Note 8:

Hidden are the feelings of being around,
The facts that could've been different but then I wish the world wasn't round.
Over the top, 'Beyond' is where I have to go,
When I asked you to join me, I knew you would say 'No'.

Note 7:

And I stepped out. I couldn't hold my breath in those closed chambers for this long. Stuck I felt. Uncomfortable and dejected. Tired. But not lost. Nope. Never lost. I could see the streak of light from the corners of the window. I could hear the sound of the wind behind those doors. I could smell the ambrosial FREEDOM. There was celerity in my thoughts. I was told I wasn't the perfect fit. Time and again. Well, I wasn't. I knew I was eximious. Insouciant. But tired. I was tired. T I R E D.

Tired of holding my breath. Stuck I felt. Uncomfortable and dejected.

So, I stepped out.

And I opened my eyes to see the light of hope, to hear the sound of encouragement and to realise my FREEDOM.

How damaged are we?

'Never ever make a home inside someone else. Where will you find shelter when he breaks your heart?' I wish we were all told this when we were kids. But all I could find in the teenage section of libraries or book stores were fictional fantasies, fairy tales, adventure, mystery or cute romance. I read it all. All. And each and every book took me to a different world, every time. Adventurous, I was. So much so that I found a missing dog of my friend when I was in eight standard which was basically kidnapped! And trust me, I felt like another superhero from one of the Enid Blyton's books.

Romantic- Hell yes! Hardcore. Diehard. I believed in love stories. I believed that when you love someone your world changes. He becomes your world. You both are meant to take on those adventures together, you dance, you laugh, you cry, you travel.. you do it all together. You find happiness in small differences because you learn to appreciate others. That love makes you a better person. That it helps you grow as an individual. It makes you stronger and content. At least this is what all the books made me believe. And I kept believing it till my first heart break, then second, third, fourth..until now (Hey! Don't judge. Even small crushes can turn into heart breaks!).

What made me realise? Well, I won't answer this question. But I want to share what I realized. I realized that after a certain age, we all are damaged souls. We all have had broken hearts, beliefs miscalculated, dreams snatched and castles destroyed, in some way or the other. Who we thought were our soulmates, hurt our souls and depart. They actually take away a part of us too. And when that part is replaced, we change. We change with every pain. Every heart break. Every negative emotion. Some of us tend to create a wall around ourselves, some of us become less emotional, some of us become completely emotionless, some of us become heartbreakers themselves and what not. The point is we become a chemical reaction. Yes! a chain reaction. One damaged soul tends to form another damaged soul and the reaction continues. There is a very small sector of people who are strong enough to keep loving their new found love even after going through pain, and try to heal each other. But till when?

I know our past experiences define us. But why do we presume things? Then again, when we don't, every new experience turns out to be exactly like the previous one. Right? So why not assume? Why not presume? Why let your guards down? Because the moment you let your guards down you are taken for granted. Right again?

Wow! I wonder where will this end? We so much call this 'the search for the right one?' and then either end up being single throughout (which is a super duper awesome choice) or settled with someone because it was time and you should have!

End of this might be different to different individuals, with the extremity differing to. What I want to know is where did this all begin? So I ran a public questionnaire (not sharing the details), and I so much detest the people we have become. The answers have only left me bewildered. The top five reasons I received were:

1. We loved each other since the time I remember. But as we grew in our careers, we realized that we couldn't compromise our growth for each other.

2. I either should have got married to my first love or I should now get married when am 40. I want to experience so much. Can't really do with only one girl, right?

3. Money and career first. People keep coming and going.

4. I never was against marriage. I loved my girl. But she wanted me settle away from my city. I couldn't. And now I can't help myself fall for anyone again. Flings are fine.

5. We really don't need anyone forever. Do we?

I am perplexed.

How did we become so damaged? When did we become so soulless? Money?! Career?! Open Relationships?! When did our life become so complicated? We have so easily started growing apart from the people we invested our time, energies and most importantly, emotions in. Breaking up has become so easy. Getting into another relationship is simpler till the time there is no future dreams attached. 'Good friends' is the new terminology in place of 'Friends with benefits'. Because intimacy is a need! Let's not bring emotions in it.. But then I also hear, 'Without the connection, I feel it's just mechanical.'

How??? Really? How did we turn into these people? How did we come these individuals? That we started breaking hearts one after the other. And then finally becoming so damaged that it stopped feeling right with anyone. Ego has taken over self-respect!

It's a vicious circle. I believed that if two damaged souls could meet and 'talk', they could embrace each other's wounds and heal. They could re-define their love. They simply could build a new life.

But I don't know why I feel by this belief would be betrayed again.

I am still the person who goes out of her way to do things for the people I love. I can still travel miles to surprise someone and plan someone's birthday months in advance. But I was asked to stop.. I was asked to stop doing things for others and lift your guards up. I was again asked to build walls around my heart. I was told to become cold.. by no one else but me!

Because I too am damaged, you see!

- Prettiest Wreck
(Sneh Sagrika)

Note 6:

Sitting by herself, lost in her thoughts, eyes closed.. The air around her was still and quiet.

Looking at her through the window, he was about to open the door to go towards her when he heard a voice, 'Don't touch her. She is broken.', her roommate said.

He replied, 'Am not going to touch her, am going to hug her.'

Note 5:

Sometimes someone hurts you so bad that it stops hurting at all.
The pain becomes as easy to bear as breathing. You don't even feel it but it's happening. You're fighting without realizing.
Everything seems normal. Nothing touches you. Neither the rains, nor the coffee or the music.
But it feels right. You feel you are home. Because that's what your inner home is used to be.
Quiet.
Blank.

No thoughts.

And then you feel it. You hear yourself breathing.. again!

One of the many chapters!

Yeah.. I have not been answering your calls. Well.. to be precise ‘call’. And am not replying to your texts because you didn’t send me any.
Am strangely at peace. I love you. I love you so much. I love you the old school way. I love you like you would never know. I simply love you.
And it’s because of this love that I am letting go. It is because of this love that I do not wish to attend your calls. It is because of this love that I can’t be ‘just friends’ with you.
Hellll.. Nooooo! I can’t be friends with you because of the simple fact that I love you.
If you think I am being harsh on you, that’s not true. Am being harsh on me. There have been times when all I wanted was to keep you in my life somehow and hence I agreed to be your ‘friend’ but I did realize that I have a soul and I can’t half love you like a friend. That it’s because I am crazy about you I feel jealous when your phone is busy at 10:45 in the night. It is because I can’t stop thinking about you that I am annoyed that you chose to call back after one hour treating me like another option. No, am not an option. I am too passionate and full of life to be treated as one. I deserve to be on the top of anyone’s priority list. Am not a normal woman. Am strong, independent, crazy, stupid, absurd, adventurous, brainy, curious, lovable and what not. Yes I am. You may laugh at this but the world knows this fact!. Huh.. I bet even you do.
It’s true that if I want I can have anyone in this world as my partner. But I want you. And that does make you special. And it’s your loss that you do not wish to be treated that way.
You want us to keep talking and have those orgasmic conversations. No way. Because I do not want only that. It’s true it’s rare to find such connection where we could go on and on and on. Where even silence is a conversation. Which I found in you and it’s hell attractive. But I want more. I want you to be my support system for the rest of my life. I want you to fight the world for me when I am tired of fighting. You said you could fight a war for me.. I am sorry but I choose not to believe you. It’s been only a year of loving you but it feels like it was meant for me to fall for a dumb-ass like you.
I feel jealous when I am not the woman of priority in your life. I feel dejected when am treated like a friend and not like your soulmate. I feel lost when I want to hold your hand and you refrain. I feel sorry for myself when I see that am crying like hell and it doesn’t bother you. Sometimes it is important not to repeat things rather than being sorry. Unfortunately I have only received words from you and nothing in action.
So yeah.. I can’t be friends with you because I want more. I want to explore the world with you. I want to hold your hand and jump in a river for a swim. I want to visit every damn library with you and feel the silence of the words and smell of the books. I want to drink and dance with you every Friday night and get up early morning to see the sunrise with a cup of coffee. I want to hug to sleep and wake up with your kiss. I want to make passionate and sensual love to you and scream your name when you are inside me. I want to go grocery shopping with you every Sunday. I want you to feel that you have the world when you have me, the way I feel for you. I want you to push me to achieve more. I want you to call me when you are away just to say that you miss me and to hear my voice. I want you to nurse me when I am sick. I want you to surprise me with an omelet in the breakfast cooked by you once in a while. I want you to understand my love for bags and shoes and scarfs. I want you to tell me that am the prettiest mess you could ever see (and not have seen). I want us to travel and find our peace spots. I want us to be happy when our plants grow. I want you to console me when I cry in movies. I want you to buy me nachos and coffee each time we watch one in the theater. I want us to feel the thrill when we see an action/ thriller movie and pretend that we are driving a super-sexy super-fast car.
I want us to fight and bang the doors, walk into different rooms and still keep shouting only to cuddle to sleep in the night.
I want us to go for long walks to buy an ice cream and quarrel when one finishes sooner. I want us to discuss life over cigarettes once in a while. I want us to laugh at a situation which might be serious for someone else and hold our stomachs as they ache.
I want you to miss me when you see french fries like I miss you when I see a chocolate. I want us to pack our bags and plan out a spontaneous trip when life gets too much on us. I want us to discuss our savings for a better future. I want me to be your response when someone asks ‘Love, Life, Home’ in the ‘first word that comes to your mind’ game.
And I want a lot more .. And all this is too much for you and too easy for me. So you see the difference here. That’s why we can’t be friends.
I have some real beautiful memories and some more beautiful in my imagination. And I do not want to tarnish them. I have already lost you in my love story.. I don’t wanna lose the memories and this feeling I have for you by being friends because both of us know, I will eventually get hurt again.
I am letting you walk away before I reach a spot in my life where the meaning of being in love with you becomes pain. I know you never asked me to stay back as I wasn’t that drunk the other night. I know I was not a priority for you on Christmas because I was always taken for granted. But I know I filled some space in your life which I guess was temporary.
I am not temporary sorta woman. I am a keeper. Maybe you are too weak to handle me, too weak to love me because it surely is difficult to match my emotions. Well, all I can say is that it will not stop me from being in love with you and if in order to do that I have to deny your proposal of friendship and let you go, I will.

Note 4:

What if I told you that I have fallen for you,
Would you run away or come close to kiss me?
What if I told you that my parched eyes ache for your gaze,
Would you blink away or get a blush on your face?
Won't you want to hold my hand once.. think of me as the part missing from you?
Don't you see how our fingers meet?
Like they had been wanting to fill the lines of our palms with the love of our souls.

Note 3:

I was always told that I am a strong woman. So much so that it got embedded in my soul. I have always been proud of this fact. The fact that I have been raised in a way which enables me to stand for myself. I have faced the worst storms all by myself. And then I met you. I wanted you. I valued you. Never realizing that one day you will become another storm in my life. The storm that is trying to destroy me into pieces. I know I will pick myself up again but am unsure if, this time, the pieces will fit in the same place.

Good part of 'Sh*t Happening'

Shit Happens! Ha.. It happens more than often. And more often more than shit.

A friend was visiting and we went out for a quick bite where she happened to mention her new love interest. She had just undergone a breakup two months back and I won't deny that it surprised me that she moved on so quickly. Hence I made sure that it wasn't a rebound. And it didn't look like one. I saw her happy, feeling cute about it which was definitely missing in her in her past relationship.

From what she told me the guy seemed sorted and mature. They both had been friends for quite sometime and hence were already in a comfort zone. I don't want to discuss anything about her life here but there is a part of our conversation which hit me.

Her last guy had kept her expectations real low. In her two years of relationship, he had never even uttered the words 'I like you' but would only say that either you know it or you don't. I don't have to express it. She was there for him no matter what. And he didn't even remember her birthday. That's okay, right? Guys today aren't that available. Well.. it's a bullshit.

This guy, this new guy happened to tell her just a few days back that he likes her. Yeah.. 'Likes'. Please note am talking about two individuals in their late twenties.

She blushed. And said this feels cute. And his response,' I know that you know this already and I don't have to be explicit about it. But the thing is I know it will make you smile and extend a good feeling and I would be glad to be the reason behind it'.

It might sound silly but it did touch me. I totally believe in old school love. In forever and for always. In togetherness for eternity.

She did tell me that if someone loves you, he would never mistreat you. When they say they got busy with work and therefore couldn't be there, that should be your first flag. And to all the people out there, please get this in your head. No matter how busy a person is, if you do mean something to them, they will always be there, no matter what. They will know how to balance their priorities. You would be the top most. And if your are lucky enough to find someone like that, don't let go.

I urge the generation of today to take out time for the people you care about. You can keep making gold till you die, but the people who find you perfect even after knowing your flaws are the people you need to take utmost care of. They know you inside out and still hang around. Those are the ones you should always keep as close as possible. Do not take them from granted. Do not misuse their niceness. Because every individual has a threshold. You don't know how your attitude might hurt them and change them internally.

Try understanding a person. And try expressing. It won't hurt. It will only bring you closer.

Yes. Shit Happens. But there are stories like hers that show us that there is always a better day ahead.


P.S.- Waiting for my story to unfold.

Cheers!

Conversation with Still No One!

When I asked him, he said,' I think, the absence of it.'

And then he sent me,

A part of me wished these lines were for me, but whom was I kidding? So I replied back,' Wow.. Some lines, Some girl and some craziness!' He never replied back.


She looked inside her heart,
Sitting on her thoughts, sipping on her dreams.. She realised who you are.
She realised you aren't that far.

Inside of you is a mystery,
There's a soul inside your story,
You are a book without the end, a road with a soft bend.
You are the splendour of that October Sky;
You are the auroral light of the winter.. the touch to the scared and tender.

He liked it.. The above lines. 'Some lines you've got there, poet.' 'From someone to you.',I said. 'That someone is a darling.' I smiled but I did not want him to make me feel this way. 'Am sure she would be.' I replied.

'I really want to meet your girl, without you around. Am sure she would be a poem herself. And then would know how in rhythm you would be when with her..'

'Haha.. That may take a lifetime.' He laughed.

'It won't. It won't. Take my word. I so wanna know her to imagine you going weak on your knees. I so wanna see her fiddle with her hair and the way her eyes sparkle when I mention your name. I so wanna see her go coy when I tell her how lucky you are to have her and she correcting me that it's she who is.
'I wanna know your lovestory.. I want to write it. I want to know that craving. That yearning. That madness. Everything. Every emotion I say that you don't have... I wanna feel them when I meet her.'

He interrupted my thoughts,'The confidence that you show in me about having a lovestory.' I could sense the quizzical charm in his tone but I had already reached a world he had not seen inside of me.

'I really want that craziness..the feel of pride in your eyes. Oh man! I want her to prove me wrong.'

'I so wanna feel that excruciating pain of rejection, and the sense of respect that I was right about the kind of girl you would meet.'
'I wanna cry my eyes out when I write your story, and then reach out to you through my book.I want you to read it out all loud to her in a room full of candles.'
'I want your lovestory to hurt me so bad, that I fall in love with the pain of losing every bit of me. Oh! I want her to be everything that I have imagined, and everything you haven't..
I want her to be your favorite wine,
I want her to be your favorite fragrance,
I want her to be your favorite song,
I want her to be your secret serene place,
I want her to be your adventure,
I want her to be your inner peace,
I want her to be those butterflies in your stomach,
I want her to be your confidence in your nervousness..
I want her to be your everything that your never thought of.

... And then I want her to be my last novel. Which took every bit of me to write.'

'Sneh. What's wrong?'

'Nothing.' I replied.