If You Only Knew

She wanted to go home to celebrate her birthday with family. I was adamant that she should celebrate it in the hostel with her friends. With her best friend. Me.


I was confused thinking about the right gift for her from many days. She was my good friend and how could I ever repay her and let her know how special she was to me. Birthdays are the perfect time to express love and friendship and let one know how important that one is.

Greeting card? Chocolates? Trendy anklets? Branded watch? Teddy bear? Plaster of Paris show piece? Parker pen? …………


Finally I zeroed in on chocolates. I bought a gift for her many weeks in advance and waited more than her for her birthday to approach. She has a sweet tooth…just absolutely adores everything sweet and chocolaty! I went to the Forum mall where I know a shop which sells candies, confectionaries and chocolates exclusively. An ultimate place not to be missed by any choco-lover! I selected the best assorted foreign chocolates in all flavours- choco with rum, raisins, almonds, orange, strawberry, melon, tooty-fruity....


Finally it was the day of her birthday. With the gift of chocolate pack, I attended her birthday bash. She was cutting the cake. I went near her expecting I would be the first person to get a bite from her cake as normally best friend gets that chance. I stopped in midway shocked that she was feeding another two girls the first piece of cake. She made a new best friend and completely ignored me which broke my heart! Everyone who thought we were best pals were surprised too and wondered what went wrong between us. I was embarrassed and just fiddled with my cell camera pretending to click photos of them and acted as if I am very cool with this unexpected new development. A shocking twist in the tale it was!


I didn’t feel like staying through the rest of the party. This new development was not sudden, I admit. It was right there in front of my eyes, but I failed to see it would be this harsh on the face. Of late our friendship was going through a rough phase that I should have foreseen it. But completely ignoring me was too inconsiderate and callous on her part. I would have never done that even to my worst of enemies.

The gift of chocolates with its shiny wrapper lay in my hands. Waiting to be given and to be received. I clutched it tight unable to find a way to wade through the crowd and give it to her. She was the cynosure in the party hall, dancing, laughing loud and having the best time in the world with her new friends. That’s right also. It was her birthday and she was supposed to be happy. And I was wrong to take things for granted and not trying hard enough to not let her go. I was wrong to be jealous that she found new friends. Maybe I couldn’t make her happy. Maybe I couldn’t be what she expected from her friend. Maybe…


I called her on her mobile to wish even though I was a few feet away from her. She received it coldly as if I was some stranger. That’s what I am now to her –a no-one, just another random person she came across.I walked out of the party.

I threw the gift on the way into a trash bin. It was useless when she wouldn’t acknowledge with how much love I brought it to her. How unlucky was my gift that it couldn’t accomplish its intended destination!

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

*Purely fictional*

The thought of moving into a bigger city leaving behind my best friend scared me. I thought I would be alone all left to myself. Soon I was lucky enough to find one.

She became my new good friend in the new city. I had someone to talk to and laugh along with. Someone with whom I can catch up a weekend movie and relax in a fast food joint. Someone to share my secrets and and do the usual girl gossip. Everything was going fine but then some turn of events made misunderstandings to crop up in between us. Maybe it was her mistake or maybe it was mine, but nothing can revert back our friendship like the way it used to be before.

I admit I was less caring. I couldn’t give everything she was looking for in a friend. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I didn’t indulge too much into her personal life. I thought I knew where to draw a line. I thought that’s what people want and appreciate-privacy. If she went out somewhere alone, I didn’t bother to ask her where and why. I respected her privacy and didn’t go knocking on the doors of her private life.

One day this third girl came along between us. She was the poky type….the one who pokes nose into other’s matters and digs in personal information. My friend thought that’s a trait to be a caring friend- to enquire into personal life. She would knock on the doors of her private space until she opened. They would gossip on and she would pour out every detail to her which I didn’t bother to know about. What she found as a caring nature I found it as an intrusion. Slowly their frequencies matched, they clicked on well.

I had faults. But even she did. If it wasn’t for my take-it-easy nature, I would never have forgiven the way she used to insult and hurt me in front of everyone wittingly or unwittingly. Or how she wouldn’t let go one little chance to poke fun on me and make me the target of her jokes.

With this third girl, we became a threesome. This third girl brought in another girl into our pack and yeah we had a fourth girl also in the picture. I was jealous. It used to be great before….just we both and we would hit the city on weekend and would have a great time. But with this pack thing, I had a difficulty moving along with them. My frequency didn’t match with them and I was the odd one out. They would laugh at a joke which I thought was very silly and keep wondering if I am dumb to understand wise jokes. The things which were funny to me weren’t to them, and they would keep a weird look on their faces wondering why I found that actually funny. I would remain silent in the pack and they conveniently ignored me as if I wasn’t present physically among them. Even if I was lost on the way, trying hard to catch up with their fast pace, they wouldn’t have bothered to stop and look for me. That’s what happened later. I was lost. I wandered onto a different road and found myself all alone.

Suddenly I was not the first person whom she would call up first to share excitedly any good news. Nor was I the person, she considered apt to discuss her sorrows to be consoled. I wasn’t the person she thought to be fit enough to be in her pack to hit the city on weekends. Nor was I the person she and her pack bothered to call along to join them for lunch and dinner in the mess. I wasn’t the person who had a chance to get the first bite from her birthday cake….the piece normally reserved for a best friend. Nor I was I the person she counted among her friends deserving her birthday treat at Mc Donalds. I wasn’t the person with whom she would sit next to in the bus. Before I would keep a seat for her and we both would enjoy the morning bus ride together listening to music. Nor was I given the special embroidered suits of which he hometown was famous for. She promised she would get them to me, back when we were just two and good friends.

I want to tell her that I am sorry if I did a mistake. I want the misunderstandings to evaporate. I want her back on talking terms where we would go on talking because we really wanted to and not because saying ‘hi, hello’ and exchanging pleasantries is a formality.

I wish I could turn back time. She moved on with her new found friends and doesn’t need me anymore. I still miss her. Alas, nothing can repair our tattered relationship gone disarrayed beyond anyone can repair.

Airborne

Running with echoing footsteps

on my terrace

flying paper kites colourful and bright

Watching my kite conquering the sky

splattered with clouds

soaring with birds taking flight

I felt bitter sweet nostalgia gripping me

going down the memory lane

Reminiscing childhood days

when I've flown kites and paper plane

I wish I were a kite

escalating to heights

creating rungs to the sky

chasing unfulfilled dreams

eyes with leaping imagination

discovering new lands

across the unknown boundaries

challenging the gusting winds

unceasing to ensuing predicaments

I'm at awe, at how just a bit of paper

grows wings and transcends horizons

while I'm here grounded for life

yet to sprout roots underneath

I wish I were a kite

with wisdom controlling my chaotic sanity

like the string monitoring the kite

from running amuck

Windowless Soul

Pressure at work?
Betrayed in love?
No reebok shoes?

Unnerving exams?
Lost in contest?
Unpaid dues?

You think you’re the only one in misery
That God doesn’t answer to your plea
Well, he doesn’t answer to my simple query--
I ask him how different is blue from green?
The rainbow colours unheard and unseen

And why they say spring is so colourful?
That poets, lovers, artists muse and cherish
I want to rhyme, kiss and paint dreams on canvas
Unmotivated, I ink about a dreary life, an unfulfilled wish
As my mind is trapped, God forgot to create windows
Canopied from inspiration and beautiful visions to relish

The ocean waves kissing the shore
Is it a sight worth dying for?
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder how you are!
In my mind’s eye, I do imagine, the ocean and the night
But am I doing justice to its beauty by envisioning it right?

Acknowledging the world by feel and touch
I feel the warmth of a loved one’s hug and cuddle
The velvet petal’s silkiness they call a daffodil
Walking barefoot on grassblades the dewdrop’s tickle

Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me do I look like a doll?
They say that I look so pretty…
Do they really mean it or say just to keep me happy?
I don’t understand how different beauty is from lack of it
That butterfly be admired, and caterpillar be trampled?
Is a rose so aesthetically different from a thorn?

They say my twinkling innocent eyes
glimmer like molten gold
Oh but of what use? Lifeless vestiges,
numbed to the perceptions of the outside world









The only colour I know is black
They say grass is green, sky is blue
You should tell me…is it really true?

I hear the ringing innocent laughter of a child, oh so pure!
Is his smile genuine reaching eyes? I wonder
I smell the lingering fragrance of newly drenched earth
And wish to witness the sky pouring out silver shower
I hear the melody and tune of the humming bird
And wish to see it sucking nectar out of perfumed flower

Trapped in a murky dark inferno
I close my eyes, all I see is stygian black
I open my eyes, I still see shades of the same
Keeping my four senses open,
With every step I take, venturing into the mysterious
Being beware of the ensuing hurdles,
Foraying into chasm of obscure shadows
I tripped, I was knocked, I was hurt and hit,
I bled to sanguine liquid drops they called blood


And you say you’re the only one in misery?
That god was unfair to you?
Yes, you are not as gifted as I am!
I’m spared to see the aversion mounting among mankind
Where the innocence of a child is stripped and cashed.
Reverence, candour, integrity --the words of yesterday
Kindness, compassion, civility --the virtues of history

What’s left in the world to see?
Deteriorating values and ethics of humanity?
Fraud and deception taking over fairness in quality?
Discrimination and discord wiping out unity?

Behind money and fame, on a wild goose chase
To appreciate small joys you don’t slow your pace
The rose, sky, butterflies and sun rays

A person’s negativity over his goodness is all that you see
I pity you! That way, pretty rotten place the world would be
You think you’re the only one in misery?
That God doesn’t answer to your plea?

Yes how true!