The Shadow Road

 

“I have a bad habit of seeking validation. I want to get rid of it, and I am working on it. I have come a long way from who I was in the past, and I hope to improve myself,” Reena pondered as she drove on the same road over and over again. The signs, the cars and the scenery around her were the same, nothing changed.

There was what felt like a blink of an eye and she was back at the beginning of the road; she had not driven a meter beyond. The sky had a reddish hue as the sun had set and it was dark. She looked at her mobile and time stood still, not a second further. She panicked and looked around at the other drivers on the road trying to get a glimpse of their expressions, but nobody responded. They all drove like robots, their faces still and their posture stable, as if they were programmed to do the same over and over again.

The road did not reach the exit before she had to start all over again, and so Reena decided to stop her car in the side of the road and collect her thoughts on what she should do next. The long stretch of the road did not make sense; there was no beginning and no end. She was stuck in an infinite loop.

She stood there on the side of the road with the wind blowing on her face, her eyes squinting as her mind tried to make sense of what was going on.

“What am I here for? Where am I going?” Those questions suddenly popped in her head like a bolt of lightning. The same pattern around her was driving her crazy. The combination of frustration and anger brought tears to her eyes, as she sat down with her hands on her face. She shook her head, contemplating every path she took before she reached this road, but could not figure out the whys and the hows. 

“Time” passed by as she slumped on the ground against her car and stared at the horizon, her mind zoning out into oblivion. Tears dried up as her mind gradually became comfortable with her situation. She did not fight it anymore, but accepted her fate.

I stood there and watched her go though her anguish. She sat still, her eyes looking at the ground and slowly her body turned dark. With time she looked like a black figure sitting against her car, as if she had turned into a ghost, and then right in front of my eyes she vanished.

“Where did she go?” I said to myself as I walked towards her car. I walked around but her existence disappeared. There was no trace. I went back to my spot and sat down, closed my eyes and meditated, and there she was, right in front of me. She did not seek approval anymore, she only existed.

In the end you are all alone

 In the end you are all alone.

Your parents are not your own.
Your siblings are not your own.
Your children are not your own.
Your pets are not your own.
Your spouse is not your own.
Your house is not your own.
In the end you are all alone.

The pride and ego with which you choose to own, but in the end you are all alone.

They say loneliness and despair go hand in hand but I say those emotions are not your own, and in the end you are all alone.

They say love and happiness get along, lighting up the corners of faraway lands, but I say nobody owns the emotions that flow, and in the end you are all alone.

They say hate and anger cross our souls, bloodshed and violence kill our very own, but I say none of these sentiments belong to us for they are fickle and transient to our conscience, and in the end you are all alone.

Like a sphere of light, shooting up into the sky, the vast space pulls me in, I travel worlds unfamiliar to Earthlings.
Where time is boundless and people formless, the feeling of loneliness creeps in, and I realize that in the end I am all alone, nothing is of my own. 

No perks of being a wallflower

There are no perks to being a wallflower, it feels almost equivalent to being a fly on a wall. The wallflower connotation is only to make it feel aesthetic and pleasurable to the eye. 

It gazes through the party of people, so desperately wanting to be a part of it. Watching everyone laugh and enjoy themselves, while it hung on the wall like a mute spectator, waiting to be discovered. Yes, waiting to be discovered, because it does not even feel like the main character of its own life, it just clings onto anyone that gives them the least amount of attention.

Fasted on the wall waiting to become a muse rather than select a muse, your eyes droop at the inattentiveness and the constant chattering of people engrossed in their own heads. Gradually the shallowness creeps in on you and you slowly recede into your own shell like a turtle not wanting to feel threatened and escaping from its own fear. 

You continue to hang there, collecting dust, waiting to be discovered. 

And just like that

 And just like that she was no more. I was surprised to know that she even existed in the family. A distant aunt whom nobody knew much about had passed away, and we all gathered at her funeral.

Her only link to our family was her cousin whom she spoke to seldomly. He was my uncle and the only connection my parents had with her. We all gathered at her funeral, and I stared at her corpse. The expression on her face seemed silent but yet wanted to reveal a thousand more. 

I gathered from my surroundings that she was not revered and hence her aloofness towards the family was understood. Alcoholism, yes she was an alcoholic and it was the reason for her death. It widened the eyes of my aunts, as my uncles swayed their heads in disappointment. And a divorcee too with no kin, it made them shudder at the thought of being her. The treatment of an outcast that did not follow conventional rules was ignored by society. It explained her silence towards the hypocrisy the family portrayed. The rules of familial relationship did not exist for her.

There were hardly any tears shed for her, but the tears were the sight of the dead and the presence of death in the air. They feared that they would be in that position someday. 

Her nephews congregated and took her towards the cremation ground. Those were the last sights I had of this mysterious soul. I desired to know more about her, but alas could not any more. I sat down next to my aunts as the cremation took place at the ground, my eyes wandering and my ears eavesdropping into their conversation. They gossiped about her, spitting out negativity while her body turned to ashes and her soul searching for its escape. The conversation slowly digressed about their sons and daughters in law relieving me the tension of listening to their spiteful talk about the dead. 

I sat there in silence, the sun setting at a distance turning the sky darker by every minute, and the evening heat breaking my body into sweat, I prayed for this enigmatic, sorrowful soul for one last time. And just like that life moved on once again.   

Keep Fighting

I am writing after a long time and it feels good to be back in the world of words. Having said that I will begin this hiatus with the recent news that has forced us to come face to face on the topic of mental health. I am sure you must have guessed by now that I am talking about Sushant Singh Rajput's death. It did come as a shock to me. I thought to myself that a man who has achieved fame and success at a young age committed suicide, which I can only imagine to achieve and here I am with nothing compared to him.

As I further looked into the reason behind his death I found he was suffering from depression, a very serious mental health problem that nobody wants to talk about. As days passed by I read in the news that a teenager who was depressed was triggered by Sushant's death and committed suicide. Another teenager committed suicide because he was harassed by society for having effeminate traits and felt that if Sushant could commit suicide then so could he.

These pieces of news triggered my past memories as I went back in time and analysed my situation. The feeling of not fitting in, not being part of the 'cool' gang and scolded at for not being able to perform categorized me as an "outsider" and this created mental blocks in my mind. We have all been to our lowest points of our lives and have struggled to overcome it. I still struggle with those mental blocks which affects my life to this day, but I knew suicide was never the answer to this problem.

As time passed by and I grew older I realized that if I didn't exist then I would never be able to change the situation. I would never be able to see the other side of the fence. I know I have to work harder to unblock those mental blocks and see the light and now I have begun to enjoy my struggles.
If  I can't jump over the fence directly I look for other ways to do it but my goal is the same no matter what. This whole life is all about that journey to get around the fence.
Sometimes I see low points and sometimes I see high points but I keep going.

So keep fighting till the end and be honest to yourself.

I don't know how many of you will read this post but I hope it will help someone. 😃

Breathing and Exchange of Gases - Introduction

https://youtu.be/Nib-U09yI3k

Specs of dust

Like specs of dust we get blown away with the wind. Sucked into the black hole of the Universe our fate lies in the hands of the vast vacuum space pulled by gravity. With no control in our hands we travel miles and miles with no end in sight.

But then who are we ? When we ponder on this question our egos expand to the size of the Sun but not enough to fill the size of the infinite dark abyss that we live in. 
Like the Sun's gravity trying to align the planets, our constant tussle with the Universes' force begins in our trying effort to pull away and create our own destiny.

A war with the Gods ensues a constant debate between destiny and free will and we like tiny fragments disillusioned by our egos choose to take control of our lives but unaware if it is the ultimate truth.

Alas the Universe being what it is, a powerful impetus, that we specs of dusts even when we unite to form a globule of dust we still feel like tiny specs of dust, small and insignificant.

But life for us is what it is, we don't withdraw from our desires, our ambitions, and the constant struggle to overpower our destinies continues.