Let Bygones be Bygones...

Men are funny beings, they sure have life figured out all wrong... Or at least, its true about me. It's been a long journey only to come back to square one, a twelve year voyage I think. I dont think I'll ever be able to face the 18 year old me, at least not in my current avatar. A crisp white shirt, albeit sleeves rolled up...a slim black tie, albeit the knot hanging by the second button, black cotton pants over shiny formal shoes and a very expensive watch, which perhaps is the only remaining trait of the wise-old me, still worn on my right wrist. It was something no one could figure why. Some assumed I was ambidextrous, some thought I was weird but I guess I never wanted to grow up, be a part of the crowd and give up on those insipid, immature dreams. At least I'd like to believe so...especially today!

The car parked by the wayside and me splayed on the bonnet must sure evoke a few eyebrows. I dont think they see weirdos like me everyday. It's not a deserted backyard road after all. Nor is it your ordinary car. Yeah, life's been good. Made a lotta money, seen a lotta places, done a lotta things and yet, at 30, here, now, I feel outdone by the wisdom of an 18 year old. So what if it was me? I was supposed to get smarter, not stupider. Bah! Rat race...so what if you're winning? There are no prizes in store! The prizes were elsewhere, not in the friggin race. Took me long enough to realize...again. I still wonder how that imbecile 18 year old could've figured it all out before I did...years earlier than I did for myself!

And to think, it all began in her pursuit, the MBA, the lucrative job and somewhere along the way, got so absorbed in the race, I forgot I was chasing her, not the green. Sigh...

It was 10 years ago, right here that I last saw her. 10 years ago that I promised I was only doing this to pay off the loan. 10 years ago that I promised her, I'd never stop writing...10 years ago, when I last did write...but at least, 10 years later, here I am now, ready to put it all behind. 10 years later, I am more than a little rusty but I think, it still is a decent rhyme. I'm hoping she'll still like it, that without a word of appreciation, with just her little smile, she'll still file it in that green college file of mine...but most of all, 10 years later, I'm hoping more than anything else, that when I shout her name from under her window here, she'll pop her head out, give me the fake binocular search with her fingers curled and come running down to meet me...

But then again, it has been 10 years. I wonder if I should call her name out. I jump off the bonnet, look at my keys and then glance at her window and I wonder, if perhaps, I should let bygones be bygones...

Life Moves On...

It's drizzling slightly, makes the weather romantic. Needless to say, if you're taking a walk by the promenade, you reminisce some old memories. I'm supposed to meet an old friend today and I'm awash with her thoughts right now. It's been a long time since I've met her...well, not really, maybe a month but compared to the days gone by when I met her thrice a day, it seems like an eternity.
It's ironic how I've wanted this for myself...guess I am weird but I'd thought I'd needed to experience the travails of the human, 9-5, white-collared life. Idiot that I am. I've managed to push my friends away, learnt to long for weekends and to count every second from 9 to 5.30. Take her for example. I've managed to reach a point where I only speak to her once in 10 days. I still remember so fondly how we used to text each every 10 minutes...even silly things like 'Just got into the ric...' Why, you ask? I dont know...puppy love, I guess...but then, this is so much better, isnt it? Grown ups, respecting each other's space, still close as ever despite the infrequency of contact.
In a while, dreams, memories and reality all culminate into one when she steps out of the car...still breathtakingly beautiful, still making me weak in the knees and still melting me with her touch...it takes a while for me to gather my senses and utter the first few words...but thats alright, she seems to be bursting with chatter, lots to catch up on after all! Soon enough we're moving back and forth with the conversation, a lotta flirting, a lotta sarcasm and a lotta good natured banter...the fondness, is still evident.
I smile to myself, assured, that despite everything, we're still close as ever...that we're still more than best friends.
As we're sitting together, she checks her cell. I'm admiring her beautifully painted fingernails when I half-accidentally, read the text-
'Just got dropped near the bridge...catching a ric now. How's your evening coming along?'
And then my comfortable illusions are shattered and I realize grimly, life moves on...

Kanjur Waiting

A typical day, begins at 5 a.m. when her number is dialed and after about 7 or 8 calls, she finally cuts one of the calls to let it be known that she's awake. Then slumber takes over again until quarter to seven when the maid rings the bell and it's time to finally wake up. It's the same old, same old for me everyday, I despise work-life...I'm sure I'm meant for bigger and better things but then I figure, so is the thought for every other mortal caught in the drudgery of 9-5. The trudge to the basin is the hardest part of the day and when the face in the mirror stares back, it's just as hard to explain the status quo. ''Sheesh, women!''


Stepping into the shower and then after a good three minutes of self convincing to get over the disdain for cold water, finally under it, it feels like the movies. A slow bath spent humming slow songs with dreams and memories of her. ''Darned love sickness!''

Sid's still in the bath and the clock's inching closer to 7.32 so looks like I'm gonna have to ditch him again today. Between a friend and an hour's sleep on the journey to VT, I know which one I'm gonna choose! I walk down into the parking lot and look at my bike, she's due a visit to the mechanic's. I get astride and set my foot comfortably on the missing footrest and as always, think back to the days when I'd pick her up and she'd tell me to shift behind. Women shouldn't be allowed to drive, the phantom footrest is proof enough, innit? ''Sigh! Those were the days!''

As the train draws into the platform, finally the madness and the rush of Bombay take over. The dreamy, romantic me takes a backseat somewhere as the more human parts take over and I climb onto the moving train and secure my window seat. The day has finally begun. The rest of the hour long journey from Vashi is spent as it always is, sleeping with absolutely no thoughts running through my head.

I'm an Investment Banker apparently and in the lucrative field of debt broking. It's a cyclical business and I have managed to step into it while it's headed to rock-bottom. Needless to say, work isnt as exciting as it might have been and I hurtle through the rest of the day rather mechanically. It's a race everyday between my sanity and the clock to see who can outrun the other to reach 5.30...fortunately enough, the clock's won everyday till now. But sanity ain't too far behind, maybe one of these days it'll win and run out of my head...maybe then I'll do something really stupid. But until then, I shut my PC, pack my bags and leave smiling like everyone else around me.

It's time to board the train again. Music in my ears and I doze off for a while. An hour later, I get off and walk over to the end of the bridge, sit on the side rails with a book in my hand and alert her of my presence, ''Kanjur Waiting...'' it's the same text everyday. She arrives half an hour later, sits next to me for a while and I finish the chapter I'm reading. Conversation soon fills up the silence held for so long and we're talking about our day, about the turmoils at hand and our own sense of wonder about life and it's ability to surprise us with something new everyday, despite the mundaneness of our schedules.

It isnt too long before we're talking about our futures again. She's been on a break with her ex for the past year and keeps wondering about what she is going to do when she does meet him on the 1st of Jan. I wanna tell her that she shouldn't be with him but for some reason, like every other day, I hold my silence and listen to her think out aloud.

We get off at Currey Road and it's time to say good-bye for the day. I open my mouth to say ''Good night...'' but end up saying something to the order of ''Will you marry me?'' She looks at me, with a smile first and then with tears in her eyes. Without another word, she turns around and walks home. I stare after her for a while and then turn around to make the long journey back home.

The next day begins the same way, 6 calls before she finally cuts my call. I force myself through the rest of the day and sanity still loses the race to 5.30. I reach Kanjur again, wondering if she'll come by today. As ever, I sit here on the railings, book in my hand and send her the text ''Kanjur Waiting...''

Maybe we're here by meticulous design

They had a crisis at hand, no doubt about it. A matter of life and death...or perhaps, at the end of a quest having figured out everything about life and death. Millennia of evolution had finally led to this point where they now knew how and why the cycle of life existed,  the point where every question that could be asked, had finally been answered. It'd been a day that had been looked forward to for as long as could be remembered and unanimously agreed upon to be looked at as the pinnacle of evolution, the crowning glory for all forms of existence.
Yet, there is always somebody with a counterview no matter how good the situation is, so why should this occassion have been any different? The lone mad-man who believed this day to be the bane for all existence. Who saw the realisation of ultimate knowledge as the end of all life, for if all questions had been answered, what would be the point of life carrying on any further? All life that did exist with the ultimate knowledge at hand, would live on dissatisfied and disillusioned. The point where wisdom itself, would undo all it had helped achieve thus far.
And his fears had been realised. There was a sudden and utter feeling of pointlessness. A calm that extended so deep, that all desire to continue with life had been lost. The world lay itself to decay in the absence of a dissatisfaction that drove life in pursuit of satisfaction.
But the doubter had been prepared. Before all questions could have been answered, he designed a world that would never figure out the ultimate truth. A world where the living were always dis-satisfied and eager to seek answers but all they'd discover were more questions. And he built that world far away from other prying eyes. As one world lay to decay upon it's own greatness, far away in great secrecy, the non-believer gave life a chance to continue, in one form or the other...
And even today, life flows in a continual circle and the living are eternally locked in the quest to find the ultimate truth...but to His greatest success, none can be found.

Running Away

I am driving through long winding roads along the banks of a lake, a canopy of trees over-head and an intermittent view of the lake through the trees as they part away occasionally to reveal the presence of water on the other side. The road is in good shape especially for this season when the sky is overcast and the rains can hit really hard though by their own standards, the rains have been scanty this year. The road is almost devoid of contact with any moving life as the only view I have is of fleeting birds up on the trees as my bike whirrs through the forest. I reckon I am the only human who has come to these parts in a long time, rather surprising for a place so beautiful and only a stone’s throw away from the city. I suppose it’s a little too beautiful and borders on the edge of the eerie, enough to inspire tales of highway masquerades and the occasional ghost stories. I haven’t been to these parts in quite some time myself.
It’s funny, no matter how much I had promised myself, I did let myself get caught up with life. The day I chose to work over-time because I had nothing to look forward to in the rest of the day, was also the day I typed in my resignation letter. After a long time of having immersed myself in work to run away from the pain and heartache, I finally was able to think that evening. When I did, I realized I was becoming every bit the person I had promised myself I wouldn’t be all those years ago. I still remember that late night excursion with my roomies in the by-lanes of Bombay, when I had told them of my elaborate plans in life, ones that did not involve a 9-5 work schedule, ones that did not involve agreeing with the boss just because he was the boss and ones that did not involve a heart-ache. Ironic as my life has been, I have only had myself to blame. Like the trees that now pass me by swiftly, I have always been running away just as swiftly from everyone that ever tried coming close. The first time, the second…always running away for reasons completely unknown to me. Or maybe just reasons that I didn’t want to see. I guess I keep forgetting love isn’t about perfection but about imperfection. I close my eyes and all those wonderful images come rushing back…those times spent over coffee, those first days of courtship, that feeling that surged through my insides when I first saw her, that smile, those eyes. ~sigh~
And THUD! I open my eyes and I can see the sky through the canopy above. There’s a weaver bird’s nest above that looks beautiful even from the bottom. I notice a few squirrels scurrying around. My eyes close again. Once again I am floating through those images of her. That mad time back in college when I couldn’t find a friendship band good enough, so I went and bought her a watch! Those mad long drives that were a result of long boring days in class. Those late night talks over the phone. Sneaking her out of the hostel for coffee. Sneaking into the hostel to wish her on her birthday. And despite it all, walking different ways at the end of it cause we were too scared of ruining it all by coming too close. Funny how neither of us got anywhere without each other. Funny how I was still running away from her on these winding roads…where once we first came together. I open my eyes again and I’m in a car, it looks like my own backseat…yeah, I can see the chocolates I keep on the dashboard too! There's a familiar looking watch hanging from the mirror on the dash...but I still have my jacket on and I am not driving… I close my eyes again.
I wake up in a white room. The ceiling seems too clean to be mine. I see a saline bottle on a stand. I feel the IV pinned into me. I almost close my eyes again but I can feel a familiar squeeze of my hand…I turn around and I see her smiling at me. I return the squeeze, smile back at her and close my eyes again. I can’t run away this time…

It's my first attempt at a short story...be gentle!