Somewhere in that Lane. . .

Somewhere in that lane,

Lives my childhood friend.

We’ve lost touch over the years

For we’ve our own lives to tend.

As I pass her lane quietly,

Happy memories flood in,

I want to visit her

But lack of time holds me in.

I carry on to my workplace

 mentally deciding to give her call.

But I get bewitched by life again

And eventually forget it all.

On a Sunday, cosy on the couch,

I skim through my friends’ list.

I stop at her phone number

But arrogance entraps me in a cyst.

She can call too,

I stonily mumble.

She has my number

AND my address, I grumble.

One fine day news reaches me,

“Your childhood friend lives no more.”

Of her chronic illness I learn

And the shock shakes my very core.

My stony heart now cries for her,

My cheeks burn with self hate.

When I could, I didn’t care

And now it’s too late.

Somewhere in that lane,

Lived my childhood friend.
Now I lay in remorseful darkness
with my ego to amend.

. . . Being a Child

I wanna rewind to the time

when "song" meant nursery rhyme.

when "hurt" was only a bruise on the knee,

When promises were meant to be.

When the only annoying thing was your brother.

When the safest abode was in the arms of your mother.

When the only fear was upsetting dad.

When skipping a meal was the only thing bad.

When "hate" was an unknown word,

when "music" was the singing of a bird.

When darkness was the only scare,

when your best friend was your teddy bear.

when jumping on the couch was the only thing wild...

. . . I wanna go back to being a child..

The Strength of Passion and Determination

“Here we have Aadarsh – a teenager being ignored by his fool of a freelance Indian employer who refuses to pay him. What can he do except fume in front of his friends and fuss about it? Is this it? Is this what is left of the Great India? We are corrupted from within and we blame the foreigners for calling us uncivilized and corrupted. Well, aren’t we? Aren’t we?! We are, definitely. We have greed and selfishness running through us. No, we won’t change ourselves for better either. All we can do is point at other countries and crib about how we are demeaned by them. This is also why we fail to progress. Our image is in dirt worldwide. Who is to be held responsible? US.”  With Cameraperson Vikas Singh, this is Alisha signing off with a huge sigh of disgust.

She finished her speech and beamed at her audience – her friends – Vikas, Aadarsh, and Nidhi all of whom were settled in her lime green and bright bedroom. There was silence for a solid 20 seconds.

“I am sorry. Why aren’t you a journalist again?” asked Aadarsh; who was lazying on the bean bag. “And hey, I am not fussing. I am cursing.” And he indeed cursed out loud.

“Because I was a loser when it was the time to decide and was too chicken to voice my dream. AND HEY! Don’t curse!!” She replied with contempt and slumped on the couch beside Vikas who was still eyeing her with awe. “Oh, look away Vikas. I feel shitty enough for not doing what I always wanted to.”

He looked away, shaking his head. “Sheer waste of talent this is.”

Aadarsh nodded but said, “But if you went on and on so brutally like this and linked everything that is happening to us to ‘corrupted India’, you’d be thrown outta the country!” Vikas and Nidhi laughed while Alisha made a face.

“Truth this is. I am just voicing it.”

“That is the thing. You don’t speak the truth Sweetie. It is taboo in India.”

She laughed now. “We are probably the worst Indians ever, dissing our own country like this.”

“Hey, better us than the super-powers!”

“Oh, yeah.” Vikas chimed in. He had a thing against foreigners for reasons only he knew. “Crap, they are.”

“But hey, this is not the end of my dream, right?” Alisha cut in and reverse geared to the topic about her choosing science over journalism.

“It isn’t?” asked Nidhi. “There is a lot of competition in journalism and I doubt they will take a fresher with no degree in the course.”

“I know there is a lot of competition. But my life isn’t over yet. What if I did take Science? Can’t I pursue it after Science?”

“And waste 3 more years? Are you crazy?” asked Vikas incredulously.

“No Vikas, you are crazy.” Answered Alisha. “You are the craziest guy I ever happened to meet. Know why? You knew what you wanted to do even when you had the choice and yet, you chose to do Engineering for a reason I still fail to comprehend. You had it in your hands Vikas and you blew it away. I am much better off than you are.”

Vikas quietened down, stung by her words; stung because they were true. He had indeed known what he wanted to do and yet, he gave it up for some silly, useless reason. Alisha was at least better off trying to do what she wanted to after realizing her dream.

“We have loads of opportunities and hey, if I am good enough I’ll get there even without a degree in Journalism.”

Aadarsh admired her for her determination and smiled at her. Nidhi and Vikas chose to keep quiet for the fear of being told off brutally by her. She had a very strong point and was very tenacious when it came to her dreams. Along with that, she had the talent to reach where she wanted to. Those tied up together made up an unbreakable combo. The three knew it and thus, did not say anything further.

-          A year later   –

“Good Morning Hyderabad! Here’s Alisha promising you a fresh start with your favorite songs on your favorite radio channel! . . .”

Vikas smiled at his RJ friend’s voice. Indeed, you could get there if you wanted to. Alisha was a successful radio jockey with offers for journalism coming to her from the local English news channels. She indeed got there. She indeed pursued her dream – without a degree, without anybody’s faith in her; with only her talent, her zeal and her determination to get there.

I Love You!

I, love and you. When these three words are strung together to form one sentence, the reactions followed are usually horrific. When your mom overhears you say those words to someone else on the phone, oh God save you! If your dad hears it, your phone will probably be taken away from you. If your friends hear it, you’ll be subjected to a lot of sniggering, teasing and what not.

Why? What is so wrong with saying “I love you” to someone you love? Does it HAVE TO be your ‘lover’?        

      

Sad life we live, don’t we?

There was a very expressive girl named Suzzane. She believed in voicing whatever she felt. What was in her heart was on her lips. If she loved her friends, she made sure they got to know it. For her “I love you” was a very simple way of saying what the words mean. I. Love. You. Simple as that. There were no hidden facts in those words. All was plain and simple. Of course as aforementioned already, people’s train of thought always went in the wrong direction. Some sniggered, some made fun of her and some even scowled at her. She had once written “I love you” on one of her guy friends’ Facebook Wall and all his friends nearly ate him alive for ‘hiding the truth’ from them.

Oh, did I mention she had a lot of guy friends? She easily said those words to them too – no strings attached – but people failed to realize that. When she made a new friend and suddenly said it to him when he made her happy or feel better, his first reaction would be “Whaaat?!” and then his mind would say – thankfully say – she is really expressive and she doesn’t mean it ‘that’ way. She was carefree. She didn’t bother what people said or thought. Some even called her promiscuous but she couldn’t care less. Okay they have a problem if she said those words to a guy. Leave the girls alone at least? “Gay!” would be the response most of the time. Again, sad life we live, don’t we?

“I love you!”

“All right then, bye!”

Click.

This was the response she always got from one of her closest and dearest friends, Vikas. She never complained but once in like 23 times, it pricked her. One day she decided on asking him about it.

“Hey, I need to hang up now. Mum’s calling.”

“All right! I love you!”

“Okay then, bye!”

“Hey Vikas!”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you never respond to my ‘I love you’? You don’t love me?”

Pause.

“As a friend!” she hastily added fearing he’d take the wrong meaning. “Only as a friend! You know I say that to everyone na?”

“Yes. I do. But I never said those words even to my family!”

For him, his family was the priority. He was never closer to anyone else before. 

Well, before Suzzane walked into his life and made him realize there were others outside his house worth his love.

“Why? Don’t you love your family?” she asked.

“I do.”

“Let them know then.”

“Is it necessary?”

“No, it’s not. It will just make them smile. Come on, you could do that much to make someone you love smile, couldn’t you?”

Pause.

“Not wanting to be overtly proud or seemingly arrogant but I know every time I say it to you, you smile. Don’t you think your parents deserve it too? Your sisters? And you know what the best part is? You aren’t even lying or trying too hard! You are simply voicing what you feel! Words can do magic and I know you realize that.”

Longer Pause.

“Hey! Mum’s yelling. Will talk later. Bye!” came Vikas’ reply then.

“Sure, bye!”

Suzzane also loved channeling her love through various media such as personalized gifts, surprises and a few loving texts. They were enough to cheer her friends and that is why she was adored. Same scenario came up with Vikas once. He was dull one day and was barely talking properly. She was not really okay either but her motto was “Friends First!”

She decided on cheering him up and worked towards it all day. She sent him little self-written lame but sweet little poems and texts to make him smile at least once. They couldn’t meet up because both had college to attend. So she made sure by the time he checked his phone in the evening, he had a lot of nice stuff to read and feel happy about.

[You must be wondering why he would wait to go back home to go through his text messages. Well, that was just how Vikas was. He never touched his phone when he was out. He only attended calls and hung up within 30 seconds. Weird slightly, yeah!]

He reached home in the evening and went through his text messages. 17 texts from Suz. He read each and every one of them and his smile – his gorgeous smile – only grew wider with each. He called her immediately.

“Hello?”

“HEY!”

She smiled at the enthusiastic greeting.

“Feeling better?”

“Much better! You really know how to cheer me up!”

She smiled again.

“I just know how to voice my feelings.”

“You sound low, you okay?”

“Oh, I am fine! And, I am so happy I managed to cheer you up.”

He sensed something was wrong and he could easily co-relate it to her awful pangs of loneliness. She was a happy girl to the world but somewhere inside, she felt very alone. That feeling surfaced sometimes. He knew not to ponder her further.

“You sure did! You are amazing!”

She laughed.

“I am not!”

“You are!”

“Hey, have to go! Dinner!”

“Sure!”

“Bye!”

“Hey Suz!”

“Yeah Vik?”

“I Love You.”

Her loneliness and her sense of depression were replaced by the best smile she ever smiled.

Indeed, simple words could weave magic.

The Tech-freak Gen Z

Want to feel great about yourself? Take a look at someone from Gen X [considering we are a part of Gen Y] – they will seem way too naive and ‘backward’ if I daresay. Want to feel crappy? Turn around and take a look at the kids [Gen Z I think].

The other day I was with my friend at Croma, drooling over Macbooks when we heard a little boy scream at his mother.

“I want that!” echoed the boy’s voice.

Annoyed at who was disturbing my ‘lone time with the superb Macbooks, I looked up and saw the same expression on my friend’ face. We both then turned around to see who this person was. He was no more than 10 years old and he was creating havoc in the music players' section.

I leaned over to see what he wanted. I was shocked out of my very soul when I saw his tiny finger directly point to an iPod Touch.

I turned to my friend again for support because it felt like I was going to pass out from the shock. His eyebrows were raised so high, they threatened to disappear in his hair. I snorted and turned back to look at the kid who had drawn quite a lot of attention by now.

“No Varun! I’ll buy this one for you.” His mother tried to negotiate with him by pointing at an iPod Shuffle.

The boy glared at his mother as if she suggested that she was going to buy him an eraser in exchange of the iPod Touch.

 “No!” he screeched. “I want that! Only that! This one doesn’t have video!” and with that, thick tears rolled out of his eyes.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned back to the Macbook selection, my mind plagued. When I was ten, I didn’t even have the guts to ask daddy for a walkman. All I cared about was my little teddy bear and the only thing that bothered me was daddy scolding me for getting my hands dirty from playing in the sand. I knew no music, I knew no video. I knew nothing but playing in the sand, jumping around with my loved brother, whispering stupid secrets in my friend’s ear and giggling at the silliest jokes.

From what I heard from my dear friend who made sure he saw every bit of the drama, his mother had given in and gotten the iPod Touch. I shook my head in exasperation. Indeed we are slowly losing that innocence in kids. Indeed, those careless whispers, those childish games and those naive smiles are a thing of the past. . .

Is the tech world going to take the childishness out of the coming? I shudder and I hope not.  Because next thing you know, your five year old kid will demand ice-cream only from Creamstone and nowhere else! :D

Your Life is your Oyster

I sit by the window,

Into the night I stare.

With every element I view,

I see a secret bare.

The dark clouds in the sky

Talk about sadness and strife

But the glittering scattered stars

Give the darkness some life.

The fierce wind blowing across

Talks of the cold and difficult times

But the warm moonlight

Shows some hope in a simple mime.

The harsh rain splashing on the window

Shows how moments can cut through

But the sweet smelling mud

Shows the end is always good for you.

A melange of good and bad is life

I see through a smile and eyes with moisture.

The elements teach it at every step.

Your life is truly your oyster.

Arey re!

Ah-ha! The beginning of a whole new year. Excited? Erm, I am not. What is so new about the New Year? It comes every year anyway! [Okay, *shifty eyes* I know that was lame but eh, lame sells!!] Only yesterday whilst I was walking to the supermarket to buy grocery, I overheard two girls walking in front of me.

“Arey, tomorrow is New Year!” said one.

“Arey, yeah! Daddy is bringing cake, you know.” Rambled the other in excitement.

“Arey, I am so scared re.” Evidently not listening to a word of what her friend was saying.

I snorted loudly at the many ‘arey’s but the traffic muffled it and I was safe.

“Why are you scared re?” ‘Re’ is another word that riles me up. Talk in English or talk in the local tongue. Why mix the two up!? But eh, who’s gonna listen to me! My friends have already tagged me a foreigner because I am so particular about it.

The apparently scared girl widened her eyes at the one who asked the question.

“You don’t know?” She asked livid, as if it was mandatory for everyone to know.

The other girl shook her head guiltily as if she committed a crime with a tinge of curiosity at the same time. “Tell me no re!”

The girl’s eyes widened even more. “This is our last year!” she said matter-of-factly.

“What? What last year? What are you telling re!?”

“Arey! We are all going to die in December 2012.” She exclaimed and shuddered dramatically.

“Your head. We won’t die. We are so young.”

I laughed at that. So young? When the world comes to an end will be decided based on how old the pair of them is apparently.

Still laughing, I crossed the road fearing they’d hear my laughter and turn round to bellow at me, “Arey! Why are you laughing at us re!?”

People I tell you; especially little girls and boys. They are so naive, so innocent and so ignorant. Their innocence is enough to make you smile or even giggle and shake your head at them; enough to give you a lighter moment and cherish the time when you were a naive, scared child yourself.

[Submitted as an entry in TYX's competition]