The day I failed to pray

If only I had a mole here,

If only I had that flick more like that,

If only I could have him in my New Year theme party,

If only I could be amongst those people,

If only I had little of this and little of that and more of everything else.

I have literally summarized all that we girls wish for, all that we pray to god for. Now if you won’t please jump to the conclusion that we are always this mundane (I have to get defensive, don’t I?), but then, analogous to the way in which guys wish for more of sex, we wish for more of these mundane things.

Coming to the point, so one fine day, suppose I have all that I have wished for, will I be better person than I am now? Will just one flick of hair twisting the way I want in morning, that one mole shifting its place by few inches, that one guy’s attention that I wanted to draw, that group that I wanted to be included in, invitation to that party that I wasn’t invited in, will they make me in any way, more happier that I am now?

We girls say yes, definitely it would! :P

So that day, there I was, on the Insti’s roof. Sat there chatting with a friend, and constantly staring at the sky, just in case I get to see a shooting star. I would then ask for the world from it!!! And I had not an iorta of doubt that it will fulfill all my wishes, It was “The Shooting Star” after all + I was an aquarian+ A girl! And not just our professors, but even Gods favor girls. :P

And there it was, then n there! I couldn’t believe I had found it that day, FINALLY! C’mon wish for the world Gunjan, wish for your world, that guy. “That Guy”? No, he won’t still be my world after few months! Wish for that awefuckingsome career. That success story, in which everybody looks upto you for decisions and is intimidated by your success. But fuck! Oh wait! You crazy?  If that’s what I want, I’ll get it myself, why ask the star for it. Then if nothing else Oh star! Give me those “cool” people as my friends. I’ll be happiest then. But wait! Fuck them? No, they aren’t worth wasting a Star on them.

That’s it, The star then gave me an epiphany, well, kind of.

It was just not me that was looking for that “shooting Star”. It was everyone around me. While I was in bed crying for a broken heart or a being ditched by a friend, others too were sitting on the beach and talking to the sea about it. When I was worrying about being independent and earning money, other were too struggling to pay their loans back. Those moments in which I felt I was alone, scared and confused, I was actually sharing them with every other person of my age! Those people that I thought are selfish, were actually confused if they were too generous in this cruel world, and trying to become smarter for their own good!

Oh Fish! How come I never realized that this was it. I am as awkward as every “Just out of teens” in this world. I have as many bumps in career, as many broken hearts and as many emo problems as any other person.

This is that time to be happy, when I have no else’s profit margins to worry about, when I don’t have to worry about my next meal, my place of stay, my bunk,  no worries about other people’s (read a  husband’s) dinner!

And stating Bryan Adams with just a change of tense “These ARE the best days of my life!”

The three Marketers!!!

So let’s talk about three types of marketers that we are. Beware, this article isn’t gonna be about any marketing gyans.

Some time back, while outside a mall, there came a little girl with flowers in her hand. “Ae didi, lelo na didi, teri naukri acchi lagegi didi, Bhagvan teko accha pati dega didi.” And Eureka! I just found the true MBA’s in life. The enlightened ones. And no, this is not sarcasm.

So, for past one month, I have been studying people, and the ways in which they market themselves.

There are three kinds of marketers:

1)      Those who market (read sell) themselves for livelihood.

No idiots, you got it wrong. I am not talking about the illegal (or so they are in India) salesmen (women). I was talking about all of you in general. This category includes all those people who market themselves in front of their bosses, who believe that a good presentation is a means to a good promotion, and that behind every successful man, there is a happy boss. And behind every happy boss, there is a frustrated inside but smiling outside marketer.

This category also includes those, who we call “the joru ka gulam”. After all, a wife is a greater threat to life than a mere mortal boss! She is “the goddess”, who can deny you food in your own house, who has the authority to throw a ball for you to catch and ask you to wag your tail. So its wise of you if you are able to sell yourself to her. This attitude also comes in handy when you plan to have an extra marital affair.

2)      Those who market themselves for long term benefits.

These are the people who market themselves to attract the opposite sex (and pataofy their parents after that). Consider yourself a master in this art if you are a pro in updating seemingly depressed, and deep meaning status messages on fb. And also those, who ask “Let me buy you a drink” question, and never have had to hear a “no”.

Well, this kind of art is a necessity, because after all, you don’t want that special one to think “I don’t know what was worse? Meeting you, or thinking that it was nice meeting you!” Also because you would not want to be a BBC (Bin baat chep!)

3)      Those who market themselves for survival.

Well, here’s the third category, and the best one at it. This includes those, who believe in being indispensable, so as to make the world fall on their feet.

The girl mentioned above is one of them. The likes of her, know what you pray for even before you tell it to the almighty, and they’ll never hesitate to blackmail you for the same, in return for some livelihood. For that matter, ever noticed these people in front of the Lotus Temple, Delhi? They know German and French, even without being taught, because it is what their customers would understand, and maybe, speaking a phoren language will help them get that extra edge! Such is this type, striving for more and killing for the best!

Because as they say

"When facing a lion, pitying him is of no use, because he’s not gonna extend the same courtesy to you!"

The gift that it was:

What I am to you decides

Who you'll be to me.

You said you are worthy of love n care,

and that's what you became to me,

A friend for life is what you are now

And not just another memory.

This all will end, these wonderful moments will. They will all drift away from me, fade away from my memories, and from my life. I’ll have newer set of friends, and I am sure I’ll never remember them ever again, I’ll be ‘that’ busy with my new life. After all, I make friends pretty quickly, I am that chubby and chirpy girl who is way more comfortable with strangers rather than the ones she already knows.

And then my last day there came. Though a bit too soon, I was happy. Happy because after 3 long years of wait, I was going to the place that always intimidated and seduced me. I was going to do what I (Read my father too) always wanted me to do. And it was gonna be a place which was very much in demand! A place where I had been selected out of 3 lakh Indians (there, finally I got to boast publically).

I wasn’t about to cry, no not that day.

But only that one girl, my best friend, was the one, I thought about. Will I ever see her again in life? Will she ever remember me, and the times we bitched about people together, the times she taught me to dance (you can just guess what kind of dance), and the times she taught me to put an eye liner on, also the day she taught me not to dread a treadmill, and what about the times we went to movie together, just us, because no one else was there to ask to. And not to forget the name I gave to her : Safed Chudki ( Fair Witch)

Then I’ll surely miss him, this sweet and caring, (and conscious, because I call him not sir, also not by his name, but bhaiya) brotherly dude! He will always be missed for whatever insights he gave me, because  whatever he told has come out to be true (maybe because he has a black tongue or something). He was the coolest and the smartest person I had ever met (He also maybe that one eyed man who is the king amongst the blinds.).

But I’ll miss no one else! Nobody else mattered that much! Everyone else was just someone else.

But then came the farewell hour. And I got that cute little gift that I am shameless to say, I still sleep with. No, not memories, they are there always. Whenever I look for a rescue when things are attacking me from all sides, they are there, yes. And so will be all those beautiful things they had to say to me, written down nicely in an Infosys notepad, tucked safely in my almirah to refer to whenever I may need.

But I was talking about that cute little almost replica of mine. The one with a brown muffler and a tilted brown hat. The one with a pot belly and a cute little defective, unaligned nose.

And then I realized that I can never forget them. They will always remain special for me. Theirs will be the memories that I’ll lean on in the times of heartbreaks. Theirs will be the words that I’ll recall in case of friendships gone sour. Their faith in me and happiness for me is what I’ll sleep with when I’ll fail. They will be remembered forever. Because they all are those cute aliens, who came and won me over.

A hope in the womb

( this again is a work of fiction, and my will to fight against this practice!)

I'll pray to see you happy

And I'll live to see you smiling,

I'll feed you with my hands

And I'll clap when you succeed,

I'll discuss the loves of your life

And I'll help you in fights,

I'll pray for your well being,

And I pray to see you soon.

I was scared, and hungry, and damn tired. I had been running all day long. I wished that I didn’t have to run anymore, but it was getting away. I could see it, just few steps more and then I’ll leap, and I’ll catch hold of its neck and get it home!

There was mist all around. I could see nothing around, except for that! I was running, on nothing. The mist befriended cold, and like a sweet temptress, it was trying to make me lose it. The cold was killing too, piercing the bones and reaching within, to add to my fear. There were people who were coaxing me to let go of it, but I couldn’t see them. This gave me little strength, their horrendous and angry faces would have made me let it go.

I shouted for help, but obviously there was no one around, and then suddenly I saw a lady, wailing and crying for help too. The thought that I wasn’t alone brought some light, and more mist. The wailing lady could be a friend of the mist and cold!

Faking braveness, I moved forward, maybe that wailing lady really needed help. But alas! It was despair, waiting to hound me and trick me into giving up. And the mist and cold clapped violently. The darkness smirked, and grew its claws, it attacked me. Then despair caught my hands and tied them around, to let the mist and cold surround me, and suffocate me to death.

Please, oh please let me give up. It’s no use fighting anymore. Darkness, despair, mist and cold. They won’t let me get to it, they are dragging me away from it, and it is farther now from before.

It was hope, a hope to save my baby that I was trying to catch. It was a hope to save the life within me that may, sometime in future, become a beautiful, self made, and a successful woman. It was a hope that saving this life, may in future, bring prosperity to many more such lives.

But all was gone. That hope went away, with tear in its eyes. And with that hope went away a daughter, a friend, someone’s wife, and a mother. With my hope, went away many such lives and smiles. And what settled in were darkness, despair, mist and cold. And together they gave birth to depression, hatred and anger. None of which were ever blessed and welcomed by the world, but were always given to the likes of us to bear.

Secrets: The only thing that belongs to you and is yours to bury.

(This is purely a work of fiction, and my twisted emotions!!)

I am yours to play with

And yours to cuddle to

I am yours to manipulate

And yours to exploit,

I am yours to cry with,

And yours to take to grave.

 

I am not alone in this world, I never was. Not at that ice cream stall, where I stole Rs 10 of my friend’s to eat an orange bar, just because my mother can’t afford to let me eat ice creams. I was not alone when all my friends were laughing at me, because I still wore that same old school uniform that I had been wearing since I was 5. I was not alone when the teacher shoed me away, because I belong to those, who don’t have a bed to sleep in.

 I was not alone when I was standing there, watching my mother being harassed by the only man in her life. I was not alone when that man in my mother’s life, came and thrashed me, because I had failed in exams, once more. I had my secrets with me.

But as they say “Change is the only thing that is constant in life”, well, things changed for me too. My mother finally met a man worth her, and she fled. She fled with joy in her heart, she fled with wings on her back, she fled like a woman in love, she fled like a koyal, leaving me behind.

Leaving me behind with a man who was only feared at his home, and respected by none, a man who if given a chance, would rot to death rather than live a life, a man who would rather not live, than earn for that living. But I have never been alone.

How could I be alone when I watched that man bring substitutes of my mother to home? How could I be alone when that man drank while I starved? How could I be alone when he thrashed me again and again? How could I be alone when I became a substitute to my own mother for that man? I had rage within me.

I had not been alone when I was thrown into the streets to feed for my own self. I had not been alone when I went without food for days. I had not been alone when I was raped and beaten by many strangers. I had my own companion. It was Rage.

Rage proved to be treacherous too. It left me when I was on the street, with a knife in my hand, with cool breeze piercing my body, and my clothes torn, with blood dripping, with the street adorning the blood like it’s a martyr’s. Rage left me, and darkness settled in.

I died, but I was not alone. I died with my secrets with me. My secrets, that never left me. My secrets, those were not for the world, but for me. My secret, the only one’s who loved me in return for my love. My secrets, who will always be with me forever and ever and ever.