Madness...

Will you make me go mad listening to this one song - saans reprise?
Will you make me go mad reading stuff you read, while this song plays on in repeat mode? (Such beautiful stuff that too...that's the kind of madness I did once, or maybe have done most of my life...)
I reach out to do some more madness. What's the harm? No one is going to know...
Then I stop myself...this is madness I am too old for...
The song again plays back - on seeing you it seems, some long separated dream of mine has returned...
I wonder, I wonder hard. What is it that creates such a familiarity?

What is life, except for this ethereal happiness, this heavenly smile you get to sport once in a rare while? Being the incorrigible romantic I am, this is all I thrive for...

Exploring the ruins...

This changes everything. Every damn thing about my life. Because if this was not God speaking to me, then I know not how else He speaks to us.

It's nothing much. I don't even remember where I heard the song. On the radio? I don't know. The song kept coming back to me. Phirse aiyo badra bidesi...I listened to it on YouTube and explored around a bit. Saw the picturization...a lonely girl with her reminiscences. It appealed a lot to me. Somewhere they mentioned the name of the film as Namkeen. Is this Gulzar saab's film? I wondered. Because this extraordinary combination of RD, Gulzar and Asha was difficult to come by in other productions. The movie was freely available on YouTube and actually I went to the link. Then I remembered that my self imposed data limit doesn't allow me to watch a movie with my tab Internet. I made a mental note of downloading the movie at office. I did start watching the movie and wondered what the storyline would be with two major heroines...this was on Sunday night.

Monday, almost towards the end of day at office I remembered to download the two movies - 36 Chowringhee Lane and this one. I was planning to watch the former for a long time now, so obviously it got precedence. But then, I have got this movie block for a long time now. I am simply afraid of watching movies and being rattled by them. I can't handle my emotions anymore, I have been rendered totally hollow from within. It took me two nights to complete the movie. Today, after I retired in my room for the night, I asked myself gently, if I want to watch Namkeen. And I reached a truce with myself. Let's start watching, we'd give up if required.

The movie started off low key. No surprise except this being a Samaresh Basu story. And this actually being a Gulzar film, which anyways I had guessed. And then the story progressed...and kept seeming to be very very familiar. I started remembering Rito telling me the story. Three sisters and a truck driver. But I couldn't remember the context. Why did he tell me the story? Not to tell the story of the movie, like he had done for Ijaazat, that much I remembered. There was a context. I couldn't remember that. The songs went by one by one. Aake chali, baake chali was there in the cassette of Gulzar songs that I had bought with my precious little savings, when I was in college. Then came phirse aiyo badra bidesi once again - what a tribute to silent, unspoken love. But my mind was restless - there was a missing link which I couldn't remember. And then came the song khush raho...and the memory knocked at my mind. There's a beautiful song, raahon mein rehte hai, it's in a Gulzar movie - a truck driver and three sisters...

I talk of loving other people - playing with other memories, nice old memories of people who had loved me once...I create stupid illusions for myself, of loving impossible people in impossible ways. Only because my favorite person has hurt me, has literally kicked me out and split me apart. I don't want to acknowledge my love for him, I don't even want to remember him. While my mind, it is a storehouse for his memories, long forgotten memories that keep surfacing at the slightest unrest. And despite this being a fact, that he has always been the closest man to my mind, I never realized my love for him when there was still a chance. How can I deny it now only because he has turned me down?

And with this realization my world went topsy turvy again. There's no respite. Bandini songs were also written by Gulzar saab, perhaps mere sajan hai uspar as well. Chhod aaye hum as well, the first song that gave me the realization that I love him. Love doesn't happen just like that. A person becomes a part of your life, his thoughts merge with your own and become one - it is then that you fall in love. What else is left there for me to do after having loved a person in this way and the knowledge dawning on me when it is too late?

The song kept playing as I burst into tears. Rito, Rito...deja vu from September 2013...

Poem of the night...

The kind of night when you cannot sleep...
And beckon to a life that's been long absent,
The solitude where music makes you weep,
And brings back memories that weren't meant
To be true,
Still they belong to you...

The deep depression...

I am in love with him. Amid the confusion and depression that has become a regular part of this life, I love him unabashedly. Because I need a bubble to survive. And I can't live without loving somebody. Nowadays I don't put the precondition that he has to love me back. Just that I have to like him, and he should be a bit like me.

I don't hope for a relationship at this stage of my life. I don't even hope about getting back my somewhat decent consolation prize of a career that I used to have 3 years back. I am bankrupt in every sort of way and I don't hope. Period.

This guy comes in my life through my job. How else would I meet people? I know in my mind when I am partial to someone. I take a steady liking towards him and assign him some work so that he has to listen in to my voice recording. That's your subconscious at work. You don't know your mind, but your subconscious is always at play. It will tell you. And when you look back you realize these subtle links. I am amused.

And then I forget all about it. He's not indispensable. Nobody is anymore - in my life. I have learned not to rely on anybody.

Then comes the occasional day/evening of madness. I feel like looking good, with my near middle age overweight self. And somehow, when I look back at the photos of the evening, I don't cringe. I look presentable enough, being the way I am. Several people gasp. They have no idea that a plane Jane like me can look like this. Some people compliment. But when he says that I look beautiful, I blush. To hide it, I say, "you look okay okay..." and we both laugh aloud. It's been a while I have laughed aloud with a man so spontaneously.

I am a very lonely person at heart, who tries her best to stay happy. I am a very impatient and rebellious being, I develop hatred very easily. So I better not reach out to yet another sour relationship. Whenever I feel this kind of attraction, I remember "The Reader". Everyone lives with their own limitations, it doesn't mean that one would be devoid of the cravings of life...at length, after imagining a whole lot of other things, I imagine him understanding that I am tired. So tired that I am ready to accept myself as a loser. I cry a little and go back to my regular meaningless existence. Facebook is a show off media, where I try to prove every other moment that I am alive. It makes me look all the more desperate and lame. I couldn't emerge victorious from the atrocities of life. Please let's not fight anymore for basic human rights to happiness. I can't cope up with the world's selfish ways - and stop protesting and be self-centered myself - which seems to be the foundation to happiness.

Much ado about nothing...

I went berserk in the last couple of days. I was trying to handle issues in my crude disorganized ways and was being largely successful in managing the stuff. The regular issues - like ill health of family members, discomfort at work - when one fine evening I realized that I couldn't locate two pairs of gold earrings. It didn't matter that just the other day I discovered that I am not aware where I had kept my passport and PAN card, but that was not the snapping point. To think I was a careerist once. It really didn't matter to me that I might never again be able to go abroad or open another bank account. Two sets of tiny gold jewelry - like if you sell them off now you might get some 1000 bucks at most - and all hell broke lose in me. From early childhood I have never lost my gold earrings. Silver, yes, gold no. I might have lost them temporarily but always got them back. Mom says it's not good to lose gold. In my own imagination I spun out the rest of the story.

Gold represents your soul mate.
If you lose gold your soul mate would be in trouble. Something bad might happen to him.

In fear of this self concocted story of something happening to a soul mate who doesn't even seem to exist for me, I went into depression. Amid that depression I kicked myself to start mode and put in a Herculean effort to organize my stuff and look for the lost jewelry. It would be sufficient to say that I hardly find enough space on the bed to lie down and stretch fully - and there were a month full of worn clothes that were not cleaned and ironed properly - just thrown around after use. And bags and suitcases strewn around - from my occasional official travels I couldn't say no to. Overflowing paperwork - hospital documents to bills - count in project artifacts, bank documents, books and the usual electronic gadgets - jewelry and watches in various stages of neglect - in short it was a mess.

In a Godsend way, tonight, after a long tiring dismal day when once again I was coaxing myself to restart the search, I suddenly discovered the tiny round jewelry box containing the two earrings among clothes and protein shake boxes - in the shelf below the drawer where I keep my expensive jewelry. I am not exactly relieved (in my heart of hearts I almost admit that it was a good driving force towards making my world a bit more tidy) but I feel better after a long time. I am still to look for my passport though :P