Decembers of my life

Over a period of last 2 years, I have played and replayed this moment in my head trying to visualize how I would feel when it finally arrives. But there is no hiding from the truth. Life has it's own way of making you face what you try so hard to run away from. In these years I have tried preparing myself for this moment. Today when it finally arrived, it didn't take one complete second to bring tears to my eyes. Even if I repeatedly told myself that it would happen someday and it should not even bother me a bit, here I am feeling as if somebody just crushed the already broken heart with utter disregard.

Painful, yes absolutely, but it would set me free. Free from the shackles of my past, free from the hope of feeling whole again, free of wanting to repair myself in the same place where I was broken. Ironically 2 years back on the very same day I took a decision to screw my life and today when I was sitting in the comfort of my home though lonely but feeling at peace, life decided to screw the day for me again. Don't know what is it with the Decembers of my life. It's as if somebody high up above decides to set me a goal for the coming year to try to pick myself up after the fall and start running again.

I haven't written in a long long time and for a person who has an ocean of words, an innate ability to frame emotions into words and the willingness to utilize the gift, it's very unusual. But I had a good reason to stop as it inadvertently threw me back in time on a loop. But today is a special moment, a moment of truth. Reminds me of a few lines from my favorite song :

Dedicated to Self

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And I promise to myself, I will fix you one day. No matter how hard or lost you act, I will do whatever it takes to fix myself. I will find that overly emotional fool who had shut himself down so nobody could even touch beneath the surface and I will bring him out in the open. Apathy is no way to live a fulfilling life and empathy is a rare quality that one should never lose. I will find my empathetic self one day someday somewhere. 

And last but not the least, wish you a happy married life ahead. As for myself, I have different idea of a worthy life.

Words, a gift with responsibility

Words hold great power, power to reach deep inside the hearts, power to move people, power to resuscitate a person lying in a cascade or power to kill with out ever having to use a bullet and still eternally leave a person bleeding inside. With great power comes great responsibility. And with power as great as that of words, responsibility is even bigger.

Some people are more gifted with words when it comes to framing an emotion in mere black ink. These are the people who can either make someone feel very very special or who can really torment somebody with a mere expression written in the same black ink. I am one such person who has always abused his gift with words. I have been so careless about it that I have hurt people who would never even do as much as to annoy me let alone hurting me back (prime example is my best friend Chitranshi). But life teaches you a great many things and experiences force you to learn like that kindergarten teacher who refuses to give up.

I have been at the receiving end too. So I do understand what kind of scars words leave behind.
These scars are not visible on your wrists or any other part of your body but they leave you seething deep down. Like an endless barrage of stones being hurled at you. Cruel words hurt, mean words hurt, demeaning words hurt : more so when it comes from a person whom you thought could never hurt you. But it's not something that can't be rectified. A loving touch physical or in words can heal anything and everything in this world. Some take more effort and time but scars do go away. And if we realize the damage our words might have done to somebody, there is always an option and a responsibility to right the wrong done. But not everyone realize the damage they did or have the courage to rectify their mistakes. On my part I have always gone back and tried to undone the damage. Sometimes it gets difficult to pierce through the anger of the other person for me but I eventually find a way, after all what good I would be with words if I can't frame them to reach to someone's heart and for good.

Having realized the responsibility I have been given, I have corrected whatever I possibly could.
Heavy heart feels much lighter now. And that sense of responsibility makes me a ted bit wiser. So if you have a gift, make sure you use it to caress the scars and not leave behind invisible tokens of hurt on anyone's memory. Because God gives responsibility to only to those people who can bear it. 

Bitter Sweet

Loving her is a bitter sweet sort of feeling. Sometimes it hurts to love somebody so much and not having them reciprocate, well knowing that at one point they loved you probably more than you loved them. And sometimes its sweet because I never knew I was capable of loving someone this way. There is no great pleasure in life to love someone with out the burden of expectations. I miss seeing her smile, I miss expecting her texts all the time, I miss her voice and the naughtiness of it, I miss those dark circles that were the most beautiful thing about her, I miss those oliee stickers, I miss it all but only thing that gives me strength is that she is happy in her life. After all that is what love should be like. To see her smile is the greatest gift in life but to know that she is smiling even if I am not able to see is good enough to be happy.

After a phase where I was unable to let her go, there came a time when I realized the more I fight, the more she was drifting away. It pains that people questioned my love, my intentions when all I was trying was to save this relationship for both of us. I believed it in my heart that we were always meant to be. So I tried as hard as I could.  It hurts that she never looked back even when I am standing in the same place she left me. But my ex was right that she should not fall in my trap, it will only cause pain to her and her family. A trap where ironically I am the one who lost everything. It hurts that even after giving it all I had to change that but it still proved to be right. It hurts to be called a fake when all I tried was to love her so she could see what she means in my life. But it hurts the most to know that I failed miserably. In retrospection it does seem that I forced her into something she never needed. I became the reason to shatter her life to pieces.

Then one day I gathered the courage to leave her alone because her friends requested saying that I should find a new spoon. It hurt like hell that when I have completely made a mess of my life for trying to save this relationship, people are suggesting that I can find a new shoulder to lean on and may be suggesting that I will. That’s when I made up my mind that I should leave her alone if that’s what keeps her happy. But what started from anger shifted to a strange calm when I saw her pic after months on holi. That smile of hers, knowing that she is happy, it just made me a whole lot stronger. 

May be love is not just about making your presence felt. May be it’s also about having the courage to stay away like you don’t exist to give somebody a chance to live a happy and normal life. 

Keep smiling always !!!

Ordeal in IIT Guwahati

On the fateful day of 8th January, completely unaware of what was to unfold before me, all I had been thinking was how to make her see my love for her. How to make her believe that I am still the same person, she is still the same person and our love is still the same that we had nurtured through so many highs and lows of our relationship. But as they say nothing goes as planned when you need it the most.

I was feeling scared and satisfied at the same time that I was finally going to see her after the traumatic experience we both have had for past few weeks. To be very honest I had a hope that she will melt at the very sight of me. That's how it had always been. Hope is a good thing, may be the best of the things. People say I am a chronic liar so I will try my best to put the experience in words as close as it gets to reality.

She was sitting in the class and I was waiting outside. As soon as her class got over, I saw many faces I had known passing by. Not sure how many of them actually recognized me.

Finally after a wait that seemed like infinity, there she was coming out of her class with 2 of her friends, that smile on her face, it calmed me down. Nothing moves me like her smile and her tears. And then something happened when she saw me standing outside. Something that was the beginning of the worst nightmare of my life. At the very sight of me, that smile on her face disappeared. She clinged on to her friends arm like she feared that I might just kill her any moment. I was completely baffled. It felt like Deja Vu, just a bit too painful compared to the earlier experience. Till this day I ask myself what harm had I done to her to scare her that much. I somehow gathered the courage to walk up to her and asked her that I want to talk to her. She instantly refused saying that she doesn't want to talk. After a fair bit of compelling she agreed but wanted to talk in front of her friends. I am not sure how she got so uncomfortable with me that she needed people around to talk to me. Finally she agreed to talk at the cycle stand with out her friends. A lot of things were said but all I could gather was that she is swearing that she doesn't have any feelings left for me and that I can not force her. From the fear she first had , somehow her voice was much strong now, much more authoritative. I felt the shift but could not understand the change.

She reminded me that I had done the same with a person in my past when I wasn't feeling like continuing with that relationship so she too has the same choice. I was just wondering if being honest about my past was my biggest mistake. I never thought that of all the people she would use it against me. I tried showing her our old pics, her gifts but she just said it won't help. That I should go to a psychiatrist for help. That I should give myself time and everything will be ok. And she kept on swearing. I just wanted to take her hand , put it on my head and ask her to swear but I was so scared that what if. I kept on crying but all she said was that this is her college and felt embarrassed. I had myself asked her to take a walk with me as it was not an appropriate place to talk. I saw her fiddling with her phone. At that time I didn't realize but may be she texted her friend to ask their warden to come. I might be wrong but it felt so much out of place that her warden walked up to me and straight away asked me why I am harassing her. Harassing a person from whom I had heard I love you 17 days back for the last time.  I was so hurt that I started walking but she stopped me saying that her warden just wants to talk. And it so happened that her warden took me to cafeteria and gave me a chance to crib for some time. In retrospection I do realize that in the heat of the moment I might have said a few things I shouldn't have. That I should not have criticized her so much. But with so much of negativity around, it's hard to remind yourself that you are there to win her back and not push her further away.  After a while her warden asked her to go to her class but the very sight of her going away made me feel so miserable that it's impossible to frame in words. I literally begged her warden that I just want half an hour to talk to her and then she can go to her lab and I will go back. But her warden told me that she doesn't have her number or her friends number. Then they asked me to leave the college and after much persuasion I gave up thinking that people who are saying break ups happen all the time, what's the big deal would understand my pain. So I walked out from the same cycle stand but my heart wasn't ready to accept so I came back again and luckily unluckily found Aayushi right in front of me. I wasn't aware that her warden had called her to come to a place she was walking to and told her that I want to talk to her. I kept on pleading that I just want half an hour of her time. And then I saw her warden. She was as shocked as I was to see her there. Her warden lost it completely at the sight of me. As we were walking towards her, last words I whispered to Aayushi were "I love you a lot Aayushi, please don't do this". But she kept on walking towards her warden.

After that whatever happened was so unreal that I still fail to believe it. Her warden called guards to escort me to anti harassment cell of IIT Guwahati and then ban my entry into the college forever and all this while I kept on asking Aayushi for just half an hour of her time. But she just stood there in absolute silence with a stone expression on her face. I kept on telling, Aayushi please , please don't do this. Then she just walked away with her back towards me. I think she had tears in her eyes. Her friends went to console her. I don't know if they were tears for the embarrassment that she might have felt with so many people around or was it because she was making me go through this experience. From the last hug where I felt I had entire world in my arms to this day when I didn't even recognize the person she was that day, it was a stuff for living the worst nightmares with open eyes. Last words I could utter to her were "Thanks a lot for this Aayushi, thanks a lot".

It was possibly the worst day of my life and the lowest I have ever felt. Not because I had to go through that embarrassment but because a person who said I was her world a few days back stood there and did nothing. Two people who have been in a relationship at least owe that much to each other.  Then they took me to the head of anti harassment cell and I wailed like a child in front of those guards, the head and lady security guards. I don't remember if I have ever felt that broken in my life that tears just won't stop. All those people were very nice to me but I wasn't able to believe what had just happened. Then after a counseling by the head, and listening to my part of the story, he told me that I don't know why warden is after you.  It so happened that one of the lady guards present was from her hostel and she walked up to me and said please don't cry. She told me her own story that how she married her husband against everyone's will and then that guy left her after years of marriage. She has a child and is living alone for last 5 years. And that people do this all the time but it does not mean we stop living. If they don't care why should we. That she would ask Aayushi why she did it. It was so sweet of her that it is the only bright memory I have of IIT Guwahati. You really find God in most unexpected places.

What I could do but leave the place heartbroken. I kept on asking myself the same question over and over again. Have I done this to anybody to get rid of them ? Have I ever forced anybody to go through such humiliation ? Why is it happening to me then ? Was she saying the truth when she said that I just tortured her through out this relationship ? I accept I am a very difficult person to get along with in a relationship and I had always maintained that I know I am difficult to deal with. But does that justify her behavior towards me ? More & More questions but nobody was there to answer. Still no one is. That day I learnt a very important lesson of my life. People do what they want to do. Love means something only as long as it doesn't test you at your biggest weaknesses.

I gave her so many chances to leave me but she chose to stick by my side. There must have been something good about our relationship and she must have really loved me deeply to hold me for that long against all odds. But I never feared losing her to these lows because our fights were always about things like her not giving enough time to me, me not voluntarily calling  her up, her not accepting our relationship in front of everyone, me not caressing her enough during the lows she felt due to her depressing college life, her not giving me priority and always making me wait on Skype calls as soon as somebody used to knock at her door, me sometimes saying very hurtful things because I felt she was holding something for the possibility of us not ending up together , all silly things that would have been taken care of once she would have left her college. Even if she would have left me in those moments I would have persuaded her over and over again because I knew she loved me too much to leave me. Long distance relationships are demanding but we loved each other too much to give up.

But only once when I really feared losing her and the only time I really wanted her to not give up and stick by my side, she chose to walk away. In that one moment all I expected from her was to say that harsh I understand how difficult it must have been to live under the burden of something I told her and I am standing by your side. You don't have to fear losing me to such a stupid thing. I love you above all these trivial things. Instead she chose to walk away leaving me in a condition where I just kept on questioning if she ever loved me. All I wanted from her was to tell me that we will try our best to overcome this hurdle. Instead she chose to tell my friends that we have broken up even before I knew that we had broken up and that they should take care of me. I wrote a question on quora that she felt very bad about. But she failed to understand how would have I felt addressing her as my ex-gf because she had told everyone before me that we had a break up. I trusted her with the most vulnerable part of me and she was only the second person I exposed that part to but she chose to tell it to other people. May be I failed to convey to her what it really meant to me and how cheated I felt when I heard other people telling me about it.

May be it was too much to expect for her to be comfortable with it but she failed to understand that the way she reacted about it made all my fears come true and made them even worse. I needed her love in that moment and not a tag that I cheated her by with holding it to myself. I needed her to be my strength in that moment. I wanted her to hold my hands and hug me in that one moment but instead she chose to drift away so fast and cut off all ties that it made me question if I really meant anything in her life or did her love come with terms and conditions. I have made many mistakes in life and many in this relationship but nobody can take away from me that I loved her in a heartbeat. Once I believed that she loves me more than anything in this world, I based my entire future, all my dreams around her. And then she just left like I was a spoilt limb that she needed to remove from her life as soon as possible.

Pain of a broken heart

Just when you think life is going great and all the pieces seem to fit perfectly into the puzzle of life, Life raises its level and shows you why it's a struggle. No matter how high you get , it can always put you down back to the ground. You can try to fight the odds but I guess that's how it is in the end. Off late I have been going through a similar phase in life. I was not ready for this and life caught me on the back foot. I have not seen the death of any close family member in my entire life so I am probably not accustomed to that deep sense of loss, that void. When I first felt that deep pain of losing someone(figuratively), I just wasn't ready and impulsively thought of ending my own life. In retrospection, that does make me hate myself. 

I have realized one thing after this grave experience that no matter what you do in your life, people will always judge you for what you had no control over and what you never chose for yourself. No amount of love can change that mentality. It's in the very roots of our existence. They will try to sugar coat their hidden biases but for how long can you not see through the people whom you love very dearly. There is no greater pain in life than seeing the person who claimed to love you more than anything else in their world,  give up on you. And what makes it worse is that you were not even involved while somebody made that choice for you and themselves.

I am not the kind of a person who easily gives up on the idea of love but for the first time in my life I feel I don't have the courage to believe that anybody can truly love me. Somewhere I can relate my situation to the curse of sisyphus. Life has beaten me up in a similar manner just because I refused to give up on the idea of love. I wish I had learnt the lessons while I went through bitter life experiences. Still trying to cope up with the fact that I will need to walk through this life alone. I wish for the sake of people who love me, that I had never loved.

Love : We think we know it !

This is a handwritten script from the video linked below. I liked it so much that I felt a need to write it down in words.

So lets start with Sarah and Phil getting onto the stage and start describing the emotion we think we all are so familiar with and in reality yet so oblivious to .. LOVE !!!

Sarah & Phil together : I knew exactly what love looked like …….

in seventh grade

Sarah : Even though I hadn’t met love yet , if love had wondered into my home room I would have recognised him at first glance

Love wore a hemp necklace.

Phil : I would have recognised her at first glance , love wore a tight french braid 

Sarah : Love played acoustic guitar and knew all my favourite beatle songs

Phil : Love wasn’t afraid to ride the bus with me

Sarah & Phil together  : And I knew 

Sarah : I just must be searching in the wrong classroom 

Phil : Just must be checking the wrong hallway , she was there I was sure of it

Sarah : If only I could find him

Sarah & Phil together : But when love finally showed up

Phil : She had a bowl cut

Sarah : She wore the same clothes every day for a week

Phil : Love hated the bus

Sarah : Love didn’t know anything about the beatles

Sarah & Phil together : And instead

Phil : Every time I tried to kiss love 

Sarah & Phil together : Our teeth got in the way

Sarah : Love became the reason I lied to my parents.

Phil : I am going to ben’s house

Sarah : Love had terrible rhythm on the dance floor but made sure we never missed a slow song

Phil : Love waited by the phone because she knew if her father  picked up it would be like

Sarah : Hello..Hello.. I guess they hang up.

Phil : And love grew

Sarah : Stretched like a trampoline , 

Phil : Love changed

Sarah : Love disappeared slowly , like baby teeth , losing parts of me I thought I needed

Phil : Love vanished like an amateur magician , everyone could see the trap door but me

Sarah : Like a flat tyre , there were other places I had planned on going 

Sarah & Phil together : But my plans didn’t matter 

Sarah : Love stayed away for years and when love finally reappeared, I barely recognised him

Phil : Love smelled different now , had darker eyes

Sarah : A broader back , love came with freckles I didn’t recognise

Phil : new birth marks , a softer voice 

Sarah : There were new sleeping patterns 

Phil : New favourite books

Sarah : Love had songs that reminded him of someone else 

Phil : Songs that love didn’t like to listen to 

Sarah & Phil together : so did I 

Phil : But we found a park bench that fit us perfectly

Sarah : We found jokes that make us laugh

Phil : And now love makes me fresh home made chocolate chip cookies

Sarah : But love will probably finish most of them for a midnight snack

Phil : Love looks great in lingerie but still likes to wear her retainer

Sarah : Love is terrible driver but a great navigator

Phil : Love knows where she is going , it just might take her two hours longer than she had planned

Sarah : Love is messier now

Phil : Not as simple

Sarah : Love uses the word boobs in front of my parents

Phil : Love chews too loud

Sarah : Love leaves the cap off the toothpaste

Phil : Love uses smiley faces in her text messages

Sarah : and turns out

Sarah & Phil together : Love shitssss….

Sarah : But love also cries , and love will tell you , you are beautiful

Phil : And mean it 

Sarah : over and over again

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : When you first wake up

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : When you just been crying

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : When you don’t wanna hear it

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : When you don’t believe it

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : When nobody else will tell you 

Phil : You are beautiful

Sarah : Love still thinks

Phil : …………………..silence

Sarah : You are beautiful

Phil : But love is not perfect and will sometimes forget

Sarah : When you need to hear it the most

Sarah & Phil together : You are beautiful 

Sarah : Do not forget this 

Phil : Love is not who you were expecting , Love is not what you can predict

Sarah : May be love is in NYC already asleep , you are in california , australia , wide awake , may be love is always in the wrong timezone.

Phil : May be love is not ready for you , May be you are not ready for love

Sarah : May be love just isn’t the marrying type

Phil : May be next time you see love is 20 years after the divorce, love looks older now but just as beautiful as you remember 

Sarah : May be love is only there for a month 

Phil : May be love is there for every firework , every birthday party , every hospital visit

Sarah : May be love stays

Phil : May be love can’t

Sarah & Phil together : May be love shouldn’t

Phil : Love arrives when exactly love is supposed to , Love leaves exactly when love must

Sarah : when love arrives say 

Sarah & Phil together : Welcome , make yourself comfortable 

Phil : When love leaves , ask her to leave the door open behind her

Sarah : Turn off the music , listen to the quiet

Phil : Whisper

Sarah & Phil together : Thank you for stopping by !!!

Discovering...

People who give sermons about having learnt from their mistakes , moving on and how pain has made them stronger and smarter,  are the ones who are struggling the most to believe if all of this is even possible.  Well I would refrain from categorising myself apart from this herd but to say the least I think I am thankful. Thankful for all the thrillers , the suspense bound mind boggling experiences and a story , a story which in retrospection seems to be worthy of my time and efforts to be penned down finally in black ink. For now lets leave the story part for two reasons as I have saved it for something big and I have no idea about the climax.

Just had a strong urge to write down something , anything and why not after all its always happening at my end. Been a little preoccupied and burdened lately with work. But all of this has given me a little insight into a discovery. A realisation that how I have changed over the years and what it really means to know your responsibility at a work place , "responsibility at work place" I would have laughed like a maniac had anyone given that to me 3 years back. But its all different now , I am different now. When I enter my workplace , its like I leave the outside world to be specific my personal life behind. There is a certain sort of calm I feel , all my senses soothed down as if its almost a meditation ground. The kind of responsibilities that lie on my shoulders, surmounting as the days go by , makes me feel wanted , trusted and most importantly worthy.

I am in love completely and absolutely with my work, its a part of me now , a part I never would want to part from. The entire day just passes away like a flash. I don't have much friends in office but thats not to say I don't know people. Of course I know a whole bunch but by friends I am referring to the old school definition of friends.

But there are two aspects other than work that completely bind me to my workplace. One is TT(table tennis) , it won't be an exaggeration if I say I play around 13 games on an average every single day. Started on it pretty slowly , never thought if I would ever be able to return a serve on that tiny table , lawn tennis is more of like my thing. Like always , I start slow and then I am just unstoppable. Every time I hit that ferocious forehand in the corner with a blazing speed , the feeling is undeniably raw , majestic and just. Though its rare that my legs are not hurting after doing all of that jumping jack stuff around that small table but nothing compared to the solace I find in the fact that it gives me a chance to live my sporting idol Rafael Nadal in some way or the other. Oh boy you should see me hitting it with that precision one after the other , it makes me almost feel guilty to have discovered the love for this sport so late and almost makes me feel regret for not having laid my hands on it during college where you have all the time in the world to do everything but study. Yes by college I mean engineering  college , where else on earth you don't ever have to study.

And the second would be the gym , which nobody can deny is probably the only place where you get more pleasure with more pain. After finally convincing myself that I am accruing fat with age , I took up the vow to finally let go of all the fat I have gained in last 3 years. Humans , they can never be satisfied , I was not happy when I was 49 and I am not happy when I am 70.  As it stands today , I run relentlessly for 40 mins on that treadmill and then spend about one hour doing my other usual stuff with weights and all. It's tiring , your muscles cramp , your mind feels dizzy and sometimes when you over do entire body comes down breaking like a heap of cards. Its all worth what you get when you look yourself in the mirror. So with these two activity my day at workplace finally ends on a high all the time.

In the end I can only say its a part of growing up , a part of you discovering yourself , realising your true potential to fight the adversities of life. Trust me everyone is struggling , trust me everyone wants to break down once in a while even the strongest amongst us , trust me life is too big for just negative emotions to engross you completely and trust me love is the purest emotion in its most raw form but only when you don't restrict it in any form. I have discovered love for my life , for my work , for people who care for me and need me to be happy , for that special someone , may you too discover yours soon :)