I Am My Own Devil

Vikram from the coffee shop

I was new in town then, had not known what to do and where to go on a boring Sunday afternoon. I took my bike and went to the mall and the first shop that my eyes fell on was the book store. I went in brought “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins. Well, a lot of people had suggested that book to me and finally when my eyes fell on the book I couldn’t resist it. I brought the book and headed to CCD. I don’t know whether it was because of Sunday, or because everyone was bored, the coffee shop was crowded like never before. Thankfully I got a table for two, went in, sat down, ordered a cup of hot cappuccino and started reading the book. Just when I finished the third of fourth page, a guy came in and distracted me. I get very annoyed when someone disturbs me in the middle of reading. I looked up,

“Is this seat taken? The café is crowed and literally there is no other seat available so do you mind?“

A tall guy with great physique and just amazing eyes, a guy to whom you could never say no

“Sure, no one is going to come here”

“Thank you”

Well, I continued with my book and he got into his business. Surprisingly he too had a Paula Hawkins’ book in hand. “One Minute to Midnight” I was about to ask him whether he had read mine, when he noticed the book in my hand.

“That’s a good book, I very recently read that and trust me the suspense is good”

“Oh! I was about to ask you the same. Actually this is the first book of the author that I am trying and I have no idea how it’s going to be. I have heard great review about it from friends and so thought would give it a try.”

“Well, you won’t be disappointed, trust me. Even I started with that book of the author and this is my third. I just am not able to stop”

“That’s nice to know. Well if its reader certified then I am sure it would be worth it.”

In no time I realized that we had both closed our books which is quite unusual about me because I never stop reading and talk, otherwise I am very talkative but when I have books I just am absorbed in it. But this guy had a different charisma; he just made me do the unthinkable. We talked about a lot of stuff like books, other authors, how Indian authors have developed in the past few years, criticized a lot of authors and surprisingly both of us agreed on a lot of things. Normally my taste of books is bizarre, I don’t completely follow any author or genre, I just like to experiment new authors, genres and different styles. And when I say this to people everybody thinks I am weird but he was just like that. It was amazing to find a person like that. I had associated and connected to a complete stranger in no time.

We had talked for hours and after a long time I realized that I had to go. I did not want to leave him and go anywhere but I had to.

"It was great talking to you, but I have to go now, so see you again if possible”

“Oh yes even I need to be somewhere I just dint realize how time passed. It was great meeting you too.”

“Bye”

“Hey, I’m Vikram, by the way”

He extended his hand.

“I’m Razia” I replied and we both shook hands and parted our ways.

That was when I realized that we had talked for hours and dint even bothers to ask each other’s name. It’s been a year and a half now since this incident. Whenever I see that book I remember him, but even though I had been back to the coffee shop again a couple of times I dint meet him.

To be honest in a way it is good because maybe it won’t be the same if we meet again, because that one day that I had spent with him was wonderful. It was nice and I don’t want to ruin it with another meeting. Sometimes it’s just good with one meeting alone. If that person come back in your life and takes a permanent place it might not be the same.

Dear "whom so ever it may concern"

I just read a letter sent my you, a long well a long lasting letter. It said from someone who loved me unconditionally once upon a time. How did our love fade away, how did the love turn into unconditional hatred. ? How?

Well, some questions can't have answers and I know this doesn't too. But you had become everything I wanted you to become not for me but for yourself. You started being the best version of yourself and I'm happy for you.

I just am not able to realize, just not able to comprehend how it all changed.

Which reminds me that everything is turning upside down in my life, everything I thought would remain constant is changing.

I'm in a city I never thought I'd return back to. This city where I have spent exactly half of my life, this city which has given me a lot of memories both good and bad, joy as well as tears. It holds a lot of people I love as well as hate. This city is accused of having changed me, this city has shown me everything I consider a nightmare.

This is the same city I thought holds a lot of people I hate but turns out I don't hate them. It's the same city that thought me my lessons for life. Which thought me to rise, to learn and to stand out. This is the city I hated as well and I sweared I would never return to. But again this is the same city that made me laugh again.....

So dear Mr. Who I'm happy that you're happy, don't blame the city coz every city unfolds a lot of layers in us like mine did to me, and how yours is doing to you.

From,

Someone

“Giving you pain is not the only way life knows to make you suffer. Sometimes taking the pleasure out of you will suffice.”

lsr

Faith.

Why am I so attached to strangers and detached from people who are mine? A question that has been haunting me for a while now. I have opened up so much to a completely stranger giving him the key to all my secrets making myself vulnerable.

Yes, my social network friend. We became friends a little while ago and now I have become quite close to him. Inseprable.

But having told him all my secrets I feel vulnerable. I feel weak. I do not know how to overcome this fear.

Having been stabbed in the back by people I have trusted, now I feel telling unknown people is much more safer than telling the known one.

I hope you wont stab me like all the others did. You wont leave my hand when I hold on to with all the trust I have. The faith; if shattered again then I would never be able to gain it back nor will I trust anyone ever again be it known or unknown.

The window

If only you could open doors that would change things,

Sometimes like how you think of running far away to those places you never know of

Those meadows and sunsets you have written about, you've read about, you've thought about.

I don't know about you, but I have.

I have wanted to open that window to the perfect home I've imagined.

To that home, where amma and appa had figured out things

Where my older brother wasn't threatened by my birth

Where I wasn't threatened by that hand that made me uncomfortable.

Where my screams would be heard through the window.

Where when I cried, I had a hand to hold on to.

Where I did not run away from, I did not ignore calls, where my memories of childhood were not fights and hatred.

That window which did not show me trying to kill myself

I dream of building that home, where I am safe, I am heard and I am wanted. But now when I do, I feel like I'm caged inside the cocoon that I have build shooing away people. While then it was being in a house that wasn't my home and now a home that feels like a house.

Sometimes, someday I will open that window where I will have a painting hung on the wall of a meadow, a framed picture of people on my bedside table, and my bookshelves across the bed. Someday it will contain a hand that will embrace me and a shoulder to lean on to.

Image from: Razia @a-small-startup

As mothers, she held her close,

Trying to feed by milking her blood

She was more than happy, a little more confused

Euphoria maybe or post pregnancy hormones

She was scared to let go, the baby was so tiny and fragile…

 .

He came in, a little late, hurried to see if his beloved was okay

Yes he was happy, but more worried I guess

He held her close, and apologized

Asked her whether she was happy or not

 .

They both looked at the baby, happy and content

This seemed to be a moment that could be captured

 .

It’s been years since then, I look up at the picture

My mom telling me what that day meant

I have heard this story a hundred times, but each time she says it a different way

 .

Sometimes I see her telling me that story with so much happiness that I wish he was around

And yet other times there is so much hatred I am glad they aren’t together…

 .

And yet, when he tells me the story I see pain as to not having spent enough time with me

 .

I don’t know whether to hate them both or love them

Either way I seem caught in an endless cycle

We seem to often complain that life seems strange. Well, life IS strange. There is really nothing we can do about it. In life everything is a surprise, we say that all we have is the present, but guess what we even ruin that. Coz, we don’t know what we are gonna end up doing.

I am not depressed right now, I am not angry either, for me this was a surprise. But somewhere deep down the lane, I knew that I would burst out, that I would lend a shoulder to cry on like I did last night, and that I would burst out the next day.

“It’s too good to be true.” It indeed is. How can you just agree to anything that someone says? What about your perspective then?

What about taking care of yourself, when are you planning to do that? I have done the same thing that you do. The same question is what rings in my mind all the time “what would they be going through?” BUT YOU SHOULD FUCKING STOP. In this long and tiring process of taking care of others, we lose our self. Because like we do, nobody in the fucking world cares. I know it’s not easy to change, but when you can change for good, why not?

Why would you want to keep stumbling upon the same stones that you always have? Why?

I know there are a lot of questions I am asking you here. I know. But these are questions you should ask yourself. I just am asking it so that it rings a bell.

I was the same as you. Talking care of other people’s feelings, their thoughts, what they would feel, and how they would have been feeling at that moment. But who are we to decide that? Everybody in life has shit to deal with, and it is their problem not ours. We need to have a grip on us, our feelings, our thoughts, what we are going through, because only then can you have a clear perspective about what you want.

Compromises for others are to be made in life all the time, but that doesn’t mean that we just keeping pushing our feelings in to that deep pit. Nope. We don’t do that and moreover we shouldn’t.

I don’t know what you feel, what you think because you don’t say and all you do is just agree with whatever shit I say. I may make sense, I might ever be right, not for you but for me. So stop doing things for me, stop agreeing with me and start giving respect to what you feel and you.

I have met the demons in me

At first, they came as a resort to the discomfort

Now they seem to haunt me

day and night.

While I sit at my desk and start crying,

they seem to add fuel to the fire

I see them running around in my head,

stomping my feelings and fears

I see them running around in my house,

I see them sipping tea amidst the chaos they seem to have created

I see them everyday; I see them everywhere; I see them in me.

I see them breaking glass and walking on the shattered pieces

I meet the devil in me everyday

The peaceful Old Lady

There is this temple opposite to the house I stay, I do not know which deity, but I know it’s a Hindu temple. 

Every evening someone comes and cleans the whole temple, lights a lamp and keeps the gates open. I do not know who does that. From that time everyone who passes by pause their walk and take a peep in, some just peep, pray from the outside and leave, while others just ignore the existence. 

But then, there are these people who stop, take a peep, pause, and then decide to go in, they walk in, wash their hands and feet at the tap outside, and then pray. Some leave after the prayer is done, while others sit there for some time, I wonder what they think of, maybe about everything that’s going on in the world or maybe about something that’s happening inside their house. I wonder. 

Today, I decided to take a look inside the temple myself, I am not a devotee, not religious either, I am just curious. I went inside, looked at the statue of the God, roamed around and decided to sit there for a while. I liked the positivity of the place. It was nice, the vibe and the aura the place holds is nice. That’s the only thing I like about places of worship. 

One woman comes in, does the rituals in the right forms, and comes and sits next to me. We exchange a smile and neither of us speak. After a few minutes, she asks me where I am from as she has never seen me in that neighbourhood., I tell her that I am visiting a friend here and that this is not my place. Out of curiosity, I ask her where her house is. She gives a smile, a smile I can never describe, and then says, “I don’t have a house, I stay here until they close this temple and wander off to the next one.” I did not know how to respond and regretted asking her the question.

It then strikes me that I can find her a place to stay, I ask her if I could call some people who can come and fetch her, an old age home, maybe. She thanks for the offer, but then said that there is a peace in the way she lives. I try to convince her rather lure her with all the things she can have, a safe place to sleep, food, shelter, better facilities and everything that comes to my mind. Nothing helps. She thanked me again, and I asked her why, she said there is nothing she has to gain or lose, she has a family who are happy without her, she said she was happily married. No one abandoned her, she chose this, if there wasn’t quarantine she generally helps in one of the big temples.

She told me that she was not a devotee, rather liked doing what she does. She got up to leave, I asked her where she was headed to, she said there was a temple in the street nearby, and felt like going there. I waved goodbye and saw her leave. Her small figure faded as she walked slowly yet with so much peace. 

I hope I meet her again.

It has been 4 days since I met her, and she has not returned, sometimes I wonder if I intruded a bit too much and maybe that’s why she is not returning. Maybe this temple is too small, and she found a better one. Whatever it is, I wait every evening, sipping my coffee, hoping she would return among the peepers and passer-by's I see every day. The peaceful old lady has not yet returned, and I wait…

It took me a while to realize that I no longer hold a place in your world. I should have stopped trying to fit myself in, a long time back.

Life just turns upside down one day and you wonder what you did wrong. You realize that you had never anticipated this turn.

Everyday I mourn over the loss of people from my life. Everyday I wish I had a chance to talk, to tell you what you think is wrong. I wanna prove myself to you. I'm not what you think I am.

I miss being surronded by my people.

I miss people listening to all the crazy stuff I say.

now, neither are there people nor do I say stupid stuff.

I miss me.

And finally I realized that you don't have to be with people, surrounded by friends and family, to be you. Coz all you need is you.

I'll bounce back

I'll be fine

After a long time I'm giving a chance to hope.

Coz people, they leave, they stay at times too its upto them. If you mourn you'll just keep mourning.

The sooner you realize that your questions have no answers, you'll stop asking them.

I don't seek answers anymore. It's not people I rely on but rather me.

You stay, you leave, it's your choise. I'm gonna stay the same. I'll be fine.

Let's hope so. Well if you ask @glitteringhuman he'd say let's believe so.

I believe this time. I'll be back, it's just a matter of time.