Dance

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”   - Rumi

              I walked into a studio for the first time ever. Covered with white walls on all fours and ceramic tiles from the floor up till the waistline, the dim orange and white lights made everything look better than it actually was. The people looked better. The smiles did too. The movement. The pain. The sweat. Life in general, looked better. I wasn't used to this comfortable of an atmosphere, I was just a troubled young man. I walked into the studio to release my inhibitions. After weeks and months of being impassive and pretending to be someone I'm not and was never meant to be, I needed a place where I could emote. Be myself. Understand what was inside, and do my own thing. I walked in thinking I could pop, lock, drop, move, groove. But when the beats started hitting my eardrums, I could do none. I looked down and stared with amazement at my two left feet. I heard a God whisper in my ears, "Give it time".

              Two months down the line, I didn't care. I learnt how to let go. I've learnt how to give in now. Every evening, surrounded by a God and demigods, life gets better. I can understand sound and why it exists now, and I can hear the lyrics in instrumentals too. I get the history behind a beat, and I can see what music does to my soul. I came to this place to emote, but little did I know, I can do so much more with myself now. I find my body speaking for itself when the music is played. It senses the pride, the groove, the pain and the feeling of letting go with each beat. I can hear it talking through the movement, showing me things I didn't know existed inside. And I now realise that this is a part of me. A part that tailors me more and more every day, makes me feel a different kind of pain than what I felt months ago; the kind I like. This part of me is glad that I walked inside the studio with two left feet a couple of months ago, the same part that fears a lot less than what it did in the past. This part is what says 'fuck you' to every negative wave that is destined to come my way, the same part that teaches me how to face it, better every day. "Dance from the inside first" is what a God had once told me, and it's what I do. So it doesn't matter if you or me are shackled by others and made to feel insane, because while they struggle to find the music in them,

we'll be dancing it all off together.

Pursuit of Happiness

         There was a kid once. Aged five, in the primitive years of his life. He was young, his age shaping him up like a potter shapes up clay; smoothly and swiftly. He ran around in lush green gardens with his mom by his side. Holding his hand she played along with him, rolling in thick green grass and hiding behind well-watered trees while one searched for the other. He wasn't a pricey kid to please. Simple things gave him more joy than he needed. A well-sized balloon would do over a remote control car. Holding his mother's hand would make him happier than holding a chocolate bar in his hand.

         He soon grew up. In his adolescence, his thoughts shaped him up like a sculptor shapes his statues; brutally but emphatically. His interests bent towards having a good time with friends, and spending the remainder of his time in front of the computer. His thoughts tugged at him to do something more productive, but he found his solace amongst what every teenage kid does. And slowly along the years of life and living, he forgot the type of joy that he once used to get from the simple pleasures of life.

         But he grew up further, and with time, his life passed him by. He now was supported with the comfort of an antique rocking chair, sitting under the shade of a creaking ceiling fan. He stared outside the window and into the sun, and realised how the sun seemed the same as it did forty years ago, when he used to play outside in the gardens with his mother. He had a daughter now, aged five, her age shaping her up like a potter shapes up clay; smoothly and swiftly. She gave him a faint call from outside the house, inviting him to play with her. Thinking it would brighten her day, he took along with him a bar of chocolate and offered it to her when he went outside. She refused and took his hand instead, and wore the same smile that he used to when he held his mother's hand, forty years ago.

          We have a habit of relating happiness to worldly things like money or fame, thinking that a mine of gold will give us more happiness than what we feel when we wake up to the company of someone we love. In a world where practicality rules above all, we think that buying a Mercedez might give us more joy than having a peaceful walk on the beach while watching the sun sink in the water. Happiness and the pursuit of it remains different for different people, but the bottom line for it remains the same. Peace of mind. A person can spend a fortune in pursuit of some peace of mind, whereas someone who has the company of loved ones or a friend to count on need not require money for it at all. A smile can work wonders and brighten up someone's moment, or a tight hug can turn someone's day around. Every action that we perform throughout the events of our life revolve around either giving or gaining some happiness. The only question is, at what cost? In the end, we all have to make peace with the angels and demons that live within us. And in the end, we take nothing that we've earned throughout life with us to the grave,

except for our peace of mind.

Pieces

“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.” - C. Joybell C

          There was a familiar lull in the air that wafted past me as I sat here. The cushioned rocking chair seemed comfortable, although I'd tucked a stone under the chair support. I didn't want any rocking anymore. Enough rocking had been done. The room remained silent in the way that a cemetery stays silent in the after-hours of the night. No sound, and yet the silence remains deafening. The poorly-oiled ceiling fan creaked overhead, while it couldn't spin to save its life. Two oil lamps sat on the side-table, out of which one had gone off the night before after I'd gotten off the phone with her once it was all over. She'd gifted me those. A half-hearted cigarette stayed tucked between my two out of five fingers, and I'd probably forgotten it was even there. My eyesight rushed past the window and into the night, and I realised that the world beyond this window had nothing in store for me, that the night beyond this window stayed cold and lifeless. Which is probably what people saw when they looked past the windows of my eyes; a soulless night that lies cold and lifeless.

          There's a comfort in knowing that no matter how much the noises made by a crowd are, they can never overpower the drum-rolls and cacophonies created by a silent night with no life around. Sometimes I still think about the day I first saw her. How her cascading long hair glistened in the faint rays of sunshine that seeped in through the crevices of the curtains. She reminded me of a snowy Christmas morning.

          Soon after, I was shot down by my snow-angel through no fault of anyone's but mine, and I lay there in that zone that belonged to a different dimension, with my pieces scattered all across the floor. And as I lay there, split into a million pieces, I thought to myself that maybe this was what was supposed to happen. Maybe love is not what supersedes all. Maybe there are things that one learns along the way of life. Maybe we don't need to hear that it'll get better, because when was the last time you remember it truly getting better? It doesn't. It's a fight that people put up with themselves, where there's only one winner. There's too much baggage that everyone carries around on their backs; too many pieces of everyone scattered all across the time zones of their life. Every once in a while when the baggage becomes too heavy to be carried by ourselves alone, or when there are so many pieces being collected that some start to fall from the gaps between our arms, we feel like we need someone else to help us with a shoulder for our baggage, or collect the pieces of our lives and help us stick them back together so that one fine day we can be whole again. But that's not true. Sometimes, the people that you'd expected to come through during times like these may have a million pieces of their own to collect and put back together, and you can't blame them for it. Let's face it, you're not the only broken one out there. Everyone is, in their own way. And you can't always expect them to provide for you. Because sometimes, through no fault of anyone's, you might be all alone. You might be all that you have. And maybe someday, you won't be able to collect all your pieces and put them back together. You might have to leave some of them behind. The world can take a slightly broken you, a slightly incomplete you. It doesn't make you any weaker. You have to believe in the fact that you'll be better off without the pieces of your past. Trust this process, this system. Find the beauty in it. You'll have the sun shining out of you one day. All you have to do at the end of the day,

is let go.
   

Toxic

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. I'm coming".

There's a lull in the air of the night which carries you away. Try walking home at 3.30am, inebriated as fuck while you're at it, and find a straight line to guide you home. There will be a lit cigarette tucked between the two out of five fingers of your right hand while you hold a cell phone in the other waiting for your loved one to type out and send what you've been wanting to hear. There'll be a sting; this screeching pain at the back of your head and this strange pain on the left of your chest, like this void that goes on deepening and sucking everything in, but never deep enough. You'll finally give up trying to get home because home is as always just so goddamn far away, and secondly because it doesn't feel like much of a home once you get there anyway. As soon as the guiding line hazes out, which always happens, you will pass out on the streets and wait for it to break new dawn when actually it will be the same as the previous morning's. Hope to never wake up.

But you're never that lucky. You will.

Autophobia. It's a term which was released very recently. They started coming across cases in the 70s where people started losing their minds(probably the Alfred Hitchcock effect) and broke all mirrors and reflecting objects in their vicinity. The examiners realised that it wasn't because of anything absurd that they saw in the mirror which caused this phobia. Except for their own selves.

There was a 20 year-old guy with such a condition maybe a couple of years ago. Unlike others, his case was brought under control. After which he was interviewed.

"I spent a lot of nights blaming myself for what happened. My family was a mess and so was my social life. My parents kept fighting and I spent years trying to be the guy who doesn't lose his cool and solve everything. And I did. At every stepping stone, it was me who was the eldest in the family, trying to keep two kids from throwing things and cursing at each other. I never thought I could falter, and my confidence was going up the skies. I couldn't be broken. I learned that logic and rationality were the answers to everything that existed. They weren't. I didn't keep many people close to me, I didn't think everyone would understand. I was born and brought up that way. Certain turn of events took place all at once. The couple of people I was close to walked out without any explanation and I didn't have it in me to get accustomed to anyone else. My family was a mess as usual, but I couldn't bring it under control because I only had two hands and very little time. I gave up. There came days where I didn't utter a word. My confidence was nowhere to be seen. I stayed in, without turning on the lights even in the night. Instead of intimacy and affection, I searched for solace in blasts of music followed by deafening silence. My dreams and nightmares sent me screaming at night, and they didn't make sense. In all of them, it was just me in a house of mirrors, free falling from nowhere to nowhere. But there was always someone watching, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hide from him. It felt like there was poison coursing through my veins. I started taking the help of alcohol to explain to me why nothing made sense. I didn't want mirrors around me anymore. The view in it was the same, but the perception of it changed everyday. Every night, I passed out due to exhaustion and waited for it to break new dawn the next morning, but it remained the same as the previous morning's. I hoped to never fall asleep because I didn't know what it was that kept its eyes on me and trying to find me each time I hid. So I started to count down to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep. I wasn't that lucky. The next time I opened my eyes, I was him."

Be Good, Do Good.

            Here's an ordinary man. And he's a growing ordinary man. He takes in all that the world throws towards him, good or bad, and ingests it and keeps it in. And he grows. But don't tell him that he's grown so much every now and then. Because someday, he will think that he's grown more than anyone else. And that's the day he will stop growing.

            Yesterday was a good day. A day that taught me a lot about human nature. Good, bad. Beautiful, ugly. Right, wrong. I have the month of Ramadan going on. A very prestigious and traditional month in the Islamic calendar. A month where a follower is required to abstain from all food, drink and sexual relations from sunrise to sunset in order to elevate his consciousness from the physical to the moral and ultimately the spiritual dimension of his being. There was a time when I used to follow it. I don't now. I don't want to be a self-righteous asshole and make excuses on the internet over this matter, but yeah, I don't follow it. There was a prayer service that was held last night somewhere in South Bombay at a relative's house. Such prayer services happen thrice in a row in the month of Ramadan where the people are to be up and following certain traditions till dawn, after which it concludes and everyone goes their own way. My mom wanted me to go along with her. We always go together, every year. I'd had a tedious week at college, with the weekend being my only breathing space where I could relax and enjoy doing nothing, so I refused. My mom never took me for much of a believer throughout life. I was never the 5 times Namaz/day kinda guy, but I had my own way of believing in God. I didn't want to ignore certain responsibilities and follow religion. I don't think that's what He would've wanted me to do, but then again, that's my way of looking at it. My mom is really edgy when it comes to these things. She never appreciated my belief for God no matter how strongly I believed in Him(not like I believed in Him for her satisfaction), and was always unhappy with my efforts. Yesterday was her breaking point. She told me I won't go anywhere without His help. There'll be no one to protect me or watch over me in pressing situations. And that I'll have to pay for each time I've taken religion lightly when I'm finally facing Him up there. "What are you going to say then?" she asked me. I had no answer. She yelled and bawled and cursed me for being so ignorant. "Na deen ke, na duniya ke", she said. Neither did you ever belong to religion, nor did you ever belong to the world.

           I always believed that God lived somewhere inside, and as long as you cleansed each and every bit of your spirit by doing good for others and doing nothing immoral or unethical, you'd be closer to God than any other man. There are people who give up the world. Their responsibilities, relationships and life. And go and preach religion at some temple or a shrine far away. And there are people who kill, bomb, extort and assassinate in the name of religion. A man standing and praying in front of the sculpture of his deity at one moment might be holding a gun to your head at the next moment if you mock his faith in his God. How could God want that? The devil came into existence because he refused to bow down to humans and all of mankind. Even for all you religious people out there, THAT is the pedestal that God holds man over. And you're ready to kill not one, but entire nations of people who didn't respect your belief in your God? If that's what a believer is supposed to look like, then there's probably a huge difference between being a religious person and being a good person.

           I went out with a few of my acquaintances last night. On a lonely Saturday night when I really had nothing to do, they didn't seem like a bad option. They were a bunch of friends who were labelled all sorts of things by others around them. They were called liars. Conspirators. Freaks. Fashion-disasters. All sorts of bullshit. I'm not going to be a hypocrite here; I've labelled them a couple of times too. I started hanging out with a few of them recently, and I've realised that they actually aren't bad people. And that's the thing. I didn't care if they were ugly, stupid, black, white, fat, thin, tall, short. As long as they are nice to me, I'm nice to them. I have no reason to not be.

           Yesterday made me realise a lot of things about mankind. There can be a mother who's ready to disown a perfect son on the basis of him forming his own ideologies. There can be missiles fed, tears shed, and violence brought upon entire nations over something so volatile, solely because people don't understand what religion really is. There can be people who are misinterpreted and treated like lepers for months and years before some twist of fate brings them closer to you and makes you realise that they're simply misunderstood. Mankind really does deserve a chance. And I'm ready to give it to whoever's willing to take it with my eyes closed. Because in the end, I've realised it all. Being good and doing good is all that counts in the end. Don't overthink the consequences; let fate play its part, and you will not be disappointed. Take it from me.

It's exactly what has made me a much better, stronger and happier person than I have ever been.

Fever

            I have a fever. A bad disease that pours out and lets itself in through any which way it can find. Air-borne. Water-borne. Life-borne. It keeps my head throbbing late at night whilst inflaming each cell present inside and outside. It warms me up and shuts me down, makes me cry and makes me frown. It clouds my judgement more than slightly while my heartbeat fastens, and each thud against my ribs makes my chest grow weaker. With eyelids half open I struggle to sleep, but fever doesn't let me. I just lie, strewn on my bed while I stare at the ceiling, waiting for the fever to leave the heart and get to the head. My body radiates a heat like never before, and the deliriousness of fever makes me do things I never thought I was capable of. My half-shut eyelids show me the derailment of all the trains of my thoughts, and everything in my head becomes topsy-turvy, spirally and curvy. I can't think straight because I'm fever's bait. It used to be a blessing, but fever's got me stressing. It started off so brilliantly at first, when I was so sleep-deprived that I had no choice but to be awake. The fever set in slowly, sending pleasant chills down my spine and making my head hit the bed, slowly and swiftly. I smiled as a new warmth coruscated my aura, and I drifted off to sleep a happy man. Only to wake up to being on fire the next morning.

            But like most people, I didn't get the point of fever back then. I do now. Fever is a sense of comfort, a fight that one puts up unknowingly against all the crap that's thrown at them by the world which they're too blind to see. Fever is an aura of protection, a reminder that it isn't time to give up just yet. It will fight your fight while you try and take your meds and make it go away, but as long as you're in harm's way, fever will be here to stay. It will keep you up and remind you of why it exists, making sure you don't forget its existence for a single second. It will show you tough love, and at the same time keep you reminded of the fact that it's capable of turning your life upside down. You can't forget fever until it's done its job. I should know. I'm your fever while you are mine. And tonight, our heads will hit the bed, slowly and swiftly. We will smile as a new warmth coruscates our aura. And tonight, just like the time fever first set in,

we will drift off to sleep as happy people.


Credits : Fever - The Black Keys.
(Talk about a song getting to your head. Just like a fever does)

Raindrops

          I see a withered tree. Somewhere in the distance, beyond the horizon. Hollow. Dry. Leafless. Lifeless. Its branches lay suspended naked in the air, some being covered by dry leaves that represented forgotten dreams and resilient hope that just needed some watering. The tree stood extremely close to the sun, the heat of which scorched everything that lay inside. The clouds that sprung overhead once upon a time, disappeared and never came back. The forest remained white while all that was living turned dead, as the cry of the last raven got lost in the echo. The veins which once used to suck in water from the ground now lay corrupt with the company of lifeless skulls and bones that were buried deep beneath, and through which now ran great disbelief and lost faith. The bark of the tree dried up and lay rotten and forgotten, through which ran scars of relapse. But the tree stood. Beyond the horizon, it stood.
         
          Before I could react, my vision turned into a different dimension of reality. I was that tree. I lay somewhere in the distance, beyond the horizon. Hollow. Dry. Leafless. Lifeless. Lost ambition and envy scorched everything that lay inside. My surroundings remained colourless as I pushed away everyone around me and the last offer for help, I threw far away to someplace where it was lost in the echo. My veins which used to dream for me were now corrupt with lifeless conspiracies, lust and spite. The shine of my skin dried up and lay rotten and forgotten, through which ran scars of relapse. But I stood. Beyond the horizon, I stood. And after a long wait stretched by eternity, I feel a chill of comfort. There's a wind that has come by and carried away all the dead leaves that lay on the ground. The sun shines brighter with a singe that makes me feel more alive. There's a comfort of doing good to others that washes away all conspiracy, lust and spite from my veins, and fills it with gratitude and appreciation. My skin feels moist again, and the shine present in the smile on my face has now returned with a promise that it will only glow brighter by the moment. A speck of snow falls from the sky on my hand, just one, representing a promise for more to come soon, as long as I believe. And the clouds that had disappeared a long time ago, are now back with raindrops that have made me lush and green again, helping me turn over a new leaf. I finally feel more alive than I have ever felt.

And it is a far better place that I'm in now, than I have ever known.