Them!

Them…

He walked in, saw her lying on their red-quilted bed, and as always his eyes drifted questioningly all along the contours of her body.
From her head, his eyes wandered down over the curve of her back, and down to those feet… Heaven on earth!
He swallowed hard; as he relished looking at those slender long toes, at that seductive curve of her sole, and at the pink nail polish painted with such precision, on those toe-nails…
She was beautiful!

He first saw her at his cousins wedding.
He had walked into the Mandapam, as part of the ‘Boys Side’. He could never forget, looking at them for the first time. There they were, beneath that richly zaried magenta Kanjeevaram that fell over them like pretty rain clouds on a sunny morning sky. He couldn’t take his eyes of them.
They were the most beautiful ones he’d ever seen. He stared at them gaping in awe, wondering all the while, if he was actually seeing them. He would have stared all day, if it hadn’t been for cousin, nudging him out of his reverie.
He had caught everyone’s attention, including the owner of those jewels. She stared at him, confused over why this attractive man spent such a long time staring at her, never looking up at her face even once.
Her curiosity got the better of her, and she bumped into him on purpose after the ceremony. She introduced herself. He remembered considering her face to be quite pretty too, but that hardly mattered to him. The rest of the conversation he couldn’t remember, as much as he tried.

A month later after his mother frantically searched for her, all over the country, and a date was fixed, they were engaged. They were married a fortnight later. And now, they were expecting their first child.

It was five years since they had moved into this house. The house was her fathers wedding gift.

She looked so beautiful, in that red nightshirt, he thought.
It was a rainy day. He loved the rain.
He loved anything in red (how he pleaded with her to use red nail polish, instead of the deep magenta shade, she loved using). He would never buy her any lingerie or nightwear unless they were lacy and were in some shade of red.
The flowers on his office table were red, and so were the briefs he wore everyday.

The rain that day made it perfect. He loved it when water droplets bounced off oily surfaces, or stood on rubber undisturbed, in the form of the very drop they fell in.

He was happy as he walked into the shower, and reached for his shampoo. He loved the way shampoo squirted out of the bottle (He always threw his shampoo bottles half used… Just so that he would gain all the pleasure in seeing the shampoo squirt out well from a new one). He loved being sparkling clean all the time. Yet, he loved the smell of sweat on another man’s body. (He loved using the public transport as a kid, and gained much pleasure from the various bodily scents he picked up on such rides).

He walked out of his shower and wiped himself dry.

She lay there all night alone on her bed, with a three month old child in her womb, as he sat and counted his money on the sitting room table. The smell of money excited him too.

He didn’t need her. He just needed those feet. He had them now, what more did he want?

Nothing!

She married him because he had a mole on his cheek.

She loved those growths however small they seemed, as long as they were on the cheek. She loved spying on men who drooled over other men (She watched him sit on the toilet, through the keyhole, every evening, drooling over the half nude men, in the glossy on his lap).
She loved wearing lacy things, and loved red. She was finicky too, when it came to cleanliness and loved washing her hands in soap water.
She loved the feel of latex.
She was happy and wanted nothing more in life.

They were a happily married couple. They never had any scandalous affairs (at least none that anyone came to know of).
They lived happily, and died peacefully, ripened of age.
They were the favourite aunt and uncle in their locality.
They brought forth two lovely beings into the earth, and were proud loving grandparents.
They were the talk of the town, all their lives and were looked upon as the perfect couple.
They were perfect indeed.
They were as normal as any of us!

Collaejoo Collaejoo!!

This morning I went back to college, after an over-indulgent holiday, ready to embrace my alma mater, arms widespread…
I walked into that campus, feeling all proud. Sniffing that green air, and greedily swallowing every bit of beauty that came my way…

And the first thing to catch-my-eye was the college central pathway being marked off on its edges with a ‘horrendous elevation’, painted in stripes, in colours so mismatched, they reminded me of a zebra climbing a tree!

(No… o… o…o…o…o!)…

I stood back aghast, and wanted to scream out at the top of my voice “Like what...ev...er” (in typical college style), for that’s all I could possibly do…

I walked around college for the next ten minutes scowling at everyone I knew, had something to do with the administration, and (hence) was partially responsible for this heinous crime…

I mean, they couldn’t do that, it was my college, it stood for me, it stood for what I was, and what I aimed to be… they couldn’t be so irresponsible… God!

I gave up in a while, knowing my scowls were only attracting unwanted attention, and went to the kiosk, to calm my nerves over a hot cup of coffee…

Coffee, couldn’t taste better than when it’s served in paper cups, and drunk, with friends all around, sipping on their cups of coffee, chatting, and gossiping about everything possible, under the sun… (You don’t need a ‘café’ to make you love coffee, a few good friends to share a cup with, will do ALL the magic required!)

My friends were there to cheer me up over this humongous loss we’d all faced.
It was a loss for the whole of my batch, my seniors and my juniors…
As much as you’ll want us to accept that it was more about ‘our’ college being decked up to welcome the freshers, we just will not agree…

They’re freshers anyway, and we’ll let them know of how the pathway looked better without those ‘horrendous barricades’. (And you know what…?) They’ll agree with us, like all juniors do.

College life is a cycle of being a junior, a senior and at times of being somewhere right in-between. We’ve been there, done that and now was our chance of being seniors…

We ’d never forget how the farewells were, and how we got to know so many people on that day, and got to know them even better later…(It’s funny how we all wait for the last minute to get to know people, and regret for the rest of our lives that we didn’t get to know them earlier)…

My batchies (Batch-mates to the un-initiated!) were however of the more prepared sort, we sorted out our differences (we like to claim!), and have been a happy little batch ever since…

We’ve been more interested in patching up, or rather fixing up classmates, or otherwise, making grand plans of booking a movie for the whole batch (and going for them too), or otherwise just hanging out in college, happy with our company…ever since!
The company is what matters, not the place…
So as long as it’s us, it doesn’t matter where we are, we’ll surely have the time of our lives…

Our lives for the three or four years in college constantly mingle with each other’s.
We quite unknowingly forge and build relationships that will take us a lifetime to overcome or abide by.
We live such an inter-dependent life, that it’s hard to give it up, when we part ways.
We learn lessons the hard way, and learn to co-operate, but most of all we learn to live life to the fullest.

It’s funny how we die to go on holiday when we’re in college, and cry even more for college to re-open when we’re on holiday. Some of us go to the heights of following the college dress-code at home, and even following seating rules, laid down by the college…
Just so that we don’t feel we’re missing out on all that much.

The college, however inanimate it seems to be, is a part of all of us.
We’ve shared our secrets with the trees, our tears with those corners in the corridor, our laughter with those tables and chairs, and every memory is made up of each and everything we encounter within these four walls, day after day.

The College is alive in all of us!

The bell rings, its 9am, and all the chatting ends… Its time for the first class, of the year… Hope we’ve haven’t been assigned new classrooms… We just love the old ones… can’t imagine giving away even that to the juniors… (God! What else will they take from us?!)…

We walk up to our classrooms, most of us still quite grumpy about those weirdly coloured ‘Obstructions’.
We’re ready to face one more year of non-stop fun.
Sure we’ll have the downs, but who cares, when there’ll be more ‘ups’ to make-up for them.
We’ve just got one more year ahead, and we know we’ll make the most of it.

Friends, Relationships, Fun, Boredom, Sorrow, Tears and Joy; College has come a long way from just meaning ‘Education’ to any one of us…

It’s a part of our lives, none of us can ever forget.

The Others ?

“…If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not LOVE, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not LOVE, I gain nothing. LOVE is patient, LOVE is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. LOVE does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS…”
1 Corinthians 13:2-8
From The First letter from Paul to the Church in Corinth (Greece)

“Neecheay ishq hain, Uupar rrab hain, in donoeh kaey beech mein sab hain…
Ik nahiin soen baathein karloen, soen baathoen kaa, ek matlab hain…
Rrab sabsaey sonaa, Rrab saey bhi sonaa… Ishq! ”
From ‘Taal’


What is Love?

One of the most cliché questions to have ever been asked, is also the most difficult to answer. To me and I’m sure half the planet, who are romantics like me; Love is a feeling, and an emotion, that is pure, limitless, and makes one all the more self-less as it grows within them. It is a beautiful experience to share and feel. It makes you more human, as it works within you.
It is life, and everything that’s infinitely positive in it. It is God!

Love has been the base of all religions for centuries. Love is what makes Religions. And one great, Teacher, who gave love, the most important place in human life, was Christ. I follow Christ, but I will not call myself a Christian. The term ‘Christian’ somehow has come to represent a member of ‘The Church’, than a follower of Christ, for some odd reason. The Church teaches from the Bible, and the Bible is said to be the word of God. I however prefer referring to only what Christ said to be the word of God, and the rules or ‘Teachings’(as I would prefer calling them) as he had laid them down, are the only rules I believe I need to follow. The rest of the book is a guide, a warning and something that helps me understand life better.

And as far as I know, Christ believed love to be foremost. Love overshadowed everything else, and Love was the only way to heaven, according to him. Fear, which was the key element in Pre-Christ writings in the bible, somehow took second stands when Christ came. Christ made us love our Lord instead of fearing him. That makes so much more sense to a person like me, because fear would have brought obedience out of fear in its self. But love would bring obedience out of respect, and pure natural love, that one could experience with the divine. I follow Christ’s teachings because I love the man, from deep down. You can’t help yourself from loving someone so understanding, so calm, so human and yet so divine.
And so for me my religion, ‘Christianity’ or not, has always been about loving.

Quite recently I was part of a debate on something that was well a part of me in some way, and thus implied to me more relevantly then anyone else. During a youth meeting at church, a discussion on relationships led to the topic of Homosexuality and Gay Marriages. The word, or its often misused relative ‘Gay’, is almost taboo in most Churches. But being a ‘Youth’ meeting, I guess the argument prevailed. I deep down believed that Homosexuality, if involving two people who actually love each other, truly and with purity in their hearts and minds, was acceptable. Not surprisingly, half the group did not agree with me.

Christianity and its Church have quite easily made all Homosexuals sinners. The moment a person agrees to the fact of loving a person from his/her own sex, He/She is doomed to hell. On the other hand a straight man who marries a woman and well does not love her, truly and in purity or Vice Versa, or for that matter agrees to a relationship with her/him, and does not love the partner truly and in purity, is accepted with open arms. Yes the Church claims He/She will go to hell too, but only after they die. (Yet the same church is bent on creating a living hell for Homosexuals)

On the other hand a Homosexual is even debarred from access to a Church. Any ‘Good’ Christian or Muslim for that matter will give you a reference of ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, two prosperous towns in the Old Testament, that were destroyed for their sinful natures, one being Homosexuality.(The word Sodomy claims origin to this city), and thus prove that all Homosexuality is sin. Such generalizations only complicate matters. If everyone took a small part of their time to understand Homosexuals, it wouldn’t be all that hard to understand them. If you haven’t read on…

Homosexuals can be broadly divided into Real and Fake Homosexuals, keeping Biblical morals in mind;

A Real Homosexual is someone who needs the presence of a partner of his/her own same sex in his/her own life. They usually are very serious once they settle down with a partner, having found one, and even at times wish to get married. They like other straight may not always be potential Fidel partners but they have the capability of being so. (Sex is not all that important to a real Homosexual, it’s the presence of the partner)

A Fake Homosexual is someone, who well is just interested in sexual activities with his own sex out of sheer curiosity, having pre-dispositions that it might be more exciting etc., Such people use such relationship for primarily sexual satisfaction purposes. They usually prefer having a long term relationship however with their opposite sex, moral or not moral. Many fake Homosexuals call themselves Bisexuals. (Sex is what drives their relationships, it’s all that matters)

A True Bisexual on the other hand is someone who is able to find equable partners in either of the sexes and stay true to them. This however means relatively nothing significant in Christian terms as the person remains straight if he chooses a partner in the opposite sex, while the person becomes Homosexual if he/she prefers a partner in his/her own sex. A true Bisexual is therefore just a person who has the ability to love someone from either sex.

Now, about Linking Love to Sex… Well it should be logically understood, that sex is almost a branch that stems from love if love was a tree. Sex was meant to be a physical expression of love, and that’s what I will consider it to be. I do not support Pre-Marital sex; therefore I’m talking about Homosexuals who indulge in Sexual Acts only after they’ve decided to be Fidel to each other. Those who indulge in such acts before they’ve decided to live together and be faithful, well according to me, do not consider their relationship to be sanctified, and are not to whom I refer to in this piece of writing.

It is therefore quite ironic that Homosexuals who believe in the sanctity of their relationships, and agree to follow ‘Christian’ morals concerning Fidelity and Adultery, are still not allowed to be a part of any Church and aren’t accepted by many ‘Christians’.
While in the same breath Straight people who indulge in far from moralistic behaviour and might not even love each other, are accepted with arms wide open…

It’s unfortunate that a Religion based on true and pure love does not see the love within these individuals (who want to marry according to their religion, and be accepted, all within the conventions that define true love), and denies them membership or even the right to marry.

In such weird conditions one can’t but help loose faith in the religion, where the upholders of the religion somehow take it upon themselves to decide which kind of love is right and which wrong. Believing in Christ and his teachings alone is the only way out. He taught that Love meant everything, and that makes more sense than the double faced attitude today’s Churches take on the issue, in his name.

The Church has all the right to shun Homosexuals, who indulge in sexual perversions (as it would like to call it) for the sake of pure physical pleasure, and without Love for the person the relationship is being shared with. But the Church is completely wrong in Firstly, Generalising ‘True’ Homosexuals, as being perverted. They aren’t! For that matter they usually understand the emotion of Love far more comprehensively then most straight people. And Secondly, Debarring them from the rights of Religious Acceptance, and Marriage, for the simple reason that they are supposedly sinners!

Well, when did we become the judges of the sinner and the holy man? And since when did God say he would forgive only straight people? (If your so bent on saying ‘Gay’ equals ‘Hell’), and since when did loving people with all your heart, soul and mind and wanting to share your life with them, irrespective of gender become SIN in a religion founded on the emotion of Love?

I found my answers trying to answer these questions and I believe, at the end of the day…

LOVE RULES ALL...

May You Find Your Answers Too!

“When Christ accepted, never Judging, who are we to Judge?”

“…If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not LOVE, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not LOVE, I gain nothing. LOVE is patient, LOVE is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. LOVE does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS…”
1 Corinthians 13:2-8

I Gave Up… Before I even started…

“It never really mattered,
Anyone could see,
For what began in nothing,
Ended Similarly”.

Love Makes You Blind, or so the cliché saying goes. Quoted and re-quoted, it never fails to bemuse me, for the sheer irony of it.

I saw him, the day I entered college. Yes, the sun shone bright that day, and the trees were greener than usual. I even (and I can swear) heard birds chirp, and saw butterfly’s flutter around everywhere.
It was a beautiful morning indeed, and it was even prettier with such a face to enliven it. I wonder what drew my attention to him. Was it just how he looked, was it his eyes that made you look deeper into them, the more you stared, or was it his smile?
I guess it was the smile (A Smile Speaks a Thousand Words). I was floored, I needed to get to know this person, and I needed to know what was it that drew my attention to him, in just one glance.
Now as much as I wish that ‘My Story’ took the ‘normal’ turn of events thereafter, it didn’t!
I never spoke to him all through my first year, and when I did stumble upon an excellent opportunity to speak to him, I couldn’t muster up the courage to even say ‘Hi!’
I was in the most simplest of words a ‘Loser’, ‘a big time loser’, in love.
But, ‘My Raincloud’ saw the sun too, and one day I did.
The conversation lasted for half an hour (I felt it went on for days), and in those brief moments we spent together, I knew he was meant for me. I dreamt of having his children, raising his family, and spending the rest of my life with him.
We became the best of friends, he loved me, I loved him, and it was funny that all this was happening, just because a smile had caught my attention on a very fine morning.
I saw my dreams come closer to reality. He made me need him, he needed me, we needed each other, and life went on.

Wondering where the fateful twist comes in? It did.
Not much later, she entered his life. She stole him, slowly, all the while cleverly playing both sides of her card well.
I realised too late. I couldn’t undo what happened, so I let life take us where it wanted to. I couldn’t give up, so I took on the role of the martyr (How we all love that role). I would love him endlessly and let him follow his heart, and if I truly loved him he would come back (Romantics!)
I watched them fall in love, I actually helped them fall in love, and when they were in love, I couldn’t help but envy her. I knew I could have been selfish and claimed him for myself, but I believed in ‘Love’, in its most divine and purest form.
I believed in sacrifice.

Two years down the line, I’m still single, and he and his vixen are the most happening couple on campus. I still love him, and I’ll wait, forever...

He found out the other day, and instead of glorifying my Martyrdom, he walked away, disgusted.

His face turned away from me, he asked me, with tears in his eyes, if I actually loved him.
I managed to get out a yes, all the while trying to stop myself from choking over pent up emotions, dying to burst out.
He tried to put on a fake smile, and he just walked away, not saying a word, leaving me alone, all alone, on that road…

I wished it had rained then… rained like never before. I wanted to wash away his tears, and cry out loud. I had turned that pretty face I loved, into a face of confusion, bitterness, and sorrow,
When I was only trying to ‘Love’ Him.
What went wrong?
It seemed so senseless that, my own ‘Good Deeds’ had turned against me…

But then, right then, I realised…
It struck me like lightening, and shook me to my very core.
I hadn’t loved him!
I couldn’t have been in Love, if I could hide it so well and never let him have a clue…
It wasn’t Love, for I let him hurt himself… He felt guilt, as he walked away…
And if I loved him I wouldn’t have let him feel guilty…
If I had actually loved him, would I have so easily given him up, and let him into the arms of another…
If I had actually loved him, wouldn’t I have tried harder...?

I had enjoyed our Honeymoon, and didn’t want to take it further…
I didn’t have the strength to face what would become of us, if I spoke the truth.
I didn’t want to even try to make the honeymoon last forever…
I didn’t believe it could…

The Honeymoon ended before it began…
I gave up… before I even started.

“The last petal withered, crumbled and fell to the ground…
A Flower not watered… Died a wasteful death”


P.S: No Ideas... as to who im referring to... coz its no one...
This is a piece of writing i've submitted to a magazine... Chumma! and dont be so confused of the gender... DUH!!