Shades of blue

One of those days when everything seems to be just falling down in front of my eyes. All the dreams going down the drain. All the plans going haywire. All the faith just crumbling.

They say this is what life is made up of…ups and downs, highs and lows. So profound! Like I didn’t know that. Why do people throw such extremely deep and ponderous sentences when all you need is a listening ear and not an eternally talking mouth?

I thought listening was the easiest thing to do on earth. If you don’t want to take the pains of actually listening, you can even get away with pretending that you are listening. Just need to get a tight-lipped, knitted eye browed, look on your face and now and then give away the oriental nod just to be on the safer side. That way the other person would interpret the nod to suit his convenience.

The maze, they called her mind...

She hated complex sentences because they were the most difficult to dissect during her grammar lessons in her graduation days. Yet, if she was to be defined in one word, it would be ‘complex’. Not only did it sound cool but also that was a fact as loud as Rohit Bal's gay status.She said she is not all that perfect. He said, let me decide that. She wanted to say, “…so that you just walk away later when you discover this face of mine…the one where I throw temper tantrums and PMS is not even an excuse, when I just give you a silent treatment for no ‘obvious’ reason, when in spite of being known for my ‘I-Care-Two-Hoots’ attitude, suddenly I decide to create an issue out of some comment you made on the way I talk???”Will you walk away when you see the monster in me raise the ugly head?Will you be the calm, reassuring you always, inspite of my grumpiness?Will you read my silence over a fight as the ‘don’t talk to me’ or will you see through the façade of a strong, pig-headed girl on her way to maturity, the only difference being, she’ll never be matured enough?Will you fume at the die-hard realist in me, you being optimism-personified?Will this phase of being mad about me, be just that – a phase?I don’t know what’s the right way of saying things, dressing-up, walking or talking. I, by some miracle of His Highness ( I meant, God, the superior highness, not you), managed to survive so long without really coming in anybody’s way. I wanted to live a life of invisibility. Being non-existent (anti-thesis at its peak) for others seemed to be my focus in life. At a time when girls were at their girly best, I was trying to fit in as the anti-fit, not because it was cool, but because that way I’ll not be expected to be perfect.I wonder if you know what you’ve invited upon yourself.I just don’t have the nerves to wonder aloud.You said I am surrounded by all negative energy. Then how come it attracted such a positive character? Take back your words. I just live in the real world...and if it happens to be a little negative, then so be it.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

She was on her way to a concert that afternoon. Lying was not her passion, but she did a good job of it, especially when the person to be cheated was her mother. Again, she did not get any high lying to her mother, just that nobody else was more important to her, to whom she would have to justify what she did. Attending a concert needs to be justified? Well, when you are living away from your family, all by yourself, and the one weekend you get, you are ideally expected to spend it with the family. The expectation is not ideal by the way, it’s the action, that is.
So, where were we? Right, so there I was waiting for a bus, hoping that I don’t get late for the concert, and he calls up. Let me give you a backgrounder on him and my reactions every time I see his name on my cell phone. For now, let him exist without a name. We’ve known each other since the past year and a half. Initial few mails were mostly a verbal spat with each other, somewhere down the line, we decided to chuck the pretence… actually, I don’t know about him, but I did. Was I pretending? In a way I was. It’s one of the issues I have in life…if I feel like I might get along well with someone of the opposite sex, I try to not get along well. An earnest try, it usually is. This time I just decided to take the risk. What was I risking? Nothing much…just the smug life of a ‘still-too-young-and-hence-not-panicky-singleton’. No second thoughts about cutting my hair short or not wearing the right combination of tee and skirt. Matters as silly as going out on a long, long, long drive with an almost absolute stranger, just because you had blind faith in him, became a matter to be pondered about twice.
And he walked in, somehow I felt different. Not different as in, over the moon, but different as in somewhere everything I said was not dissected and bisected into zillion tiny pieces. I was not analysed. If I was rude, I was rude. Period. There was no confrontation. Another really great bit was, I was not taken too seriously…something that will royally break-up relationships and marriages. I, however, was sick of being taken too seriously. Let’s just saw it was a pleasant bolt from the blue.
That’s him.
That sundeay afternoon, he called up.
Me: Hey…(wide smile)
Him: Hi…( a super straight expression)
Me: …Sooo…
Him: Ummm…where are you?
Me: Bus stand.
Him: Bus stand…? Why?
Me: oh ..just this concert…
Him: (cutting me short): so are you free…can we talk?
Me: umm…ya..temme…
Him: I don’t want any interruptions…don’t say my friend just came and stuff…else I’ll call you later.
Me: NOOOOOOO…temme…what is it, something important?
Him: No no…just something …
Me: Oh k…. (Waiting.)
Him: Umm…just wanted to say that I love you.
Me: huh?
Him: I love you
Me: Er...HUH?
Him: I love you

Well, let’s just say that, it wasn’t one of the most romantic of proposals I had imagined for myself, and boy, did I have an imagination! What happened after that is not exactly the stuff with which chick-lits are made of. Mostly because both of us aren’t really chick lit fans. But whatever happened has surely taken us off guard. I’ll talk for myself and it was a shocker of sorts, especially because I never expected anything so simple and straight (he refuses to accept this and I let him believe that he is the most complex guy…no arguments, no fights) a guy to get enamoured by complexity and confusion redefined. So someone said that opposites attract, but this is almost the good and the ugly coming together and no dhishoom dhishoom expected. We are of course not considering the family (just thought of it, we can be ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’) and the shower of their love here... shudder!
On second thoughts, i need not have started with the concert. Too late!