Closet.

I open the doors, I see a lot of things. I explore them all. Each “thing” has a story. I try to remember them all. Few bad, few good, few special. Without realizing, I have millions of stories. They are mine, I possess them and they belong to me. I need them all. However, I do not want all of them. The ones I don’t want are just lying there, they still exist in my being. They stay, not allowing new me to move ahead. They are all there, just there, and their existence is proof of my negligence towards myself.

I see them and remember a lot of things. I commit to memory, go into a trance. I think of every story I survived. It starts giving birth to countless negative emotions. I reminisce what I intended to leave behind but is still existing in my present, growing without my knowing. Hate and anger is all I know. I don’t want them. I can’t see the good.

They need to go. I decide to remove them forever. I begin my process. I start cleaning…

Photograph by Tapan Pandit

VICTORY OF THE LOST BATTLE!

He woke up with the usual noise of the phone ringing. He knew it was Arpita calling, (trying) to wake him up and make him reach the station on time. His 7 o’clock local train was one thing he never missed because it meant taking a taxi and reaching office late, which again he hated. He liked everything to be perfect.
"Hmmm.." he said answering the call.
"Goodmorning! Wake up! J" Her voice was one thing he couldn’t miss either.
"Hmmm.."
"Wake up please. You’ll miss the train."
"Hmmm.."
"I’ll call back in 5minutes to check. Mwah."
The phone did not ring again. He knew it wouldn’t. He knew Arpita more than he knew himself and it was the same the other way around. She had been his girlfriend since the past 6 years and his wake up call ever since. They had shared everything together and dreamt of doing so for a lifetime. He knew and loved every bit of her.
The frequency of their meetings and calls had reduced tremendously since their college days, but the love continued to grow. And today was a special day. He would be talking to his parents about her, them and their marriage.
He reached the office on time as usual. His office was something he worshipped. If it hadn’t been for this job, he would have been a totally different person and his journey wouldn’t have been the same either. Reaching his destination wouldn’t have been in the scenario. Just as he entered his cabin, his cellphone rang again.
" Hope you’ve reached office. I’m off to the shoot. C’ya in the night. Best of luck for today." Arpita was a girl of few words and that was the best part about her. She said it all in the unsaid way.
His life was perfect at the age of 27. He had a perfect home, perfect parents, a perfect job, a perfect car coming in a week and he had Arpita. She was perfection personified. Maybe more than love, it was this that kept their love alive and the romance undying.
He woke up the next morning with nothing like before. His parents had expressed their strong rejection for Arpita and he knew nothing would change that. Not liking her nature of work, her bold attitude for a woman and her family background, they had said she would never keep them happy.
He had never fought, never worked towards a thing in his life. But one thing was straight. To have arpita would mean not having his perfect home, parents and car. He had let arpita know the situation as soon as he had digested it himself. She had not protested knowing him more than he knew himself. He couldn’t believe he had ended a strong 6 year relationship just like that, in the span of a night. It was however, her last message that made him feel like a coward.
" It’s the lost battle you need to fight and win."
She expected him to go to her and atleast give a reason. That’s all she deserved in the least. But she knew he wouldn’t. He gave it a lot of thought himself. But he too knew, he couldn’t. For months, nothing changed. He lived his life in identical days for almost a year. If not everyone, his parents were happy and his car had brought him some happiness too.
A year later, he got married to Pooja, a girl of his parents’ choice. Pooja was a girl who could make anyone feel complete. Her life had been dedicated to her parents and now to her husband and their expecting child. It was her 8 month of pregnancy. She was perfect in her own world and one could find possibly nothing negative in her. A writer by profession, she had an ability of making everything around her peaceful and serene.
It was their last dinner at their favourite restaurant, just opposite Marine Drive. He left to take the car by which time Pooja would take a small walk along the sea. Pooja suddenly felt the urge to have ice-cream and decided to parcel it for the night. She would finish it with her usual late night movie. She found sleeping early a bit difficult now-a-days.
He got the car out of the parking lot and was surprised to not find pooja near the usual place opposite the Taxi Stand. He called her immediately. He got very restless now-a-days if she was not in front of her eyes.
"Hello! I was just going to call you. I’ve come back to the hotel to parcel some ice-cream."
" You should have told me. I got so worried till I heard your voice."
" Nothing would happen to me. Ever."
" Come soon. I’m waiting."
"I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait till eternity." She said and laughed jokingly.
At that particular moment, he heard a ear deafening sound and saw the hotel and his life blow into pieces. He knew it was over. He ran inside knowing he wouldn’t be allowed. The next 10 hours were spent with ambulances, police, sirens and fire brigades. The endless calls from home did not help. Afterall, his parents loved pooja more than he did. She was their dream come true daughter in law. He was finally told what he already knew, in the wee hours of the morning. He just couldn’t forget the last words pooja had said to him.
Exactly a year later, he sat on the same spot at Marine Drive analyzing his life so far. People had organized a peace march for the last years’ catastrophe. His life was shattered, his planned perfect life. It would never build again. He had not been to work, not said a word, not done a thing.
Just then a small child came to him with a lit candle, paper and pen. He was a school going child taking down suggestions and protests for the incident that had changed his life and of million others. He looked down at the child and a tear came down his eye. By now, he would have been a father himself. He remembered only one thing and smiled for the first time in a year and wrote down something he had never himelf followed but now intended to.
" It’s the lost battle you have to fight and win."

Where was he????

People dead, families lost......generations vanished. The destruction murdered the reason for life..!! The world changed in a glance..
The start of a new life ended before it could begin.. for some the sleep continued till eternity.. some just continued to be.. just the existence remained..!!
IF THERE IS A GOD, WHERE WAS HE??

The child tries, but he can't reach.. he does, as told.. he tolerates with no choice.. he can't do what others do.. he can't recognize existence.. common sense is uncommon to him.. n life is unfair..!!
He knows he doesn't deserve the life he got.. he knows he's different.. but he doesn't know WHY??
IF THERE IS A GOD, WHERE WAS HE??

She works in the street of the forbidden.. a widow supporting her creations.. you can see the living death in her eyes..
She comes home with bread that cost her, her being.. she fills the empty.. a dry, dead leaf sheltering from the scortching sun..
She smiles, closes her eyes just to wake up to another dark room in the street..
IF THERE IS A GOD, WHERE WAS HE??

The Beautiful Encounter.

Closing doors to the world, they continued their journey to love and to dissolve in it.

Giving way to the need of the moment, they drowned in the depth of The Unsaid. For them, it was a knowingly unknown path.

With unsaid words, they travelled the distance between their souls. Lost in moments of undying emotions, they experienced the divine feeling of The Touch.

And thus, the unnoticed incompleteness in them completed to be called as The Beautiful Encounter.

Marriage - The Institution.

The Journey started two years back, when both said, “ I do” and showed their belief in the institution called Marriage.

One day, he left, for reasons of no importance. He had found another companion, someone he thought was better. Soon enough, he faced failure. It was then that he realized, his companion was one only of Happiness. This lead to The Realization.

When you are in a relationship with a person for sometime, you make that Soul a place you can call Home. It is something you can always run to when in need and always come back to in the end.

One may get lots of “options” to pass time with, some better than Home. However, at the end of the day one must remember, they are not Home. They can be your comforts but not your shadows to follow and accompany you in each failure that shall surpass. There can never be two priorities of equal importance as sooner or later one has to choose.

One may also, due to psychological bias, leave forever and move ahead to another Home. In such a case, they leave behind a part of their soul forever.
And with such a divided and incomplete soul, one can only go one way -- a path trodden by The Empty.

Down Memory Lane.

He touched her soul, with words she wanted to always hear. He complimented her like the morning rays complimented the ocean. He gave life to her beauty and soul. If there was something called as perfection, this is where she found it.

They lived happily for the time that passed. She was very happy to be liked, adored, treasured, taken care of and “wanted”.

It felt like sleeping to a bad failure and waking up to a heavenly dreamy success.

But what if it really was a dream? Was it better to live in a smothered and suffocating reality than to live somewhere that could be nowhere at all?

And thus, she decided to accompany Failure. For accompanying Failure that accepts itself is better that accompanying Pretence, because in the later, one can never Know.

And so She chose…

The Connect.

Since childhood, I’ve always had a dream of a Soulmate. The pictures kept on changing with time and age. Later in life, I learnt and understood the words “connect”, “commitment”, “faith”, “love”, “marriage” and how heavy they are in meaning.

Here came some important views I must discuss.

How will I know who my Soulmate is?
By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.

Is it possible to have more than one Soulmate?
Yes, when it happens, the heart is divided, and the result is pain and suffering. We are many and we are scattered.

We can also allow our Soulmate to pass us by, without accepting him or her, or even noticing. Then, we will need another incarnation in order to find that Soulmate. And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: LONLINESS.

These words changed my perspective of looking at a relationship forever. It is very important to give importance to The Connect than temporary happiness. Lust, infatuation, needs, circumstances and other human psychological bias can often take you away from your Soulmate. However, your answer will always lie in The Connect.
To Jenny, who helped me understand better.

The Conspiracy of Soulmates.

It was an adventurous night. Yes, it was. When two best friends encountered the start of a Conspiracy, which proves to be a miracle till date. It’s the similarity quotient in their lives, which does not stop popping up in every change that occurs. The same night, they vowed to the importance of their friendship in the midst of a greatest risk ever.

They started with adding similar numbers, which later went onto similar names and similar “connects”. The Connect was and still is more important to them than any other relation that would or can exist.

If one starts a journey of love near in lake in distant heaven, the other would do the same locally(approximately during the same time). The alphabet “A” symbolizes emptiness, insecurity and needless aggression and for both of them. They like the same songs, things, surroundings for the same reasons and they have a Common secret (with different souls) always.

However, after reading Paulo Coelho, they have discovered the ingredients that helped built this Conspiracy. A relation for life may not only be of Husband and Wife. It can be a stronger one, of Friendship. The Conspiracy was God’s way of highlighting “difference”, to show them that there was a “special” bond of energy, which existed.
They were and surely will always be “Soulmates”.