the chime of her eyes

amused stares, confused smiles and hurried rearrangement of expressions greeted their mute conversation, as always. he could almost read the thousand questions in people's minds- why? how? who? when? what reasons? good enough?

he smiled at those unasked questions, his unspoken answers lost a midst the shifting glances. only remnants of an inward smile hovered in the air.

he looked back at her, trying to locate the reason for everyone's curiosity. once again, he was lost. her eyes, effortlessly, captured his brief attention span. the question was quickly lost in his own mind. he'd probably never understand people's confusion but then, he wasnt supposed to either.

he was in love with the chime of her eyes, her silence... 

stories attached...

she settled more comfortably in her seat. the scene outside her window was changing rapidly. the trees went past her window just as quickly as brown patches of barren ground took over her sight, only to be replaced by a yet new scene. as the train gathered speed, so did her nerves. she loved train rides. it helped her confine her perspective to the sides of the window, only concentrating on a scene, one at a time, staying only for long enough for her to see. some of them stayed in her memory for her to ponder later while others went by leaving no imprint behind but a moment that passed without effort.
the train took a turn and she could see sights of outskirts of a village materializing. secluded huts, young and old men leaving for work, with a tired yet determined look on their face, a steel lunch box in hand and who knows what thoughts in their minds. the haphazardly strewn huts and shops were becoming more and more scattered.
monotony of brown and green was taking over her vision, only broken by an occasional bright yellow or pink of a bill board painted with bad drawings. she had always found such bill boards amusing. they were the true caricatures of life. the bill boards flaunted everything from a good engine oil for a tractor to a happy family of three in an advertisement for a local "baba's" magical healing powers. they confined lives and all its worries within their frames all with just a few names, bad drawing and catchy color combinations. names varied, their claims varied. bill boards remained the same 50"X60" bright colored blobs.
amongst the speeding names, she only caught a few when one of them caught her eye. 'Dr. Rajiv's dental clinic' it said. the name had been painted in a deep green over a yellow sheet of metal, with two sets of happy teeth drawn besides it. the name had been painted with casual disregard. the 'R' wasnt as twisted as it was supposed to be.


" hi, i am Rajiv" he said, with a warm smile, extending his hand. "hi, i am asha", she replied, smiling, taking his hand.

" i dont think he is as weird as you people think he is. i mean, sure he is a little quirky and says weird things sometimes but that doesnt make him any worse than rest of the guys. if anything, Rajiv has the ability to stand up for what he thinks is right" said Asha, fiercely to her friends. "yeah? like his own language that he writes his name in? its barely legible by standards of english" chimed one of her friends, as rest of them giggled even more. "he just puts a curved R. its almost artistic" Asha protested. they almost ignored her but stopped discussing him all the same. they had come back to the hot topic of class- what is the deal with the new guy in class, something everyone wondered but no one bothered to find out.

" why do you bother with what those people say? they dont know you. besides, who are they to you anyways? so it hardly matters what they think. forget it, Rajiv. cheer up. you still owe me that golgappa treat, remember? lets go for that. ice cream's on me" she said, standing up, extending her hand. he took it, smiling,  just like she had, the first time they had met.

"i know. and i agree. i love you too. i didnt realize when or even why, but i liked your quirks. you are weird and weirdly, i like you for being so. did i say like? sorry. like doesnt begin to define what i feel. i love you. Rajiv. "

"why are you saying all this? whats wrong? you know i was kidding. how can you think i meant it?! its like you either dont know me at all or are refusing to see anything", she said, pleadingly. tears swam in her eyes and her hands shook. but she held it together. he stood there, with her back to her, refusing to see anything literally. " do you really have to go?" she asked, calmly. her voice indicated neither dread nor sorrow, just a plain question. "no. but i will go all the same" he said. "good bye, Rajiv" she said.


she blinked. the train was slowing down, it was a small stop, one of the thousands minor stations in India that are made out of nowhere really. Dr. Rajiv's smiling set of teeth had been left behind a long time ago. she shook her head ruefully. even after all this time...
some names would always have a story attached with them, forever, she thought. some names would always bring back images- good or bad, she realized. some names were meant to stay and not not just sift in and out of frames of memory. some names left a permanent imprint, she confessed... 

tale of every girl *sigh*

every girl needs her love story. thats the plain truth. no matter how hard they try to deny it, no matter what she looks like on the exterior, somewhere inside her is that little girl who has grown up thinking about a love story one day. blame it on the romantic love stories we have grown up watching. i remember feeling goosebumps when i saw raj fighting for simran on that station and i was five then! ever since then, there has been on thing or the other. and as if the movies werent enough, there are romantic novels that have love stories of ever lasting love. and you cant really blame me for that. there is a girl out there who finds a random bottle on beach and ends up with a guy who loves her crazily. sure, he dies eventually but she does spend some time being loved like sunshine! there is even one sending her letters from the dead! sure you can switch the tv off and shut down the book and dump it far end corner of your drawer and then, your friends walk in with their tales of being swooned by someone! what is a girl supposed to do then? there is nothing better and worse than a real life full on love story and someone like me who hears at least five of them daily in different stages, life is not that easy.
and just when i thought i was the only one left all alone in this big bad world, i realized something. now i know that at end of the day, in every girl lies that hope that someday she will find a guy who will love her for what she is. true? i dunno. i am still to find that out but i am just amazed at it. i had thought i had snubbed that little girl me into a little nook somewhere, never to emerge again. or maybe she had just left. but i realized she didnt. she was here, all the time. and so is she inside every woman out there. every girl is looking for her love story if she hasnt found one yet. no matter how, no matter where, the sense of being the one thought about, being cared and loved and most importantly being important is what every girl wishes for and certainly deserves. does every girl find it? i wish i could say yes. does any girl ever give up the hope? hell no!!! even the career oriented modern girls who dont want a man to support them do want a man to go on with them through life. the idea of a love story is different for every girl, for sure but it is there in every girl's heart.
so if you are a girl, thinking about your love story and at times frustrated with your undying hope of finding someone who will love and care for you like you mean everything to him then dont be. you are not the only one :)
and for those who have already found one, cheers!!!! 

hues of purple

she sat on the rocks. the beach was a little off the mainland. the usual crowd of late evening beach walkers was out of her sight. she could only hear faint echoes from distance that too only when she wished to. the setting sun cast an orange glow everywhere. hues of purple sneaked around the edges of orange beams as if trying to break free, eager to take over the reigns. purple had always been her favorite color. she liked purple. she wished it would take over the orange soon. orange and yellow set the horizon alight. even in the late evening when sun was just a smoldering rock, burning from within, it cast its glow everywhere. skyline looked like it was on fire. the waters in distance seemed eager for sun to set, waiting to relieve it from the burns. water and sun had always seemed like an odd couple to her. yes she always thought they were together even though sun looked down upon water whole day long, daring it to try and reach it. water made feeble attempts but they were always too half hearted. water didn't want to touch the sun. it just lay there waiting for sun to give up and come to it. at end of everyday when sun was burnt and worn out, water would welcome it with its soothing coolness and sigh in relief itself.

a kid shrieked in delight somewhere and her thoughts drew away from sun and water. purple had taken over a lot of orange by now and stars were beginning to make an appearance. she realized the sounds were coming from the people on beach just around the curve of rocks she was sitting on. it occurred to her for the first time that the sounds came rather loud. loud, clear and constantly. she couldn't go back to her thinking anymore, not with all the noise. but she didn't mind it. in fact she welcomed the noise. it was always too quiet anyways. sometimes she preferred noise to take over the silence. it wasn't the best melody but it worked. it wasn't his voice calling her name but its wasn't his silence either, pushing her away.

she had liked the silence before, hated it sometime else but now she had just stopped battling it. for the past six years, she had fought with silence and always lost. she had resigned to its victory. when, she didn't remember exactly. all she knew was that even though she had resented the silence with bitterness initially, it had been the most faithful companion she had. after the ashes had settled, tears had dried, petunias had given up the fight and left, mugs had sat in the sink, paints had chipped away, charades had fallen- silence had stayed behind to keep her company.

the sky was black now. stars had taken the center stage and moon had come out with that expectant look, trying to catch water's attention. but ocean was silent now. it rested with its sun. she could sense how water felt pleased with the sun despite all the searing pain it received at its hands. moon in all its glory was no comparison for the pleasure sun could give it.

she looked up at the sky one last time and smiled.he had always said solitude was something to be enjoyed. she had never understood it before. the idea of being alone by choice had always seemed preposterous in her world that had him. now she understood though. solitude could be enjoyed, out of choice. she smiled at him looking down with that smug look he always had when he was right. she shook her head and stood up.
giving one last glance to the ocean that smiled in peace now, she walked away. leaving behind a trail of footsteps in the mud that vanished as soon as they appeared, she let the silence take her over again... 

phases that are...

well, I believe that in life, if there is one thing that will change with every passing minute, it is a relationship, perhaps because people in it are changing or may be it is part of the entire circle for these changes to occur. but yeah, for sure, there are these phases that every relationship will definitely go through.
every relationship, no matter how long it lasts or how close it gets starts with that first glance, sometimes a careless sweep across the room, sometimes a lingering look and in rare cases an image that remains in your head  for a long time after the actual person has gone. thats where it all starts and what follows is a beginning. thats probably the best part of a relationship where two people are just getting to know each other, warm, cordial, friendly. thats the part where, if the connection is actually there, those two people would sometimes even go out of the way to make things nice and they would like going out of the way.
what comes next is the phase when those people begin to get to know each other for real, the deeper layers to find out what lies underneath the mask. thats when they actually begin to get comfortable. and then comes a time when these people are actually comfortable with each other, thats the phase where they dont pretend to be super nice for sake of being nice, they actually like being nice. and definition of nice changes as well. of course, some galiyan may become a part of your lingo along with other insults but the bond is deeper and better than ever before.
what comes next is what i believe the real test of every relationship, its the part where two peole are so comfortable with each other that they start expecting, they expect the other person to be there, to understand. sometimes these expectations dont come true and thats when it hurts like hell. but once in a while, you meet a person who will pleasantly surprise you by meeting all these expectations and some more.
but sometimes, the problem is not not finding that person who will pass all these phases with you but passing these phases together. its about how well you can acclimate to these changes, before they get to you or what those two people have between each other.
my problem has been that i have resisted all these changes at some point or the other, i have tried to avoid them, intentionally or unintentionally. and the transition is something i always find tough to happen. i have always found myself either a phase ahead or behind of the other person, well not always but in most cases. i have lost people to these phases but i have also known people who have held my hand and walked me through it.  i have also known that what comes after these transitions is totally worth all the confusion and utter nonsensical stuff that i go through.
so cheers to all these changes, cheers to all these phases, cheers to everything that comes and goes cuz in end what matters is not where you reached but what you went through cuz life was never meant to be a destination, it was always a journey... 

finding love

well, i recently came across a story of  two people madly in love with each other. there is nothing new about that bit. they both met at 14, married young and lived a happy life for few years. and then, everything else caught up. work, appointments, deadlines, chores etc etc etc took up that part of life which was meant to be for love. love stayed or died away, i don't know about that but marriage did fall apart. years of separation later, they both run into each other again. well, while the wife was smarting under the awkwardness of situation, the guy, well, he just stared at her. he looked at her and fell in love, again. you see, the guy had amnesia and over those years, he had lost pretty much all his memories. but he met his ex wife and just like so many years ago, fell in love with her again, wondering all the time what could have possibly gone wrong in the world for him to want to leave such a person.

that says something about love, now, doesn't it. we all find it at sometime and we all do something to lose it. some of us get a chance to make up for our mistakes while others aren't so lucky. but the point is that love does exist all the time but sometimes it is forced to take a back seat what with everything else seeming to be so much more important in our life. maybe its human tendency to seek love but take it for granted as soon as we get it.

so if you love someone but have been wondering about righteousness of the whole thing for some time, stop and look again, think few years hence when maybe you wont have the baggage of life. close your eyes and try to look for that person you fell in love with the first time. i am sure beneath all the tensions and everything else going on, you will find that person still waiting for you right there with same look in their eyes that had you hooked the first time!!!! (cuz like it or not, all of us cant be amnesiac)

the friend

DISCLAIMER-  this post is totally a work of fiction and has no truth behind it, but anyone who can even remotely relate to the piece of art, is welcome to share their views. proceed at your own risk!!! 

 (you have been warned)

                                                              

i hate romantic books cuz they make me feel weird. but i love romantic movies. they have a different feel to them. and almost all the movies of this genre seem to have one thing in common, i mean almost all, The Friend. there is always this ridiculously handsome guy who is great and always has an easy way with women. he meets and parts ways with them. love comes and goes from his life and everything goes on. but all this time, there is one person who stays. thats The Friend. sometimes she is in the backdrop and sometimes she is the main protagonist. but the point is that for that guy, she is always this constant presence that he barely recognizes. she is with him through all the love ties he has but she is someone who is taken for granted by the man she not only loves but who happens to be her best friend, which in my dictionary, stakes higher than love. to hell with the fact that sometimes she may get her love in the end and sometimes she may not. thats for the director to decide. but no one seems to notice her pain and feelings of all those years that are stuck up and she has made through her life with them. she sees him fall for someone, smiles indulgently when he declares he is in love with her, looks upon with painful pleasure when he decides to live happily ever after with that other girl ( mostly a  hot blonde chick) and is there when he comes back heart broken. she looks after him, mends his heart painstakingly and makes it capable of loving someone again. but for what? just so that he can go out and give it to someone else. and it doesnt matter how many times this happens before the guy realizes that she is the one! i am not talking about the consequences here, i am talking about the painful process.

                                                                         

who says a girl and a boy can't be just friends? i am a *the friend* and, honestly,  i am tired of it. i am tired of listening other people talk about their love lives, through their break ups and make ups. i am tired of helping him out pick up the right present, the correct venue for her surprise party, of listening him babble continuously about her. i dont want to be just 'the friend' any  more. i want to be more. i want to be special someone for somebody, i want to be someone that somebody waits for, not someone who waits with him for someone else and fades into the darkness of background once she arrives. i want be the subject of someone's dreams not someone who gets a detailed commentary of the dream which was all about her. i want to be the destination, not the path leading up to it...

get.set.go.

okay, its been around 15 days since i came back and i am fairly late in posting. but still, better late than never!!!
anyhow, well, we had htis little educational tour thingy this semester (only god knows what was so educational about it!!!) and i was anxious!! yes. okay, i have done my bit of travelling and its not like i was leaving my house for the first time or something yet something bothered me. whenever i thought of 15 days i would have to be away from house, i could never think of fun or good time with friends. it was always with some anxiety (as a result of which my mum had a real clean house, refer to last post for better understanding) but as you can see, a fortnight later, i am still in hangover of that trip. needless to say, i had an awesome time!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, our journey started on a cold jan morning and me crying. yes, i cried before leaving the house (okay, laugh all u want to. so did my sis!!!!) but still, i did. i barley let go of my dad (go on, laugh a bit more). well, we rolled into a sleepy start and before we knew, all of us were having a blast together.
a six hour journey to delhi went in a blink of eye!!! some waiting and we were on our way to hyderabad!! visiting various spots in hyderabad  like the film city, golconda fort, char Minar, NTR garden, birla temple, and many more places that i do not remember right now. a two day stay there went by in a firenze with almost no sleep, lots of travelling, shouting and laughing!!!

next stop was bangalore. after an overnight journey where none of us really had any rest, we reached bangalore which was pleasantly cold after hyderbad's hot weather. although that was just a misunderstanding. two hours into the city and we were beaten in bangaluru's heat!! although, rain came as a pleasant surprise in evening and we all were soaked. running across on roads, in rain, was a first time for me and i daresay, i enjoyed it!!! :P

bangaluru led to mysore which was just as pleasant although i have to admit, i dont remember much of it (except that one of my fav pics was in mysore!! ;) ) a blur of a day in mysore and we moved to ooty. which was freakingly cold. atleast it felt that way after three hot cities. a nice cup of ooty's special tea, lots of shopping, some racket on roads later, we felt very much at ease with this 'queen of hills' town of south!! a night in ooty, with campfire, lots of dancing and singing, we faced an entire day of travelling. back to bangaluru from ooty to take train to goa. 9 hours or something by bus, an entire night's journey in train, and another three or four hours drive and we reached panaji!! goa turned out to be better than i had ever imagined!!!! sunny, sandy and water!!!! i loved it!!!! goa's cruise, beaches, people, drinks, everything about it was awesome!!!!! i dont think we could have had a better place to welcome 2010 than goa. crazy parties, dancing and hell lot of fun!!!!!!!

and then, we moved onto our last spot-- amchi mumbai!!!
to tell the truth, i was very sceptical about the city due its sheer size. but i have to say, i was more than pleasantly surprised to be there. i fell in love with that place. we spent entire two days on roads (we had a hotel, ofcourse. i meant traveling) looking at mumbai in all its glory... juhu beach, marine drive, elephanta caves, essel world, fashion street, the Gateway, the Taj, bandra. kolaba, khar etc etc etc. names i had just heard before, i saw them now and i have to say, mumbai was warmer than i had thought (and i dont mean weather)..



and before we knew, it was time to come back. we took our last train to bring us back home. but it wasnt the end. i would say our journey backhome was one of the best parts of the entire trip. main attraction, friends,of course. on our way back, we did some talking. no actually a lot of talking. for 20 hours straight- nothing but talking. discussing every possible thing in the world, knowing each other for the first time!!

you see, thats wat my biggest fear was. what was i gonna do with people i had spent past three years with but barely knew. but iam glad i went ahead with this thing cuz now i know them real good. i have friends now, real good friends, people i didnt even know existd before are now important to me. and i usually take time making friends!!! so thats saying some thing!
i dunno which part of these 15days was educational but i did learn a lot. i learnt how toplay cards, and manygames at that, i learnt how to carry heavy luggage on stations, i learnt how to adjust with someone who doesnt feel same way as me about the air conditioning of the room, how to manage money without losing it, how to have lots of fun with new people and .....
 how to move on and........


 make new friends!!!!

where are all the Indians!!!

alright, i am gonna get straight to the topic since i am so in a no-nonsense mood.. anyone would be, being stuck in their house for three whole days, with nothing to do but study, of course, worry about the exams that  might never happen and a stupid curfew.
yes, its third day today and a fourth one of similar nature is almost sure. and for all those who dont know wat am i talking about, i am talking about the aggressive situation building up in Punjab. what started as a minor rift between cops and some people became a big protest including firing, tear gas, swords(yes swords) and what not. people have dies, many have been injured and yet the situation seems on verge of going out of hands..
i am not going to get into 'why cant govt do something about it' or 'what are the police doing' crap cuz they have nothing to do with it. if things are going bad or have gone bad in past, thats cuz we let them.

i wonder, when has India been a country?? its always been in bits-sometimes called provinces, sometimes colonies, sometimes castes and sometimes states. but never a nation as a whole. and who is responsible for tearing it apart every single day even without their knowledge- us of course. we are doing it, every day, ever moment and dont even know about it.
why cant we let humans be humans alone?? why do they have to come so many tags? is being an Indian or above all a human not enough?? if classification's what we are looking for, go look humans up in any biology book. you'd find classification long and complex enough to satisfy your whims.
please let people be!!!! states, castes, races, areas, religion, majority, minority- name it and we have a way to divide ourselves...
i dont get it at all!!!! i mean, here we are, sitting inour homes, terrified,somewhat yes, wondering wats going to happen.
forget about the ethics, if you wanna talk present, think about all the economy thats suffering and that suffers each time an Indian decided to flare his sword at another Indian, think of lives that are disrupted each time we decide to weaken ourselves in name of whatever is the latest trend!!!!

tell me one part of this secular, proud-of-its-diversity-of-religions country that has not bled in name of communalism!!! Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir- which not!!!!

come on guys, what are we doing??!! what are we waiting for? no one is gonna tell us to stop doing it until we do it ourselves. there is not going to be any divine intervention cuz all the divinity is wasted on making us humans-something we are definitely not good at!!!!!!!
lets not wait for another 1984, 26/11, or another 50 years of terrified Kashmir.
honestly, i could go on and on about this. this is a sort of wrath i have never felt before, and i get angry a lot!!!!!! so thats saying something...
i have said all i had to, okay maybe bits of it. but is anyone listening???

too many questions!!!

i have been away from the blogger world for quite some time now! no,it wasnt anywriters' block neither was it the fact that i was totally ground in work.. i just didnt have any inclination to write.. not that anyone was asking me about it, i am still saying it cuz i wanna say it... these past days have been weird, full of ups and downs.. sometimes too much to do, sometimes nth at all!!! sometimes its a full show and sometimes kinda lonely.. thats life summed up but on my part, it was just a summary of these last few days.. over this past time, there are certain things about myself and people around me that i have realised.. i realised how little allthose people i thought knew me, actually know me.. i also realised how difficult it is for me to tlak about myself. i realised it is easy to be lonely even wen u have loads of people around you...


along with these realisations, there were questions that i came up with.. actually questions came up to me.. and now, i cant get them outta my head.
* is it too much to expect someone to understand things you cant say?

*is it too bad a thing to be not able to say things u wanna  say???

*is it okay to be lonely even though you have world's most wonderful friends?

*is it alright to be sad for things u have no clue about, reasons you dont know and things you cant explain?

*is it alright to not wanna meet people, people who love youand you know it?

*is it okay to worry about someone else's share of life??

*is it okay to laugh on outside wen your heart iis crying from within??

*is it okay to wanna run away from eth, shut your self in a room and never wanna come out of it?

*is it okay to still love someone you had wanted to let go off ages ago??


God, this list is endless...... as u people must have known by now, this is not a happy post. i dont know people, it just isnt..and yeah, sth is definitely  bugging me, i just dont know wat is it!!! and no, it isnt a heart ache post about how i am still not over someone.... that might be a component but thats definitely not the whole thing...

just dont know..
all i can think of right now is the famous lines..

                                 har kisi ko mukammal jahan nahi milta,
                                      kisi ko zameen kisi ko asmaan nahi milta...

whats with life??

having been confided in my house for an entire day due to rain, i had nth better to do than to lie arnd, try to sleep which i cudnt cuz my sister wudnt let me( god knows y!!! she has her exam tomorrow and acc to her my staying awake somehow helps her study better!!!! *rolls eyes* yeah she is the same one i baked cake for. guess its time for revenge!), no tv to watch cuz my dad's been going on with his cricket :( and nth much to do here wither. so story cut short, i had nth better to to so i did some thinking. serious intellectual thinking.  and the conclusions i came up with havent really made me too happy.

the thing is, i have had a very average life all this time. i mean like forever!!! nth in my life has evr been extraordinary, out of proportions...
see, i live in a nation which is neither too poor, nor too rich, neither too weak, nor too strong. somewhere in the middle, right? no offence to all the patriots out there. i love my country just as much as u do but thats a reality. and its not like its bad or sth. just plain truth. my state, punjab is again, neither too rich nor too poor, neither too backward nor too developed. hence again, average. agreed?
my city, ludhiana is just the same. do u want me to repeat the lines?? u get the general idea, dont u? hence, proved yet again, average!! no offence to anyone, but thats true.. that was scene at large. even in my personal life, i have had eth lying somewhere in the middle. just abt average. average looking, average student, average player, average average average!! god, that word sounds weird now!!1
the reason i am ranting abt it all is that i got to thinking that wat if all my life is gone living this way? average way, i mean. i have big plans for life, i want to achieve a lot of stuff. i have dreams i want fulfilled and lemme tell u, not all of them are just abt average!

when i was a kid, somehow i developed  a view abt life that was a bit different from the real world. as i grew, one after another of my many perceptions shattered. so now that i am onto all the thinking, i was wondering wat if all my perceptions for my future crumble to ground just like they did in past? i know having my dreams come true depends on me, depends on wen i wake up but i am a firm believer of fate, karma and god. i do blv god always has a bigger plan, a better perspective, a higher approach. i mean,, who else, if not him!
god, i dont even know where m i going with this>??? this is just a lot of random thoughts thrown in together, i guess. but the bottom line is, i got myself doubting which aint no good! but yeah, its truth all the same. maybe i got doubts written all over me, atleast for now, but i do know one thing for sure, i wont give up without a fight. i will try. i have tried in the past and i am sure i wont fial myself there atleast. rest of my life is a big mystery which i cant do ath abt right now. i really wanna take one day at a time but somehow, that dsnt happen to me. i like to plan, look ahead, now where m a i going with sth. probably thats y i have a serious fixation for lists. lists for wat to do, wat not to do, wat to get, wen to get, where to go etc etc etc
okay, m going really out of the way here. so going back to where i started from,
to tell the truth, i dont wanna be an average. who does!!!
for all those who made t to the end of this long jumbled piece, i cud really use some advice. to all those who cudnt, u missed ur chance to serious awakening!!!! :P