Till she’s alive

There was a change of plans. Actually, change is too mild a word to describe it. There was a massacre; that sounds just about right… So, well there was a massacre of my grand plans for morrow and thus this turned out to be another sleepless night. And as I sat in my room sipping yet another cup of tea by the window and listening to a cover of Dylan’s ‘Not dark yet’, random thoughts crossed my idle mind. Now that I think of it--these thoughts aren’t that random. Recurring would be a better word to describe them.

If you aren’t an acquaintance, the fact you might want to be familiar with is that I blabber. A lot. It’s a habit, has always been a habit. When I’m with friends and I’m more than physically present there - in situations like those I think I dread silence. So I fill pauses with words. Sometimes even when I’m just physically present in a group, I blabber to make it seem like I’m fitting in. So you see there’s no escaping the useless banter!

Words pour out of me ceaselessly and many a times they’re based on sudden impulses. The stereotypical girl talk, the random one liner wisecrack on a passerby, the immediately drawn impressions, the judgemental often bitter comments. It’s almost as if there’s another level of consciousness where these sprout from some place between my conscious and subconscious.  Then there are times like this, times when I’m by myself when she comes and speaks to me; makes me realize how wrong or right I’ve been.

She makes me see the other side of the people I’d seen earlier. Like the insecurities behind the ill fitting clothes of the obese girl in the mall, behind the unusually high heels of a short girl at the movies, behind the tad too cocky body language of the short guy in the restaurant with his beautiful tall girlfriend; the helplessness behind the visibly apparent wig of a bald man. She makes me see that the clearly artificial gold imitation jewels a woman was decked up with in a function were worn probably because her family wasn’t doing that well, makes me see the possibly guilt laden conscience of the woman at that Andheri signal conning passersby into give her money by cooking up a false tale everyday,  makes me see the joy in that poor man’s eyes on wearing those leather shoes that someone must’ve given away even though they looked two sizes too big for him, the pride in the woman’s eyes who gave me directions for a local shop in her broken English, the probable reason behind a classmate wearing that worn out shirt of his too often or his reluctance to accompany us to expensive dinners in the city. She makes me realize how wrong I am in thoughtlessly passing remarks on people to appear witty or garner a few chuckles. When each subject of my banter could have an untold story, could have issues, could be unhappy.

She has her ways like these to help me stay grounded. She - who believes in smiles, she with the silly impractical Utopian ideas, she whose tears are always solitary and real, she with an unfailing belief in the inherent lightness - the inherent goodness of every human heart, she - untouched by the often cruel experience that life is, she with the unreal ideas. She.

She’s the bridge that keeps me from losing touch with myself. The bridge that keeps the monsters outside and makes me stay the girl who still has a heart; the bridge that connects my distant, often hazy and sometimes invisible past to my present.  And she gives me hope for my future.  And for her I thank Him every night before I go to bed. Because till she’s alive inside me, I know I too am.

Author's Note

Do you think I should just stop writing? Sometimes I get the urge to, but whenever I compare the words I end up writing to the thoughts in my head; the words seem so ill translated and sloppy. As in real conversations, the first half of what I write usually is banter, through which I'm usually trying to let the nervousness go and focus on my thoughts and by the time I start getting better the piece is done with!

Hoping to garner honest opinions here, even brutal ones would be valued.

Thanks!