With...Without...

It was late evening when she returned home from work. There were a few messages on her answering machine - some feeble attempts on the part of her handful of friends to get her to socialize. The truth was, more and more so lately, she found herself looking for excuses to be alone. She had dreaded the dull feeling of loneliness almost all her life but now it seemed to penetrate through every tissue, every cell in her body. Strangely, she did not find it that bad.

However, on this particular night, she felt extremely abandoned. Alone in her room, she kept feeling that the whole universe existed someplace else. She looked around and felt the emptiness of her space. It felt as if she was digging her own grave inside her and would die before she finished the process of burying herself. Desperate to catch a whiff of fresh air, she went to the terrace and stared at the sky.

There was a star right in front of her; twinkling yet alone. Slowly, as she continued staring into the night sky, several other stars showed up, far away from each other.

"Though apart, we are all stars belonging to the same sky," she thought, silently thanking the stars for the message they had unknowingly conveyed.

She allowed her mind to journey to the last time they had met. "When you travel, what is it that you seek?" she had asked him.
"I don't know," he said.
"Then how will you find it?" she questioned.
"Piece by piece," he replied matter-of-factly.
"How will you know that you have found all the pieces?" she teased. "The world is quite big, you know."
He appeared unperturbed. "I will know when I feel like the way I feel around you," came his reply.
"Which is," she urged him to continue though she could already feel both a flutter as well as a knot in her stomach.
"Complete," he said and then became suddenly silent.
"And what if I am what you are looking for?" she asked though she knew that now she was beginning to tread on broken glass pieces.
"Then I'll come back to you and never leave," he replied.
She should have been ecstatic on hearing his response yet she felt her shoulders tightening. She found herself saying, "Well then, I hope you never find me again."
"Why's that?" he asked, in a somewhat surprised tone.
"Because we both know that the day you stop exploring is the day you die. And with you, I."
He suddenly broke into one of his rare smiles. He pulled her cheeks fondly and remarked, "Since when did you start sounding all grown-up?"
"I travel with you too, you know...even if in spirit," she chirped. "Now go, I can hear the highways calling out your name. Ride safe!"
"I will," he promised.

Good-byes had never been easy for her but somehow letting him go hadn't been as difficult as she had imagined. Perhaps, it was because she still felt connected to him at soul-level. He was probably miles away from her but she still felt that her heart beat to the rhythm of his tunes.

But these days, she felt that she was gradually falling off from love. She wasn't moving away from it, of that she was sure, but lately, she missed being loved by him and felt no one loved her as much as he had. There were days when this feeling was so intense that she almost convinced herself to seek love from anywhere because she foolishly believed, in those moments, that everyone apart from her had so much love in their lives. Even though that feeling lasted only a few seconds, its residue continued to persist between her chest making her jump to the false conclusion that she was having a heart attack.

All of a sudden, she stumbled into a zone where she found herself untouched by the very existence of love. She felt irritated by this feeling because she knew that love flowed through every creation, through every damn molecule on this planet. Then, why was she so out of touch with this feeling? Why was she in this zone? Whatever the reason, she fervently wished she could get out of it. She did not feel unloved - she just missed being loved. Why had the rains stopped abruptly leaving her to muddle with the heat because of their absence when they should have been ruling the ground and making the mud feel orgasmic?

She really missed him and she wished he was there by her side, stroking her hair, watching her as she fell asleep. Thankfully, his thoughts had not left her presence. With thoughts of him, she entered into a world of slumber hoping to run into him in her dreams. Indeed, in the land of dreams, he awaited her arrival.
"I miss you," she complained to him. "I can't deal with this any longer. I am going to go away soon, far away, in the land where nothing exists."
He laughed, "Then, my love, your path to it is through the lanes of my heart. Believe me, without you, nothing exists."
"Do you miss me?" she asked.
"You're not really away," he said, caressing her. "When everything is silent inside me, I find Gods singing hymns through my breaths. And, my love; in my breaths, I find your music."
She smiled at him.
"If you loved me so much, why did you let me go?" he asked. "If you had asked me to stay, you knew I would."
"The most beautiful thing is when love gives you freedom," she replied.
"And when is that?" he asked.
"When you give yourself freedom to love," she said.
"Don't worry, my love," he said. "I think it is time for me to continue my journeys with you. I'll be coming soon. I hope you will wait for me."
"I will," she promised. "Come soon."

It was still dark outside but he decided that he had had enough rest for the night. In fact, he felt that he had had enough of everything. Earlier, he found it easy to simply wander for days without reaching any destination but these days, he felt as if the destination he was going to never existed. He had, in fact, left his destination behind. As this realization dawned, he felt as if a heavy load had been lifted from his heart. The journey had been eventful and he had no regrets but it was now time to return to the path from which he had digressed. Returning was not going to be an easy step but the thought of her filled him with feelings of calmness, tranquility and peace and he was determined to walk steadfastly ahead in the direction of his new-chosen path.

At the crack of dawn, he marched forward, fully awakened by the shining sun. In her sleep, she turned, with a big smile pasted on her face.

Morning would soon arrive, fulfilling its promise of a chance for new beginnings.

The Other Side (Flash Fiction)

He was quite groggy in the morning when he got up. Last night, the farewell-party had lasted too long. Although sleep-deprived, his spirits were high at the thought of the new job in a foreign country with the love of his life by his side. Life just could not get any better than this! He got into a taxi and headed for the airport. He did not know when he dozed off but he woke up to the sound of blaring horns. A crowd of people were gathered at a little distance away from him. He could also see an ambulance parked. He wondered how he had landed on the road. Without looking behind, he tried making his way through the crowd. They had surrounded a broken down taxi. The bonnet of the car was smashed and the bumpers were off. A taxi-driver lay dead on the ground. He recognized the driver – it was the same man who was driving him to the airport. He overheard the conversation of the people – there had been a terrible accident; both, the driver and passenger had died on the spot. He turned around to look at the passenger and was shocked to see his own body lying on the ground. He realized that the people could not see him, hear him or sense him. Surely this wasn’t real! He could not be dead!

As she waited for him at the airport, she could feel the butterflies in her stomach, fluttering around with excitement. The future that she had always anticipated was soon going to turn into reality. Her knight in shining armour, who had already swept her off her feet, was finally taking her away from home so that the two of them could begin a new chapter of life together. As the thought that she was leaving everything that she knew behind crossed her mind, her heart started feeling heavy. Letting go is never easy even if one knows for certain that a better life lies ahead…Giving up on things with which one is familiar is difficult, even if it causes one pain, because no fear is greater than the fear of the strange and the unknown. The idea of leaving behind her nagging parents that had initially seemed welcoming was now pricking her. What if the feeling of being alone appeared and started biting her? She quickly tried dismissing those thoughts. She knew that she wasn’t alone. He would always be there to hold her hand. A smile appeared on her face and her eyes lit up at the thought of him. Even if she was being invaded by feelings of emptiness and barrenness, his love would shower her, once again, with fulfillment and contentment.

His soul found her still at the airport. There was a crease of worry on her forehead and a frown on her face as she repeatedly dialled his number and found his phone not available. He wanted to speak to her but she could not hear the sound of his voice. He was a rain-cloud, held back behind the mountain of doom. She was a desert, aching for his touch, on just the other side…

Mumbai: The City That Never Sleeps

Mumbai has always boasted that it is the City That Never Sleeps. The city has been a witness of torrential rains, terrorist attacks, bomb-blasts etc. and none of these have succeeded in deterring the brave spirits of the Mumbaikars and their never-say-die attitude.

Having lived in Kolkata and Bangalore for seventeen years and three years respectively, where everything shuts before 1:00 a.m. and the roads are absolutely desolated with no one in sight, Mumbai was a welcome change as being a city buzzing with activity even late at night past 2:30 a.m. I think I am one of the fortunate ones who has never been chased by the police for being present at Marine Drive in the dark hours of the night.

Every time I am out at night, the ink-coloured skies of the city seem to be sparkling with the painted dreams of the people it inhabits. No matter how late it is, I have never found myself alone in the city - people are always present, be it taxi-drivers, food-vendors or people, like me, just strolling around.

Saturday was the first time I experienced the city shutting down owing to the death of Shiv Sena visionary, Bal Thackeray. It took my friend, Sanika, and I almost 2 hours to reach home. We had to resort to walking on foot since taxis and autos refused passengers. One auto-wala who did agree to drop us to the nearest station gave up half-way when other auto-drivers coming from the opposite direction approached us with their shattered windows and warned us that autos carrying passengers were being pelted with stones and the drivers were being charged with sticks. Trains were relatively empty, mainly because people had no means of reaching the station. While the passing away of a great political leader is indeed a tragic loss for many, it is not right, in my opinion, to force people to mourn his death by bringing the entire city to a stand-still. The city witnessed an eerie silence on the day of his funeral with thousands of his followers gathered at Shivaji Park while the rest of the Mumbaikars were stuck indoors on a weekend. Shops were closed. Restaurants were shut. Even chemists were not open. I was one of the more unfortunate ones: having just returned from Kolkata, my house was not stocked with any groceries and to make matters worse, my building ran out of water supply on Sunday. So, I was subjected to be under house-arrest with no food and no water just because the person who people claim had made Mumbai safe for women and everyone else was gone; and therefore it was not safe to venture out of the house for anyone! Am I the only one who sees the irony of this? In spite of all this, one cannot say that the city was entirely shut with trains still functioning normally.

Although it is the 'City That Never Sleeps', according to me, Mumbaikars are always in a state of perpetual slumber. Have you ever gone even one night without sleep? If yes, you will agree with me when I say that whenever you are sleep-deprived, you tend to be very indifferent the next day. You feel cranky. You do not wish to really talk to anyone. You just want to get done with your work and you want people to leave you alone. If someone is talking to you about their woes, you do not desire to listen to them; you keep wishing that they go away. This is how I normally act when I have not had my beauty sleep and I like to believe that everyone behaves the same way...It is because of this I say that while Mumbai is full of people who never sleep, it hardly has people who are wide awake...People in Mumbai are always on the move, desperate to reach their destination without caring much about fellow-travellers. I have a friend who always claims that in Mumbai you can do anything you like, wear whatever you want - people, here, will not stare at you! There are times when I find myself wondering if that is really a good thing...People in Mumbai do not have time for even giving another person a second glance - they are too self-absorbed and caught up in their own lives...The people, here, are just disconnected from one another and from the other person's reality. They are just interested in ensuring that their life moves forward...My friends often accuse me of being rather sensitive and advice me to be wary of strangers but unfortunately (or fortunately), I just cannot become a Mumbaikar in that aspect despite my love for the city.

People from Kolkata may be termed as 'nosy' or 'interfering' if you wish to see them through those eyes but by their very nature, people in Kolkata are helpful. Several cars sped past us on the Saturday we were stranded on the roads...If it was Kolkata, many cars (I am not saying all of them) would have stopped and offered a lift to some of the people on the roads. When I suggested that we ask someone for a lift, my friend found even that suggestion preposterous!

Death is a natural event. What surprised me is that the natural death of an important figure brought the city to a complete halt when the untimely deaths of several commoners could do nothing to stop the city from bustling with activity! The city of Mumbai finally fell asleep this weekend; unfortunately, the amount of sleep it needs to compensate for being up since several decades was, most probably, not enough.

On Monday, everything seemed to be going back to normal. Even Dadar, the hot-spot of the Shiv Sainiks, returned to its state of regular functioning. This is Mumbai. This is the City of Dreams. There are times when people may occasionally doze away but Mumbaikars will only rest when they sleep in eternal peace. After all, they are living in the City That Never Sleeps...