Bury Me in Blue and Red

"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little."  
                                                                                                          -Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator.

         I saw blood. I saw a lot of it. There were sirens blaring and guns blazing all around me. People cried with their loved ones' in their embrace, but with no sign of life. There were bullet holes in every spirit as it left its body, and I could see dead people's souls as they passed by all around me. The fire in their eyes had died out. I saw an explosion that ripped through the gut of a fanatic who'd tied it around his waist in the name of God or whoever that might be. He was a good kid back in the day, but he was made to hold a gun in his hand way too soon. The explosion tore through and burnt away thousands of memories and experiences lived by people all around the fanatic. And they'd just walked in to get a cup of coffee. I heard screams of mothers as they wrapped themselves around their babies to protect them from bullets that were being fired in the air. I saw authorities with 9mm handguns trying to shoot at monsters with machine guns that tear through metal like it's paper. I saw a demon. Dressed up in all black, he held a gun over my head and dared me to move. I prayed to God and moved. He prayed to God and shot. And I stopped existing. I saw glass shattered, dreams broken, cries of the wounded that rip through the thin air. I saw a new world in front of me. A world I discovered today. I saw Death claim what was rightfully his. I asked him,
"Where do you take them?"
He said, "To a better place".
Confused, I asked, "And what about those who have to go to Hell?
Death was amused. He said, "Son, this is Hell. This has been your Hell all along".
I nodded, pretending to understand. "So then where is the better place?"
"Where God doesn't interfere", he said. And so I went with him.

         I saw the world stand still from that moment on. The streets remained empty, apart from the blood and the bullets that were spread all over the place. The relatives of the victims were now asleep with empty stomachs and tears that had rolled down half of their cheeks and dried up. I saw them each miss a part of their existence; a part that was assassinated by the demons, for the greater good of God. I saw flowers outside embassies, and candles at the feet of national monuments. I saw despair. I saw loss. I saw blood. I saw people pray. I saw people pray. After all of this, I saw them pray. I saw them kiss beads of significance around their hand. I saw them place their lips on a miniature cross. I saw them place their foreheads on cemented sand. I saw them join their palms towards the sky. I saw belief. And I saw no response.

         I saw God abandon us years ago. He abandoned us when Japan got hit by Tsunami. He abandoned us when the Twin Towers were brought down. Abandoned us when Mumbai was held hostage in 2008. When Paris was made to bleed. I saw him abandon us when I saw ten year olds play with AK 47s instead of stuffed toys. I saw him abandon us when the guy held at gunpoint prayed to him for help and had his brains blown out seconds later by a guy who prayed five times a day. God abandoned us a long time ago. Humans weren't his favourite creation. Nor his perfect creation. We were pawns that came into existence with evolution from the sand, and will return soon back into the sand. There is no bigger picture. There is no going anywhere after this life. There is what there seems to be and there is no more. What matters is what you and I decide to do in these few years that we have remaining. Whether we choose violence, lies, betrayal or kindness, truth and compassion. Whether we pray and despise those who don't, or keep religion within the walls of our house and walk out as a good human being.

And whether we love, or we hate.

#JeSuisParis

Out, But Never Quite Over.

"In order to get things you've never had, you have to do things you've never done".

A wise man once asked me, "What's the first thing you need to climb a mountain?". I was sitting and chilling with a few members of my recently-formed family as we all started to think of the wisest answer that the question could possibly have. Our primitive and immature minds didn't quite spare us and our thought processes wandered off somewhere, leaving a dumbfounded look on our faces. Someone said water. Someone said accessories, like ropes and stuff. One person even mentioned those special terrain boots that you get(That was me, by the way). All kinds of answers were thrown out. Willpower. Determination. Strength. He looked at our faces, and smiled. And he just kept smiling, till we realised that all of our answers were baseless. Not being able to handle the long standing silence, I spurted out, "Just tell us, please!" And so he did. 

A mountain.

That was the answer. As simple as that. And we felt like fools. As simple as that. Perception of life changed that day. We realised that no matter how much pain we endure, no matter how hard we fight the fight, it's futile unless we know what we're fighting for. We all worked hard, and I know that we did because I could see it in all of our eyes. But that day, we knew for sure that we didn't have an aim. Well, everyone had dreams like 'I want a house at the seaside', or 'I want to stop being a common man', or 'I want a peaceful life with no stress'. But I'm talking about a sure shot goal. Something that defines your existence. Something that makes each and every breath of yours count. And so we developed that part for ourselves.

We all live our lives fighting. And I mean everyone. We all have our fight with life. And that's the thing about fighting life. It's never easy. We shed sweat, blood and tears, every second of every day, all for a better tomorrow. We cry, we laugh, we run, we jump and we fall and we get back up, hoping that one day, each step that we take will count for something bigger. We spend each second telling ourselves that there have to be downs for ups to come our way. But who defines how high up that up goes? That's the one thing that we can do. Define it for ourselves. And at the same time, we have to know deep down that if we want to go way up, we'll have to go way down before the up finally arrives. But it will. It always does. All you have to do is strap on a pair of roller skates and start going down the down, as fast as you can.

Luckily for me, I had someone who gave me those roller skates. And he's the best and the wisest man I have ever known.

"When vision is one year, cultivate flowers. When vision is ten years, cultivate trees. When vision is eternity, cultivate people"

Troublemaker

        My thumb kept flinging the edges of my frontal two teeth as I stayed dissolved in my thoughts for the millionth time. People have this impression of me being overly dramatic because they assume I'm thinking about life and shit when I'm staring into space, when really I'm just thinking about food or something. But anyway, this time, I was actually dissolved in my thoughts. I sat at the window with my surrounding orchestrating the scent of peaches, cherry blossom and jasmines. I felt as if hair; each strand as lustrous as the pearls found in oysters thriving in the deepest depths of the oceans, was washing over my face. I remember staring out the two windows out and into the galaxies filled with celestial bodies, enough for someone to question their own significance. Snapping out of it a few minutes later, I realised that I was just imagining her scent in the room, her presence next to me and staring into her hazel brown eyes. God, they're the most beautiful thing ever.

        I've known her for a year and six months now, and I still remember my world turning upside down the day I first noticed her. I sat on the bench with "Kite Runner" clipped in between my fingers, a goofy look on my face. The book opened to show my favorite bookmark, a quote which said "Not all those who wander are lost". I looked up and away from the book, and that's when I'd first noticed her. She looked nothing like what she did the day before, but in all reality, she looked the same. It was just my mind playing games on me. Or maybe my heart. Who knows. Both are equally fucked up.

        Until this very day, this girl has managed to turn my insides out and give me in my hands everything that I was made of, everything that I've needed to see for a very long time. And although with every passing day she becomes a bigger mystery, she makes me find a part of myself that I thought I'd lost forever. I wish I'll be able to trek over those walls once again, and if that day ever comes, there will be no broken spirit anymore. Just joy. And one day, I hope I'll be able to make her feel whole again. She's easily the owner of many of my most precious moments, and she's a gemstone that won't be found anywhere else. She's the purest form of connection that I've had with anyone, and it didn't matter if losing myself was the price that I had to pay for coming across this menace of a person. She's the one person who will consistently matter the most to me,

forever and always.