Worldly Pleasure

"......Jaan jaati hai jab

Udke jaate ho tum...

Aaj Jaane ki Zid naa Karo...."

A slight smile appeared on her face when the stereo played the song in Farida Khanum's voice. She tilted her head to the left and looked at him; he was sleeping quite peacefully, his face resting between her bosoms and arms cuddling her tight. She brushed her fingers through his thin, long, black hair with gray lines in between and drifted into thoughts. The smile slowly disappeared as memories flashed through her mind like a film running in slow motion. 

The days of desperation, longing and abandonment; the nights of despair, sobs, helplessness and insomnia. Everything seemed like yesterday. She never thought love can make someone so blinded and desperate - unrequited love being the most brutal of them all. She would have preferred hundred stabs over his "but, you are my best friend" proclamation. 

But, those days are long gone. Life went on, so did she. It didn't take her much to realise that you can fall in love with whoever you want, but can't make someone reciprocate it. It's not something you could grab; it happens, in it's due course. It happened to her, never to him - what more did she need to move on?

"Waqt ki qaid mein zindagi hai magar...
Chand ghariyaan yehi hain jo aazaad hain..."

The track brought her back to her senses. He was still sleeping, like a baby in the arms of his mother, unconcerned and unaware of the reality. 

Today, they made love. Her fingers ran through his soft skin, he felt the sweetness of her supple lips. The heat of the moment was too tempting to even resist. If this has occured a few years ago - if at all he had felt vulnerable, opened up to her and things heated up, years ago - she would have probably been on cloud nine; if at all.... 

"The Universe does conspire in helping you achieve something you really want, but may not be when you want it, or they way you want it. This man, laying close to me was all I wanted once, I longed to make love to him, but today, it doesn't matter. It's just another man, just another fling." She was amused how life works and with that final thought slowly drifted to slumber. 

"Aaj Jaane ki Zid naa Karo...."

Farida Khanum's passionate singing still filled the room. 

The Night is Eerily Silent

The night is eerily silent and I am wide awake, as my sleep pattern has gone for a toss. I sleep around 4AM, wake up at 11AM, sleep again post lunch and do pretty much nothing the entire day.

The world has been locked down, but has my life changed? Not exactly. I have always been a loner, or so I have become over the years, and being a freelancer has only made me more comfortable with my work and circumstances - I work from the comfort of my room to be precise and what more do you want? But now, for the past few days, I have been disturbed. Even though people are struggling to get themselves comfortable with the sitting-at-home routine, someone who has already warmed up to that is disturbed!

Is it the thought that when everyone is chilling, I still have to work? Or is it because I am a hypochondriac and I am constantly considering the possibilities of me being infected and spreading it to the world? Or the very thought that my home is now filled up with people even during the day that's making me restless? Possibly, all of that.

Everyday, I dream of becoming a better person - sleep and wake up early, drag my ass to the work station and finish off pending works (I am so grateful to my clients who are super patient even when I keep delaying work submission or make unwarranted excuses), eat healthy, work out a bit and get myself back to a fitness routine. But all of that remains as a dream, even today, even tomorrow.

Has depression hijacked my system all over again and do I have to go through all the pain AGAIN? Oh no! May be I am thinking too much, and this is just natural. May be I should meditate before I sleep.

Life isn't fair, you know! This life just isn't. You might be wondering why I am blabbering - FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS - when the entire world is literally crashing, praying and hoping to be alive the next day. But, see, to each their own. For me this is life. Each night is a struggle. To get that peaceful sleep, and days, where I push myself out of the bed and try to stay sane. For some of us, that's how life has turned out to be. And we don't fear death, but possibly death is damn afraid of us, even to touch us....


It's 0230AM in the morning. The night is still eerily silent. But my mind isn't. I can't sleep because it's noisy; I am deafened by its screams. May be I will close my eyes tight force myself to sleep, just like every other day, and wish not to wake up, to the struggle all over again - just like every other day.

And Last Night She Cried

And last night, she cried. For no apparent reason. But she cried anyway. Thinking about all the atrocities and even the smallest of things that had happened to her. The dark phases that she braved. The ill treatments she tolerated. The rejections she took. The heartbreaks she encountered. The fears that wrapped her future. The paranoia that bound her. The depression that ate her life. The unpredictability life threw at her. The unsettlement that questioned her existence. The loneliness that embarked her course. The sorrows she kept under the wrap. The nothingness that slowly defined her purpose. Different songs, for each memory and retrospection, to intensify the way she felt.

And she cried. Silently, yet her heart out. After ages. Without letting anyone know how she felt, all the while even when she faced them all courageously, without fail.  She cried until dawn, and wrapped it all up before the world woke up.

And last night she cried, first time in ages, without inhibitions or apprehensions. And pledged to do this often, to soothe her numb heart and crumbled soul.

This is liberating, she thought as she could sense some relief covering her all up.

last night she cried, so that she could wake up the next day with a smile on her face and relief in her system.