I Blinked...

I blinked. The sun was in my eyes. I shifted the chair to position myself better across her. She was sitting there looking right back at me.

“Incoming Transmission…”, the mobile message tone broke the trance which was one of the several that I would have in the next three quarters of a hour. I was waiting with her at the airport for her departure. 

Ten days ago I was at the same terminal awaiting her arrival to Maximum city.

She smiled a dopey smile at me, one that I had seen several times over skype and yet considered it to be brighter in person. My thoughts were racing back to that eventful Sunday when I replied to her blog query and also to the email she had sent on my gmail  i.d. The same day evening was spent chatting away to a complete stranger about random stuff. The next week was full of text messages and silly sms jokes, the week after that came the Facebook requests and so it went on. It had cultivated itself into a beautiful relationship.

How I wish I could update that on Facebook!
No, it’s not time yet. Not cause I’m unsure of the relationship but, simply because I am unsure of reactions and I am not yet ready to face the questions yet.

Me & She @ the Kanheri Caves

After five whole months of revelry, we were to finally meet for a real tete a tete. I was unsure of how I should address her and how would I go about to ensure that she had the best of the time. But over the ten days of her stay in my city, everything just seemed to take care of itself without much ado. Plans fell into place like they had always meant to be! A visit to the Gateway of India, the Haji Ali Mosque, a trip to the Kanheri caves and national park with its lion & tiger safari where she thought that those savages and their cubs were cute! Little does she know that one of those lions had recently killed a zookeeper. But all that didn’t matter for now. All that did was she was sitting before me, ready to leave.  I wasn’t. Maybe she wasn’t too.

The last four days that I had spent with her suddenly felt like a distant dream… a mirage!
I knew that it was something I was supposed to get used to, I comforted myself that at least I was having this feeling again and in that I was glad. I wouldn’t forget all those moments spent together.

My day dream was cut short by a smoking-like-chimney arab fellow sitting beside us. She noticed my expression and asked, “you can’t stand smoke can you?” I had just stirred out of my day dreaming and mumbled something incoherent.

The time kept ticking as I made small talk with her while my mind played narrator.

The mobile buzzed again, it was the alarm, it was time to say our good byes.

A short hug, see you soon (on skype ofcourse!) and she was gone past the terminal gates in a blink. This time I did not.

How I feel about you...

If only you knew,
How I feel about you...
You make my day woman
and go away whenever I do,
I don't know how I shall live without you...


I know its true,
that's what I feel bout you.
I hope & pray that you do so too...

What doth ye desire?

SILENCE…

The one phenomenon that assures peace.
You can silence things, you can silence animals and you can silence people. Whether you do it through coercion or force, it does not really matter.

What matters is, “Can you silence yourself?”

The very few times I have been able to attain just that, I have been at peace, almost like a trance... like as if absolutely nothing could affect me. 

 

Today was one of those exceptional times that I could achieve that serenity. In that frame of mind, a singular question resonated in my mind...
All of us at some point in our lives question the raison d'être. The causes usually vary from family and friends, career goals, vengeance, many a times it’s just for the love of life and discovery of the new.
All these reasons create a desire, a strong sense of wanting, that ties us firmly to life as we know it.
So we live on…

For someone who has little or no care for those things, the question in my mind repeats itself. Why life? what doth ye desire?
It resonates in me, like the echo of bells even after they have stopped ringing. It unsettles my mind and I sense it flinch.

Desires… I seem to have run out of those.
When I see a lone bird across the sweltering skies, the blades of grass decorated with the summer’s dew, a doggy wagging its tail at me even when it knows that all I can afford is a pat or a rub, it gladdens my heart. There are several things that are capable of making my mind smile, be content, and rejoice in those little joys that fill my existence with warmth and hope.

But these are not what humans define as desires, desires are those that lead you on, desperately… keep you going even in the toughest of times and fill you with the hope and the fantasy of achievement even before you have partially accomplished your task to fulfill a desire.

Yes, I do have my share of family and friends and they do care for me. I had a set of goals for myself—to get into a good college, to excel in at least one extra-curricular activity, to graduate with distinction, to become a journalist and then an editor. I have scored successfully on each of these tasks.  I have also been in love, once in my life… it was beautiful indeed! I have shared my life with the person I thought I could not live without, and yet here I am pretty complete even without her. And no, I am not bitter towards love or for that matter the very person I loved. It seems pretty much like been there done that sort of a thing. Yet, I shall not say that I have done all that one may in a lifetime. However existence does not excite me.
I do care for my loved ones, and my work. But that desire, I feel is not strong enough to keep me tethered to life.

And again I come back to the same question— what doth ye desire?

I visited my granny yesterday; she asked me what I wanted as a birthday gift. I replied, ‘nothing’. She continued, “I have received that answer from many, and yet I know that in the heart of their hearts, most desire something and a few desire someone. Yet, I find you actually meaning what you speak and this I understand through my years of experience.”
She went on to add, “You seem to care for nothing you own, like life would be just the same without those things, and even with people the emotion is repeated. You care for them in your own little ways that sometimes even go unnoticed.
What exactly appeals to you? Why do you behave like a bairaagi (hermit)?—
What doth ye desire?”

Hmm… and there again I come to my central idea, my difficulty with existence which questions my very raison d'être.

And now I am unable to silence myself.
One word describes me best—the one word that has been ruling my life since the time that my realisations exist—STOIC. 

Its been long

My last post was written 8-9 months ago.


I could give myself a thousand excuses as to why I haven't been around my blogspace, and yet I would know that I could have written almost daily. Not like there wasn't anything to say. I just wasn't able to make myself say it. Even now as I realise that I am rambling on, I think to myself, but what were the specific reasons behind my prolonged silence?


It could be any of the following reasons,

1. I accepted my existance and but, I am yet apprehensive somewhere in my mind. (It will take some time being myself!)
2. I joined the media publishing unit at my workplace. The challenges seemed as tall as the Himalayas. (What with the bitchy creatures in my team, I have got used to them now and it doesn't matter any more)
3. Exams! The one strong phenomenon which repeatedly makes me feel like a nervous kid. (Persuing my masters, so far so good. Keeping my fingers crossed, while I worry my head off!)
4. Trying to make time for family responsibilities, while at the same time finding time for myself to meet up with friends. (I've hardly had any alone time lately.
5. I think some one is stalking me on cyberspace (I mean IT!)
6. I was given additional responsibility which meant that I was single handedly churning out two B2B magazines, one monthly and the other bi-monthly. ( It was madness in the beginning, but I got used to this too, by God's grace I must say! I didn't know that I had it in me..) This is the major reason.

Anyways, all said and done. There have been BIG changes in my life lately. The quest has taken many new happy and a few not so happy turns.

Will talk about them soon.

gay forever after, but what next!

I realize that so far I haven't posted many real life diary entries.
I've been mostly bantering around, describing all my miserableness & low down feelings.. Can't really help it, when you don't seem to find any substance in your life anymore. Cause although I have come to terms with my being gay forever after, I don't know what next!


For any hetero-sexual in India, life has been well defined-
You grow up, study hard, pass exams, arm yourself with educational degrees, get a job, search a wife/husband, settle down, get a decent house, create respect for your family in society, procreate, bring up children, get them married off & then retire.


Very well defined.


For a homosexual, it's like being the 1st batch student of a newly introduced syllabus for a board exam and there aren't any reference papers or question banks from the previous years!


No wonder I was always so lost. In fact, I am even today!
Cause although I know what I am & what I want and how exactly to go achieving it...
By far, the greatest question is-
When do I decide that I wanna come out?
How do I say it to my parents?
Do I declare it to the world?
Do I change my nationality? and go reside in some nation which allows my kinda people to exist peacefully, by the way, does such a place even exist?


Or simpler still..
Do I fuck it all and simply die...!


the last option though I have decided not to even think about... is nevertheless most tempting!

It's a first

It's a first for me, not just the blog, but speaking myself out rather than just hearing me all the time. Writing I have done, over the years I have made it my profession and yet as I type these words onto the screen there is a profound sense of anxiety and relief all at the same time.


So far all that I have ever written about myself has always been hidden and kept to myself or at most to my most loved ones. That's enough of narcissim for a day. Will come up with a better literary post next time, when my initial anxiety has died down. Till then cheerio!

-The explorer on a quest