hope notes

1.       Going on your first date, second and third that eventually turn into a wedding, aren’t you?

2.       Celebrating your first anniversaries, second anniversaries, fiftieth anniversaries aren’t you?

3.       Having children?

4.       And then grandchildren?

5.       Watching sunsets that never seem to end?

6.       Holding hands with someone?

7.       Watching your kids grow up from the size of a cauliflower?

8.       Watching your parents grow wrinkles and grey hair and curl with age?

9.       Wandering places to find something or the other?

10.   Being a superhuman to someone, aren’t you?

      

Because I hope so

Paradise Turns Perfect Paradise

Sometimes it is okay to chase the sun with the windows down.

Your voice is the only thing carrying across the highway,

disobeying every speed law that you ever thought to enforce upon.

Sometimes it is okay to cross over all the hills, in hopes to get somewhere more beautiful.

Where the sun sets in its full glory and that is the only direction the compass knows.

This is it.

My last journey of 2012. And the very first of 2013.

Elevated at six thousand eight hundred and something feet, we swished quietly to McLeodganj and beyond.

Drove for about 12 hours only to be welcomed by a silver light of a winter skyline, beautiful enough that I didn’t remember where my home is any longer. The clouds were floating in, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colors to my sunset sky. The stars were beginning to shine. The moon was beginning to sprinkle its inner light. The foggy windows around me were only telling me that it’s the only place I ever wanted to be. The place is believed to be the land of peace and hashish abound. 

Trekked further to Perfect Paradise. There we sat with our legs stretched out besides the struggling bonfire and my lips shrank to the serenity in low temperature. Cupped the gracious Old Monk in my frosty hands when the shrill winds cut straight through the layers of my clothes, then the skin and got wrapped around my bones. I tilted my head towards the starry sky and let out my feelings with a deep exhalation. My feelings got translated into soft fog before my spectacle glasses. I wished if I could fold the sky like a newspaper and keep it under my armpit. 

the place itself is a home to a thousand mystical questions and answers about beauty, the right, the wrong, and the deserving. And music of course. Wonderfully noted, octaved and naturally composed, this place sings its own melody on a ‘high’ note.

During the last day of the year, I got to drench myself into a space, so occupied, so absorbing, and weirdly small shaped hole in the universe. The space certainly got so engaging that plunged me into the ocean of meanings. Far away from the bustle of concrete jungle into the peripherals of serene mountains. Picturesque taste was complimented by Tibetan flavours. That literally sang symphonies in the mouth.  

The morning heat brought with it the vibrancies of purity and newness, and I stood still for a while inhaling just the peacefulness. It's afterall the secret of life. I found myself lost in the oblivion thought of the faces dimmed out and mazed out and doped out and out there for me to search, at the silhouettes of the hills in front of me.

‘How was it that the birds sing, that they gloriously fly, that the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning,that the sky is not just blue but ohh bluest of blues, that the pleasant air love idling in the trees without a purpose, that every evening blooms with the songs of peaceful hymns, that the dawns whitens behind the black trees on the shivering summit of the hills?’ 

Walking down the hill in the day time and stumbling back by the bright moon light in the streets of unknown neighborhoods was more than enough to stuff my chest with immense pleasures. When there is crowd and noise, I feel there is some trouble waiting to blow up. And when there is silence and people are like localites of Mcleoganj, there is just perfection and nothing to fill the air. 

After 3 days, the time when I sat next to the driving seat, the rearview mirror framed the exotic collage of my new year. The mountains have left me feeling renewed and more content. I sat mutely among the series of sighs and the awe  just dripped from the corners of my eyes. Passing by the serenity I was positive than I’ve been for weeks, as if something has been given back after a long absence, as if my eyes have opened once again, as if I am tuned to savour the pleasures bestowed upon me, until the time I come back. Only if I had the talent to put the beauty in words... It was mesmerizing.   

  

The best of everything was the company I had. It was fresh, crazy, clever, eloquent, well-informed with a knack for adventure. That is what I call good company. In reality it helped me living a dream. A dream where paradise was a perfect paradise.

Handing over a flock of words

Perhaps there

I see a day

I shall say it.

Shout it.

Scream it.

Or whisper it.

This day my voice

Will know the volume

As it finds the ears

Those need the words.

The words

that have been

pending to be heard.

I shall say them

Even if the voice shakes

But it’s the shaking

That means it’s worth.

I shall say it

Because the moment

Will not be stolen

However

It will convince me

To surrender it over

gladly.

Cradling in hope

She is unbloomed.

Not young enough

To know everything.

She likes to believe

That everything

Is short-lived.

Just like this

Dark night

That matches

The colour 
in her eyes.

She has a bed

To lie down,

A pillow to rest

Her frightened head

And a sheet to

Imprison herself

From a creepy

Pair of hands

Approaching the

Growing curves

On her body.

She tries firm enough

To leave no gap

For the sinister to enter.

This entire summer night

She breathes in

Snowflakes.

Staring through the

Cotton sheet

At the shadow

On the opposite wall

With a will to blink

Not even once.

Escape is what

She wishes for

Clutching her

Fingers crossed.

For her

The freedom

Lies in being

A hassock.

And she learns

Liberty is not given

It is simply taken.

The First Letter

Dear Youngerself

You cannot imagine the immensity of changes that have conquered you. Do you remember how you worried about not being able to match up with the girls of your age? I wish I could tell you those women were far from your pace of ripeness. You could learn about life only by experiences. And experiences didn’t come without mistakes. So, yeah you’ve made many mistakes, as this beautiful life didn’t come with instructions. The ultimate purpose of life is to taste utmost experiences, the newer and richer ones. 

Back then you were just a tomboy who enjoyed playing football and play fight with the guys, including your brothers. You didnt think about all the ways people would betray you or all the lies and filth that was on the earth. I won’t hesitate in saying that your’re entirely made of flaws, but importantly stitched together with good intentions unlike others.

You were so cold at heart when you were young. Remember breaking those little hearts of guys on the verge of puberty… You didn’t know a heart within you was meant to beat. Luckily, it didn’t for a long long time and when it did, it wasn’t yours. The air was meant to be breathed. And some songs were meant to play on repeat. And the sun was meant to come down. And the days were meant to pass. The nights were meant to follow. And your eyes were meant to cry out whatever pain was left. Then, I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love. Positive thoughts that bottled up and made you move out of the rut. You learned to laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people. And eventually you would leave the world a bit better.

  

You were just a child under this limitless skies. A billion souls walk under it every single day & don’t even bother to look up & wonder what’s out there. There’s so much we still haven’t learned. So much that the scientists won’t even figure out in the life time, & it’s your job to wonder, to dream, & to try & find the mysteries behind all that lies in your path. I would say you don’t literally have to do that, it would unfold itself if you really seek for it.

You would be glad to know how greatly you bond with ma and nani now. Back then they were more like teachers now they’re like chilled out friends. They have accepted the way you are. You prefer to have fun with them. you owe more than anything else to nani and mum. They try to give you all comfort beyond their level of comfort. And you endeavour to reciprocate the same to them. It’s been ages having any blowings from them. There’s a silent MOU between you and masi now. After all you did prove her wrong in almost all spheres. We still don’t interact much. I wish I could let you know years ago, so you wouldn’t have to grow under the hopeless brunt. Your brother is still an ass. He will take a lot more time to grow up. And you fight lesser with him as you hardly get to see each other these days.

The grown up version is a bit more lazy and clumsy. You couldn’t really help with such practices of life. You disappoint yourself. You don’t really like to be surrounded by people. Their bullshit and fakeness might be the reason. If people are bad to you, you just brutally kill them in your head. Unlike the earlier episodes of smashing up people every now and then. You didn’t turn an atheist but you believe in the religion of mind. You believe in karmas and being unplugged from this society of hypocrites. You are convinced you’re built for better things. Spoken the truth, lies and been skeptical all these years. Danced on the couches and sat in a secluded corner too. You are not afraid of dying but you are terrified of wrongly living. You have mastered the art of spilling food on yourself. You don’t dress up like a chic. As always. You don’t put make up. Your hair messes up. You don’t like to walk. You don’t run like before. I owe you for being physically sound and athletic at that age. It helped me.  Now your brain does most of the activities. You are the sum total of everything that went before you, of all you have been, seen, done, of everything done to yourself. For the years to come, you will just be me. You want to know why? Because being me is good enough for me :P :P and you know what? you're pretty fucking amazing in your own screwed up ways.

There is something you must remember always: You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and much smarter than you think. But the most important thing, I’ll always be with you, just few years ahead of you.

P.S: To understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world”