The Unforgettable Desire

I: There’s no point in thinking why people cheat. It happens when it happens. People are just there. Most likely there’s an issue that they are avoiding to confront in their relationship or even accept. They know if it’s addressed then the relationship will end. And, nobody wants to part from their comfort blanket. He: Exactly. I am not even guilty. She hasn’t stopped. She has cheated before. I have done it. It doesn’t matter anymore. In the beginning, I tried to be everything she needs and wants. I did everything for her, I didn't want to cheat. Now, I don't care. It used to hurt so much. I told her I'll stop if she stops. But, she doesn't. So, here we are. She: You need to get out of this relationship. I: I can’t even judge, honestly. I am going to assume people do the best they can in the moment and hopefully have the courage to forgive themselves when it comes to that. She: I kind of do judge. He: It’s the last semester. I have told her I don’...

I hum a lot, everyone does, I suppose. In last couple of days, I have hummed the songs that had been composed by people I personally knew, which includes a couple of childhood friends and an almost. I have no idea about what they are up to these days, haven’t been in touch. Often thought about getting back together despite the circumstances of separation but couldn’t find a reason to do so. I don’t know who needs to pass the bill, but someone needs to call the useless pursuit of understanding emotions a crime punishable by death penalty for people like me to stop. Useless, because, after all these years of ‘observing’ and ‘experimenting’, all I know is that even if we get rid of social conditioning (if that’s possible), there will still be things beyond our understanding. Maybe even centuries of philosophies later, we still have not figured out a way towards deciphering human emotions or maybe women weren’t working on it before (seriously!). I am going to call it a good assumption. ...

There are a few of us who like to listen to stories without judgment, for the most part. There’s something so easy about the good guy-bad guy tag in a romantic relationship that we dislike it. There’s always a supposed clock ticking to move on which basically means shoving everything that hurts in a corner and reliving the same story with another till the time to shove hurt comes again. But us, the few of us, we are cheerleaders during heartbreaks. We like to dance with pompoms when the ones who thought they’ll die without the love of their life learn to live, as they learn romance and love were a part of their life, not the whole of it. We don’t judge them for trash talking or being clingy or whiny, we love them for wanting to live on when their faith crumbles to be rebuilt. We hear such stories all the time. The stories of heartbreaks far exceed the ones of coming together. We hear red flags and toxicity more than morning cuddles and breakfast in bed. We don’t remind them that...

A lot has been said about loneliness. A lot has been said about the difference between being lonely and being alone. I was raised in a ‘learn to be alone’ way that implied the idea of being self-sufficient. Given my childhood and teenage was dominated by my dedication to friendship, I was often asked, ‘Will any of your friends do what you do for them?’ It was based on the assumption of requiring reciprocation. I am not sure if I said it out loud, I might have, that, ‘I am not doing it for them, I am doing it because I need to do it for myself.’ A few months ago, during a conversation I asked a man if he was married. He laughed and mentioned that he is sixty nine years old. I simply added, ‘and…?’ Then he clarified that he is married and has many grand children. I understood his amusement, but I didn’t understand what age had to do with the question. A person can be widowed or divorced or homosexual or asexual or just single. Being sixty nine doesn’t say anything about his/her m...

It’s a Saturday morning. I sit at home and exist on all days of the week. For the most part, I forget to keep a track of the days that pass by. It’s only Saturday that I check up on. I was once told that I shouldn’t start anything new on a Saturday. It’s inauspicious, the work would never be complete. Given I have been said what (not) to do, I look forward to begin everything on Saturday. I do not plan it, but find myself motivated. Perhaps the sinking realization that yet another week had passed by doing nothing did the trick. So, if it hasn’t settled in your head – It’s a Saturday morning. My alarm went off at 5 o’ clock in the morning. I woke up at 5.30am. I decided that I should restart my morning walks, but not till another 30 minutes. I woke up an hour later. Light was peeping inside my dark room from the corner of the curtains. I looked up at the soothing light that would pierce my eyes in a few hours. I looked up and thought, “I have always taken pride in being alone bu...

Of course this kindergarten like colouring isn't anything like the charming book cover we sneaked at! When I saw a book named World’s Greatest Love Stories in my house library, I giggled mischievously. It was a hard bound book, with an elegant purple jacket on which ‘Love Stories’ was written in bright pink italics. I giggled because I thought, “Haww! Papa bought love stories.” Not only did he buy it, he placed it in a shelf where I could access it. I wanted to read it because I was not supposed to read it. When I picked up Romeo and Juliet in school library, the librarian took it away. She stared at me before smiling and saying, “Choose another book, this one’s not for you.” Disheartened, I thought, “It’s not for me because it is about love.” Somehow in the collective consciousness of my friends and me, Romeo and Juliet had settled itself as the greatest love story. You see, I did not want to read love stories because I knew what they were. Rather, I wanted to read them...

I did not want to make this an issue about men and women. Although I do wonder if in many urban relationships, a woman usually wants to pursue her career before settling for marriage. My brother told me about a pair of his friends who were dating but weren’t 'settling'. I asked naively, “why?” He said, “one of them wants to get married, and the other wants to focus on career.” I asked again, “who wants to keep working?” He replied, “who do you think?” “Yeah, the girl”, I said.   That conversation has stayed with me for more than a year now. While career is no easy choice for anyone, is it more important to women? Does the traditional gender role make the urban women have the need to prove themselves outside home? And, because men are expected to work, does marriage becomes an easy choice once they have a job? In one year, I have heard a friend or a friend of friend, every now and then, excuse herself from marriage market because she wants to be someone before being w...

There comes a day when we have to stop using our past as an excuse for who we are in the present. Past is supposed to be accepted. Many a times, it does seem that we have accepted it. It does seem that we have made peace with who we have become because of our past. And, if it is bad we do hope to take charge of what we do now, because we do not want to blame our today for the things we do in future. True that. But the haunting question is, what do we do with our past where we weren’t the protagonists? What if, our past has been entertaining others with its limelight? We were not backstage and we had no role to play apart from being an audience. We laughed when the acts got funny and we cried when grief took over. And, every time we had the stage to ourselves, we thought about what the acts of others left us with. We didn’t have the brain to analyse it. We missed a few shows at times, perhaps, escaped the theatre because we didn’t know how to live just as a mute audience. It i...

The outline of the distant hill keeps it separated from the dark blue sky. Forgive me for my incompetence with shades of colours. The hill looks darker than the sky, towards a shade of black. The river that buzzes throughout the day with the people from nearby slums bathing and washing clothes is camouflaged in the darkness, so does the narrow sandy road to it. But in complete silence, one can hear the sound of the river flowing. The railway line and the road by its side cannot be seen either. But every now and then, a car or a motorbike passes by. It’s headlights are the only lights. Sometimes the vehicle goes in a jiffy, sometimes it’s slower. But every time it does, my mind goes back to the underrated romance that I love so much. Source: Google Image Search ( :P ) As the night takes over dusk, I look outside my window and tell mom, “this view gives me such a Lootera  feeling.” My mom asks me, “What is a Lootera wali feeling?” I say, “You know, when Ranveer and Sonak...

SRK movie| "Love You Zindagi"|  Alia Bhatt| Gauri Shinde. Don’t do overacting| Some romanticised concept/ optimistic way of looking at life| Don’t disappoint me after Udta Punjab | Oh, she will make it look so good. That’s how I reacted to the first trailer of Dear Zindagi . I was pretty sure that the story won’t be new. I was surer that Gauri Shinde will not disappoint me. I have watched English Vinglish a number of times. It’s in fact my go-to movie, if one may say so, when I am low. It is a movie, but it also reminds me that my understanding of the politics of a house is a general understanding, only unacknowledged by most. With that in mind, I wanted to watch Dear Zindagi , to have the feel of a Gauri Shinde film; a film which is unconventional at the most conventional points and somehow doesn’t go haywire.

At 22, I have realised that people have underestimated the power/fun/peace of being alone. The state of being Alone is often confused with loneliness and hence met with pity or sympathetic remarks. Four years ago when I moved to Delhi, away from my family, I went to shop alone and got myself dinner. Upon my return to the hostel room, my roommate was shocked to know that I spent the day alone. She failed to understand why a person would choose to walk around alone when s/he can have company easily. In fact, if I remember correctly then she often said that she had never known people like me before.

As she looked towards her left, she saw him approaching her from the corner of the street. At the sight of him, she smiled. Blushed in fact. Her anger from the previous night was gone. She couldn’t recall a single word from the lecture she had mentally prepared and rehearsed, in an attempt to explain him where the two of them were wrong in their latest argument. But there she was, unable to control the hormones that danced at the sight of him.