I met a wise witness in my lifetime. My youth grinned. I threw caution to the wind. The sky echoed with my laughter. The dream ended soon after. Rabbit holes aren’t that deep.

I left. You never called. I know you don’t miss me at all. These sands of dust that rise and fall and fade in the air around, they’re all that’s left of the days I’ve held you in my arms. They too will settle down, vanish forever into the vastness of this land, and then, there will be nothing left for me to hope that even a memory of me will linger on. I wish it wasn’t so but the wheels of time don’t stop any more for me than it does for the shining sun on the horizon. I know it’s true. But human weakness knows no limits in my soul too.

I am dreaming of eternal youth in death’s arms. You are fantasizing of a ball. You just want to dance. I had my father’s old tux and you, a brand new pair of shoes to put on. I looked like a giant cockroach. We could’ve matched a few steps before the curtain came down.

I am a sentimental fool. These aren’t old times. I forget it’s no longer the world we both once shared. Love is out of fashion. Lust is a hurried cigarette break that refreshes between the too many things that make up life. Pompatus.

I want to kiss you goodbye. You prefer to shake hands. We both miss not saying what we should have. It’s too late. I can’t stop. There are no red lights on the highway. It is the end. I don’t need roads.

No. That’s not true. But if you ever ask me, that’s what I will say. Yet I know. I am living a lie. Cause lying is easy.

The truth is I am an extraordinary soul.

But I have neither the courage nor the will to live like one. So I hide behind a million irrelevant excuses and pass my days. In shame. Shame that melts my insides and molds everything within into a simmering hate for this world.

Ordinary is easy. Extraordinary is responsibility.

For a long while I told myself that the society didn’t take kindly to extraordinary mortals. But that was one of the million excuses I used to hide from my shame. One that my brothers and sisters repeated along with me. We said, ‘to be accepted we have to be ordinary.’

I never thought, what if the society was made up of souls like me? All extraordinary yet hiding behind a million excuses they cloak themselves with. I never thought that. I was too busy thinking what they were thinking about me.

I don’t really know when ‘to be accepted’ became the purpose of life. But it did.

It was the silent prayer on my lips. Day and night. Yet I told myself I was singing the glory of life. All the while repeating, ‘Please accept me. I too want to be happy.’ Extraordinary was a dream. I tried to believe it to be so. Because it meant being alone and cold in this strange world.

So I tried hard to see, hear and feel what was accepted. What was ordinary. I didn’t know what they were. Extraordinary filled my heart and mind. And I wanted to survive. I needed to find and learn the accepted things.

And with time I saw it take shape in front of me. The ordinary things. In the shape of a colorless sky it hung upon my life. It didn’t feel alright when I first saw it. It feels wrong even now. But not as much as it used to once upon a time. And moreover, what most matters is I am accepted. Isn’t it? Though, sometimes, I still wonder why I am not happy.

Not all the time am I unhappy. It’s mostly when the extraordinary refuses to sit back and see life pass by. When an extraordinary rhyme in my head cries for freedom to be. I guess it wants to play out in the world. An extraordinary picture in my mind pleads to be given shape on the canvas that I hardly touch anymore. An extraordinary story in my heart begs to be told. I have that sinking feeling inside of me whenever an extraordinary love within my soul prays to be let free. Then I choke on an extraordinary cry, a cry that rises from the very pit of my stomach and racks the very core of my spirit. Recently I have learned to turn away my face or hide from their sight.

I convince myself. I am ordinary.

With every single living, breathing fiber in my body, I have sought and embraced ordinary. I have embraced it with open arms.

Today, I sit silently amidst ordinary friends. I still don’t know how to talk about ordinary things. In an ordinary love I try to count my blessings. ‘Compromise’ is a virtue, they tell me. I spend my time doing ordinary work, living an ordinary life, seeing ordinary things and trying to believe this is life. Just before this, I mumbled my gratitude for an ordinary day that went by. That is when I realized something.

I have a million excuses to exist today, but not a single reason to live.

Laughing, giggling, whispering, finding comfort in each other’s company, secretly scared, of getting lost, a real fear, somewhere deep within, of disappearing forever, in the vast fields, never to be found again.

You and I, we are grown up now, but still playing, unwittingly, stuck in time, hiding inside, imaginary lofts, lies, scared, and lonely, wanting to see the light, we wait, impatiently, to be found, as darkness, devours our lives slowly. We don’t know it yet, but there’s no one outside who knows we are hiding, or is looking for either you or me…

The only true smile comes from a loved face.
The only true joy comes from a loved heart.
Because this is the only real happiness that can be felt
A kind of happiness that doesn’t need to be proclaimed
Or exclaimed
Studied, memorized, pruned everyday like an expensive garden plant
And post as a shout-out to the whole world who might not even care.
‘Cause when you’re loved you don’t care if the world doesnt care
Since you shower someone with a universe of care
Each day.

And so stop all the mindless, pretentious reading
And building and weaving, dreaming, talking and planning
Start by going out there and finding
The one.
The one you will love and who will hurt you back — like good ol’ romance
The one who will destroy all your grand novels and discoveries –
Making you stupid and weak like a snotty child
Because the one who will give you happiness

Is the one who will give you a new life
And close the moldy book on your past.

Flashy yet inconspicuous.
No laughter.
Simply ridiculous.

See through blind eyes
Flying while I walk.
Hear though nothing is spoken
Speechless
even when I talk.

I know even when I dont know how
I just know
low or high I’m that same guy
I am hello. I am good bye

No faith in man, but I believe in you.
Materials are worthless,
but hold value, too.
Let the games begin
Good and evil each will win

What Am I?

Six feet of lust,
six feet of dust,
all six, living since they must.

Six feet of lies,
six feet of bile,
all six, strangers to their own life!

Six feet of him,
six feet of her,
all six, stripped naked of pride!

Six feet of black,
six feet of white,
all six, lost in a grey twilight.

Six feet at birth,
six feet at death,
all six, mirroring someone else.

Six feet of flesh,
six feet of blood,
all six, failing Man on his Earth.

For you, not them…

Her burning eyes, they shame me shamelessly
I’m empty, shallow, worth nothing inside of me?
yet they plead I’m her all, life and everything.
Then change their mind, bid me farewell, no byes
assuring me we don’t have to live or die hopelessly.
They ask me to leave, never return, then they
plead, “Please stay, I need you again today.”

Her burning eyes, they tell me whispered stories
past conquests in love and her days of vain glory,
they tell me she is sad, with reasons to feel sorry.
Now speaking of worlds I haven’t ever seen before,
invite me to sin; flash a covered bosom tantalizingly,
yet I see them turn away, refuse love a home perpetually.

Her burning eyes cast magic shadows, show me
colorful dreams I lust for, fantasies I die to behold.
Like bright light houses on an island unknown
they light paths I follow but to a sweet hell below.
Speaking of a life and joy beyond tomorrow,
my life, this here and now, they want to borrow.

Her burning eyes, unspoken vows of everything,
commit to keep me afloat, fly me without wings.
Her burning eyes, always mistaken for signs of life,
in a world filled with my loneliness and silent strife.
Her burning eyes, they call my name, incite a crime
I see the reality; lips moving in a rehearsed mime
a silent prayer for love burns inside of me this time,
I turn and walk away, against my heart, leave behind
a world that’d forever be nothing but a comforting lie.

Walk. Without wanting to know why.

Be sad. Be angry. Don’t be afraid of being overwhelmed by emotions you do not recognize in the beginning. They are there for a reason. And in the long run the reasons won’t matter. Nor the feelings remain forever in your being. Keep walking.

Be indifferent to the feet that bleed. Leave behind the trail of your pain. Your blood-soaked footprints shall lead someone into the sun. It’s your love on the pavement. Hold on even if a thinning rope’s all you have. Calluses born on your palms shall inspire someone to be brave and strong.

Look harder when your eyes are tired. Look deeper when your mind calls for rest. Fear only when your hopes turn black and gray. Protect them from burning out like a tungsten filament that will never shed light again. Burn bright. Be the leap of a flame till you say goodbye. Light, even when receding, is better than no light at all.

Good is the reason for its own existence. Bad exists without reason. But Good’s treason is pure evil.

Don’t live in mumbled apologies and dull aches. Too many sorry-s unspoken are useless even when said.

You are not your parent’s child. You are the child of your imagination. Dare to leave your shores. Without a destination. Life is a journey. To arrive is to survive. To discover is to be alive. The supreme joy is in becoming not just being. It is salvation in itself.

Be the Devil’s advocate. With him, it wasn’t treason that was banished but faith. Don’t be a sinner but don’t be afraid to be a sinner’s friend. Remember you are a Messiah with a message for your self. Not a Prophet living in a shell.

Don’t marry for money. It may not last forever. Don’t marry for love either. Love is an emotion. Marriage is an institution. No institution can nourish a feeling. It turns everything into rituals and a meaningless charade in the end. See what religion has done to faith. A sumptuous dinner that you are invited to but never begins and no one leaves so you too wait. This is an age-old story.

Live in moment not in the memories of them. Tomorrows are presents from hell. Today is your friend.

You are a child in eternal transit not a salesman of second-hand whims. A thousand dreams waiting to happen. Question yourself for fun. Question others if you are not afraid of the poison or be the poisoned.

Even if you are a friend to no one, never be a stranger to yourself. Be a free animal not a trapped human. Don’t waste time running after shadows. Or, try to stop time. Both are impossible in this lifetime. Fear is the summer wind in a desert noon. It sucks your life away.

Walk away from hate. Jealousy. Petty squabbles and untruth. They only serve to destroy you. Fill your heart with secret longings. They give you wings. Hidden sorrows will only bury you.

Be the words that the breeze carries in her gentle womb. The story that stays in every ear for it rings true. Be the silence over a newborn’s tomb. Not your father’s regrets. Or your mother’s lost youth. You are not an emotion confused. You are something new. To be a citadel and a gutter at the same time is to carry a soul marooned. Stirred now and then by a passing wish or misplaced lure. More yet no more than a pig among its troupe.

Walk now. You are your imagination’s child. Imagine something beautiful. Happy New Year.

I am proud of what I know. I have always been. But the guilt of my ignorance is far stronger. It deprives me the courage convictions can offer. I am constantly haunted by doubts. I doubt myself and my writing. I doubt the veracity of my own statements. It drives me up the wall. I wonder if the truth I see is only an illusion that my limitations create to hide themselves in. That lingering thought makes me hesitate. It makes me apologetic in my presentation. I do not want to unleash upon the world what I don’t know. I do not want to propagate uncertainty if I can.

Every writer should try and uphold truth through this work. Truth, and freedom. I am too indecisive and confused to stand by either. It makes me want to delete my blogs and notes and never attempt to write again. I feel defeated. Even before the battle has begun. Even before it has been fought.

It isn’t the fact but the fantasy that kills me. My mind is my own enemy.

I love this warm glow of martyrdom I feel. To live as a promise that was never born is heavy than to attempt anything real and prove myself incapable of it. I see that I am despicable beyond words.

I am a romantic at heart. I want to believe I write for the greater good. That I have a noble purpose. That my writing aims to fulfill some higher need within me. The truth is, I write because I am afraid.

I am afraid that if I do not write I will never be able to speak to you. To anyone in this world. The silence that surrounds me from birth will make a neat little coffin for me.

While I’m still alive. My soul will be mummified within, with me. All those thoughts that rise in mind, but never given voice to, will eventually start to fill up every single molecule in my body, choking me, pushing air out of my lungs, squeezing my heart in a vice-like grip, stopping it. I will die instantly, bleeding from all my bodily orifices, and people will look at my lifeless body on the floor, and the flowing blood streams. They will stare at each other in disbelief and exclaim, “Jesus-fucking-Chirst, he died because he didn’t write!” Then they will walk back to where ever it was that they were before I died, and life will go on. For them. I will be dead. Another anonymous victim of his passion.

Pushed into oblivion before the body loses its heat.

I see that is exactly what will happen. I can already feel myself bloated up. The whole day I had this feeling of being inflated by some mysterious power. Slowly, but surely. If I don’t write now, my head will explode into a million little pieces of red, white, and color-less gooey stuff that will stick to the walls and slowly slide on to the floor.

Blood will gush out of my headless neck like from a broken faucet. Blood is sticky, you know. It isn’t just red. It’s black too. Actually, I think it’s blackish red. Or reddish black. I must check with The Wikipedia. One day if I want to write a murder mystery, I should be able to specifically mention the color of blood that would be a central part of the whole story.

Ok. I will now go and lie down. Giving in to my destiny seems easy. Either an idea will strike me and I will be resurrected from this state of sleep walking. Or my rabid thoughts will keep growing inside of me like cancer or something and inflate my body so much that I will start gushing blood from my mouth, nose and ears. And from other orifices in my body. Till, my body is drained of all life and lies limp in indifference to whatever comes next. Freedom from responsibility is death. Actually, when one thinks about it, both are equally pleasurable acts. Or painful punishments. Depends on how one looks at it, isn’t it?

The thing is about writing… its only writing. You take a movie you like, you take your shitty life, you mix it up and you see if anything happens. Its a mish-mash.

I relish those moments like one enjoys bubble gum. Chew and stretch them till the sugary sweetness is gone and the jaw throbs with a dull ache. Oh, yes, I play with that ‘waiting in’ time before picking up a ‘to do list.’ There is a sense of extended pleasure in knowing that I can do everything on that list and yet I have chosen not to. That I can decide to own that satisfaction of a job well done but instead look at it from far, taunting it, teasing it to suck me into its vortex and leave me with no choice but to complete the task. I wait. I walk. I lie down on my bed and bury my head in the soft pillows. I do a fox trot with an imaginary friend in my living room. I stand in a corner facing the table on which, like a sweet temptation, a naked woman, not inviting but willing and unresistant, lies the list. I walk straight to it with long purposeful strides, as if to pick it up in that very instant, but side step it the last minute, laughing inside at having given it the impression of having succumbed and then slipping away, shattering it’s momentary illusion of control. I glow in my victory.

Of course, all the while, I grin. It is unstoppable. ‘You are mine, sweetheart,’ I tell the sensation that awaits at the other end of that completed list. Prolong the gratification, I tell myself. Don’t give in right away. Wait. Wait. Wait some more. Learn to control your mind. I know that feeling of joy cannot escape me. Like a besotted yet shy lover, it waits for me to make the first step, to melt in my arms and infuse in me pulsating life. Yet it can do nothing till I touch it. Powerless over me, it waits. But only till it learns to play the game. Then it plays dirty. Seduction is sweet and poisonous. It conspires to destroy your mind by offering you sensations of the body.

My gratification wakes up from its helplessness, assumes the look of a high-school teacher and whispers its first words, ‘It’s a sin to waste your time like this,’ it tells me. ‘You should just get it over with and move on with your life. Be wise.’

I laugh inside my head. ‘Good try. But I am not falling for that one.’ It balks at me. I say, ‘I can get the ‘to do list’ done right now but then what? You will turn up as another one. Then another one. And then another. I am not going to slave my life away for these stupid, infernal lists, now am I?’ I smirk.

‘Life is systematic and organized execution of goals,’ it offers.

‘Life is a journey without roads,’ I refute. Turning to wink at my invisible audience whom presumably acknowledges and appreciates the ambiguous ‘Back to the Future’ reference/metaphor.

‘You won’t reach anywhere like that.’

‘Where will you take me if I accept the ‘lists’ as my master?’

‘You need to know what has to be done.’

‘But I follow my heart’s desires.’

‘That is no way to live your life.’

‘A list cannot be my guiding light.’

‘You are missing the point.’

‘Your point is that I must give up and give in and pick up that list and get going, is that not?’

‘All I am saying is it is only right that one takes care of one’s responsibilities.’

‘Does everybody have responsibilities?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is your’s?’

‘What?’

‘What is your responsibility?’

‘To give you a sense of achievement and pride when you have done something you committed yourself to.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No. Fundamentally, I make you happy when you fulfill your responsibilities.’

‘What is my responsibility? Is to pay bills? Or wash my hair?’

‘No. Your primary responsibility is to be alive. Everything else is a support function.’

‘Good. Am I alive?’

‘Yes. You are.’

‘Then why are you after me with this list and that list. If I am alive you know I am doing whatever it is that I need or want to be alive. Which means, I am responsible. So why not just be happy with that?’

The abrupt silence that follows takes me by surprise. ‘Hello?’ My voice echoes insides my head and then dies down. I don’t hear anything anymore. I don’t see the list on the table. It must have fallen and slipped under the couch. Through the open window a warm breeze waltzes into my room. I smile in welcome.

Checkmate.

You see, my good sir, there is a certain feeling, a sense of deja vu, if I may say, when one, standing for a while in the dark, gives in to his mind’s wanderings and starts seeing and hearing things which there are not, switches on the light only to find his fear disappear along with the dark around him. Such a man, rightly restored to his senses, might give out a loud sigh and say to himself, “Oh! What a fool I have been. The world is perfectly rational. I was just being duped by the darkness!” He might let out a full-throttled laugh to emphasize his new found knowledge. After all, a man who has been freed from his fear must be granted his moment of vanity. That is exactly what is happening here. I have found the truth, and my dear sir, it has set me free. Yes, I finally am free from the fear that had me in its tentacles, twisting and turning my spirit into an ugly monstrosity all my life. Please… allow me to explain it all.

I was possessed! Terror had taken over my spirit. It made me do things I didn’t want to. It controlled me. From inside. From outside. An invisible master, it sat perched smugly on a high rack, telling me what to do, watching me relentlessly wide-eyed and awake even when I slept. It had attached to me like a part of my being, refusing to let go even for a tiny while. I would close my eyes to escape it and it would still be there. Going tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock. The infernal thing had taken my very life and made it its own heartbeat. Yes, that was the truth.

Can you imagine your life being dictated by two tiny little needles going round and round in circles? I could, very well crush them between my thumb and forefinger if I could. Yet, I was powerless and they had me in their vice-like grip. Demanding attention, dictating terms, ordering me about here and there and everywhere, telling me in no mean terms, that I am a bum, lazy, unscrupulous and incapable of anything.

In spite of all this, I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t lift a finger against it. Oh no, I could not do that. I believed, without it my life will go completely out of control. Chaos will reign. I would be like a paper boat caught in a violent sea storm, tossed around on the massive waves of uncertainty. Oh yes sir, I was terribly afraid of crushing it to pieces as I should have. But finally, four years after that damned thing stopped going round and round in circles, I am free! I sit here, smiling at myself, content with life and everything it has to offer me. You might say it is only natural. I say, providence has it that I had to see light at the end of the tunnel. You ask me, what light? Ah! Forgive me. In my excitement I must have jumped a thought or two there. So let me go back and gather my thoughts once again.

My charged outpourings, if I was my neanderthan ancestor, would be just violent beatings of the chest and loud cooing. Yes, sir, I am happy beyond words today. And rightly so. For I have discovered a life changing truth and it is this: Time is an illusion! It is like the monster that hides in the darkness. A figment of imagination that does not survive the illuminating rays of light. So you too may rejoice now. It is a moment of freedom. We should just hang the ‘tick-tock’ machine from a pole and burn it publicly for scaring us for so long.

I, being a man given to intellectual inquiry, should have seen through the deception long ago. But alas, sometimes light dawns late even upon the brightest among us. You see, there is no concrete evidence to suggest the existence of time. I mean, aphorisms that rhyme cannot be objective proof of anything. ‘Time and tide wait for none,’ does not mean time exists. I mean, have you ever seen a man of good breeding stand by the shore and count tides? Of course, if you did find one, you would rightly term him as insane or as someone lacking in serious occupation. If one isn’t to count tide, then why count time? What is the purpose of either? Except waste of good life.

Let us take another angle here. Looking at things from another perspective, as it is said. Broadens ones understanding, it does. What relevance does time have in anyone’s life anyway? I mean, why does time exist? Who invented these shitty things called clocks? I am sure back when there were no clocks and time couldn’t be measured by the meaningless motion of it’s needles, human beings were just as well and happy. They went about doing their business and maybe, even did not miss a damn meeting either. Well, that could be a bit of exaggeration. Back then there must have been no meetings as such. Wait. I get it. Meetings were invented so that clocks were put to some good use on earth. Yes, that’s it. It’s like booze and Dispirin. The latter fulfills its purpose only when you overindulge in the first. And meetings are like booze, I tell you. Everybody likes to go overboard with them, ending up with bad headaches and terribly sick.

Yes, clocks are like Dispirin, I can see it now. I can see it quite clearly that they both exist because humans are weak willed. They are silly and stupid. They just don’t know, as it is said, where to draw the line. Or how else can you explain the simple and extremely foolish act of someone trying to, I believe the popular usage is, drink himself under the table. Science has proved beyond doubt that alcohol depresses the central nervous system. No man in his right senses would want to depress himself even if the stuff is offered to him for free. Or just because it is free. But, no! We pay good money, I tell you, hard-earned money to drink and depress ourselves. How can you justify that! You cannot. Ok, if I agree with your argument for a moment that alcohol is put to good use as social grease, and as one, most essential in high-minded society, and it does offer its patrons a temporary feeling of elevated self-esteem, tell me how does a man react the exact same way with a meeting as it does with alcohol? I beg you not to pretend we do not understand each other here. How is it that people, who seem otherwise of sane disposition, jump with glee at the mention of the word, ‘meeting.’ How is it that their eyes light up like that of children upon seeing candy at the thought of such an infernally depressing thought? Haven’t you seen them rush to faraway places and at odd hours to huddle together in bare-walled rooms, drink coffee and talk incessantly for hours without listening to a word of what is being said? Oh, these meetings, I think are worse than alcohol. They leave a sane man disoriented and depressed together after the first five minutes. You can take my word for it.

But why am I talking about meetings or booze here. I have nothing to do with either. I have nothing to do with time too. Time does not exist. No sir, time is an illusion that I can do well without. Like love. I know you are a bit cynical about my argument now. You say time and love are two different things. I say, wait, dear sir. Let me explain. Have you seen love? No, I do not mean representation of love but love itself. Have you seen it? See, like time you have not seen love either. You see the clock go through its motion, its needles going round and round in a strangely monotonous (and if you notice, indifferent) way. That is what I mean. If I go through the appropriate gestures of holding a lady in my hand and running my hand through her hair and at befitting moments make certain sounds and coo into her ears, you will immediately assume it is love. At least, you will say, oh! this man likes that woman. But is that correct, my dear sir? Can you not be mistaken? Do you know for sure that I’m in love with that lady? Or even that I find her affable and a pleasing company? Can you be absolutely sure? No. See! That is what I mean. I may be going through those motions because I don’t know what else to do. I have been taught to do certain things in august company. I cannot do anything else. I’m programmed, you see. To go through the motions of nicety. Of love. Of happiness. Yet you need to understand, like the needle that represents time, only my gestures are real. Representations are in themselves not the reality, isn’t it? So isn’t it right for me to day that time and love is an illusion. Some, with romantic disposition, will take immediate offence to my meandering, and with great profundity, state that love makes the world go round! Well, if you lie down firmly on your back and drink half a bottle of good whiskey, the world will go round and round and round till you suffer from nausea. What does it prove? Does it mean that love and whiskey are the same. If you ever dare even to allude to such a notion, they will burn your effigies before your house and shout slogans against you, dragging your good name through muck. They too are programmed to believe in love. In illusions.

See, like love, one believes in the idea of time because that’s all one gets to hear about since delivered upon this good earth. They tell you, you were born at 2:30am or 4:13pm or some other such godforsaken time as if it mattered. I mean, how is it relevant anyway. Will you have been any different if you were born at 2:29am instead or 2:30am? Or instead of 2:30 you were born at 2:31am? No! Of course, not. But some will tell you, such is not the case. They will tell you, my good sir, that a minute can change your life. They will even say that if you were born at 2:29 instead of 2:30, you could have been a great man, maybe like Abraham Lincoln or Gandhi. Why, they would say, if nothing else at least you would not have had to go through the trials and tribulations of this life if you had decided to extricate yourself out of your mother’s womb a minute earlier. To a man of utmost vanity and genuine stupidity, these words can provide the much needed comfort of a beautiful fantasy while dragging himself through his wretched life. But, you, my good sir, being a man of intelligence will see it for what it really is – tosh of the highest order! Yes, that is what it is really. An illusion offered to appease the human weakness! Since we can safely say that you cannot go back to your mother’s womb and reenact your entry upon the stage of life, the life you have now is the only thing you have on this earth. The good, the bad and the ugly parts of it included. So there you are. Love it or hate it, time has nothing to do with your birth or death or whatever you wish to do in between. Neither has love. Love and time are illusions. Invented to befuddle the human mind. To create a rosy fantasy for the weak. I need neither.

Maybe I should give away this clock. But who would want a broken clock. Like the great bard said, a thing going round and round signifying nothing is not a thing of beauty or value. Or is that what the bard said? These bards have the habit of saying the most darned things. I mean, you would think they are wise and witty and all. But when it comes to saying something, they make a mess of everything. The simplest of things in life acquire a rare complexity in their hands that people who have anything to do in life will do best to avoid them completely. For example, there’s a story of a man who kills his king because he like the idea of ruling and all that. Now, a young bard couldn’t just make himself say it as it is and instead wrote a play that usually takes kids a whole year to study and more often than not, three attempts to clear. Why would he do something like that? The answer is, time. He had a clock on his table that was working! Yes, my dear sir, believe it or not, it was the clock that gave birth to that and many other ills upon the human race. When you have a clock before you and you see that you have time, you try to do everything to occupy it. You see, men fear time. They worry that every second takes them closer to their inevitable death. Hence they are in an infernal hurry – a sort of race with time to their death, to do everything and anything before the clock stops forever for them. Leading a productive life, that is what it is called. But the thing is, if you are anything like the bard I mentioned, you will end up cramming up your remaining time with such stuff that generations to come will suffer its brunt. So, take that clock away, my good sir. Keep it locked in a vault, that is my advice. Or better still, gift it to someone you hate and watch them engage in a deadly race against time. While you are finally free to live your life on your terms. Thats the POWER of Love!

I stare at her without saying anything. I have nothing to say. She has a right to change her mind. I cannot stop that. People change their minds all the time. It is their prerogative. I like to know what she really wants to say. Has she found someone else? Do I bore her? Is she not happy anymore? The questions are many. Yet I wait. If she doesn’t want to explain I can live with that.

“I am sorry,” she speaks looking down at a world I do not see and seems to be at her feet.

“Why?” I am confused by her apology. Why would someone want to do something they have to apologize for.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” her eyes are moist. I want her to know she doesn’t. No one can hurt another without their consent. She doesn’t have mine. I let no one hurt me. I find it unnecessary. The pain, the hurt, the blame game. They all look too stupid and petty to me.

I think about what is it she denies me now. Her love? What was it to begin with? Companionship? A few laughs shared over drinks? Some nights in each others arms, in a warm bed? Some expectations, unspoken hopes? I wonder what she means she doesn’t love me anymore? What did she love anyway? Me? Who am I? Does she know anything of it? And if she does know who I am and has loved that how can she stop loving me at any moment in time? Has her values changed? How can a man who loves beauty stop loving beauty in life? Is that possible? How can someone who loves honesty stop loving honesty? Does it mean the person has lost his or her integrity? If so, should I be sad now or should she?

“Are you listening to me?” she looks at my face enquiringly. “I must have lost something,” she said.

“Yes. You do not love me anymore. So you say,” I reiterate. To mirror someone’s thoughts reassures them that they are understood. So says pop psychology.

“We had some good times. But I cannot continue anymore. I have to move on. I hope you understand.”

I don’t. I am not interested either. If people want to move on, they can and must. I never was her friend because of any pre-agreed conditions. She wanted me and I wanted her. That was the moment. That was the truth in our lives. Everything else was either a memory or a dream.

“I don’t. But that’s OK. You really don’t need to explain,” I am looking at a fly that is sitting on her shirt, right on top of the left breast. I try to imagine how it felt to hold them in my hands. How they felt against my naked chest. I no longer remember.

I believe everything moves on in life. We move away from places, things and experiences. People move away from us. Nothing is permanent. Unless until a man has integrity. And his values are lasting. Then his experiences last. His love and his relationships last. So does his passion. But what when there is no integrity? What when Man lacks permanence in values? What if he is not expressing his values in his thoughts, actions and speech instead seeking them? What if his very existence is a desperate need to justify his life?

“What did you love in me?” I ask on an impulse.

She looks at me perplexed. “I don’t know. I just loved you,” she is defiant. Yet hesitant.

“I understand. I wish you well. Good bye,” I light a cigarette, and inhale deeply.

“You have nothing to ask me? To tell me?” I am not sure if I heard her plead. But there was an underlying tone that could be easily mistaken for it.

“No. I am clear now. You have been clear before me. So we both can walk away without holding on to the residues of the fog we traveled through.”

The smoke travels in the air and makes strange shapes before my eyes. I wonder if I see truth in it, smiling at me, mockingly.

People say I am silly. I look at them helplessly. Smoldering…

Overcome the stupid things we say. Say I needed more than this, say I needed one more kiss. We left that light on way too long now. Let’s plant a bomb at city-hall and kill an MLA. We’ll talk the night away. You call in sick, I’ll quit the word-games that I play. I swear I way more than half believe it when I say that somewhere love and justice shine. Cynicism falls asleep. Tyranny talks to itself. Sappy slogans all come true. We forget to feed our fear.

I look into her lascivious eyes and find no apologies. Clear and playful, they look back into my soul without judging. Tender yet unforgiving, they extend me no mercy, no promises of a paradise that could be, no tomorrows, no clouded reality – just the piercing awareness of the fire within, the truth of the moment, ablaze with passion.

I float in a timeless world. My eyes are closed yet I can see clearly. The sight leaves me breathless and asking for more. I don’t say a word. I want nothing. I want everything. A hundred multi-colored dreams are born inside my head simultaneously. I hold on to each one. I laugh out loud. Rolling on the floor. The reason escapes me. I am free. Light and free. My body is a funnel. It turns everything around me into kinetic energy, and sends it down my spine without taking a break. Stop tickling me, stop making me so aware of my own happiness that I could die just feeling it. She doesn’t listen to me. I haven’t said a word. In our silence, life rushes in to find its meaning. Afraid but curious, I let it.

Something melts inside of me. Like snow in sun, it vaporizes and disappears leaving tiny droplets of residue. They will soon be memory too. I discover I am no longer afraid to look into her eyes. I discover my infiniteness. I become aware of my limit. I realize I am the moment. In it rests my life, death, dreams and desires. It is mine. Mine alone. The only infinity, the only promise, the only breath I own. This one tells me, I am alive and free to be.

She leans back and laughs into the space that divides our world from the one that I hate to exist in. We are children of a conscious sin.

How do I speak to the woman in you, my dearest?

How do I say what I want to, without slipping in to verbiage and pedantry? How do I speak my mind without having to make clear my premise? How do I express myself with the countenance of an indifferent soul as you say?

Maybe you are right. Maybe I have been unfair to you in my judgment. Maybe you are what you say you are – just another face that happens to be photogenic. Another body without a soul or spirit to claim. Maybe by recognizing in you a quality that you brush off lightly as my fancy, I am burdening you with a stature and moral responsibility you did not ask for, nor desire.

The skeptic in me wants to believe what you say. For it will put my mind at ease. A sad heart is easier to live with than a troubled mind. You see, my soul is weaker today. It no longer has the tenacity required to live in uncertainty.

Another part of me screams against the idea of accepting what you say. It is the part that incessantly strives to believe in the you, my love. In spite of the endless empty encounters and countless disappointments of the years, it lights up once again at the glimpse of your face. And as always, it hopes.

That part of me wants to know the woman behind your face, rare as it is, that shows the glimmer of such a promise. That part of me wants to believe in the beauty of your uncompromising spirit. That part of me wants to witness the dignity of your existence.

Faces are all I have got to go by today. It is not much, I know. Maybe, even nothing you might say. But I have to start somewhere. Cause I don’t want to just ‘hope’ anymore. I want to ‘know.’

Sometimes, in desperation, I do want to cry out, “Give me a sign!” But who do I cry out to? I don’t believe in any supernatural beings. Funny, when I do look at my predicament with abject detachment, I do wonder if I am not asking for an impossible. That thought, however sensible it may sound, lasts only for a moment before your face comes back to me and I hope once again.

I was not speaking for effect when I said, “to know a woman like you exists is enough for me.” To know she exists in this world, that she lives and breathes just like me, goes to work, laughs and shakes hands with people, eats, shits and sleeps, just like me… just to know that, is enough. You see, my love, my search is not for companionship, but faith. For me, there can be no companionship without that faith. There can only be a compromise reached between two averages.

It may sound strange, I know. Even incomprehensible. But I will leave it at that.

She exists or not? I want to know. My mind will only rest in the certainty of that knowledge. To walk away before finding that is a sin I cannot commit on my own soul. But that is what I will have to do. If I have to walk away from you. Without knowing who you are behind that face.

I will go away wondering what might have been. What else there was. The answers will haunt me. Every waking hour they will invade my consciousness and keep alive a promise that never will be. Robbing me of those precious, yet selfish moments of solitude I so enjoy. But that is a cross I am cursed to carry. And I will do it with all the dignity my faith provides.

I puff lazily at the cigarette and watch the gray-blue smoke drift up in the air. They make surreal impressions over me. In spite of the mental lethargy, I try to find something meaningful in the apparition. I look for recognizable shapes and forms. I see nothing but cheesy metaphors that linger in the wind far too long.

You can observe almost every personality type, every limited belief system, every social behavior, by watching raindrops on a window pane.

You can personify each individual raindrop, name it, and watch it glide to it’s destiny.

I usually attribute my own name to the raindrop that takes the path of least resistance, zig zagging across the pane, barely touching other raindrops on it’s gravitational path.

Some raindrops get stuck.

They don’t seem to move until some other raindrop comes along and adds weight to their path.

Others hit the window pane and fall straight to the bottom, clinging to all the raindrops in their way, taking them down.

There are raindrops that stay along the edges, spending their lives being absorbed into the window frame.

There are raindrops that stand in the spot where they landed, untouched by other raindrops, separate, just waiting… for the sun to come out and evaporate them.

Once in a while there is a raindrop that seems to defy gravity, appearing to ascend, quivering in resistance, catching a random gust of wind that lifts it, upward, above the others.

Little raindrops, cleaving to the glass, creating patterns that will define their existence, running into each other, resisting the fall, growing larger when they unite with others, creating new paths of direction in their connections, influenced by the winds of fate, making beauty.

The only way for a raindrop to get past the pane is through an open window.

It’s not a nice feeling when someone lets you down—especially someone whom you’ve never wronged, someone for whom you never ever had even an iota of malice in your heart, someone for whom you always tried to pitch in. It’s okay if someone can’t be there to help; what hurts is if the person makes you feel you shouldn’t have expected help in the first place. But then, this ain’t the first time I’ve got this feeling in my life. I’ve been there and felt that. The incident this week just gave me a feeling of déjà vu. Well, may be, no. It did manage to hurt as well.

I too let someone down this week. It was a spontaneous remark, and I realized I shouldn’t have said it. The look said it all. But I am glad I could gather the courage to apologize. It takes courage to accept your mistakes. I am glad I had it in me.

The worst feeling is when someone dear to you makes you feel you’ve let him/her down, when deep down inside you feel you didn’t do it—not intentionally at least. You just couldn’t fulfill their expectations despite your every intention of doing so. Why? Simply, because life stopped you in your way, by way of some constraints. Life puts you in that situation every once in a while.

It’s been a physically exhausting, mentally taxing, and emotionally sapping week for me. And it ended with my getting to know that I may have to say bye to someone I had got used to seeing everyday. Someone whose chirpiness and friendly vibes I shall definitely miss. But sometimes you have to let go of people for their own good. And that’s what being a true well-wisher is all about. To recognize that you have to stop yourself from stopping someone who has taken a decision, to let them go on the path they have charted for themselves, and to gather the strength to carry on without them, and yet to not end the relationship for good. A true bond will remain even in the absence of a bondage—in fact it will thrive in such an absence. It’s all about knowing how to say bye without saying goodbye. And I think I know.