Love, actually

(This might seem a bit filmy and dramatic but its a real incident from my life.)

You missed your bus yet again, but how does it matters you are in the last semester of your engineering. It will not matter even if you don’t attend your classes. This was exactly what you were doing since last week. Today is a different day you are experiencing a strong urge to go to the college. You can take the second trip bus, which comes in after an hour or so. However, you decide to go by public transport. Immediately you take a city van to reach Rajendra nagar, from where you would get the bus for your college. You are waiting there and as usual, there is a lot of crowd. It is almost crunch time here. You realize you will have to go hanging and balancing in several poses all along the way.

                        The first bus that arrives is overfilled so much so that it seems to spill. You have a theory about busses: – the bus that follows an overcrowded one would be less crowded than the first. Therefore, you decide to wait for the second bus. Soon it arrives and stops exactly where you were standing. As you look into the bus, your heart misses a beat then a second and a third. You feel like having a stroke. No signal from your brain. No it’s not the crowd that is bothering you. It is the girl sitting in the front seat. She someone you know from your school. Both of you were in same class. Now even the college is same but the streams are different. You are in love with her since high school. She was a good friend but now she ignores you as if you do not exist, as if you are invisible. You still love her. People say she has a boyfriend, you still love her. She has acted many times as if she hates you. You still love her. As you see her, she also sees you. She immediately looks away, into a book she is reading. Soon you realize you have to hop onto the bus else, you would miss it too.

            It is January, pretty cold. You are wearing a pair of jeans teamed with a white cotton shirt along with your college blazer, which you are wearing just to recover the money you have (over)paid for it. You get inside and you see that although this bus is less crowded but still there is no room inside so you have to stand at the gate, right in front of her. Fortunately or unfortunately.

                                                                                                            The two of you are not on talking terms since second year of your college. You start thinking that it is so unusual that you took the public transport first time in the semester and you banged into her. You remember how you were in engineering college in Hyderabad and you quit there and came back to Indore for counseling. The moment you entered the counseling hall the name being announced was hers. You were totally unaware of the fact that she was also having counseling the same day as you. And unknowingly you two took the same college. You thought, at that time, that this was your destiny and your belief in your love towards her became stronger. Like it happens all the time in movies, only in movies. Now your misconceptions are corrected.

                                    The radio is on in the bus. They start playing a song from the movie ‘Jab we met’ it is “Naa hai yeh paana …” (Romantic Hindi song – ‘Neither this is losing, nor winning it is’)now your emotional turmoil starts to heat up. You remember how good friends you two stated to be in the school. You remember the first day of your college. When due to some incident you were apprehensive about talking to her and you remember how she came to you and relaxed you. You start thinking why you to have stopped talking? But you don’t find an answer. She is still reading the book. It is Ayn rynd’s ‘fountainhead’. She is not looking up at all. You know why, because if she looks up she would have to see you. She does it all the time, ignores you.

                        Bus is moving on the full swing. Conductor-cum-cleaner-cum-usher-cum-ticket clerk comes at you “Where to?” he asks. But you don’t answer. “Hey where to?” he asks again, you still don’t answer. “Have you consumed bhang?” he snaps his fingers at you. Your trance finally breaks. “Oh Medicaps” you give him five rupees. You realize that lots of noise and ruckus is going around you and even after that, you got lost in your thoughts. “Bheed me khamoshi hai thodi si behoshi hai…”(There is a silence even in the crowd, a bit of intoxication lingers) the song goes on.

                                    She ignores you. She doesn’t want to talk to you or even see you but you still love her. You are obsessed with her she is on your mind almost every time and this has been so since last 5 years. You need to forget her, for that, you must ignore her as she does. You have tried it but you know ignoring is not going to do the trick. You are not able to ignore her. You need something more drastic, more severe, and more effective. Hate her, you must try to hate her, after all what she does to you isn’t right. You try to do that but not unlike ignoring hating is also unyielding. You can’t hate her no matter how bad she treats you. You realize your feeling you start thinking what went wrong? You weren’t that bad a choice. You almost cry, but you cannot. This is the irony of being a guy, you have to act strong and even if a tear rolls down your cheek you have to blame it on the strong wind blowing in or something that struck in your eye.

                        You decide to try hating her once again, for the last time. “Medicaps” shouts somebody. Both of you get out of the bus. She starts towards the college walking on the uphill road. You stay back and walk behind her, even if you can go ahead. Just because you can see her for few minutes more. You know you can’t hate her. Now you understand this is what they call love, actually.

 

Hey Daily Promt

Bondage

“We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.” – Swami Vivekananda 

 

 

 

 

I had a very faint memory of how I got on the Island. There was something with the Island that made me feel vulnerable not physically but mentally, from the inside.

                             I seemed to have a very weak memory since I got on that island.

I didn’t know what other people felt, I hadn’t talked to them. 

                         I only remembered faintly, coming to a city with ports, boarded a ship with many other people of various nationalities. We got shipwrecked and paddled in a life boat to the Island.

                                                                          I didn’t know how many days have passed .I had no sense of time out there. What date is it? It also seemed that days are longer and sun is brighter.

                              First few days went fine we had enough food and water. But as time passed by water shortage came up. The only way to survive was to explore the island for a fresh water source.

Two or probably three of us took the job and ventured into the thick covering of trees. Soon we found a stream of fresh water. We filled all the bottles and started for the beach. What we came across on the beach was something we had never thought of. All of the people were lying dead all over the beach. Bullets were fired into there heads. A young boy was in the sea and hence he survived. He told us they were tall, broad people with guns, who killed them all. They looked like the Taliban, like the ones he had seen on TV.

                                   Now we knew that we were not alone and if we didn’t take any actions we would get killed. The events that followed went by very quickly. Somehow we seized 2 rifles from one of there hideouts.

             We went deeper into the jungle and came across a clearing, which was a huge one and was heavily guarded. Lots people dressed in black were moving around.

                           Whatever I did till that point was bizarre as far as I thought. But the island had an effect on you. It made you do the things that you won’t do usually, as you don’t have any control on your own actions or actually you are not doing it.

                       This sense of uncontrolled chaos haunted me .I started examining the events in hindsight. This island had got me and got me well. But why it was that I haven’t thought of getting out of this island, not even once, why?

                        Suddenly I heard the sound of bullets firing. I had a rifle I loaded it and fired to the man who was coming right for me. He fell dead in front of my feet.

                               Then they came, in vehicles. I was running to the fastest of my speed. My companions were running ahead of me and I never seemed to catch them. The vehicle also, never seemed to catch or over take me. I was running faster than a vehicle. The island surely had its effect on you.

  Suddenly a sound like the greatest of mountain had broken blasted through my ears. I turned back to find out that the vehicle was burning. A man with a uniform came out of the jungle. He looked like someone from the army or navy or some armed forces.

                         He told us that he and his soldiers were on a mission to recapture this island. I told him that we can take him to the base of the terrorists.

                         I wondered which country he belonged to. I recalled the language in which he talked to me but I was not able to recognize the language. Interestingly I understood everything he said.

     We were here again at the clearing. Next few minutes were full of gunshots and blasts everywhere. We reached a dugout which lead to a tunnel. The tunnel had a gate on the other side. Army man told that we had to anyhow break open that gate. As we steeped in the tunnel the earth beneath us started to rumble, it was an earthquake.

            I rushed out of the tunnel. It was not a quake. I could see some rockets flying from some part of the island. They were flying to all the sides.

           The army man pulled us into the tunnel. As we broke into the other side of the gate, a small man with oriental features was sitting on the chair. I could easily make out that he was terrified.

   He said that you have attacked us and this is our answer to it. Now you can’t do anything. For a moment I thought he was Korean but he could be anybody a Chinese or Japanese. What was this place and what was happening?

                 The oriental told that there were nuclear weapons on those missiles. Was it his 3rd world war?

  I heard a beeping sound coming from somewhere. I turned to it. There was a world map. It had name of the cities targeted by these people. One name I recognized at first glance.

 

                           MUMBAI

 The army man told us that these missiles could do no harm to the cities. But how is this possible? There are nuclear weapons on those missiles. Now I realized how big this was. My whole family lived in Mumbai they would all get killed. I was shaking it was more devastating to know that I was present at the place from where the attack was launched.

            The trembling intensified as I realized I was feeling cold, very cold. For the first time I thought of God. I closed my eyes, my body was still shaking.

            When I opened my eyes I found myself lying naked on my bed at my home in Pune. I was dreaming all that. It was the first time I had such a dream. I didn’t remember the dreams, usually, but this one I remembered.

       I get out of my bed; my girlfriend Tulip is still asleep. Last night I was watching the show ‘lost’ on TV when she came up.

         The ac is on.

Her body, as radiant as ever.

 I put my pajamas on and go to the window. The sun is brighter today or it just seems so. No, the intensity of light is really more and is increasing. I look out of the window. I can see a much radiant light than sun’s its rising more and more, it is now brighter that a 1000 suns. One could not open an eye to it. It engulfs everything. It has now started to decay

 

               As the light fades away I can see the mushroom cloud rising up in the air.