If Only...

(I)

As the morning approaches the darkness

As another new dawn prepares to break in...

Walking alone against the cool soothing breeze

On that old familiar stretch of road

I do not feel myself at ease!

My heart seems heavy with a load.

For I keep on falling into the land of my thoughts....

Thoughts of why life had to be such today

Why did you and me have to suddenly part our way!!

(II)

The sights of rainy showers and lonely roads,

Swaying trees and floating clouds

The stretches of lush green fields

And that childish innocence

To which all anger yields

Are all making me so desperately wish

If only I could be a child again...

(III)

Remembering the way things used to be back then

We were just two friends walking carefree in the rain

No questions asked on our friendship

No eyebrows raised over our timeless gossip

No restrictions set on our courtship

No conclusions drawn over our relationship....

(IV)

A time that once was between you and me

Now I sometimes wonder if ever again will be

For those days were a lot more simpler

When us holding hands was instinctively natural

When our sitting close wasn't that big a matter

The time before life became complicated

And friendship turned into flings...

My only big problem was thinking of

Ways to tease you and then patch up things

Those hidden passions of giving funny nicknames

With warm vivid memories of long forgotten games!!!

(V)

Feels as if yesterday they had let us grow up together as best friends

Yesterday that they let us build each other's trust!

Yet all those days that I now think of

Convinced I am, for us things are only going to get worst

All these years later,we have grown

All the while taught to handle our life as it comes on our own...

When everytime we meet each other,we know we haven't changed a bit

Why then do they have such sick and lousy issues with it!!

(VI)

Now that I am growing up I so frequently dream...

I dream of this long sea beach

With the waves playing a soft music

And the wind being playfully naughty...

Walking along the shores hand in hand

Me and you watching the lovely setting sun

At times again running around and having fun...

(VII)

I wake up suddenly,disturbed from my sleep

I sit up wide awake on my bed!!

With all those memories spinning around in my head

I then start wishing if only if only

I could be a child yet again....

And all I manage to finally do is

Let out a loud yet so silent scream.....

Is This Love??...

Hello readers, welcome back; Its been a while I had last posted so here I am finally with sort of something I decided I had to share because it has been disturbing my mind since I tried to hold it back. Ok sorry!! Enough of beating around the bush keeping you wondering about what next .
Well since past few days, months or I should say years I have been regularly haunted by this question whenever I sit down lonely having nothing much to do or even while just strolling around but still cant find an answer which is what disturbs me the most.
I guess by now, you dear reader would have already figured out as to what is the question?? Yes you are right! No surprises it is indeed “Is This Love?”
I have asked this to myself so many times considering the pros and cons, weighing my arguments and cross arguments to myself in every possible combination every time hoping to arrive at a conclusion, to find out the answer but am disappointed every time.
I mean admitted I am yet to call someone my girlfriend (someone who exists and is real) yet to fall in love with a human going by that criteria, but I have also fallen in love in so many sights, so many ways and am happy for that. Still time and again when this question crosses me, I am only reduced to square one fighting with myself allover again to get over that feeling!
Before going any further may I please ask you one favor! Please don’t come to a conclusion and get an idea about what sort of person I am and refrain yourself in terming me as someone lovelorn or failed in love or a frustrated soul atleast!!
I am sure by now a lot of you are wondering why then am I writing such a post wasting my time and yours too, let me explain because I am not finished yet, because I wanted someone with whom I could share this trouble but then realized a lot of people wont understand who don’t know me well as may be the case with you but no offence, this is true both for me and you too. Still I have tried to communicate my thoughts to you through this post with the hope it serves the purpose well!!
My life till now can be broadly classified into two phases my school life and my college life(both post schooling and graduation). During schooling I fell in love so many times I cant even remember the count as say my friends, you know these associations of a girl with a boy and all the teasing and leg pulling that follows.
It was normal then, for me to think and ask myself Is This Love? But a large part of it honestly was both a pleasurable and enjoyable thing that still continues to be till now.. I say so because those girls at school that were my then girlfriends thanks to the courtesy of my friends, are still some of my best friends I will ever have! and that in no ways is supposed to mean I don’t have any boys as my best buddies.
It was infatuation normal at that time, then came college where it was pretty much a daily thing to be teased around and to tease my other friends with girls, the names of which some were known,others imagined to be existing matching my friends’ names. How long does it take to think a name when the objective is to tease a close friend and have fun?? Less than a minute of course.The whole exercise was fun including the blushing the reaction the aftermath all of it.
Here I would like you to spare a few moments asking yourself these questions: what were the circumstances, the events, the memories or the meetings that ultimately led you ever to ask yourself Is This Love? If at all you have asked this to yourself, there must be someone on your mind at that time, generally the way you dealt with that person,his/her smile,look,almost everything in him/her you can possibly imagine about your perfect partner. This is in a virtual world that of your mind where you are free to associate,bond,imagine and fantasize without any limits to the level of your imagination!
But you know what! The reality is a little bit different,its never the same “easy as a cake walk”stuff in the real dynamic world. What I mean is people do fall in love and a lot of them do. But what hurts is the way,being in love has changed. Today only a rare, lucky ones find and hold on to their true love in their partners,some still luckier take it to the next level and become life partners but in a society as traditional and conservative as ours, for many of those who are in love,being married is still a distant dream come true when it asks to be brought to the notice of their family,the results running away from home and still extreme couples committing suicide for their love….
Cant things change a bit,cant parents give a hearing to their own children in matters of love? Cant the children think about the plight of their parents after their death? I believe all this will change but will take a long long time from now.
Hey wait wait! Are we not forgetting another class of lovers the doomed class!! Shocked reading doomed?? Well sorry I tried hard but failed to find a term more pertinent to call to those persons for whom reasons yet unknown; falling in love itself was a sin altogether!
Why am I saying so? Because being in love no longer remains a pleasurable thing to be happy about, as it used to be once upon a time. Nowadays it seems to be more of pain both physical and psychological, why else would one see break ups and affairs on a regular basis at college,do you think breaking up is easy, no its not! if you have ever broke up with somebody you will know better, not for the girl or the boy also. Things are alright until limited to not more than breaking up and moving on with respective lives; it becomes worse when love turns revengeful and then the consequences are both undesirable and frightening.

These days not only news channels and news papers, every media seems to have a story of extremism in love to tell!! The victim in most or all cases the girl,lady, her fault?? She walked out of a relationship saying she wasn’t comfortable so she doesn’t deserve to live!! She rejected me for another guy so she is so proud of her beauty,throw acid on her and let her live a cursed life ever after. Such stories are not framed out of imagination but are witness to the horrible plight of people in love.
Its not that it’s the females always who have to bear the torture, maybe we come to know their story because they in general have the benefit of public backing and support,and in a male dominated society as us,the guys dont come out of their sufferings in love for fear of being bullied around if they share their grief, still a stronger reason being it would hurt their male ego and pride….
Thinking all these things and many more such issues, I am scared, sometimes feeling sorry for the victims of such unjust violence in love and at other times being thankful I wasn’t born a girl in the first place..
With of all these turmoils in my mind I find myself being brought back time and again to the same old question when I hear them say: they were supposed to be in love or it is the result of love! Is This Love???

Farewell

Hi reader!! I guess it is a pretty weird topic to post about;You might be wondering I am going to talk about farewell;No I am not this is what I feel how significant or insignificant receiving a farewell can be and how different feelings develop for an institution that has been your alma mater!.I couldn't decide so I leave it upto you to decide for yourself.
Just a few weeks ago a friend of mine and me were talking about farewell,I said it is a wonderful word,she retorted as farewell being painful. Ok agreed it is a painful word,but spare a moment and think about it,you will realize its beauty. The pain makes a farewell all the more worthy,beautiful,emotional and for that separation from friends which at some point or the other is inevitable, is a worthy price to pay cos friends do separate physically but they never take away those memories created with them,those always remain with us!
She said then she didn't want to be nostalgic at that time,I agreed and we stopped discussing but I was already drowning in thoughts,what could I do?I decided then to write about it!
And here I sit with all but two instances- one where I consider myself lucky and the other well I sometimes still try to find out what and where did it go wrong....

Thoughts,flashbacks,memories,cries,laughter,quarrels,patch ups all these words suddenly surface in my mind when I think of farewell.I am sure even you would have started tracking back on your memory lanes...There must be something special about a farewell! how else could such feelings,emotions,attachments be associated with it.
I was one of those guys lucky enough to receive a farewell & it wasn't until the end of that day that I realized what was all this about,I mean personally I attended my first farewell at 10th std but it all came to me,those tides and waves of thoughts that afternoon!Yes I remember around 5 pm in the evening as I was reaching home,all I had was tears rolling down my eyes...

Back then some seven years ago when I was in my schooling I had hopes,dreams of making it to the college,scoring well at my boards & all sorts of things my then schoolish mind could think of that time.While at home I was happy with the thought that one day I would go to a college far from home to study.
Honestly I had never imagined then,what would life be like after crossing the school gates or should I say I never thought about it!whatever;Life at school was monotonic in the truest sense of the word yet was so interesting and amusing,the same uniforms,the same friends,the same pranks all was so predictable and predetermined and if I had ever stuck to a timetable on my own it must have been my school timetable :) because spending time in those classrooms,grounds or at large in that campus,time was lost indeed every time I entered the gates with my friends.And then the fact that one day you have to go out of it, away for higher studies was something my one part which called for duty understood but what about my other part, a part of me that till today is still in my school?That afternoon sometime during the later end of February,my this other part had taken complete charge of my entire being.
True I did finish school,entered college,finished college and entered graduation where I made more friends and special ones too a handful of whom I can proudly call my buddies,but none came quite close to the level of understanding with those that I had as my childhood friends both verbal and nonverbal!I guess it must be the same with each one of you too.
I wont go in detail as to what had happened during our farewell,that would spoil the speciality of the memories each of us has about their farewell...

Seven years!! enough time to detach oneself from a memory isn't it,that's what I had thought that someday I will not keep myself close to my school,but few days back when I had to go to a place where once my old school was,I realized I was cornered and terribly wrong!! Just one look in and around that building and all memories almost came back to me,the small assembly space when our school started with a mere 50 odd students,the classrooms where I had been naughty like hell,the principal's chamber where I was made to write numerous pages to improve my handwriting (You must Thank God I have typed and not handwritten this post for you to read!),the playground which was witness to many of my merry times and many more such trivial incidents;trivial I say as it may mean to some of you,but not to me I would rather say recollections of such special incidents which strongly convinced me in a moment that neither me nor Saint Joseph's can break away from each other...

Well,I guess I wrote a lot about school but my grad college isn't far behind to be left out!We were the first batch of our college REC! and this time I am not so proud to call ourselves thus because we didn't receive what was due for us.That first year is a different story to tell. But the memories of my first visit are worth mentioning,it was monsoon peak time when I first went to see the college and it took us near an hour to find out where actually REC was and what more, when I saw REC for the first time,there it stood like a barren monument in the middle of isolation;Isolation because there was knee deep water surrounding it,a canal and a weak temporary bridge that had to be crossed to get to our college without a proper connecting road and only stones placed down from the bridge to the college in walkable distance and almost no civilization or means of communication as far as one could see;We returned after seeing it!I didn't know who to tell,as must be the case of all my friends who might have seen the college in that state!
Then there was the orientation day;Well a new college meant no ragging those days and I got to see many new and old faces,some luckily from my hometown,others who happened to be my branch mates later on but the same expression of excitement mixed with intimidation of asking people where did they belong to and many such silly questions as conversation starters that are asked to first time strangers of course and then and there we bonded and became friends.

If I go on writing I am afraid this will take a long time to end! Some of you might be thinking by now as why am I writing about how my first day at college was,is this an essay?No dear this isn't an essay,it never was meant to be one,but writing this sure has a purpose why! which is to be blunt and rude, we the first batch that the management of REC so much boasts about calling and patting us still as proud RECIANS have been denied the most coveted memory in one's studying career that is to say a farewell!!
There are many things I heard about why we weren't seen off by our college,there was this senior junior cold war a reason,even friends of our batch had a split within ourselves too. But whatever be the reason it doesn't matter now! does it?What is once gone is gone.Still at times when this thought enters my mind that after seeing a college,being a part of it since the time when any of the constructions apart from the four class rooms and a few offices weren't even nearing completion,did we not have a right to an if not pompous and expensive but at least a decent and formal farewell from the college.
I am not blaming anyone,I know I can't,I know I don't have to because if I see it from the other side,it was good we didn't get a farewell from REC,who the hell needs one when almost all of us are there at facebook and as the catchline goes"Stay Connected" with facebook. We indeed have opened up a virtual REC at the online world and have really stayed connected at facebook! although not exactly as during college days but nevertheless to a lesser extent and we surely enjoy our online encounters!

P.S.Maybe I never will have the feeling of closeness with REC as I have for my school,maybe if only we would have received a farewell,things thoughts and feelings for REC would have been otherwise sweet and strong! Maybe our immediate juniors don't have to go away with the same fate as us! maybe this was all the resentment I had to bring out from within myself to be in peace! Maybe.....

FOSLA.........

Hey there, reader Hi! Before you read this post, I need to ask you a question “Are you single or committed?” , No need to answer me, just answer yourself. If you feel you are committed then please be my guest and read on and if you are single then I am sorry I need to ask you a few more questions but later on first let me make few things clear about this post
1. This post is not meant to offend lovers or in anyways make fun of committed ones.
2. Wondering what FOSLA is all about? You must have read that a Nest is called Ghosla in Hindi. A Ghosla. This is nowhere near it my friends. Now you shouldn’t bang your head, won’t get anything out of it anyways! So without any boring elongation I take it my duty to ellucidate on FOSLA which stands for Frustrated.. One Sided.. Lovers’ Association!! Amused? Or shocked?? Please don’t be, cos it’s gonna happen again and again.
Now if your answer was single may I ask you,
Was it one sided or involved both of you at any point of time?
If your answer to the above question is one sided, then I am sure, you have been sometimes frustrated, at least once, and why I say so is because I am sure you haven’t expressed your love to the other person (boy or girl) whosoever!!
Don’t worry whatever be your reason for not expressing, fear of denial or rejection of proposal seem to be the top most probabilities concerning your state and its not a joke, it’s the same story in 9 out of 10 cases and there is nothing to be sad about or even feel humiliated about it, believe me.
Coming back to FOSLA, another fact about our association is although it is a virtual imagination it exists within us the honorary members or once members of FOSLA. I had been a member of FOSLA for 4 years precisely but was qualified to be a member even before that!
Speaking of qualifications,
All you need to do is find a person after whom more than one fellow of the opposite sex is following (apart from you of course!!)
Next you must start loving but not express your love.
And the rest frustration will do, not exactly frustration alone I must say but accompanied by memories, events, depression, thoughtfulness, daydreaming, sleepless nights and a whole lot more things(which are, of course natural to follow) will show you the way to FOSLA and what more you will become a member of this prestigious association.
Well apart from the above two categories of lovers as one sided and committed, there is I would like to share a rare third category which is the reason why I decided to post about FOSLA. Intriguing?? As to what is the third type! I would sin If I kept you guessing.
Believe me I have this friend of mine who was qualified for FOSLA but was an exception as regards the 2nd criteria of not expressing his love; I take it a point to mention that this fried of mine had guts I must say, was brave enough to propose the girl he loved was braver when he faced denial, the reason being the girl was supposedly committed from before, well hard luck for my friend. I call him brave because the girl after whom he was (or still seems to be) was also the one I was after and I don’t regret being after her because for her I came to know about FOSLA but now I have let go off her and that is also why I no longer consider myself to be a part of it but at the same time cherish my time spent with FOSLA. Here I am stronger because my friend still hasn’t been able to shake her off his being!
I must thank the girl once for saying me that I was a child, but hey dear if you are reading this post, I want to thank you because had you not told me that particular sentence I would never have fed myself with an anger so strong that I could come out of your infatuation!! So thanks for those words because for once getting angry has benefitted me!
And so my friend constitutes till date in my knowledge as the only member of FOSLA in the 3rd category of lovers, who after being denied also haven’t been able to let go…
But dear friend please don’t squander your time because all you will ever get out of it is but pain ad restlessness because you know she cant come back to you now…
Well, sometimes I guess there should be one more category in this group, what about those who fall in love, fail in love, fall in love (again), fail in love(obviously again), and fall in love again? I mean, it’s hard luck for them but it surely throws in tickling memories and livens up the rest of the group. Of course, “You know, I would surely get her this time!” is what they say on their 100th crush!
Now sit back and relive those devilish attempts of yours. And at least remember me once for making your boring schedule more namkeen!
Long love FOSLA…

Gates Of Heaven....

(I)
Slowly yet surely the clock ticks by
I have no answers to seek for or questions to ask why
For here are people of all kinds kids young and old
Few faces shining with hope,smiling,yet few crying and cold!
A sight so scary and frightening to behold
People here are praying,they have their breath to hold!

(II)
These empty corridors and the patients behind closed doors
The whispers of their dear ones and talking of the sisters
Strolling around this loneliness my heart is heavy, my eyes go sore
Still I wont sleep,to complete all by myself I have a chore...
On the chair as I sit hence advances the night
In a few hours from now to arrive promises the sunlight

(III)
Through the glass panes the morning sun peeps
Standing at this gates of heaven an ambulance beeps
There I see far away at a corner a mother woefully weeps
All this while on a stretcher
As her son so silently and peacefully sleeps...

(IV)
All of a sudden choked and suffocated I feel
Thinking how if ever that wound on the mother's heart would heal
At the race of life and death,death has ruthlessly won,
In that fight she has lost her only son......!

My Love...

How do I fall in love when all I see is pain!
How do I fall in love when all I see is tears!
How do I fall in love when all I see is hearts broken!
How do I fall in love when all I see is faith shaken!
How do I fall in love when all I see is love a plaything?
How do I fall in love when lovers cheat in disguise?
How do I fall in love when trust is so broken as if pieces of glass!
How do I fall in love when love comes and goes in a flash!
So many times over love my mind and heart had a clash.
But for me love was never ever a trash!
I know I haven't ever seen or heard from you
Yet I believe a day will come I will find you
Some day when you and me will be together
From that day till ever I'll be with you!
Lost I will be then in your sparkling eyes
I wont be free from your hold even after a million tries.
With your tears my eyes shall weep
In the shades of your hair I shall wake and sleep.
Holding your hands I will go any distance
Hearing your voice every time I will be in a trance.
For my love for you I know is true
Till my last breath my love I will keep loving you....

Little Angels

A tiny handsome lad and a little beautiful dame
Holding each other's hand busy in their game
Walking side by side,shorter and shorter in their stride
Away into a world of their own they seemed to ride
They had nothing to worry about or anything to hide
But being with each other they did take pride
Neither the darkness around nor the lonely path ahead!
Was there a thing of which these kids were scared?
Along the road they both endlessly chattered
As if for them only the other one mattered
And poking and pinching and teasing and punching
The girl frowning,the lad coaxing all the way
At other times the boy joking and the girl laughing her heart away!!
They both knew at a point they had to part
Towards their homes each had to depart
Yet on their faces there were no signs of sorrow
They were sure they would meet again tomorrow.

Friends Forever

For the first time we met we were strangers
With lots of doubts hesitations, compulsions and fear...
Slowly yet steadily we began knowing each other
Then came a time we became the best of friends ever
Since then there are many a times we have fought
Without giving anything else a second thought
Each other’s help we have unconditionally sought!
But seeing tears in one’s eyes
Our sleep, our smiles we have forgot!
We are not friends if we drift apart
We are not friends if we don’t give a start
We are not friends if we keep on holding to silly things
We are not friends if we don’t understand
We are not friends if we don’t dare
We are not friends if we don’t care
We are not friends if we don’t share
Since when did we start trusting each other
Is something I still don’t remember!
Our bonds of friendship we so tenderly bear
At times happy or difficult our friendship will stand
High above wear and tear
That I am lucky to have you all as my friends is all that matters
Cos for each other I know we were, are and will always be there....