Tides of time and us…

Little hands held strong fingers as tiny feet trotted to keep up with the other, bigger, pair. It was a beautiful day and birds chirped as the little girl, just woken out of her dreams by her father, strolled in the gardens learning a song that he sang, in a melodious and strong voice that made the morning even more scintillating. She loved to walk along him. He was the one she wanted to go o every time she lost a toy, or when she did not like her school teacher, or when she had hit that bully of the class, or when she simply wanted to play.

There was a wave of wind, a cold and gentle breeze that drifted the hands a little apart. It took away some of the impertinence from the air and brought in a teenager.

She was now young, in her initial teens and still had that innocent smile and a charm that was palpable around her. They walked together, her father and her. The daughter could now match steps with him and she still revered him. He was his go-to-guy. She needed him when she felt low or under-confident. Though she couldn’t tell him everything, she felt easy in his company, and life suddenly untangled itself whenever she was with him.

There was another wave of wind- this time, chillier, colder. It drifted the two a further apart and carried with itself, an experience that it bestowed on the two of them.

The girl had turned into a lady, while the father had gained much experience owing to his age. They seldom talked. She could solve her problems on her own now, and felt that her decisions were her own. The father only needed to know those decisions once they were made. Yes, there were still certain times, she needed his suggestions, wanted the go-to-guy back, but, she did not want to bother him anymore. The father, felt drifted apart. But, wanted her to live her own life and thus donned silence. There was still reverence in the daughter’s heart and love in the father’s. It seemed that they were both reaching out to each other, but, the tides of times were pulling them apart.

Yet, they still live in each other’s hearts, and know that the love in the heart of one for the other has not diminished at all.


   

Be proud, or get a life!

Those pages, with poems that can reach straight to your heart, kept on piling up in the personal diary of the mother, who, whenever could get the time, let her emotions flow into beautiful poetry. Alas! No one knew about them, not even her family. So no one could appreciate them. What if they judged her by reading them? What if they thought that they were a reflection of her own life, and started sympathising with her? They were merely poems that she wrote out of sheer pleasure. What if no one understood that?
                --------------X---------X----------X--------------
As the young lad made his way to the auditorium with his ballet shoes- yes! Ballet shoes- in his bag, he felt the tingle of nervousness in his stomach. Yet, he was sure that those were certainly not the ‘good butterflies of the stomach’ that turn nervousness into excitement before the auditions. The nervousness was the type that turned into fear when you stand on the stage in front of the whole crowd, the fear that the audience would judge before even giving him a chance, the fear that he would have an image stuck to his personality throughout his life, if he didn’t get the acceptance he deserved.
                -------------X-----------X----------X----------------
That attire was good-to-go for college according to her, yet she had to be sure of her physical appearance. She kept looking in the mirror several times to save herself from the scrutinising eyes of her friends, close friends, class friends, the occasional ‘Hi and Bye’ friends, acquaintances and maybe potential crushes or mere on-look-ers. While, those cargos and tank top pretty much made her style, and screamed what she really was- a carefree young lass who is only stepping out to make a difference in her own way- now had to change in a regular jeans and starched and tucked-in shirt. She was afraid of the judgement- the judgement by the people she might run into during the day.
                ---------------X----------X----------X---------------
On several occasions we come across situations where we are afraid that people might judge us. We are afraid of being constantly scrutinised by our own people, of the fact that the world expects us to be a person that we probably aren’t, that if we let our true selves be revealed, we won’t be accepted. So, we try to fuse in, changing ourselves at several points of time and embracing alien ways of living, as those are what must define us to the people around us, and in the process, we lose ourselves. We are lost to an alien that has now impersonated us, merely because we let it. The consequence: we may be able to don another skin so that people could identify with us (or maybe so that we identify with people) but, we can’t do it for long. We feel uncomfortable and out of place. We crave to be back in own skin. We look for people who would understand us for who we really, but, it may be too late. The friends we have like us for being someone we aren’t and the friends we could have are invisible to us, probably do not exist in our world. Life becomes a depressing cobweb. 
The world puts on us, a zillion unsaid conditions that we have to constantly remind ourselves of. We can’t be archaic, we can’t be orthodox either. Yet, we can’t be of novel mind-sets. Our words carry no value if we go ahead and give a free advice to someone who needs it, and if we don’t, we are tagged as indifferent. We can’t be too outgoing given the temperament of the society, yet, we have to for our peers and for ourselves. We have to choose our words, think to ourselves and be careful of not being loud. And there are a deluge of circumstances where we have to think twice, thrice or may be tons of times before taking a step. With all the dilemma hovering in the little grey matter of ours, that is already too busy working to make a stable career (which, again, was prudently chosen keeping in mind that the society in general shouldn’t be judgemental about our intellect, or seriousness towards life, or character, or maybe another parameter altogether which is not even remotely related to the choice of one’s career), we need to let our emotions flow out in front of someone who understands us and likes us for being our real selves.
That ‘someone’ can be us, when we try to introspect, give ourselves some time, think about what we want from life and what we want to give life. That ‘someone’ may even be a close friend- a person you can speak your heart out to, and mind my words, you find them RARELY. They are to be treasured. They are precious. And just when we think that we can be ‘US’ in front of someone without being judged, you are judged and tagged again. For being with her/him.
In this entire conundrum, where do we seek the answers? Who is to be blamed? Who is to improve?
The world IS there to be judgemental, we are old enough and we have lived enough to understand that by now. How much we are affected by the judgement, whether we turn a deaf ear to it or listen and change ourselves for them, is a choice that WE make and a decision that that WE take. Why blame anyone for letting the alien in and impersonate us?
We are what we are.
 Be proud.
 Or get a life!

Solitude

In utter solitude, I watched, sitting in front of the crackling fire, how it lapped up and swallowed the logs. Its brightness shone upon my face- the only brightness in the dark and placid night at the beach. I stared at it for a long time. Three days in wilderness were still not enough to escape the constant nagging, the perpetual frustration.

In utter recluse, I listened, to the gushing sound of the waters- waters that were free, strong and potent, waters that rose as and when they liked and fell, as and when they liked, waters that weren’t steered by fate, as they guided their own.

In utter seclusion, I felt the night breeze as it waltzed with my tresses, carrying them along. How I wished that it could carry me with itself, to places afar, full of tranquillity and peace, where I could fly with the breeze and discover and explore and be free.

In the concourse of the three, I strummed my guitar. I watched the crackling fire and gave it a rhythm, with the strings that vibrated with the crackle. The fire danced on the tune of my guitar

In the concourse of the three, I invited the waters to add on their beats, with the gushes and rise and fall and surf of the waters. The sound of the tide, the heights of wave, they gave my music a nice ring.

In the concourse of the three, I appealed to the breeze to dance, and it did, with rapture! It swung my tresses and my mind along. It took me to places afar, and gave me words, for my music, words full of tranquillity and peace.

Air, water, fire and song, they composed me. The solitude was not palpable. It did not exist anymore. My mind was drifted. I could go back home now. Only to come back some years later, in utter solitude.

What Happens When Your Vexing Chum Takes a Fall…

It was one of those days when nothing goes right.

In sheer disappointment I sat on the admin stair case and stared through the glass at the commotion that went on. The whole core team was baffled, evidently muddled in their heads. All teams participating in the mega event Mudra had backed off at the last moment. I saw my friend and organiser of Mudra, Shubhani, almost on the verge of breaking down to tears, and not to forget my rubbernecked co-host-to-be, still trying to consume the fact that the event had been scrapped off!
Things weren’t much bad for me as I had seized the opportunity to host another event. Yet, upon looking at the choreography team, that had practiced day in and day out for so many days with the kind of devotion that we rarely get to see in our college, my heart sank. They could not compete anymore with other teams; their performance was reduced to mere filler.
I went back stage to prepare for the compeering. The western dances went well, in fact great! The performances were awe-inspiring with groovy beats making the audiences hoot louder on every subsequent dance.

It was now time for the Choreography society of our college to perform- time for their filler performance. The stage lights went back on and I could see a striking, picturesque view. The dance had started with a bang as the dancers formed an incredible, ostensibly humanly impossible formation, resembling a swinging pyramid. I was left gazing in an awe-struck and jaw hung state, only to realise that the subsequent dance steps were even more breath-taking.

What happened after that was sudden and quick!

THUD!!

 There was a thud on the stage.

I could only catch a glimpse but I could make out that it was Shreesthi, my class mate, hostel mate, and a very good friend.

Her free fall had gone wrong and she had had a dangerous fall.

In a hurried response to the thud, I grabbed Shubhani’s arm and ran to the other end of the stage.(I was already back stage).

 She (Shreesthi) was in immense pain and was lying behind the wings. Her moaning was deafening even amidst the loud music of the dance performance that was still going on. Shubhani and I could only grab her, telling her that everything would be alright. We felt helpless.

Yet, the dangerous six feet fall had not dampened her passion for the dance even by an iota. She tried to stand but was pulled back by our shaky arms. We had understood what she wanted to do next. How could we let her join back? She was being stupid, as usual. Yet, she somehow with the help of a dance team member on stage, resisted our grips and stood up, chin up and head held high. Our efforts to stop her had gone in vain.
Very staunchly, she smiled in the happy sequence of the dance even as tears rolled down her cheeks due to immense pain, jumped onto her dance partner, locked her foot behind his shoulder and did a marvellous lift, completed the dance and bowed…the smile still on her face. The scenario was unbelievable and I felt a chill run down my spine. I never realised when my eyes got filled with water and tears spilled out. I could not even figure out the reason. All I knew was that I had to be back there with her just after the dance ended.
Back behind the stage, I saw that the moaning had resumed. Her body had been through unnecessary stress. The choreographer and a crowd of people, including me and Shubhani did our best to make her breathe properly and lessen her pain.
We couldn’t wait for an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital immediately after some first aid, accompanied by some seniors.
The next few hours were agonisingly long. As we waited for the rest of our friends to join us, our phones were clenched in our fingers impatiently and querulously. Several phone calls to the hospital, condolences from our friends, and heavy-heart-moments later, we all heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing Shreesthi’s stifled voice over the phone. She had called up from the hospital to say that she was fine, except the fact that she had suffered from a neck spasm.

We could now finally go back to our hostel.

The whole day had been quite eventful and had left us all whacked to the bone. Yet, after all this, what brought a smile to our faces were the thought and the realisation that we had one brave friend, a passionate young lady. And though she vexed us every day by bickering and babbling all day, the dubious prate was sure of at least one thing, her dance.

It takes nerves of steel to play your part when you are in extreme pain, and yet she did it wonderfully.
I strongly feel- and I am definitely not exaggerating- that anything said in her praise would do her no justice as it would fall short of the appreciation that she deserves, only for the passion she exhibited that day!
Yet, there is no denying the fact that it was a dangerous accident, and when her (Shreesthi's) decision to get up and dance again, was silly and stupid, amateurish. That one decision could have made matters worse. So, our dear hero, the next time you fall, think about us and take a parachute along.