Why you ask.

It’s just another day, another hour gone by,
You find yourself chasing the clouds,
And there’s only so much you can try.
When Destiny holds the key to the future,
How can you ask why?

It’s just another night, another hour gone by,
 I look for signs, willing them from up high
Tears escape my eyes as your words cut too deep
Where did I go wrong? Did I never try?

It’s just another day, another hour gone by,
Your blue skies fade to grey,
And the magic slips through your fingers,
Nothing is built to last and the ruins lie in your eyes.

It’s just another night, another hour gone by,
I knock on Heaven’s door to no reply
The hurt won’t pass and there’s no place to hide.
The door closes on Forever and it’s a sad goodbye.

It’s been days, it’s been nights, and the hours tick by,
Reflections start to lie leaving us no name.
Who are you? Who am I?
Have we reached the end of the line?

Do you still ask why?

Fallen...

The clouds parted ways and the stars set alight the path for the queen of the night. The moon ascended her throne and the aura of her resplendence bathed the earth in blue. Partaking in the royal camaraderie of the stars, the horizon bowed.

Far down below, oblivious to the celestial courtesy, in the high-walled city of Fate, lay strewn broken dreams, wounded hopes, tainted souls, and grieving hearts. The iridescence of the moon never graced the paths of the down-trodden; neither did the light of day wash over. But tonight did not seem like any other. For tonight, along the winding depths of despair, a soul stirred...

“Princess!”. The call resounded in the darkness. Her feeble attempts to respond to the voice were in vain. Devoid in spirit, she recoiled into a heap among the many carcasses of hearts.

“Princess!”. The unseen force sheltered her being from the fears that threatened to engulf her sanity. With each call, warmth coursed through her veins and her bleeding scars began to close in.

“Princess!”. Within the eerie vacuum of her emptiness, the distinct voice tugged at her heartstrings. She stirred to her feet and tred uneven ground in pursuit of the call. Like an angel he stood with arms outstretched, shimmering on the edge of reason. Against the backdrop of a resplendent moonlit night, life pulsed through her weak frame, willing her forward. Mystified, she stepped into the realm of his aura.

The lines on her face dissolved into the beauty of his youth and her tired eyes reflected the fire that burned bright in his. She cautioned him that in the land of Fate, the ground beneath his feet lay wide open. The truth was all she had to give. His undaunted soul fenced her demons out and his promises enveloped her wounds in a thousand works of art. The touch of his lips set alight dusty corners of her mind and she felt his joy dimpling her cheeks. Basking in the delightful existence of his being, she looked to the skies for the first time and wished upon a star. Her angel was not far. The stars shone brighter than ever and for the first time in what seemed an eternity, she felt the hopeful beating of her still-fragile heart. She found love right where they were.

Fate, in one of his many despised avatars, watched from afar, loathing the rekindling of a spirit. It was his domain after all. Promises were made to be severed and desires always bit the dust. Splitting the skyline in two, with a wave of the wind, he tightened the bonds of her past sending pain searing through her. The angel’s embrace weakened. Her tears extinguished the brightness in her eyes and the promises made to her were hurled into the abyss of disbelief. Alas, the angel contorted into a reflection of the past right before her eyes, condemning, disparaging and questioning her existence. Defying the impulse to cower, she reached out in spite of it all. Memories swirled around her and drew her into a hurricane of words, gnawing at the fragments of her soul, gnashing against each other, casting the shards of her being into the realm of insignificance.

Fate was pleased.

The hurricane swept over leaving the angel with no more than the understanding of what she warned him of. He stood, deprived of a new beginning, rooted to the uneven ground she once tred on. Remains of his words and fragments of her being lay scattered at his feet. He did not redeem her in time. He could not. The dust settled.

On a resplendent moonlit night, in a world sold to Fate, nobody saw it.

On a resplendent moonlit night, nobody but the angel saw a star fall from the skies…

Une Averse De L'Amour*

C’était mon premier jour de travail comme stagiare medicale. J’étais à la fenêtre. Le ciel était couvert et il a commencé pleuvoir.

Tout a coup, j’ai entendu une belle voix. << Voila la pluie >> elle chantait. J’ai senti que la voix me rappelait et mon Coeur a dit, << Va, la chercher.>>

***

J’ai suivi la voix et je l’ai trouvé avec quelques enfants. Elle était très jolie avec les yeux bleus et elle chantait avec tout son amour pour les enfants. Mais sa peau était pâle, elle n’avait pas de cheveux et elle portrait la robe de l’hôpital. Quelquechose était mal.

J’ai regardé en haut et je me trouvais dans la salle de cancer.
Mon coeur était lourd.

***

J’étais à côté d’elle avec sa main dans mienne. Nous avons su que c’était sa dernière minute. Je l’ai demandé, << Vous allez être ma femme? >>

Elle était très faible mais ses beaux yeux brillaient avec l’amour pour moi. Elle a souri et une larme est tombé de son oeil.
Le ciel était couvert. << Voila la pluie >> je chantait mais
c’était une averse de l’amour.

***

Aujourd’hui, je suis docteur mais elle n’est pas avec moi. Elle est allée au paradis et je dois être bon pour voir mon amour quand je pars de ce monde.


*My tryst with French!

All He Had to Give

Crimson roses adorned her bouquet, complementing her snow white gown to perfection. Her hair cascaded down her bare shoulders with an enviable sheen and the diamonds she wore were a colorful play of light.

Her reflection stood in stark contrast to all her bridal finery. Her deep, hazel eyes were an abyss of mystery. To another it would seem like her eyes gleamed with excitement.
Only the girl in the mirror spoke otherwise, shrouded in gloom, with her tears being her only jewels, as they sparkled their way down her face.

The old clock on the wall chimed and she lowered her veil. The time had come.

As she turned to have one last glance in the mirror, to make sure her mask of happiness was in place, she sent up a silent prayer to be freed from the onslaught of her thoughts.

Her resignation to Fate made the heavens grieve.

*****

There he stood, watching from afar as she paused on the marble steps. Bridesmaids jostled about her, setting her trail, positioning her bouquet right and smoothing the creases on her dress. Her father stood to her right beaming with pride at the thought of walking his daughter down the aisle.

There he stood, watching from afar, with a beating heart and undying hope - just a tiny speck of insignificance on her big day.

The constant fuss and murmur around unnerved her. As she walked past the sea of distant faces, her eyes found his and they were caught up in a swirling hurricane of emotions. He tore his gaze away from hers for he saw what no one else could - the sparkling tear that escaped her eye, her reluctant step and her short, uneven breaths. Her bridal finery could not conceal from him the turmoil she was facing within.

As she walked past him, the broken shards of their dreams cut deep into her soles and shattered hopes paved the way to the altar where their love would be sacrificed.

She flinched and he felt her pain.

*****

"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" asked the Priest. Having been witness to numerous wedding vows being taken, he was oblivious to the silent tragedy being played out before him. She bent her head, afraid to meet the Priest's gaze, lest her heart make its grief known through her eyes.

From a hundred feet away, her faint “I do.” wrenched his heart. Rituals performed thereafter were a blur but the glistening gold band slipped onto her finger, by the stranger beside her, cemented the divide between two selfless souls.

*****

He watched from afar as she stepped over the threshold into a life of wedded bliss. Tears streamed down her parents' faces, tears of joy, as they watched their dream being fulfilled before their eyes. Her stiff, resistant demeanor was evident as she was enveloped in congratulatory hugs.

From a distance, her eyes bore into his but he questioned her in silence.
How could they have built their future on the ruins of her family's dreams? Would they have really been happy if they did?

They could not have. They would not have. She lowered her eyes in acceptance.
Loosening his heart's strings, he let her by into the unknown.

As the moon took to the skies, the trees swayed dolefully to the rhythm of the winds. He stood on those marble steps, bathed in the pale moonlight on that quiet night. In the journey called life, he had taken his beating and gave all he had to give.

His resignation to Fate made the heavens grieve.

*****

As we move through life's convoluted plot, Love sets out with faith in the unknown. Some love stories, as such, get thwarted by ancient beliefs, a few get trapped within primeval boundaries and still more, are subject to a life of age-old traditions.
Though undoubtedly powerful, these love stories are never meant to be told, never meant to see the light of day and are never meant to have a happy ending.

As we enact our parts in a scripted destiny, we come to realize that unconditional love is only embraced by the brave-hearted.

For, it takes only the power of Love...true, unconditional love...to die and let live.

Yours...and Mine

Your love was a mirage
A mystery that caught my eye
Shimmering in the distance
Untouchable, but oh, how I tried!

Your love adorned the fabric
Of well-knit hopes and dreams
When the threads began unraveling
It tore me apart at the seams

My love was blind
Precariously treading a thin line
Destruction was heading my way
Couldn’t redeem my heart in time.

My love plunged into the depths of your silence
Only to surface empty handed,
The colors on the horizon fade into oblivion
Realization has me stranded.

Stumbling against the walls of my memories,
Sending love crashing to the floor
You left without a second glance
And pain walked in through that open door.

My life hangs in balance as I watch the pendulum sway
Love equals nothing,
Nothing but contorted illusions each day

Strange is our love, making us strangers in time.
Strange was our love, a love once yours… and mine.

Love's labor lost.

Scanning a dictionary with words swimming through the yellow tint of the worn out pages, one word catches my eye and sends remorse coursing through my veins.

One word which encapsulates my life’s entire being.
One word that is apt to be my epitaph.

‘Maimed’
Definition: Rendered inoperative, Injured

"Love is like war: Easy to begin but hard to end." – Anonymous
Despite the warning, I set off on the war path…

The Opponent:

Sparkling eyes, a charming smile, an overwhelming aura.
He was the angel I once thought heaven sent for me.
He was the sun that I believed shone only for me.

The Weapons & the Blows:

A silence that conveyed volumes, shattered by the noise of the truth.
A trust that defied reason, betrayed with such brutality.
A love that rebelled against logic, maimed by ruthlessness.
A fragile heart surrendered in hope, damaged beyond repair.

My walls came crashing down leaving me defenseless against the blows that were yet to come. Hanging on with a faint pulse of doubt, a brain numbed of its senses, eyes blinded by sorrow and a life devoid of any spirit, Love blew me away and here I lie in ruins…

The Post-War Trauma:

Only survivors know just how incapacitating love can be. An emotion so potent can bring about nothing but devastation.

Like the water that threatens to gush forth, swallowing everything in its wake, like the night that creeps up, engulfing all in its never ending enormity, I regained consciousness only to find myself with nothing but a glimpse of heaven and a maimed love.

The dawn of every morning now finds me anticipating the worst as dread looms large on the horizon.

Happy and sad, laughing and crying, victorious and defeated, physically able and emotionally disabled, in a crowd and still alone...the two faces of one person.

The world seems to zoom past me, while I stand rooted in the past clutching onto a future that will never be.

Suddenly I’ve become my best company, harboring the assumption that every kind act disguises a sinister motive. Happy people come across as notorious. You guessed right. Cynicism now makes up for all the lost time.

My tears have a new found flamboyance. They showcase their shimmering best, no longer wary of the presence of an audience.

Grief, despair, tears, agony, etc., are all synonyms for solace…English really is a funny language.

Life is a weary, uphill climb...and they have the audacity to sing ‘ain’t no mountain high enough’.
Their climb was definitely not steep enough!

Life’s screenplay has become taxing; wringing me dry of any emotion and making me want to skip right through to ‘The End’.

Looking out the window at the setting sun, a sun setting on me, no longer in the skies just for me, realization dawns with stealth that my angel was never sent for me.
That glimpse of heaven was never meant to be, as a maimed love has come to be my identity.

To a Trash Magnet....with love

I was not really on a mission to clean the world. Yanked out of my comfort zone, I was dropped in the middle of Nowhere*, left wondering why I was singled out and bestowed with the ‘honor’ of being a Trash Magnet. After years of unwilling endurance, I met a fellow Trash Hero who showed me that life was not hard to get by with a pocketful of sunshine despite the truckloads of trash.

To that hero: It’s been an absolute pleasure to have met you Srinidhi Raghavan. You are the best present I never asked for but God knew I needed.

Waiting at the bus stop everyday, hordes of people pass me by and it’s startling to see how each one is a strange extension of the other...
...and then YOU come along...
A little head bobs out of a bus and there’s no need to look twice. In the everyday grey, a riot of colors is not hard to miss – you are just that. In a hop, you’re off and the spring in your step is contagious enough to make me bounce as well!! Would you believe it? Me…bouncing?!

You came into my shell and made yourself comfortable. In time, you cemented a little corner for yourself; a corner that would come to be my reservoir of happiness. Together with you, an insane joyride had only just begun.

Your chatter lended an adorable chime to the daily drone. With a smile that spread from ear to ear, you warmed everything you touched, like the first rays of the sun. It’s wonderful being at the receiving end of a heart that's so full of unconditional love.

There may be differences that put us on two planes, but getting to know you has reflected a similar core. I’m glad you’re someone who is only too happy to share my nothingness; silence has been my all time favorite conversation with you – nobody understands better.
The one time I truly loved – my love story was and still might be a disaster in slow motion. Through it all, your support has meant the world to me.

You’re moving on to clear up another part of Nowhere*, but you're leaving me with so much; a delightfully colored vocabulary, an eagerness to see what hell's like, a newly renovated and welcoming pit... We don't need to be lauded for battling life's trash; its now second nature.
This post is only my attempt at stringing together all that you have come to mean to me – my attempt at ‘Thank You’ for being a friend.

Summing up, with a beautiful song:
"You just call out my name and you know wherever i am, I'll come running to see you again. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, all you gotta do is call. I'll be there, yes i will.
You've got a friend."


*Hyderabad