MUMBAI - LOSS IN TERROR

‘We are hoping she is still alive. Hope is all we have...’
‘I didn’t think I would survive...’
‘I have lost my son...’


I won’t make a statement on terrorism. I won’t talk about the attack. I won’t write about the politics of it all. I won’t share my views on the global crisis. I won’t deliberate on how it may herald the beginning of a change, if at all. I won’t.

I have not read much and I don’t have much clue about what the word ‘terrorism’ precisely stands for. I don’t know the several meanings it may have. I don’t know much about being attacked. I have never been a witness to it or been in the midst of it. I don’t know how it feels to be there at that very moment. I don’t know much about my country, not even about the state I live in to even have a view on what would affect the millions and millions of people around the globe. I don’t know much about human nature, let alone what brings about a change in the masses, what brings about revolution.

But I do know about loss. I do know about how it feels to lose someone you love. I do know how hard it is to believe and to accept and come to terms with the fact that the person, living, breathing, laughing and smiling has ceased to exist in a matter of few moments.

I do know about fear. I do know what it means to be vulnerable and to hang on to hope even in the most hopeless situations.

I do know about regret. I do know when the heart just longs to and wishes to turn back the time and do things differently; to have stayed back at home or to have left earlier.

I also know about the guilt; the ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. What if I had gone instead of her? If only she hadn’t gone!

I do know about death. I know when it comes accidentally or through a lifelong sickness. But I don’t know and I am unable to comprehend how a human being can kill another. I don’t know how we have become our own death.

Perhaps, I will never know. But do I really want to know, when all that I know is more than enough to constrict my heart and suffocate my soul?

"You'll Always Be My Student..."

That was what my teacher wrote to me on Children's Day. I pray I always remain a student, always learning from the greatest teacher of all - Life.

When I read the sms, I backtracked to my childhood to the days of being just another student, just another teenager learning to grow up, my school and college days, time spent with my friends and family. Everything just went by in a flash. Since then I have been feeling a bit nostalgic. By the end of the day, I can’t help but sigh all the time reminiscing about my past; more so because today is one of my dearest friends’ birthday as well. I was just writing a letter to him and missed him and the good ol’ days.

It is perhaps a perfect timing in a way. It is amusing too that these memories come to me now when I am at a turning point of my life. I say a ‘turning point’ not to specify any bigger turn of events or greater opportunity or any of those sorts. It is simply meant to imply a change of track from what I had been doing or a new phase in my life.

As I remember those days of insecurities and harmless joys, I feel the same emotions even now. I feel the sense of uncertainty over what my life will reveal to me in the coming days and whether I will be able to overcome whatever challenges it throws at me. It is the same period of excitement and anxiousness for the future ahead of us that I lived through during and after my graduation. Not knowing whether whatever I had learned would prove useful at all in securing me a stable and financially independent life, was not the least pleasing. It is the same even today. I still doubt even after gaining some experience in my field if all that I have learned will hold me well in my future endeavours. The more one learns and experiences in life, the more one becomes uncertain of it.

Knowledge is rewarding only to an extent, beyond which it leads to another quest, another search to clear the doubts that it has managed to engender along with the wisdom it generated. Life after all is but a continuous journey of trying to clear all the doubts we have and ultimately only those lead a happy life who manages to live with those very doubts!

I wish I always remain a student in life. Perhaps we always are, in a way, with life teaching us its own lessons. And maybe, just maybe, it laughs at us from time to time for taking it too seriously sometimes!

A FRIENDLY SMOKE

I went inside the room. I looked around – the bed was neatly made, books and magazines well-placed on the shelf which also had room for other stuff like DVDs and stationery, floor had just been mobbed and was still a little wet. I realised my arrival on short notice had my friend running around the room, tidying up things and mopping the floor.

“See, I clean my house,” she announced very proudly. “I don’t need you around to do it.”

I just smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. There was a pack of cigarettes on her bed. I opened the pack. She had already smoked 4 out of the 20 cigarettes in the pack. I instinctively took one out, got up and started looking for a matchbox. I found one on the table and went out to the small balcony and lit my cigarette.

I don’t smoke. I don’t like smoking. I have only smoked once or twice in my life just as an experiment. The first time to figure out what the fuss was all about. When I didn’t find anything to fuss about it I didn’t smoke another one. The second time was at a later stage in life when I wanted to find out how long it takes to smoke a cigarette if one was puffing it continuously and if one was having a conversation in between.

“Going out and smoking, huh? Whom are you trying to check out?” That was her reaction apart from a little surprised look when I had taken the cigarette out in the first place.

I knew she was thinking why this guy was smoking, when she knew that I don’t really smoke. But she knew I was matured enough to make my own decisions and understand the consequences of my action. She gave me that much credibility as a person and that much of a space as a friend.

I didn't smoke another one. In fact, I could not even finish the first one. She finished the remaining half. What I am trying to say is that most of the times we tend to be too judgemental and too opinionated about people and things. We tend to blur the line between giving a sound advice and encroaching upon others’ personal space. Every relation has its own limits and boundaries; and it differs between each individual relation. But within each relation there must exist a line beyond which if anything is said or done it becomes an act of disrespect towards the individual. It no longer is civil or tolerable but rather an intrusion.

A good friend is one who knows when to play silence and when it is time to play the music.

A good friend is one who knows when to fill that silence and when to hear that music.

And there is no lesson better than the ones learnt by ourselves through our own actions and our own experiences. If it is a bad one then well, it tends to leave a bitter aftertaste. So was the same with me. The cigarette left a bitter taste in my mouth and I was making such faces that my friend had to laugh before she asked me, ‘Enjoyed it, huh?’

Will I smoke another cigarette? Thank you but I will pass.