Cruel as the Grave...

I was reading a mail from my Dost today…and in there he said… “I am a bit jealous too!!!”…now before you all start assuming what he might have been jealous for…let me tell you..with a bit of a Halo around my head…He was jealous of me…lols….Yeah..as per him…he likes my blogs and my writing style..and he felt jealous on that…

So, while I was reading his mail…one face came to my eyes…a face that I haven't seen for more than 10-12 years...Its been years, that I haven’t thought of her…She was a good friend of mine from the age of 10 and we were in same school till Age 15…the meaning of her name was Light; so lets call her so….but somehow, from the first day I met her…I always thought that was the only thing she missed in her life…Light…Light of Love…Light of Affection…Light of Intelligence...and so on…She was a beautiful singer…apart from that she was inactive in anything and everything…

Now the irony of her life was her Mom…Just opposite to her character, Aunty was like a Super Hero in the field of Art, Literature and Popularity …. to be frank…’Light’ always reminded me of Cinderella and Aunty to be the step mother…bcoz the horrifying abusive stories that Light used to share with me, really made me believe that indeed Aunty was a Monster…(till date, I don’t know if what she said was right…still….) Light used to come to school daily with new marks on her body…Red marks of Trouser Belts…or Burnt skin…wounds etc etc…and she sadly claimed all of them to be gifted by her mom…

When asked for a reason…there was none…sometimes for walking slowly…sometimes for not sitting straight…sometimes for talking…sometimes for not talking…and so on…daily I would sit and listen to these stories and feel sad for her…Many a times I wished I could take her home and let her live with me… which was impossible…This was a preface to my main story…

[About me…I really need to tell you about me to understand the cause of the whole story…I was an extreme extrovert and tomboyish from school days…As my mom would rightfully say… “I had skin of a rhino or hippo…”…as I had no fear to get into any thing and everything… The truth was… “With the motto of bunking the maximum number of classes, daily I thought of excuses to not attend lectures…Instead I started participating in any contest or competition held anywhere in or around my school…”…Thus, I became a singer, dancer, guitarist, painter, poet, athlete and what not…I just started looking for new ways to bunk school or classes… and to some extend, I was excelled in the items and managed to bring atleast one of the first three prizes in the contests…
For fear of low marks in school, I had to even study well for exams…else I could have experienced some marks on my body too…hehe!!! My mom would have seen to it…lol!!! So, even after all these extra curricular activities…I used to get above average marks too… All this attributed for myself being a pet of the teachers and nuns of my school….]

Now, the above was not boasting…but I had to tell you that…bcoz in one way or other…directly or indirectly…I play the “Villain” of this story…lol!!! Poor Me…

Anyways, that was a longggggggg preface…

Now, Let me get into my story…So it so happened, Light’s mom started comparing her daughter with me… and she was really irritated on the fact that her daughter was quiet and not so active…to add it up, Light never managed to even score decent marks in exams…and the worst part of all this was 'they were a distant relative of my cousin’s family'…At times Aunty used to tell me that Light is so irresponsible…and I used to support Light and at times tried helping her in her studies…

But as days passed, I started seeing extra marks on her body whenever I accomplished something…If I scored high marks, Light got another slap or burnt mark…If I won a prize in a dance competition, Light came to school with wounds all around her hands or ears…When we have parties and when Aunty sees me dancing; I could witness aunty pinching Light’s hand as long as blood oozed out…I could see her pushing Light towards the dancing floor…and Light used to just come and stand there at the centre of the floor as if SHE WAS LOST…

I knew, there was some problem…but Light never said anything…with me, Aunty used to soooo much like Darling talks…she never behaved indifferent with me…but still marks on Light’s body hurt me and to tell the truth…many a times I prayed to god wishing Aunty would change some day...

Years passed…when it was time for our public exam results…using her political influence Aunty got me my results…(which I had never asked for…and God knows, how she had my ID number…)…She happily announced that I got a 90% for the exam…I wondered, why she had to take the extra step to find my results through the back door…uhmm…anyways…it did ease of some tension of waiting for the results…lol!!!

After that…almost 3 years passed before I saw Light again…She had changed…enormously…She wore highly fashionable clothes…with heavy makeup…and extremely talkative…I was hurrying as I was on my way for some urgent issue…Still I asked her…How was she and Aunty…and even asked her how was her daughter…(ok, now the story is…soon after our 10th public exam…she joined a school…and then she eloped with their college peon… but soon found her way back home with a baby on hand…I had heard this story through some friends….) I didn’t wanted to ask her WHAT and WHY about her marital life…but still for courtesy I enquired about her daughter…

I still remember, the way Light spoke to me…She spoke with an aura of pride and self confidence in her…she told me what she was doing…and her daughter was fine and was at home with a servant…As I was observing the vast change in my “Light”… she continued…

“Dear, do you know something…I have never told you this...My life was hell always because of mom’s extreme expectation about me…and to worsen the situation you came by…and my life became Devilishly Hell with your presence in my Mom’s Head…She was always comparing me with you and always hated you…She was angry evry time you won a prize or got good marks…she was suffocated at the fact that you scored 90% while I score less than 50%... It was hell for me… ”

I was shocked…I wondered…Me…???

She continued… “Yeah, I know, you were always sweet to me…and that’s why I never wanted to tell you all this then…I never wanted to hurt you as you were my only relief those days…Do you know…My mom even always used to Wish that U WERE DEAD…and she even prayed hard for that…Whenever she was talking sweetly to you, at heart she was cursing you...”

I was dead-struck…I couldn’t belive my ears…as Light continued…

“Don’t Worry Dear….I never wished for that and always prayed that mom’s wish shouldn’t be granted…and all my life, I will pray for your good…Mom was just envying your parents…She was JEALOUS…jealous from the core of her heart…I just wanted to tell this to you some day...”

Once she said that, a tear rolled down her eyes and she walked off…I stood there…I was Lost…I didn't stop her to ask for any clarification...neither I needed any...I knew, maybe, she wanted to clear off some sort of guilty feeling from her heart…and I am sure she succeeded in that…and I am happy she did it…

But then…a question that I still ask is…Can Jealousy grow to that extent where you would pray for the death of some other parents’ child…Can it grow to this extent where one could hurt her own child…Can it be called Jealousy towards another or Over-Love towards your own…No answers…As it says in the Bible… “Jealousy is Cruel as the Grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire”

But, now I understand and realize the essence of Lawrence Durrell’s words.

“It is not Love that is blind, but Jealousy…”

Still Waiting...

Ta…daaaa…one minute my headache was gone …and the next minute its back…godddd…why did u create these head aches… just hate them…and somehow..headache and myself are relatives…we r twins…u can see headache with me almost all the time…or rather as my bro says… “U urself is a Headache…”…uhmmm…I hope he was joking…else he would be dead now…hehe!!! I have hundreds of stories about headaches…

But as my bro said…I wouldn’t agree I am a headache…but I DO give headaches…with my Non-Stop talking…I am sure, atleast some of u might have really got some taste of headaches after reading my blog…Now, I am kidding here…u don’t start agreeing to my jokes, OK??? Let me be serious…Yeah, I do give headaches…I give headaches to people who doesn’t do their job the way it should be done…I give headaches to people who start arguing on things that are not genuine…I give headaches to anyone who gives me one…lol!!!

So naturally…headaches play a very important part of my life…and my worst enemy in that way would be the Head of Headaches…The Migraine…grrrrrrr…I hate even stating that word out…as it really takes the hell out of u once it decides to give you a visit…

And then comes its sister…Sinusitis…they both give you good times of the day…U get it, U Enjoy it…that’s it…no other way out…and for all u readers’ knowledge…I have both of them as my friends…they make their regular visits very often…they r the only friends that I wish I never met again and again…hahah!!!

By the by, last day when I had the headache, I was fearing a Migraine attack…but then it proved to be the sister…So atleast some tabs are helping me…right now, the tablets are inside me and thinking ways to frighten these attackers…I really hope, they would do their job on time…before I lose my temper and show it on some innocent soul around me…

Lets see, how long they are going to eat me up…I am waiting to see…is Science the Best or My enemies the Better….uhmmm…But trust me friends…pray to god, that you never get these headaches…as having a head ache is like hell…and pray never to have it on days which are crucial to you…like the one big Migraine attack I had…On the previous night of my Public Exam….grrrrrrrrrr….

Anyways, for now, I am still having that irritating pain on my head and I am Still Waiting for those tablets to do their magic and save me from this excruciating pain...

Waiting and Waiting and Still Waiting....

What Happened to ME???

That bang in my head still persists…It has just got worse with something that happened yesterday…Am I losing it…I have been thinking through out for a valid reason for the incident…Or a logical meaning…I got no positive results…rather the thought scares me…gives my imaginations a wild and crazy colour…I am really confused…What is happening…

Now for the tiff with my colleague…it got sorted out by evening…I understood, my irritation was due to this bitter ache in my head…and his irritation was as I guessed right, A fight with his wife…Reason being, “He was late to reach home the previous eve…He been to some friends who flew in for some exhibition…” …The wife was informed…but she didn’t take it in good spirits….I suppose…Anyways, as a final say…wife reacted and he reacted…and so now its silence between them for the time being…uhmm…normal husband-wife fight…hope and wishing him good luck to sort it out soon…Anyways, I and he spoke and our irritation was solved…

Back to my YESTERDAY…By afternoon, he gave me a call…his bro is coming down from another city and he needs to go with his bro to the exhibition…He wants me to take his car in the eve…He will pick it up later from my place…FINE…It was lunch time…Our offices are in two different Towers…so he came down in his car to pick me…One of my office mate joined me to have lunch at the Mall…So, we together dropped back my colleague at his office building and was heading towards the Mall’s Food Court…Suddenly I thought of getting for myself a bottle of water…and for my office mate a Coke…We stopped the car in front of the building with the Grocery Store…

I rushed in…(our lunch break was fast getting over…)…I made a sudden halt in front of one of the glass doors inside the building…I could see the long corridor…I could see quite some glass doors…I could see nothing else…No Grocery Shop…No Café…Nothing…A sudden blankness engulfed me…a terror passed thru me…I was lost…I was trying hard to think…WHERE AM I…WHAT AM I DOING THERE…I knew I came to a shop…but I found no shop in there…I trying pulling open one of the doors in that dark corridor…it didn’t budge…a fear went past me…Was I in the wrong building... I found myself rushing out of the door…

I could see nothing clear…Maybe the Sun’s rays was scorching my eyes…I was just muttering… “The Shop…???”…I remember myself pointing to the building entrance…a passerby heard me (I suppose)…He replied… “The owner’s uncle passed away…so the shop is closed for today…”… I got the answer..but still I was blank at mind…I dint know what was I supposed to do next…I could see some cars parked in front of me…

I vaguely remembered getting out of a car and walking towards the building…With that thought, I just opened the first car and got inside and sat in the passenger seat…There was no driver…I thought…WHERE IS HE???...but WHO HE…I had no answer for that question…I was just blank…I looked around to see if anybody was around…

I saw someone waving at me from another car…Finally it dawned on me…that was my office mate…he was actioning as if WHAT ARE YOU DOING…and I realized…Gosh, I am in the wrong car…I rushed out and got into my colleague’s car…(thank god, the owner of the other car was not around...) I could hear my office mate asking me… “What was that??? What happened to you??? Why did you go and sit in that car..??? You didn’t even realize that you were getting into a white car instead of this Grey…??? You are CRAZY…."

I was shocked rather than embarrassed…I knew everything he said was absolutely true…WHY??? HOW COULD I???WHAT HAPPENED TO ME???WHERE WAS MY SENSES???...WAS I CRAZY???

I agreed with shame, that for some strange reason, I was lost…I just couldn’t understand what happened to me those few minutes…I was JUST LOST….Am I soooo careless….??? I don’t know…But I could hear my friend laughing and , “It is so easy for somebody to kidnap you…The kidnapper have to do nothing…You will just go and sit in his car and he can drive off…”

His words were going above my head…as I was still immersed in my thoughts…I was still trying hard to find an explanation for what happened few minutes back…I owe no explanation to anybody else…But ME…I needed an explanation…Was it some sort of Alzheimer symptom…??? Or was I just careless…Or was it a prank by the bright rays of the Sun…Or was it the Headache giving some Hallucination…I really don’t know…All I can recollect was a dark corridor and some locked glass doors…I don’t even remember seeing through the glass doors…I just felt as if one of those scary dreams were coming to life…

As I am sitting here right now with a bad head ache, in front of this computer monitor, jotting down my horrifying encounter, my mind is still wandering off…Still looking for a Logical Answer...Afterall…

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME…???

Not My Day...

The mobile phone just rang...Just a ring...Its a misscall…The signal to go down and wait near the main road for my colleague…(We go to office daily together…a small adjustment of pooling car…As a daily routine, he would give me a ring when he is just about to reach the main road… and then I will walk my way there and wait for him)…So I rushed out… It was really cold today…and I was freezing …with eager eyes I was tracking each passing vehicle for his car … the endless queue of vehicles…of all shapes and sizes… were just moving one behind another as if they were literally crawling…I hated the traffic…I hated sitting inside the car for endless hours waiting for the traffic to clear up and find ourselves moving…but the more I hated was waiting OUT in the road on a colddddddddddddd morning…without anything to warm me down…and then watch those snakes of vehicles crawling past me…The cold got into my head…I knew it…I was getting irritated…I was losing my temper…

As minutes ticked past, my irritation was rising…I knew, it wasn’t his fault…it was the damn traffic that was making him almost impossible to reach me…he might be just 10 steps from where I was...still it might take the most longest hour to cross even that path…I waited and waited…I was shivering…damn, I am wearing a skirt…I could feel all the pores on my skin standing up as if hearing the national anthem…was embarrassed, imagining IF ANYBODY noticed my almost chicken like stature…I really wanted to scream at my colleague…

Finally, there he is…I knew, I was going to lose it…My face was as if somebody just slapped me…I was angry…angry for no reason…I wanted to just shout at him…Somehow, I did exactly same…as soon as I got into the car FINALLY…I shooted out… “WHY CAN’T U LET ME KNOW IF U R GONNA BE LATE…I WOULD HAVE ATLEAST WAITED INSIDE THE BUILDING…” (I know, he is absolutely not the wrong person…its just that he was on the WRONG SIDE today…)…and then unexpected from him…he blasted back… “I CAN’T FLY…I WAS JUST THERE AND IT TOOK A HELL 20MTS TO REACH HERE..” (he pointed out to the roundabout which was just some 15-20 steps from where I was waiting…)…

I knew I was wrong…and I wasn’t stupid to not understand that HE WAS ALSO NOT IN THE BEST OF HIS MOODS… I guessed… “A fight with his wife..”…still my ego didn’t let me go off…I argued…

Me: Then from tomorrow, I am not going to come out of the house until atleast 10 minutes after the usual time…”

He: No need…Come only after I reach here…I will give u misscall after reaching here…I will wait here

I felt bad…he was hurt…and I hurt him more…but then, even I was having an off mood…

Me: U WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND…WAITING INSIDE THE CAR IN THE COMFORTS OF A HEATER AND STANDING OUT THERE IN THE COLD…

He: I told you…I will give u miss call only after I reach here…Come whenever u want…I will wait…

By now I was trying to calm down…

Me: That’s not needed…Just call me when you reach near that petrol station..I will come down then…

He: NO NEED…I WILL CALL U ONLY ONCE I REACH HERE…

My hyper tension came back...I got irritated again…

Me: OK, DO WHATEVER U WANT...

We completed the rest of the journey in complete SILENCE…

My thoughts:
Why did I get irritated for nothing…? Why should I outpour on him when I myself knew, he was not to be blamed? He was and is a big help for me in my commute to and fro office…and still??? Why is my mood bad today??? What is bugging me??? What am I actually upset about??? Was it because of the cold…was it because he was late…or was it something else…Something that is not clear to me now…Something that is deep down somewhere…Is this some sort of Sixth Sense telling me, that something worse is on the way…God knows…I just knew that something was wrong today and I knew that its not gonna be one of those cool days of my life…I wondered what more was in store for me today…

Just then a Shot of Pain scooted through my brain and I realized...Grr…HE IS BACK…This is absolutely NOT MY DAY…

He was and is one of my worst enemies…He is…

“THE HEADACHE…”