Habitual of beginning all her write-ups with a conditional clause, almost obsessively every time, Sia sat holding her laptop in her lap (no pun implied),wrote ‘Only if it were a happy world..’ ,almost blank, desperately looking at the ceiling, the occasional glances aimed at the much needed inspiration.

The pattern had become almost a month old now. Why could she not pen down those feelings as effortlessly and instinctively as earlier?

Writer’s block, she wondered.

But wait! Was she even a writer? All those rantings were cries and sighs of a disillusioned and fractured state of mind, conceived almost in a furious typing of words by quivering fingers. She does not even remember them.

And then it dawned on her. She does not remember her own works. Has she abandoned them?

No. The works had abandoned her rather. She cannot abandon them because they never belonged to her in the first place. They belonged to their unique individual moments.

She turned off the laptop, amazed at her absolute inability to write combined with the unique nature of this new crazy thought. Should she pen it down?

She smiled at herself.

Writing would die surely,

Only if it were a happy world.

As she saw the sun setting, she hoped for the breeze to flow back.

It had already been more than a year that beauty in its most pristine form had touched her soul without permission whatsoever. Back then, she had not realized that such a chance encounter would lift the mist of sadness off her spirit and lead her to realize the meaning of love and happiness in its truest sense. It was that form of deadly sadness which is so toxic that it makes the mind and heart numb, and does not even let the victim realize its presence. Such is its adamant nature, made so through the bruises received over a period of time, that it gets unsettled only through a magical angelic touch which carries transformative powers.

Ankita was an architect by profession. Years of hardship had taught her the true meaning of life, though she would always question the absolutism of truth. A rebel since childhood, she had still learnt to adapt to the vicissitudes of life and hide the pain behind an all inspiring smile. Lines had always fascinated her. She would imagine them running crisscross across the ceiling of her bedroom while the rest slept and she built the castles of her dreams.

Castles they were. Broke. And she learnt to live the reality, only managing to smile at its cruelty as she was made to harshly accept the fact that the lines of destiny were far more powerful than the lines which fascinated her as a child.

Sitting at the edge of the window which faced the garden, she looked at her life in retrospection. She had learnt, believed and maintained all her life that change is the only constant and should thus be accepted gracefully. She suddenly felt weak in her knees as she realized that all those brave years of learning and posing strong seemed nullified in the face of a ruthless reality. Time was playing havoc and she was losing that special place. Why? She didn’t know.

There were no answers. She tried to find them. It was a futile exercise.

As it began to grow dark, she realized that there were household chores to be taken care of. Reminiscing was a luxury she could not afford.

She wondered if it was already too late for the breeze to return.

Dedicated to the one who is my diary,
For when with you, I don’t require one to write.

Confessions of a Diary
Broken heart, bundle of indecisive actions, promulgation of stuttering letters, sporadic fits, sabotaged desires. I have seen it all. It is as if I live with this sense of impending anxiety, the catastrophe of sorts, the constant desire to escape..
I feel I live with a heaviness that is not mine. Why? What does that mean? Or is it mine?
How do I become a direct derivant of that pain, anxiety and helplessness?
Does it induce peaceful sleep after it is all relieved on me?
I can’t sleep.
Even that silence is haunting.
I derive pleasure out of pain. Self-assaulted injury.
Pain that is not mine, still mine.
Mortgaged something. Not mine, still mine.
Am I dying?
Of what?

Yours burdened
Diary

Waiting at the metro station for the last metro to arrive, Shanta looks at her watch. 11:30 p.m. suddenly took her back to an incident buried deep within the folds of time.

An incident that changed her life forever. Ten years ago, she had reached home late from office. It was her success party. She had been recently promoted. It was her third promotion in three years. She was beyond herself. Her hard work had paid off after all.

But he missed the celebration. Was he jealous? She didn’t ask. However, he said something which left a hole in her soul; something which she doesn’t even wish to recall.

11:30 p.m. She left.

Today she lives alone. She had chosen that for herself after all.

What did Nora do after leaving her doll’s house? Who knows?

No regrets though.

Freedom comes with a heavy price. Self esteem is earned through a bargain. Did she weigh properly? She does not know.

The train with destination to…… is going to enter platform no 2.

Destination. She wonders.

As she caught sight of her mother’s old dupatta in the junk box, childhood peeped in through flashes of eroded memories.

A faint reminiscence of the cradle covered with the beautiful red to save her from mosquitoes probably.

She, standing next to her mother pretending to pray while the dupatta flew over her face and covered her mother’s head at the same time, adding to her tranquil beauty.

The same dupatta hanging on the nail in the kitchen as her mother toiled hard preparing delicacies to make her happy.

However, with age she lost track of it. Did she not bother enough to notice it?

How is it that the dupatta was silently laying in her junk box in her rented house in Calcutta while her mother lives in their ancestral home in Delhi?

Alone. Both of them.

She opened the folds. The folds of time got unraveled too. There was a tiny hole in it. She remembered now.

Five years ago, when she had gone home her mother had shown her the dupatta. She had asked her if it could be mended. It was her favourite. The same night she fought with her mother for something quite insignificant.

Considered her worthless for something quite insignificant.

Left the next morning and never called back, for something quite insignificant.

Suddenly, she felt a void, a lump in her throat.

“Ma?”

Looking forward to Mother’s Day which is just a few days away, one realizes that we mortals desperately look for special occasions to tell our loved ones that we love them, almost take our mothers for granted and forget the (in)significant sweet nothings of yesterday only to fight with the daily void of not being able to understand ourselves, and thus claiming not to understand others.
This one is dedicated to the unsaid, the beauty of it, and at the same time, the limitation of it. Sometimes it is good to say. Sometimes silence says it all.