A dilemma when there is none

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Guria
A little while back…
Things were moving back to normal, that is if you could call the aberrant, the unlikely that kept occurring on a habitual basis ‘normal’. But they were indeed moving back to what they were. Somewhat.
There was something wrong.
I’d never learnt to appreciate the meaning of the phrase “Never look a gift-horse in the mouth”. That was very me. I needed to eat the cake, and have it too. A perfectionist who had never known the fine line between perfection and classic obsession.
Not only I needed what I was gifted on my terms, with each and every one of the term met, but with time, with the increasing sense of possession, I also wanted what was never there in those pre-laid conditions. I didn’t exactly ask for the one thing that was still impossible but I had begun asking for the watered-down, modified versions of the same. Not really impossible, but just unrealistic and fanciful. Especially for the one, who would have nothing to gain, and only to lose.
I have always known I can be the ultimate selfless being if the need ever arose. What came as a mild surprise was that I could be equally selfish and cruel, when my back hits the wall.
Like I said, I have difficulty traversing thin lines. Lines between perfection and obsession. Self sacrificing and kind. Selfish and merciless. To know and to like. To hate and to be nonchalant. Habit, compulsion, obsession and love. The list apparently seems endless
I was breaking through the shackles, the ones that even I abhorred and instead of being relieved, I was perturbed. Apparently I have a very short attention span, nothing can hold my interest for long or, what had seemed so real was never true in the first place!
Or, another theory more suited to my style, self-preservation. I was beginning to understand that I cannot give endlessly when I cannot get back in return. One small assurance, one small truth amidst all the beautiful lies, one that would make all the difference. I like this theory better.
Maybe victory will be mine after all.

Note: This is a part of a series that I call “Chapters” because even if I cannot write a novel, I sure can tell a story in parts. While the story, the setting and the characters are entirely fiction, the emotions are always true as are the inspirations (aside from the need to tell a story and I am a master at concocting emotional and tragic pieces of ‘art’, as widely known already!). And writing, as always, is therapy, and there is no better way to channel the darkness innate in all of us than to create from it.

Posted in Abstract, Chapters, Creations, Darkness, Novelette, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Random | 4 Comments

"Take no prisoners"

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Guria

Do you believe in the “divide and rule” adage in making friends? Is that what makes one more likable, worthy and dependable? The ability to whisper some harmless snippets of their “other” friends, putting in that little seed of doubt, and watering it from time to time with more twisted anecdotes of why they were different from you, and pointing with subtlety towards that path, that it was you who they could relate to, bank upon and trust – and not the one they were calling ‘friend’ now. Manipulation is such a small, destitute of a word for a feat so grand and illustrious.

Lesser mortals issue ultimatums, the higher ones go for programming. And then they think they have made progress in life. “We are so lucky to have such true friends” All the while pruning away those we couldn’t properly mold (and hence, we dislike), away from us, and away from the ones we do like (and who show possibility). I wonder if the latter knows who decided, was it they themselves or their new-found friends? Decided who were the ones to keep, and the ones that were just there, may be out of consequences or old practices, or who were simply dispensable.

Does the end always justify the means? Should one never take the reins in their hands, but step back and watch from afar, letting the scenes unfold? Is that courage or cowardice? Knowing that you haven’t strayed (yet) and hoping that it will be your biggest strength, is that the worst you can do to yourself? What if there is no good and no bad, no karma, no dharma and only what you can wrangle to your gain, to your advantage out of this realm. Questions, questions! But no one seems to have anything but that one word – Patience.

Life loses it simplicity with every passing day. Or may be it is us who have forgotten to be simple. People are the “acid tests”, all the impurities melt away into nothing in the vitriol, only the genuine survive the onslaught, the heat, the pressure. There will always be foreign forces, some obvious, some not so, trying to bend you to their will, mould you to their liking – sometimes only choosing for you, sometimes just tweaking your freewill or sometimes twisting your whole self away from what you once believed in, away from who you were. And you shun the ones who stood by you once, you turn away the ones who cared without reservations, you turn your back who’d never give you up for anyone. And that I guess is in the circle of Life itself. Who survives, is however another story, probably one to be written at the deathbed.

Yeah, life was much simpler when we were young – and that maxim seems to be the recurring theme of living itself!

Posted in Catharsis, Darkness, Friends, Heart, Life, Observer, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Soliloquy, The Other Side of the River | 5 Comments

Catharsis XVII

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Guria
February 22, 2011
An old entry from an older diary

I have been thinking so much about you. You know that, don’t you. And I forgot what day it was. It is the day, two years ago, when you left us. I can’t ever forget what that day was like. I was blossoming in the midst of my happiness when you took your last breath. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the last person to come to know of the terrible truth, that I was there when the angry winds brought in the tidings but other times, I forget that these two times, my happy and the transpired unhappy happened at the same time at all.

I just hope you can see us from wherever you are. If not anything, hope where you are now gives you the freedom to look at the love that lives on for you, the love that you inspired in all of us. Then, you must also know that it is not only today that we think of you but that you are never too far away from the conscious edges of our minds, and always there in our hearts. Hope you are in peace and are happy with all that you accomplished in your journey to this magnificent world. I hope you can look at your beloved mother and be near her in spirit, with you looking out for her this time, from above. Wherever you are or will be, I want you to be happy and with us in hearts, yours meshed into ours. 
On this day two years ago, you had to leave us. And on this day I tell you, you can never leave us, you stay on in our thoughts, our words, our still-beating hearts as it’s your love that keeps us going, that is eternal.

P.S. One day, I will tell you how it was my dream that you would be the one to give me away as a bride. Only I had never known that was to remain just a wish. I’ll miss you worse when I finally become a bride.

I still wish you were here… 

Sometimes I still wish that the real story is that you are a Secret Agent and had to go undercover without telling your family. That you are still in this world, around here somewhere, just lurking out of sight.

Posted in Catharsis, Heart, Life, Love, People and Relationships, Random, Soliloquy | 2 Comments

To the Musician of my Life

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Guria
The Bassist

You never thought about ‘Greatness’
You only ever thought about the ‘Music’
And that’s when I found the ‘Greatness’ in you…

Nothing needs to change…

Let your love and faith in
Music play on
And let my conviction in your
‘Greatness’ achieve its heights…

You don’t have to believe me,
I believe what I saw in You
when I fell in Love….

Posted in Love, Passions, Random, Soliloquy, You | 4 Comments

The death of an universe

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Guria

Note: This is a part of a series that I call “Chapters” because even if I cannot write a novel, I sure can tell a story in parts. While the story, the setting and the characters are entirely fiction, the emotions are always true as are the inspirations (aside from the need to tell a story and I am a master at concocting emotional and tragic pieces of ‘art’, as widely known already!). And writing, as always, is therapy, and there is no better way to channel the darkness innate in all of us than to create from it.

It was all or none. If you cut out one part, let it die, unnoticed and alone, out of despair and negligence and brutal indifference, it took the rest with it. All of it, shriveled up and just died. Yes, it was all or none.
Time, affection and the expectations. The expectations had to go. You are fortunate, nay, blessed, if the one you love the most loves you the most. But it’s rare. Not all of us have that blessing. So yes, the expectations had to go. Pressed down, stifled and asphyxiated till it could haunt you no more. But more had been killed, throttled than just the expectations. The want, the need and the soul.
All of me had died alongside. The ability to feel, to love. I was human no more. There was nothing left inside of me except nightmares and a cold bed with a cool draft blowing and no one to hold me through the night, and shake me out of my screams.
And no one to tell, to pour my heart to.
There were bigger things happening, and all else barely mattered among all that glory. Every thing else was irrelevant and insignificant, especially my ache. I could be everything but petty, shallow or selfish. Yes, this dying barely mattered.
I knew that I never would be ready for an ending. But then suddenly, all of it melded into non-existence. The immortal soul died. You thought of that immense love, and you saw it as if it had happened to someone else; as I was held in his arms, it felt it had happened to two other people who had known that wondrous, beguiling sense of belonging, that wonderful joy of love. I knew it was him, that it was my safe haven but I couldn’t find him, the one who was mine, the one who was with me because he loved, too. I couldn’t feel, because I couldn’t reach in and allow my soul to live, only to die moments later. It was not simple, it hadn’t been for the longest time and today I finally realized. And ‘the connection’ was gone.
I was gone. I was dead. I could feel no more. But for the memories, the remembrances of a time so wonderful. To have been loved so completely, it had to be next to impossible to hold on to that, to own that forever.
Words. It had been just the words, your words, and my faith in them that made my universe light up, and my life happier, brighter. I have known happiness, the misery paled in comparison, sublime happiness that cannot be recreated or be mine any more. We only woke up to reality, as I’d always known. And I could not live being your duty, your responsibility, a burden. I needed the words, the never-ending love. I needed more, each and every one of what I would never have. You’ll want none, need none, feel a little but nothing to upset your day. You’ll move on to bigger things, really better things and now, it seems I will move on too. May be this is the price you pay for being exorcised?Fragments of your soul?
The conditions haven’t changed, they still spell ‘unconditional’, the passion has barely abated, they still want to breath you in, drink in the sight of you, spill over at the sound of you, but like your words they disappear under other priorities, and get forgotten as unimportant and trivial. They have learned not to want, not to expect. They have learned to surrender all that was theirs and walk away empty-handed, and if need be, onto a burning pyre.
I should be happy that it all died, quietly and peacefully. Wasn’t this what I always wanted? But the tears don’t seem to stop…
Posted in Abstract, Chapters, Creations, Darkness, Novelette, People and Relationships, Philosophy | 4 Comments

The Puppeteer

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Guria
The thoughts get jumbled, wired and mixed up with the emotions of the moment. How could you ask me to be objective? Happiness spurred me on, bitterness deterred me while anger rushed me towards retribution.
It was the lies, the unrepentant half-truths that choked me. The lies pained and hurt, but eventually all culminated into an incomprehensible anger that burned into my soul. When it was I who would never have judged you, would have understood- that only ally who would listen like as if a part of your soul- you ripped that out, killed it with bare hands. And you broke the faith. The faith in an ideal. An ideal that wasn’t simply lost. But an ideal, you begin to wonder, if ever existed in the first place.
The anger burst forth with the recognition of my own gullibility. Of my own weakness in believing in the goodness of a heart that apparently could do no wrong. I was appalled that I could have allowed myself to be lured into the trap I’d foreseen well before. It wasn’t that I didn’t know of the quirk that I mistook for truth, but yet chose to ignore the fallacy and still place my bet, my heart, on it. Stupid, stupid me.
What made him so convincing was that, in the moment, he believed in every lie that he said, the sincerity shimmered and sparkled off it, like a looking glass under the shining summer sun. And I should have known better. I knew better. After all, I had a similar strategy in place for all back-up plans. I definitely wasn’t as good but I surely was aware.
But in keeping with my unprecedented idiosyncratic behavior, all my good senses deserted me when I let myself be lulled into believing, trusting. The words. I wanted nothing but them to be real. The words that were my treasures that would keep me company in the darkest of my nights, that I would hold on to in my direst hour, that I would cherish in my favorite dreams. It was the deep wish in my soul, that wanted, that begged them to be true. But there always would be one uttered lie slipped in the midst of all the half-truths, contradicting and diminishing all and every that came before which even my muted consciousness couldn’t ignore and my blossoming world built on his words and words alone, would crash all around me anew.
The words, the actions, the gestures, the thoughts were all but of a well-orchestrated play. An attempt of a seasoned actor for whom the world was really a stage and people, mere characters who shed their roles whenever they stepped off his stage, his radar. All feelings were temporary, put-on, the characters little better than mere marionettes to his rehearsed and expert ministrations. The joy was in how adept he was in deciding the course of the play, the destiny of the characters. And of course, like a stage act, in his mind there were no repercussions, no lasting effect but his own satisfaction and sometimes, that of his select characters if he so chose. He was playing God- a loving, merciful and an all-powerful God.
 
Image Courtesy
 
Posted in Abstract, Chapters, Creations, Darkness, Novelette, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Random | 3 Comments

Matters of Hate

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Guria
I hated you into the night,
Till the darkness shrouded me under
And I could lie no more-
All of me dissolved into tears
Of ache, and helpless despair
Imploring and begging,
Asking why was it that,
When I tried and tried again,
But I couldn’t hate you any more.

I saw you with naked eyes
I saw all the scars,
I saw every flaw-
Stark, bright in the dark.
I thought, with the fading glow
With the lack of stage-lights,
I’ll see you for who you are
Ugly, uncaring and false
And move on, thinking
That you are none but a farce.

But the truth scared me worse,
When I faltered in my stride-
The scars faded right before me
Even as I looked on.
I filled with an unknown pride
Reeling, knowing that you were mine,
Imperfections and all, every high and fall,
Even when you were hated by all.
Was it for I could see, right into your soul? 
For I knew you, what was known by few?
Is that why I saw less? For I saw more? *
And saw only the beauty that was you?

Oh, I want to hate you, and please not be hurt any more.
But I’d may sooner stop breathing than not be yours.

*”Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” 

Posted in Creations, Life, Love, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Verses | 2 Comments

Out of my Teens!

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Guria
I was going through some old posts of mine, and thinking of the times and inspirations which had brought forth the words that I had penned down. This post is almost exactly five years old, that I had written for then-a-teenager fellow blogger ARJuna on his blog for his birthday. Sadly, he doesn’t blog any more, and though the post is still up on his blog, I still thought of re-posting this on my blog, as it is an article that is close to my heart. It is me, five years recalling a time in a way I would have only done five years ago. It is after all a testament to that I haven’t really changed all that much.

I was never a teenager in my teens!
By teenager I meant, no tantrums, no late-nights, no ego clashes, no thick-headedness. Instead I was an obedient bookworm with not much of a social life, not a thing for partying, no booze, no smoking, ultra-philosophical, fashion-disinterested… No wonder my mother was so happy!
Little did she guess that I’ll start behaving like a teenager when I’d turn twenty. And that it’ll be such an intense phenomenon, that will show absolutely no signs of abating!
Being a teenager had always seemed too overhyped to me. I used to enjoy less and introspect more. But that was me, and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world. My teenage days were the time when I really grew up.
A beautiful world slowing started showing cracks and the bright colors started to fade. It was much like as if my vision was improving, new glasses for my myopic eyes. and I wished (then) that I could have held on to my naivety. And I turned a cynic.
A cynic with no experiences how to deal with the big and ugly world. Even with all my anti-teenager attributes, I created enough trouble for myself, that if I had had the chance to correct it I would. But never would I give up all that I learnt from them. I guess, what I would have wanted to be is smarter rather than gullible, understanding than believing blindly, kind rather than self-sacrificing.
I discovered human minds and emotions, understood psychology because I spared them a thought. And every bit was hard-earned, some from my mistakes and some from others’.
But slowly at the end of my teens, when I could see through most facades, the hazy and scratched glass to look at the world, i found the real beauty. A beauty beyond the obvious black and dirty and hurtful.
Childhood is the period of a life that gives shape to the dreams of a lifetime. We either spend our lives living up to them, or living down the miseries of them. Teenage years I believe, gives us strength and moulds us the way we will be for the rest of our lives. As the most impressionable years with developing ideology and understanding, we shape who we will be, in our teens.
My teens brought me knowledge, illumination and faith. I looked at losses and sadness so closely that I understood happiness. I experienced betrayals (like everyone else) to understand the value of relationships. I saw destruction and mayhem to believe in miracles. I found power in me to believe that you are God. I discovered hope, optimism and life.
I learned to forgive. I learned to commend for one’s goodness. I learned not to hate. I learned to believe, hope and be. I became the idealist I’m today.
And now, I have a lot of fun throwing tantrums. Being out till late nights with Mum calling me repeatedly on phone. Bunked classes in Masters to chill in the canteen (I’d never gone to canteens in my Bachelors!), be pig-headed on purpose, be overly sentimental, fight with my Mum-Dad over the most petty things, with my sister as to who will have that blue dress. And I enjoy it all. Totally.
ARJuna is my most favorite teenage blogger. Whose birthday it is today. In whose honor I wrote this sappy post. All i know about him is through the words he writes in the pages of his blog and I feel, he is one of the most intense, mature and thinking teenage I’ve met. I smile when I think, with my limited experience in this world, ARJuna is going to be one person who will be completely different from everyone else as he steps in to claim his place in this world.
I wish I could write a funny post or an absolutely engaging one. But all I could come up with was the not-so-interesting truth of my life.
Even though you are turning twenty today, be a teenager forever!
Posted in Bloggers, Friends, Happy, Heart, Life, Observer, Philosophy | Leave a comment

Soulmates: A Choice

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Guria
Like riding a tide during the full moon, on a night the meteorologists have been saying that this when the moon gets closest to its earth… that is how it might be like, helpless and vulnerable, where there is no free will… that is how it may be like to find a soulmate – to know it, to realize it and be unable to do anything about it. 
The cogs of the society pull you down, the rules of the world that tie you to it, the norms of living that dictate your being- all meld into wisps of futility when it unfolds as a story of two souls that unwittingly found each other, unmindful and unaware of the repercussions or the ripples it creates in their lives.
Like something that you chance upon, and can never explain- the pull, the need, the want, all that defy logic and common sense, and yet it is something that you cannot live without, as if it was a part of you all along but it is only now that you learned that it always existed, and breathed with you as well. You choose, you un-choose, you decide, you renegade but suddenly you find that one being that is inseparable from who you are, whether you hate or you love but can not deny. You may never belong, but you are each other’s in ways inexplicable, ineffable, flouting all rules of life and living as we know it.
One is lucky when the person they love, is the one that holds the gateway to their souls… but the keepers of our souls are never always the ones we choose… Are they chosen for us? Were we destined as each others’? The human mind can fathom only that much, the rest is lost, lost in the invisible strings tying two seemingly dissimilar spirits together and maybe in the dawning knowledge that one is nothing without the other. It is truly for better or for worse… except the words are never uttered aloud.
You never knew you didn’t have a choice… You never even knew you were looking for it, till you found yours. And then you wished, wished badly that you hadn’t.
Image Courtesy

This post was published as an entry for IndiSpire Edition #50.

IndiSpire is an IndiBlogger initiative where we choose ideas that we want to blog about.

Posted in Bloggers, Creations, Darkness, Indiblogger, Love, Observer, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Random, Soliloquy | 2 Comments

The Defeated

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Guria
Picture courtesy

Sometimes you simply can’t give up, unable to stop thinking that tomorrow will be a better day! Faith is bruised, convictions are dashed but the stubborn hope lives on. Unable to walk away, thinking the story is not finished yet, is the worst of it all. Sometimes it is only a cycle, never-ending… nothing one can ever do to change anything in it, every action and thought will circle back to the hard, unmoving facts of life. People don’t change. And accepting that you were wrong, especially about the one you had the most faith on, is the hardest to do. You keep shaking your head, telling yourself that the noble being you knew was in there somewhere and all you had to do was chip away at the walls and find that trapped soul within. But it is a battle of the mad. The enemies had drawn their sword and carved victory on your territory, marking it theirs and walked away laughing, triumphant long back. But you keep on fighting alone into the night, battling the tireless, immortal demons that were no more imaginary. You couldn’t accept that you had long been defeated, and were left behind, in pity, as a common jester, dancing to the tunes of the painful, and the unyielding victors who had all the claims on reality. And you were all alone in a castle built on heaps of dreams, and hopes – a prisoner of your own mind, your own heart… where your captor, your hero, would return from time to time to add one more chain to your innumerable, immovable shackles.

Posted in Abstract, Catharsis, Chapters, Creations, Darkness, Philosophy | 3 Comments