Change

Change is the only constant in life... Hence the new and improved look of the blog...

Change, is the one most predictable thing.

The Ride Back Home

Waiting in the sea of immobile cars, while sitting in the driver’s seat, is not really the best thing to do. I was getting late. I needed to be home. But, the traffic is unbeatable. It’s frustrating. And at that moment, I wished to fly back home.

I’d turned off the engine (Yes, I like to conserve) and repeatedly cursed the traffic. The only sounds I could hear were the sound of my breathing; the soft, spitting rain on my windshield; whish-washing of the wipers that cleared out the water from the transparent screen in front of me; and the constant honking of the vehicles outside the confines of my car.

Suddenly, amidst this madness, I am lost. Completely blank in the head. Empty. Just when I thought that my brain wasn’t functioning anymore, I was proved wrong by my own voice questioning me “What has happened to you?” Did I have an answer? No. Of course I didn’t. I was completely blank. There was no repeated thought that capered about the grey matters of my brain. In fact, there was no thought at all. I was listening intently to the sounds around me and how they all united in an annoyingly calm and quiet cadence. Being sucked out of all thought for these twenty minutes gave me a kind of unexplainable peace.

I suddenly shook awkwardly, as though an unconscious patient rose to consciousness. I realized my comeback when the vehicles had started noisily honking behind me. And when I looked up, I saw that I had given off about ten meters of driving space ahead of me.

Startled, as well as slightly amused with the entire situation, I accelerated the car and waded home through the flooded streets.

All in all, I had been rid of all the weariness, and I was looking forward to a relaxing evening, listening to the Elton John’s tunes whilst lying down on my hammock in the balcony.

The World Outside My Window

They stood in the distance, twisted and motionless. They swayed with the gentle breeze that lingered over after the rain. I felt the breeze slap against my face, and out the window I saw them standing. Quiet, three Gulmohur trees, with the little sanguine flowers, that matched the setting sky in the background.

Out the window, my lost eyes fixed themselves into a constant gaze. The sight was breathtaking. Out the window, the world seems to be the delightful crimson all the time.

I was no more sitting by the window gaping at the view outside. I had developed wings, and I was flying like a carefree bird, till my silhouette frayed away into the sinking sun. I had conjured up a new world, where my worries were thrown aside, where everything was beautiful.

Out the window, my thoughts and wishes were no more a figment of my imagination.

I want to give the same flight to my thoughts as the bird does to itself. I want to be that bird all the time. I wish. And staring out of the window makes me feel so.

The bird grew out of sight, and slowly, the crimson turned from a lavender to the twinkling night. And as the stars gleamed, and led the way in the moonless night, I slid away from the window. The bird had flown away, bringing me back, slouching by the window.

Familiarity

It was a welcoming evening. An evening she had been waiting for. This was one of the few chances that people get to revisit their good old days. She was hoping to meet those, who once upon a time she used to see almost every day for three years in a row. She was excited.

She soon walked into a familiar enclosure with the others in tow. She looked around to see some more familiarity. Not just in the faces, but in the walls, with the peeling cream and beige paint. In the set of staircases, which once had her, and all others present there rushing up and down; to and from; and in between classes. In the curtains, which were changed exactly once a year. In the iron rod railings, with rusted edges. In the red-carpeted little narrow stage, on which lay the rickety choir steps which witnessed a fresh lot of singers each year. Amongst all those voices, she also stood one among the many sopranos. But, all these imperfections didn’t seem to bother her. Instead, today, they gave her a sense of homeliness, a sense of complete perfection. She looked around again and again moving in circles, to take in the sight she had been longing to see. It was after a year, she felt this way. It was after a year she was visiting. It was after a year that the school made her feel what she felt. Her alma mater.

She had been in this little four-storeyed building for merely three years, but it had been enough to give her genuine happiness. It had given her values which she knew she’d always keep. It had given her courage to fight for herself. It had given her true friends, who she knew would stay. It had given her sense and sensibility. It had given her the faith to believe in herself. It had given her the strength to conquer, and to lead. It had given her too much to express. As she recollected her first few days and the last few days in the school, she felt tears well up in her eyes.

Just then one of her juniors came up to her and asked her for some photographs with some friends. Although she fought her tears from flowing and disrupting the photo-session, the smile she smiled was genuine. A kind of smile she smiled after a long time.

She wasn’t really fond of crowds, but the crowd consisting of her batch-mates, her juniors and her seniors comforted her. Even the presence of those-who-had-once-been-friends-but-weren’t-anymore didn’t disturb her. She felt nice about everything there. She interacted with her teachers, who seemed equally happy to meet her. She spoke to them with enthusiasm; obliged some more photo-taking sessions; moved about from one group to another interacting animatedly with a different set of friends and acquaintances each time. She giggled with tears of joy incessantly flowing out of her mascara-smeared dark brown eyes, as she and her friends recalled the lovely times they’d spent there. She was overwhelmed with emotion, and felt herself beaming with a calming sense of happiness. She was all smiles that evening. She was back to Familiarity, and back to School.

Living A Dream

Life, as we all know it, is like a roller coaster ride, as clichéd as it may sound. But well, it has its own shares of ups and downs, victories and defeats, sorrows and mirth. Being able to keep a balance in this crazy, topsy-turvy kind of life is seldom easy, but mostly unmanageable or even frustrating at times. At times like these, all we want is to live in our own bubble and make-believe environment, where things appear to be the way we want them to. Our escape is our dream. There is in fact, a very thin line between our dreams and fairytale worlds. We all have our fantasies in life, and we all have dreams. We all have dreams that we want to reach. We all have dreams that we want to live.

What I have learnt, by experience, is that, it’s never about where we reach, or how far we get, from where we are today. It’s about how we got there. It’s about all those people we meet, all those places we see, all those things we did. It’s about all the memories we made along the way to get there.

It’s about having the dream. It’s about living the dream, and feeling every moment of it.