A Class Apart

THE PAST:

Dear God

जाते जाते वो मुझे, अच्छी निशानी दे गया 

उम्र भर दुहराउंगा ऐसी कहानी दे गया 

खैर मेँ प्यासा रहा पर उसने इतना तो किया 

मेरी पलकों की कतारों को वो पानी दे गया 

I don't know what You were thinking when you made a person like me! Do I ever give up trusting people? People undergo one painful experience and just give up on life. Commit suicide, become addicted to substance abuse, become a recluse, even go AWOL for some time. Yet here I am. Kis mitti se banaya hai aapne?  Can't seem to stop trusting people!

For once in my life, I wish I had not been what I am today. I would at least have been safe. I feel so exposed, raw and vulnerable these days.

Courage, persistence, valour and conviction - all seem so far-fetched, so distant. All that remains is the nagging feeling that I am 'not good enough'. I have fought this feeling for so long and now I am tired. The urge to give up is overpowering the will to try. What to do God?

In tough times, when I have been through so much, Your love was the beacon which guided me through it. I need it more than ever now. Dear God, I have lost all faith.

Dear God, think positive is a chant I repeat every so often. Just to keep up my spirits. Yet when I look up, I can't see the stars in the sky. All I see is a dark looming over me. What is this darkness God? Where is your light?

Dear God, hold my hand and lead me to light. Show me the way out of this gloom. Show me for once that love and faith is rewarded. That there are people in Your world who keep promises they make. That You made someone mad enough to have faith in me and love me the way I am.
Dear God, give me that someone who has the same blind trust in people that I possess. Give him back to me. Please.

THE PRESENT:

Dear God

Life has so much more to offer than just the struggles...for a girl like me my only struggle is to feel secure. I do, now. For I finally understood the security I seek has to come from within. Before I trust others, I have to trust myself. I have to have faith in my own abilities to make it happen. I have to know the person I am. I have to shine through all this darkness and firmly believe that at the end of it all, there is light. Hope is a beautiful thing God. Hope that I have a great future and it starts now, right now. I claim it right now. I love You God and I love myself too for You created me.

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

Write Fair, God. Please !!

कुदरत के उसूलों में बदल क्यों नहीं होता ; जो आज हुआ है वही कल क्यों नहीं होता

जब उसने ही दुनिया का ये दीवान लिखा है ; हर आदमी प्यारी सी ग़ज़ल क्यों नहीं होता

Dear God

It all started when I came across a story I was reading… Unrequited love was the theme. Then I read another and another and another…That is when I discovered that in the name of reality, 9 out of 10 stories were sad. The saddest part of it all was…the sad stories sounded relevant and more real. Why?

Having the power to mould a story any which ways you want is a pretty powerful thing. Reminds me of You – God; the scriptwriter of our lives. Write fair, God. Write love, write faith, write honesty. Write rewards for hard work God. Write love not hatred. Most importantly, write love for love. Not indifference, not casual acknowledgement, not ignorance.

In the recent turn of events, India shook with the incidents of mob lynching, hate crimes and violent assaults on men and women alike. Who can forget Jeesha,Pradyuman and the likes? But they are the extremities. What about everyday life and people around us? All of us are carrying our own burdens, going through our own private hells.

Love -supposed to be the most beautiful feeling in the world. But your people have added so much sorrow to it. You made them prisoners of their past, their beautiful past. You made cynics out of believers, God. People who have genuine feelings are being robbed of them only because of their experiences. Falling in love is their only crime.

You know what is the worst part? When we fall in love, we forget age, caste, creed, religion, wealth and what not. All the tomfoolery of your world just fades, becomes negligent. Not forever though. It comes to play as soon as we try to retain that love in our lives. Your world has no respect for feelings. It loves to make a mockery of them.

Mockery it is…

PS: Thank you for everything.

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

Morning Sun to my Yelda*

Dear Readers

Sorry for the long pause. Long official trips and relocation is to be blamed. When I started writing this blog, a lot of people asked me; “Is it my story? It is too personal, too detailed, and too insightful. Some of them have taken offense too that I chose to discuss everything so openly. Some were hurt and offended.

To all of them I say; I am the voice of hundreds of people like me. I cannot stifle my voice for that would mean I have declined them their right too! So my dear readers, be prepared for some honesty, some fun and some more of my bluntness.

Love you All

THE PAST:

तेरे  बारे में  जब  सोचा नहीं था , मैं  तनहा था मगर इतना नहीं था

तेरी तस्वीर से करता था बातें , मेरे कमरे में तब आइना नहीं था 

Reading The Kite Runner the other day, I came across this term. By the way, this book is a fabulous story of triumph of humanity. The way Amir finally finds his voice and fights to right the wrongs is something we all should do. Hardly happens in life though!!

In real life, you don’t marry the girl who ran off with her boyfriend when she was a teenager. In real life, you do not have the courage to take a stand for a woman who was wronged. In real life, you do what the one before you did, blame her and move on. May be my folks are right. Books really have distorted my view of the world. They made me believe a fairer world and the existence of equality in all relationships. Tough luck, Barrett!

Yelda, the first night of winter and the longest night of the year… You: the longest and the darkest night of my life. No hope…no dreams….no love. I remember the hopelessness and the constant abandonment. Confined in my own body, I felt trapped. At times, it took some effort to even breathe. Those were the days when I believed nothing good would ever happen.  The days when I believed I deserved the shabby treatment meted out to me. Those were the darkest times of my life. The times when I was abandoned, shunned for seeking a committed relationship, ridiculed for asking for loyalty and laughed at because I believed myself. Those were the days when I ceased to live, when I gave up on my life and for a brief period of time, I could not find myself.

Luckily, I did!

THE PRESENT:

Dear Sun

Thank you for dispelling the darkness with your amazing light, my morning sun. You rise with your glory and make me feel warm again. Thank you for clearing the cob webs in my mind and making me see life once again. Thank you for giving me the courage to fight. With you, I have seen the best days of my life and the best thing about it is; they have just begun. Thank you for dispelling all the myths that a fallen woman can never rise. Thank you for helping me find my confidence once again. Thank you for the unconditional love, unquestionable faith. Thank you for the everlasting love and unending support. With you, I learnt to love again.

Thank you for fighting my battles and winning my war.

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

·       Courtesy : The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

When customer delight is not so delightful

My Dear Readers 

It's been quite busy out here. Getting transferred to a new location entails so much work!

But that is not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about something which I have been facing since the last two months.

When I studied Marketing management and a subject, I did not know that gender bias plays a pivotal role. Here I was trying to purchase my dream car (which I finally did!! Yay!!)

The trouble started when I mentioned my name. For those who don't know, my name is B H A V A N A - Bhavana. Just Bhavana. No prefix suffix...Nothing. But as it turns out, the agency in question does not agree. The documents I got from there refuse to believe that. They have distorted my name in the below mentioned ways....

1. The invoice - says my name is Bhavna Kumari...I don't know why I suddenly feel like a 6 years old.

2. Then I have a receipt from them which says my name is Mrs. Bhavna Kumari. Hellow!! When did I get married...Was i too drunk to remember ;)

3. Then I received the cheque which topped it all- it says my name is Miss Bhavna Kumari.. S/ O ...(!). I do not recall a gender change operation I underwent...Was it when I was in Delhi for a fortnight.

Shakespeare was so wrong..There is something in a name and more in a name when you chose to not carry a surname.

Disclaimer: This one is a true story.

The Single Woman

THE PAST:

Tera qusoor nahin jaan, meri tanhayee'

Ye rog maine hi khud jaan ko lagaya tha.'

A single woman is such a fancy creature. People see her and wonder…Oh the surprise is always there…The very first one ‘What does she do with all the money?’  Tough luck knowing that man… I work hard and enjoy the fruits of my labour, just like all of you.

Then this one: ‘She is all alone.’ Actually not! I have a family too… they just don’t live with me. Contrary to popular belief, living alone is not a choice. It is a compulsion.

Then ‘What do you do with all the free time.’ Women like me do not have much time on their hands. In addition to shouldering the responsibilities of office, we have to run our household too. So we are always preoccupied and very busy. Every second counts…

And the best one: Why the heck doesn’t she get married? This is an easy one ‘That is because the world is full of morons who think being self-dependent is a demerit when we are searching for a suitable life mate. We are no ‘damsels-in-distress’. Maybe that is why people think we can continue being the knight in shining armour for life. So get this one straight. “Even if my armour is a little cracked and my hands heavy from lifting the shield, I will never, never, never, never, never…stop fighting.”

Leaving me was easy because you knew I could fend for myself. You knew I would never look forward to someone opening the door for me or I would never be the one to wait at home in the evening while you were out. Guess what, you were right!

THE PRESENT:

Der lagi aane me tumko

Shuqr hai fir bhi, aaye to

Dear Love

Thank you is one word which keeps popping into my head time and again. This time because you understood. You understood my choices, my dreams, my fears and my situation. Thank you for seeing that although I can fend for myself and frankly I am used to it by now; yet I love to be taken care of. Thank you for seeing that I have been too strong for too long and now just need someone to lean on. Thank you for understanding the need for money and material comfort is not the only reason for being with someone. It can also be the companionship, the camaraderie, the love, the togetherness.

Most importantly, thank you for accepting my life as it is; the privileges and the challenges alike. Thank you for sharing my life and all that there is in it and thank you for being so open minded about it.

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

The Furnace

THE PAST:

Mizaz apna kuchh aisa bana liya humne

Kisi ne kuchh bhi kaha bas muskara diya hamne

If there was a weapon of mass destruction in the world potent yet easiest to carry; invisible to the eyes yet wreak havoc on heart, mind and body alike. A weapon so strong, its power unsurpassed by all others. A weapon once unleashed, it hits you again and again with the same intensity. It would have to be words…

Likewise your words were the weapons you unleashed and subjected me to their raw power. Cheating, deception, hiding information, promiscuity…your blames were endless. Somehow I always ended up at the receiving end.

I still remember the day I told you about an office colleague who was hitting on me. I fended him off successfully but you never believed me. I still can’t believe you hold me responsible for every message people send me, unwanted attention or unsolicited compliments for the way I looked. I was not at fault yet you never believed me.

No girl wants it mate, unwanted attention, unsolicited remarks. No girl would like to be subjected to this. The world around us believes we love all the attention but it, in fact, is incorrect.

We just want to live in peace; we have earned our freedom financially. It’s time the society gave us our privacy back too.

THE PRESENT:

Uski ankhon mein itni batein hain

Ik kitab si likhne ko dil ye kehta hai

Dear Love

Words are the most potential weapon and when used wisely, they make us do what we could never imagine. Words convey love, faith, trust and encouragement. Your words soothe my pain; heal all that hurts. Your words which make me feel the love that makes me believe myself.

Endless times you have imparted me the power to cross a line, say my mind, believe in myself and do reach for the stars when people said I could hardly climb the attic.

Your words are the balm on my hurts and the power behind my belief.

PS: Sometimes, it pours down on the furnace and everything cools down J

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

The Picnic Spot

THE PAST:

Dear Ex

Tehzeeb mein uski kya khoob ada thi

Namak bhi aata kiya to zakhmon par chhidak kar

‘I need a friend like you.’ ‘We are great friends too, let’s continue being so.’ ‘I don’t want to lose your friendship.’

Screw Friendship!!! If there was a much abused phrase in break ups all around the world, its friendship.

When you are in a relationship, you do so many things together, create beautiful memories. The pain of being separated from it all is one thing you are subjecting them* to. At the same time, you want them to be available for you if and when you need them…so ‘friendship.’

Guys and girls, when you can’t give someone their rightful place in your life, please have the dignity to stay away from them too. This friendship thing is just a poor excuse to continue the relationship much after it is over. When you have moved on, it hurts the person in question to see you again, let alone remember now you belong to someone else. It takes a lot to forget all that and move on. When you have already forsaken them, there is no need to remind them of their loss time and again. The least you can do is let them heal in peace. Vacate the place you have occupied in their life, not selfishly demand the same time and attention which you are now giving to someone else. It is a life not a picnic spot…for you to visit at your convenience.

If your relationship is all that great and you really wish for them to be with you throughout your life, give them their rightful place. Else just learn to manage without their presence in life.

THE PRESENT:

Dear Love

Bhari mehfil mein doston ka ziqr hua. Hamne to…

Sirf aapki taraf dekha aur log ‘Wah Wah’ kehne lage

Of all the things that we are for each other, we are great friends too. In fact, friendship was the beginning of our relationship. ‘Just Friends.’ Is something I would never want to hear about us both. It would hurt me to be an outsider in your life, you – I value above all else. It would be insulting to indulge so many tender feelings for someone who considers me ‘just a friend.’ A face in the crowd; a name amongst so many others. You are so much more to me than a friend; I wish you feel the same.

PS: What we have is so much more than friendship.

Disclaimer: The story I share with you all today; may or may not be true. For as a writer I am certainly influenced by what I see around me. At the same time, I retain what I call and known as artistic liberty. 

*them is used in place of him/her here.