The Smile

Sometimes a smile can convey more than words. A smile can complete your day. A smile can give you a good night’s sleep.

A long time ago we went to a beach to spend the evening. We grabbed some chips, a bottle of Pepsi and we drove off to have some good time. It was nothing less than a picnic. In fact it was a picnic.

The beach is a beautiful place with lovely parks throughout the stretch of the beach. On either sides of the road you will find families having a good time and kids playing football, flying ‘spiderman’ kites, riding tri-cycles. It is a place full of life. And there is always the appetizing aroma of barbeque in the air.

After a while I wanted to take a walk in the grass, barefoot. I love the feel of grass on my bare feet. My friend joined me. We then noticed a shadow, from the park lights, of a little girl, not more than 6 years, following us. We turned back and she ran away laughing. I noticed that girl a while ago running around and playing with someone who I thought was her father. She again slowly started walking behind us and we turned back. She seemed to enjoy this small game as she kept doing it and laughing. She gave us 2 pamphlets that she picked up in the park. I made a boat out of it, my friend made a rocket and gave it to her. She took it and ran away giggling to where her family was sitting.

She kept coming back with more and more such papers and we kept making the same things. She seemed to enjoy it all. She said something in Marathi that we didn’t understand but we knew she was having fun.

We started having our dinner and still the kid kept coming. We offered her to sit with us and eat but she handed over some more papers. We finally served some food in a plate and gave her thinking she will eat. She smiled, said something, took the plate and went back to where her family was sitting. After about 10 minutes, she came again and stood before us extending the plate as if asking for more. She again went back with the plate to where her family was sitting.

After some time, I saw her walking towards us with the plate in her hand and a smile on her lips. I was about to serve her some more food when she said “Khattam! Thank you!” (Finished. Thank you!).

She left the plate next to me and ran towards the beach, washed her hands, came back to us, gave a contented smile and said something and ran away. We couldn’t follow what she said except for ‘Thank you!’. But her smile conveyed more than her words.

What she did next was so unexpected. As we were packing our stuff and getting ready to leave, she came to me and gave me a small packet which had some leftover popcorn. She shoved it into my hand, again said ‘Thank you!’, shook my hand with her innocent smile and ran away.

Yesterday, for some reason I kept remembering the smile on that little girls face. It was priceless! And it made my day. Again.

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The Starting of the End.

Ending everything isn't as easy as putting it to paper. To cut yourself away from what drives you everyday can be scary. Not everyone can deal with being self sufficient or live off the grid.

Most people don't know how to put up with living in a one bedroom apartment with five other people. Where your main goal is to find a $1 so you have enough cup of noodles for the week. Or finding a $20 dollar bill is the highlight of your life.

In order to see what truly drives a person to do what they do everyday, I cut myself off from what drove me. The things that took over my life are gone. A chance to start fresh, to give what

I took for granted a new meaning in my life. Most people say I'm stupid, why would I do such a thing. I will only end up asking for charity and fail in my "journey". But I don't care. I don't care if people look at me differently because of this. I'm not doing it for acceptance, for a chance to be considered "cool" by others, I'm doing it for me. I want to look 5, 10 years from now and say I was able to do what I wanted to do without regret. All that I earn is what I deserved and what I wanted from the beginning.

Nobody will pressure me to do what is expected of me. Nobody will force me to admit failure and seek aid from people I never want to associate myself with. I'm doing it on my own and I'm going to succeed.

So I'm starting now, with my laptop and my life savings of almost nothing to see what drives me in this world. What makes my heart flutter in the morning and makes me want to move during day. What job is the "dream job" for me? What car makes me want to "burn rubber"? Do I really need a phone to stay in touch with the ones I care about? I hope I find what many people strive for because I'm starting now.

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Wanderlust

I say this often - with big dreamy eyes - shaking my folks out of their reasuredness about my being grounded; "There is romance in travel, Ma".

This post has been waiting in my head, with just the same title and no words underneath, for over 3 years now. The words that will tumble out here, will indeed not be impressive. Not extra ordinary in their incomprehensibility. All they will say over and over again is - Have you felt love? I have felt love, the extreme sense of safety, security, groundedness - which no man could ever probably give to me - in travel.

I have found, in the eyes of a stranger, the feeling of belongingness. I have found deja vu in the smoke rising from a dhabba, the red/blue/yellow signboards passing by in a blur ... like I have in my dreams, seen this place. This exact same place with the exact same fixtures, sitting in the same auto, looking at the same metre reading.

It makes my heart pound, such is the surge of emotions I feel. In a quiet moment, nostalgia will hit me, and I will think of someone special. Maybe I will pick up my only source of connectedness to tell them I miss them, and just maybe, just like that - I will feel a quiet tear rolling down the contours of my cheek. With no one to witness it, or question it. Just me and the whirlpool of emotions.

I have felt a pair of warm hands clasping mine, not shaking me out of thoughts and memories, just standing by, feeling my pulse rise and fall, as the wind hit our faces and the lights went by in a blur. In conversations with just the eyes, I have known simplicity, without a question or a thought clouding my mind. In a white room, disconnected from the world, I have felt loneliness as heightened as it can be. In a graveyard, I have found myself looking for something with such conviction, as I never knew I would come to have. In the city I loved, I walked around, searching for that familiarity I felt with this someone I met randomly. Wondering if I would bump into them again, much the same way, to feel that exact sense of love I felt then. In the eyes of a committed man, I have seen that sense of belongingness to that woman, who awaits him at home. That nagging little sense of guilt for not buying her something worthwhile, from the city of his travels. Looking into the anxious eyes of a co-passenger, I have with bated breath wondered if he weren't a terrorist. Fear. Doubt. In the hasty rush of separation, I have felt the pang of sadness hit my innards. In losing that face in the crowds, I have felt some despair and much longingness. Looking at the card handed to me, I have felt me smile from the bottomest bottom of my heart. In scribbling on the palms of a stranger, I have felt the surge of child-like happiness spread inside me.

In my little head, these thoughts they swim. And they draw me towards themselves, asking me to experience them again. All over again. In the same intensity. It is such romance, I just close my eyes and let my thoughts wander, to find love - in my own heart.

In this lone moment, I do once again feel my eyes well up, awaiting a sense of permanence to take over something that I feel only once in a while.

How beautiful humans can be. Our minds. Our feelings. Our expressions. Such heart wrenching beauty that it makes my heart turn in twists and turns till it hurts and lets go of that desire to feel so much in love, all the time

Lust. I lust for that Romance.

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Forgotten Fairytales.

There was a point somewhere in some of these years gone by, where I left me. For fear, that if I didn't pick up a new identity soon, I will cease to exist. That was the first and till now, the only time I abandoned me. Left it at some point, the way to which I do not remember, and I didn't really leave any trail to take me back to it. Further more, there are bits of me, left strewn here and there over a time frame of how so many years and a vast expanse of space. 

Of late, I have been longing for those bits of me. I look me in the mirror and I see lines which changed, eyes which reflect the depth and fields of solitude which were merely just muddy green and nothing more back then. I see a calm face, and in it the countless animated lines it contorted into back then, I see a controlled quiet smile which knew no boundation for it's lack or excess earlier. 

Somewhere out there lies a mind uncorrupted by possibilities. 

There was black, there was white. There was a swing in the rains. There was sweat in summer. There was a garden. There were facts. In stubbornness there was a relenting hand. In tears, there was empathy. In anger, there was a sorry. In hunger, there was food. In love, there was happiness. In sorrow, there was company. In defeat, there was a buck up. In victory, there was a cheer. It was to be that, only that. 

Then, it rained. And how. In my heart.

And it kept raining. And I didn't know anymore, the landscape, it changed. 

Forever. 

Possibilities. 

Corruption. Fiction. Lies. Hunger. Love. Hate. Myth. Trust. Promise. Breaks.

And many more. They all had a million different ends. A million different things with that many ends for each of them.

I want that. I want the end of possibilities. 

For it was for the possibility of making it through the day, that I shrugged off who I was. I want the garden, the empathizing hand, the cheer, the happiness. 

I made it that day. What did I gain but. A self I do not recognize. 

Why didn't I perish then. 

Why didn't I. 

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I, The Rainbow.

There's the rainbow all around. In chance blogs and in chance conversations. Only, I missed it completely. A cold morning lamenting over sunny days. I love changes. Especially, when it comes in the form of a huge thunder and a crash of lightening first thing in the morning.

Please believe me

If you don't need me

I'm going but I need a little time

I promised I would drown myself in mysticated wine

Have been listening to this song in a continuous loop. I seem to be moving past endlessly snaking rivers. I can't cross over to the other bank. Sometimes, I do feel like letting go of the jetty corner I am holding on to, and let the river take its course. I did that. It's some heightened philosophy we are following when we say we don't know why we are doing something. Get absolved of all blame? Or know, it's evidently a mistake, so shirk off responsibility from the beginning. I did that too.

Now, I am struggling in midstream. The cleaner, greener banks I had hitherto noticed are nowhere in sight. I am in the middle of nowhere. Something pulls me down. Blame it on philosophy. I shouldn't have started on this free trail in the first place. But hey, no regrets. So where does the river take me? I just need to stay afloat. Surprises? Changes? All are in hold, waiting for the right time to tear off pretentious masks. Inside the mask is innocence and happiness. Inside is subtle mockery. Inside is an unadulterated smile.

Before I knew what I was missing, the Rainbow was gone. Now that it is gone, and I haven't seen it, do I really miss it? How can you miss something that never existed for you! Sometimes, life is just stupidly clueless of what's happening! :)

This voice is intoxicating. The morning is amazingly cloudy with a touch a coolness. It might rain. Rainbow. Might. I will not miss it this time.

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