GHOSTS

GHOSTS

Screech..
A sharp swerve, instinctive survival reflexes kicked in and the car
was braked sharply at the roadside.

A sharp sensation rose from the back of my head and slowly died out.
I waved an assuring hand at the couple of cars who had stopped by to
check on me.

Rickshaws stopping or swerving mid way without signalling are a common
thing in my city. No wonder the people who'd noticed the fiasco were
concerned about me!

I let my head clear, the pain stopped. I composed myself. I was
driving to a friend's place for her birthday, I should try not to look
ravaged.

I reached her place and called her to join me in the car, another
friend was to join. Waiting for the birthday girl I got out of the car
to stretch my shaking legs.

My heart was pumping fast, adrenaline flowing through my veins had me
all high strung. Thank God for the quick reflexes. I didn't think I
had any! For a second i felt like Van Diesel! Only for a second, the
next second I drew my mobile out of my pocket and messaged 'her'
friend.
When your love is taken from you, you try hard to get it back.
I intended to try understanding her or atleast die trying. Yes, I'd
seen the rickshaw stop a lil before me but i was busy thinking,
understanding her. Usually I would have slowed down, but my mind
wasn't concentrating on the road.

I messaged 'her' friend to do me a favour and look after 'her'.

I got back in the car, started some light music, nerves needed quick
calming. I didn't want to ruin my friend birthday by being all high
strung.

My friend's arrived, we went for a drive, I was unusually quite. These
are my close friends, the birthday girl 'C' asked me. I joked about
it. We went for pastries. 'C' sent another friend to get the pastries
in the car, it was raining outside.

'C' was direct, she asked about 'her'. I told 'C' about 'her' and the
dream she had. 'C' said, another person in my place would've been
enraged, she was glad i wasn't. You should give her time, we girls
think a lot and complicate things beyond reason sometime.
I smiled and then we had pastries and I drove 'C' to the church and my
other friend to her home.
I was as careful as I could be on my way back.

While checking my head wound, i contemplated. We all have ghosts,
skeletons in the closet. What matters is how much we let them haunt
us.
I too have mine and nice stories they'd make but I've slammed my
closet shut and if ever it creaks open and i see the dementors make a
beeline for me, i call upon my patronus of all things good.
And so far the patronus has prevailed.

I Suffer..

I suffer, from a part of me,
Dead and left behind that no one may see..

I weep not, neither cry,
For long days have gone by..
These cheeks once tear stained,
Have I known cried in vain..

Numb they may have become,
But they don't believe in giving up, she'll come..

But do I want that any longer,
We won't ever be together..

That I know for sure indeed,
For what I had sown has not/will not be reaped.

Then why carry this deadweight,
Why can't I get my mind straight?

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.

A Stray Song

I love sitting on the stairs and watching the hustle and bustle of this great city, as people pass by doing what they think they must. 
A few days ago, I sat just like that; while I sat staring at the monotony of human routine, a stray K9 came up to me. I got a packet of biscuits from the general stores right outside the building gates and sat back offering it to the dog, and the stray dog offered me the random rhyme written below...

This picture of a stray was taken at Alibaug last year. This ain't the stray that helped me with this random rhyme. I was so busy typing out the words on my mobile that I forgot to photograph the stray doggy, and by the time I was done typing, the doggy had long gone...

I bark, I scare, I howl,
you pass me by, as u see me scowl..


You see me as you rush by,
on the street as I lie..


Watching you hurriedly walk,
and at times I choose to stalk..


As you wave a shooing hand,
I'm hoping if a chance I stand..


That it might be your happy day,
and you might feed a starving stray..


Most often I get kicked at,
I don't think too much, I leave it at that..


But seldom does a caring soul,
come along with biscuits and a milk bowl..


I jump, I wag, I prance around,
not for the food, but my love newfound..

I remember myself as a lil puppy,
all the love, kids, & once again I'm happy..


Those were the best days,
of my life as a stray..

All I now wish is, for a biscuit or two,
a pat on the head instead of a 'shoo'...

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...

When in love...

The anticipation,
The yearning, to
Be wanted
Be understood,
Be needed
Be felt,
To be shy
Be touched
But to feel deep within
be warm,
Be fulfilled
Be consummated.
To Feel secure,
to be complete
That's a decimal of a quarter of a conscious feeling when in love,
with her who is in love with me...

My coming out story...

It seems a long ago that I devised a plan to carefully play my cards and present my preferences to my mom. I've been wanting to talk about it ever since. So here it is...

Never have I planned my life, I live everyday as it presents itself to me. Yet, for once I felt the need to structure how this act would be performed. I tried several times to create an ideal conversation. But it somehow refused to appeal to both my instinct and better judgement. Until one day, I read an advertisement for a play. It was not any ordinary commercial play, it was an experimental theatre act written by Chetan
Datar- 'Ek Madhavbaug'.

The play showcased a single actor (actress actually), a mother. Living all by herself, as her grown up sons pursued their careers elsewhere. On one eventful day she receives several blank calls, frightened and frustrated she threatens the caller with dire consequences. The threats finally instigate the caller to speak. The caller accuses her son to be a faggot, and further adds that it is due to him that the caller's son has attempted suicide!
This news shatters the mother out of her wits. She goes through the personal belongings of all her sons. To her shock she finds a pendrive in her youngest son's belongings revealing diary entries of his troubled childhood where he was confused and frightened. He expresses his feelings abundantly; tears flow as fast as words, streaming down the mother's cheeks as she imagines the turmoil her youngest son went through.
The play ends with an enlightened supportive mother who stands by her son's side as they visit her son's partner at the hospital. The partner survives the suicide attempt and they live happily ever after.
An alternative end has also been suggested, wherein the youngest son suicides like his partner who committed suicide due to parental pressure for marriage.

It was a lazy saturday morning that I read the advertisement. I was to meet my three school friends for a dinner followed by a slumber party that night. The play was on sunday, late in the evening.
My mind was already contemplating.
I might not be a long term planner, but the things I do in everyday life, I do them in a very orderly manner.
That night, a part of me wanted to share my anxieties with my friends, the other half was worried sick that I would jinx the situation. I decided to keep mum, my friends did question me. They always know..
I might deceive the world with my one act plays but there are few who always sense my trouble. These three school friends are amongst the people who know me really well, my maternal grandmom who I call 'Ajji'
and my maternal aunt who I call 'Aaii' complete the list.

The next morning as I made my way back home, I chalked my plans.
After the lazy sunday lunch, I told my mum that I had read bout this advertisement in the newspaper for Chetan Datar's play.

A little about Chetan Datar. He is a most prolific playwriter and director. Sadly he passed away a few years ago at a very young age. Chetan was also my mom's childhood friend. Chetan and his brothers often played together with my mum and her friends. She often told me about how he was a quite little kid, but a very sound man indeed! He was younger to her by a few years. The last she saw him was when she had visited our old  abode in South Bombay.
She tells me, "Chetan asked me to join him for a cup of tea at his place. She had to decline, although she wanted to catch up on all those years. But, she had an appointment to keep. Now that I think about it, I too wish to have met him, he has played a major role in my coming out story.. Sigh!

My mom agreed on my plans to go for the play. She knew nothing bout the subject of the play. Dad wasn't at home that sunday, we had dinner quite early and headed for the theatre. We purchased two tickets and took our seats. There were few other people in the audience.
The play began..
and ended...

We stood up, applauded and left the theatre. It was a very strong subject and an essentially intensive drama. Mom was quite on the way back. I started talking bout the various other Indian perso nalities who are supposedlygay.. As we reached home, my sis asked me bout the play. I took her to our room and explained the situation to her. She asked me to sleep beside mom that night and explain everything to her. I gathered
my guts, lying beside my mom, words which are usually my forté had now deserted me.
I asked mom how she found the play. She expressed her liking for the actress and the scraipt. We chatted a little about Chetan Datar.
Once again I gathered a little courage. This time I atleast had the courage to tell my mom that I wanted to
tell her something that was connected to the play. I saw the expression on her face change and I lost my strength once again.
That was it, I couldn't do it anymore. My sister was sleeping on a single bed beside ours. She frantically gestured me to start talking, I gestured back that I couldn't. I was terribly choked up. It felt like
an invisible hand was choking me, denying me my freedom of speech.
Finally my sis got out of her bed and onto ours and told mom that I wanted to say the same things that the youngest son in the play had told his mother!
That was plainly put. My mom got the gist of things.
There were a lot of tears and drama about why I didn't tell her bout this earlier.
Ofcourse, she also asked me about whether I was sure bout this. So then I had to tell her very objectively bout my first relationship with Sreelakshmi. Thankfully, there weren't any pointy questions!
Mom kept asking me though, why I didn't tell her about this earlier. I told her frankly that, I wanted to get a job, put aside some money...create a cushion around me in case things turned ugly, which in some cases they have.

This awesome lady is my mom btw...    :)

Mum rebuked me saying how I could possibly think that she would desert me for this reason! After all her argument was right, she's a mother. Then again I was just taking care of the contingency plan.
I slept in fits of an hour or so as our chat had continued till 4 in the morning.
I was extremely exhausted after all this. I had made my mom a few promises. That I would not go public with this and also not tell it to my dad till she thought that it was the right time.
I told her that if I meet a trustworthy person who asks me, then I shall give a thought to revealing my identity.

That's it... That's my coming out story! 
So, alls well that ends well I guess! It's one step ahead in the explorer's quest... The next step is even more exciting, and it involves a venust lady and courting and blushing and the works! :)

Anwesha the Explorer solemnly declares that she is smitten ;) Nay madly in love with...
This is already too long a blogpost, so my fair reader, you shall have to await my next blogpost :)