a crazy night with good old lads. We followed the routine religiously. Unless we were getting laid.

Nah, kidding.

'This is strange', guffawed Aman , half drunk- 'I've never seen you talk this sort of serious shit after that break up with your crazy girlfriend- and that was what, four years ago?' he helped himself with another vodka shot.

'Where are the good old days of po*n and masturbations gone?' I sighed, dramatically.

'Disappeared since low internet speed' Shravan chuckled.

We all laughed- not because it was funny but because we were a little drunk and S was touchy about his Internet jokes.

'But come to think about it. We humans are such complex creatures,limitless and mysterious. We are not meant to fit into the works of science and art- we are indeterminate, formless and imprecise. We are constantly forming thoughts, constantly feeling so many different emotions and constantly building things- perceptions or even sentiments.' Arnav said to us, the excitement reflected in his voice.

'You remember the last year at school? We had this art competition and I painted a picture of a naked girl looking at a mirror and admiring her own curves and developed bosoms in wonder. I titled it Puberty. The English teacher who was one of the judges stared at my painting in disgust. I told him that she'd sometime soon feel uncomfortable in her own body. He walked away without a word, or contemplation. I never understood why.' I said, after a while.

'Well, we never seem to understand so many why(s) and it's sad or not, I do not know, Shyam. But it's tragic. So heart-wrenching-ly tragic.' Krishna said, earnestly.

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Drunken nights were the best nights for laughing at ourselves.

***

'Oh, it's my suicide letter. I wrote it back when I was nineteen. And sad. And unaware. And attempted to kill myself. I didn't know my
mother had saved it. She gave it to me on my 26^th birthday. It was stuck up with a cello tape on the front page of 'The God Of Small Things', the book she gifted to me. I remember I couldn't understand why she had saved it in the first place itself. It was something, I thought, she wanted to erase from the fragment of her memory. Any mother would want to, you know. It was not until she died last year, at the age of sixty five, and as I held my two
children and cried that I understood why she hadn't thrown the letter away and instead decided to give it to me. I lost my mother exactly a year after I lost Shyam. The magnitude of things hit me hard. I understood my mother a little better and all I could manage was a grateful smile.' I said, in an even voice as I took out the letter from the box, aware of his questioning eyes.

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'I never knew that. You never told me.', Arnav said slowly, yet not accusingly as he absorbed the new piece of information about my life.

I could see he was hurt. His eyes gave away his emotions just too easily. I appreciated how he didn't put his disappointment or sadness in words- his silent acknowledgement of my decisions of when and how I chose to say him things. I waited for him to say something.

'Nineteen was not a 'viable, die-able age', you know.' he said after a while, quoting 'The God of Small Things'.

'Well, it wasn't. For many years following the year when I was nineteen, I went back to that incident to understand why I had decided to do what I did. I didn't come to a plausible conclusion. There was no room for explanations or contradictions. The truth was just there- I didn't want to live. I wanted to end my life at that particular moment. And the will of dying overpowered everything else. There was nothing right or wrong.

Many days after I was discharged from the hospital and had begun 'the usual normal life'- I felt the scrutinizing eyes of people wherever I went and then it occurred to me the intensity of my conduct. For them, I was 'a reckless teenager who didn't value life'. But I am extremely grateful to my parents for they never told me that I 'didn't know to value life.' That gave me a confidence that they understood the circumstances that led me to that decision; however futile they seem- had restrained all the optimism with which I saw life. That was the moment I held true admiration for my parents, which wasn't just derived from the social notions of 'why I must admire my parents'.
'I said to him, my voice shaky at times, as the emotions I kept at bay,threatened to flood across.

The End

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Thank you for letting me know! Welcome back. I shall read and be back to say more once crazy Sunday is over.

Well written. Without saying too much you still conveyed their emotions.