Standing on Edge

I feel I am standing on edge
Torn between free- falling & flying away,
A moment of belief pushes my feet hard on
A sigh escapes me, echoing the clumsiness,
That I feel amidst the chaos and betrayal
I look downward towards nothing,
I look forward towards something,
A gush of cool breeze shocks me to present
For looking something over nothing,
Takes me to the places & emotions
That I am trying to leave behind...
I don't know whether its my strength;
That pushes me towards that illuminating illusion
Or its my weakness that plunders,
My mind into an impasse
Juxtaposing the tumult & serenity
Right in front of my eyes,
Making me believe in the illusion,
Called the big, great, encompassing life...!

MUSINGS: MOON AND HER LIFE

She looked at the full moon in the sky, radiating light around and sighed, a deep one…wishing she could just keep on looking at the moon, doing nothing else; just she with her whims, illusions and brittle dreams and the big yellow moon- very beautiful and serene. Another moment of introspection; a beautiful thing is good to look at but then moon looks beautiful to us but in reality it is holed with big deep craters- scars, so it proved behind every beautiful thing, there is some pain…

    Moon, stars, sky are all limitless entities, something we can never really have in our lives. Just like happiness, she thought. Happiness is so elusive. It forms a small but precious part of our life and life itself is so uncertain. For her, sometimes this life itself became an illusion. The more one tries to understand it, the more illusionary it gets. If you try unraveling it, the more complicated it gets!

    These ponderings sometimes just got too much of her. She wished she could go to a place where there were no thoughts, no past or present and even future, no questions asked, no dreams- just peace of mind and tranquility of heart.

      The world isn’t an easy place to live and with time it got too dangerous for her, testing her patience and strength again and again. The battles she fought were known to her only and no one could comprehend them, let alone acknowledge her struggle. The starry sky reminded her of the canvas on which her life was drawn; darkness in the background with pinches of light here and there and sometimes there was no light, just black, murky, and suffocating darkness while some blue moons, a light of happiness shone her sky for few moments to last for another lifetime. The world crowded her now, narrowing her already chaotic thoughts and limiting her hope… The hope she had clung onto steadfastly was losing slowly and like the last flame on the totally burnt out candle, it was extinguishing gradually from her life.

      There was a time when, in spite of bad tidings, life seemed merry, fun, hopeful and worth living but like a lightening flashing in the sky, that happy time flickered away in a jiffy and then there was just bleak darkness and disillusionment. Everywhere she went and everything she tried her hand at, brought her harsh disillusionment, despair, and finally depression- the deadly Ds of one’s life. 

      She was living, she had to live but she sensed no purpose in her life and that made her so feeble, so weak, and so meek. She looked at her fate lines and she felt her fate held nothing- just plain criss-cross lines. The people, the relations, the dreams she held so dear in her life were all deception of her life..they were never hers! She was a girl, ever to be a liability on someone, ever to be answerable to someone, ever to be suppressed and pushed to the farthest corner of anyone’s life. Her life was never hers, it was claim of someone. Her voice had to be stifled and be her laughter or her tears; they were to be bottled up! She could call no place her home, for she was no one in someone’s life. She could never live her life her way with uncontrolled laughter and unbridled happiness.

      Moon had a place in the sky but she didn’t have one, in her life or in anyone’s. She stared at the moon and it reminded her of so many musings of life and she could go on staring and thinking but there were promises to keep and miles to go before she could sleep.

BROKEN DREAMS AND THEIR IMPACT

When dreams die; you don't die, nothings happens to the world around you, you learn to reconcile with what has happened but yes something dies within you, a small part of you. You live everyday with that remorse and an empty feeling but the irony is that no-one acknowledges it! No one wants to understand your feeling and you walk alone on the boulveyard of broken dreams… The stagnation and ennui adds to the remorse and there's no way to escape! You fight alone and you live your entire life with the bubble of regret that can, anytime burst and consume your soul into the abyss of darkness from where there is no return!!!
Dr Samuel Johnson put it so right in his book Rassellas, "Human life is everywhere a state, in when  much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed."

ILLUMINATION

Lost and confused me,
Delusioned from everything
Find the self within
All chaotic, battered and lonely.
Fighting for hope and faith,
I searched for the flame
That could help me,
Find the lost enlightenment.
I tried to quench the thirst
Of unknowns and doubts
That surfaced and filled me
With more bewilderment…
The moments of agonized torture
burned slowly …
The unquenchable thirst
died slowly …
The doubts, fears and the chaos
eliminated finally…
As I bowed my head on
The prayer mat, infront of God
I found myself…

A PHONE CALL

Maya sat in her room, in an emptying loneliness, silence towering around her, deep in her thoughts. She had her phone in her hand and the words spoken over the phone were still revolving inside her head, causing hot tears tickle down her cheeks. She recalled what was said over the phone, took a deep breath, and dialed her best friend’s number. Three rings down and her friend picked up the phone; “Yea, what’s up? Guess what happened,” babbled on her friend but stopped herself as a sob broke from the other end. Silence. Sobs cracking up from the other end. “Maya, what’s wrong honey?” No answer. Sobs. After long fifteen minutes, the sobs subsided and Maya finally spoke, “He called me up to tell me that he’s going away, he doesn’t want to keep any contact, he thinks he’s not worth me. Its all over. Its all over.” Sad, deep sigh! “Look Maya, I think this is for the good of both of you. You guys need this separation so you can put your heads and hearts together and know what you both want from each other.” Tears streaming down Maya refused to acknowledge that he really was gone. “ How can I live without him, without talking to him? He has become my habit. How can I kill my habit just like that?” she posed these innocents questions at her friend not knowing that Time was going to change and then heal everything.

Putting the phone down, she cried herself to sleep, her wrecking cries her lullaby that tried comforting her. Maya was the girl from every girl’s dream; a pampered and loved child, the only child who got everything before the words uttered from her mouth. The apple of her parents’ eyes, she made her parents proud and happy with her. She was obedient yet rebellious. A pretty girl who could do anything for her parents but committed a single mistake that became blunder of her life, the gravest mistake in her family’s eyes. She fell in love. Love was a strange thing, it had created magical spell around her and it stirred emotions in her that she never knew existed. It dared her to do such things that she dared not do before.

Love had taken hold of her but the same love was changing her life again, destroying the very meaning it had given her, marring her soul. She sat alone, loneliness her company and support. She sat staring at her hands, trying hard to be strong, the hot hears rose in her deep eyes but she gushed them back with a sad but determined sigh. The magic within and around her had disappeared and her life had blurred out from the spells of enchantment. She now saw days as days without the magic of sunshine lifting her spirits and nights as dark and long without the enchanting spell of moon and stars that made her soar high up to them in the world of beauty, joy and dream! Nothing remained now except a bitter reality and an enveloping sense of loneliness. She didn’t know what to do except wait and hope that he would change his mind and come running to her. Days passed by but there was no news of his. She had tried calling him but he had destroyed the number as well. He left leaving behind nothing of his existence, as if he were just a memory. Every day she struggle with unanswered questions. The struggle within her, tore her self, breaking her heart and shattering all those beautiful dreams she had decorated her life with. Her parents noticed the sudden change in her, they couldn’t bear their only child withering away in such an unknown pain that her hollow eyes and smile-less eyes reflected. The laughter died on her lips and the cheer spun out of her life. Her parents couldn’t understand and never knew what was eating their daughter for she could never divulge it to them. She had to fight alone the stalking demons of her life.

With the passage of time, she got used to the fact that he was gone but she had her hope alive that he would come back, one day. She was always lost in his memories, writing to him a letter each day, in her memory. Some days she wrote something in diary that inched her to move ahead. Today she had written on her diary. “You are far, far away, in a cold place, maybe but my heart has preserved you in warm memories. I hold out my arms, can’t find you but when I hug myself, I feel you within me, comforting and warming me. You have the best piece of me with you and I know you will keep it safe till we meet again.” This was her undying hope and untiring faith in her love. She knew her day would come when everything would be fine, happy and she had her faith in God that He would guide her and create a path for them she always prayed for him and his safe return to her.

She moved with the tides of her life; finding her solace in her parents’ love and laughter in her friend’s company. Her friend supported her but discouraged her from hoping for his return and Maya smiled at her friend’s naïve disdain, but her friend never really got well with the love of her life.

     Six full months had passed since he had called her. The memories, always too painful, came back to sting. There was never a moment in a day when she didn’t remember him. It was if she breathed him. Never did he die out from her thoughts even though it was hurting her, scarring her heart! But did she care about herself, she never did!

     Sweeping with time, she moved on with his memories kept safe in her heart. She often came to the very place they had met years before, those years now seemed ages back. It was a cliff where she had met him when she had come there with a couple of her friends for a girls’ day out. The cliff spread out towards the sea, giving the place a dangerous yet exotic bearing. One could look out at everything yet nothing from this edge. After they got into relation, they always came to this spot that became a trademark of their love.

     Sitting on the edge of that same cliff, she looked out at the splashing waves rocking against the stony precipice. Her phone rings and she picks it up. “I need to tell you something. Go to your best friend’s place and you will know the deepest truth”, a strange voice spoke. The call ends and it shakes her. She can’t fathom what’s this all about. Not understanding anything, she calls her friend, who tells her that she is busy shopping with her parents and will get back to her later. This confuses her and she picks herself up to do as the unknown call had bade her. She runs to her friend’s house, hoping to find it locked but to her utmost chaotic self, the house isn’t locked. She walks to the door and finds it locked from inside. She now walks around the house towards her friend’s room that is far out east. Her heart is thudding loudly for some strange tension that’s tangling her in fear. She hears her friend’s voice and before anything, the sudden truth spurts out before her and that’s when she hears his sweet, husky voice, after six long months, the same voice she was so deep in love with, the voice that now said, “I love you” over and over again to her friend. She crumbles and fall in the bottomless numbness, blackness engulfing her!!

Boba's Untold Tale

The old shriveled woman was known as "Boba' in her small hamlet. She was 'Boba' to everyone, even her only son who was lost in the wilderness of the turmoil that had come like a tornado in her small hamlet in the tumultuous year of 2010, leaving behind destruction, shattered dreams and forlorn painful memories. The turmoil of 2010 that shook the entire State of J&K, collapsing the entire nation in a single loud cry of Azadi, caught every Kashmiri youth in the cornucopia of frenzied fervor. It wound the entire nation in the loose fabric of Azadi, a burning dream that gleams in every Kashmiri's eyes and thuds with every heartbeat.

    The aftermath of the turmoil of 2010 was disastrous and such disaster fell on the household of  'Boba.' Her only son was taken away in the consequence wave since he was also the unfortunate one among hundreds who were jailed with PSA detention quashed on them. He was only a minor, who being swept away with the wave and those very patriotic emotions that govern every Kashmiri's heart. He too jumped into the whirlpool, and the consequence of that headlong patriotic jump were harsh, cruel and disastrous. 

    Boba had tried everything her frail self could do, to find her son from that unknown but alas! she wasn't able to save her son. He was thronged in jail after jail till his whereabouts became clueless and slowly hopeless.

    She knew her son was innocent as were those thousands who too, were confiscated from their mothers and their homes. She would go every morning to nearby police station and wait till dusk but she was never able to gather the information about her son. The police station soon got used to her presence and didn't bother much about her. She was once told that her son has been shifted to Kot Balwal jail, in the outskirts of Jammu and from there, where; that is still not known! She was told some 15 months, after that her son had died due to severe infection and weakness in jail.

    They say eyes are the mirror of soul. Well, her eyes reflected the anguish, pain, grief, despicable despair, anger and hollowness that lay bottomed at soul. She looked at the mound with a broken heart, closed her eyes and made her prayer. She had been coming to this mound of mud that the villagers had dug in memory of Boba's son and her untiring efforts and unflinching faith that she had in Almighty; he would come back! The death of her son had broken the frail self but not her faith because she believed till she didn't see his body, she wouldn't believe in the inevitable.

     She had been coming here past 5 months, to this mound, her immense strength had failed her many times but she believed she had to come because this mound reminded her that her son had to come back, either from dead or nowhere! Every time she came there, it ripped her heart into pieces, with questions and memories tumbling over in her mind. There was never peace in her torn self. She fought against all odds, braved every hell to find him. But as they say, no one comes back from hell. Her faith in the miracle of her son's return, somehow made her move in her life and it radiated strength to the villagers of her village who believed in her unwavering, forceful and powerful faith that yes, the miracle will become evitable someday, somehow!!

This is dedicated to all those mothers who lost their sons in the turmoil of 2010 to the unnecessary law in J&K that snatches away the innocence of minors, without giving them a chance, in their respective lives. 

Grey..yet sunny!

There are some days when I feel like running away; running from my family, my friends, my world and maybe even me... I ponder over the current situation, the vacuum building inside within me, trying to numb me into nothing where I don't feel like doing anything, not talking nor moving-just being a nobody!! Is that normal, I think? The abnormality in our thinking and behavior comes from the monotonous life that has nothing in store, maybe at just the present but the adventurous and busy life we had and were used to, makes this dull time difficult to deal with.. We become difficult to be dealt with, just the irritability, annoyance and sadness lurks within us and the worst part is that we make life of people around us miserable and hell... We don't do that deliberately, we don't want that but then sometimes some things and some miserable thoughts are not under our control :(...
There are some days when the weather outside reflects the grey inside us..The dark clouds hovering resemble the pessimistic thoughts lingering in our mind, making our decisions hazy and wavering! But in spite of our mind getting jittery and all, we need our will power strong and our heart brave, so we can pull ourselves from this depressing phase and move ahead with a hope that after this cloudy day, a sunny day is definite..a spring is certain... a smile is possible and best times are around the corner! So that's me; how negative and despairing everything looks or seems, my heart never makes me give up, grasping onto that small flickering flame of hope!!!! Lets just believe in ourselves and the beauty of our dreams that make us go!!! 

HOPELESSNESS

Troubled and sunken eyes reflect the hopelessness

That creeps up within me, out of blue

Everything seems fine around me

Still a tension lingers

For the fears sweltering hovering over,

Fear of unknown

Longing for success

Yearning the state of contentment.

A stressed sigh escapes the lips

A knot assembles in my stomach

Giving way to sweeping conflicts,

Those that bargain my hope.

Infinite doubts intertwining my faith;

Unflinchingly that inches me forward.

Expectations lay like burdens on me

Burying me in untold qualms.

The last sunset overlooks the dawn,

The glass looks half-empty,

And a notion smears itself in my mind

Will this hard labor be worth?

The way looks long and weary…

The unquenchable thirst choking.

Need something for a solace, a freedom…

And an answer, will I be able to handle this pressure??

Syed Javeria Khurshid

18^th Dec.2011

Bitter realization

Shee sat on her bed, teardrops rolling on her notepad; she was trying to write down her messed up feelings but the tears hazed up her thoughts that were all mixed up. She was a strong girl but her heart was all fragile because people who meant a lot to her, were always shattering her expectations and hurting her, bringing her down to abyss that she was trying to get up from.
She felt like a bird whose wings were clipped again and again and she always let people clip, for the sacrifices she made for people she loved, never knew anything. They overlooked her sadness and shattered expectations that were radiating from her self. They made her feel unwanted, miserable and sometimes a burden to be shunted away!
She thought of flying away on her broken wings, to a far off place where no one knew her. Where no one could break her or hurt her deeply. The scars were growing and she was helpless not to allow them from paining her. She seriously cared for people who were in her life but the tragic part was that they never understood her. THE. IRONY. OF. LIFE.!!
The tumultuous explosions in her self taunted her fragility and the broken pieces of her ever broken heart haunted her. The tears rocked her tender body and sobs consumed her grief, giving rise to the bitter realization that no matter what you end up alone in this world and people most of the times don't give damn to your emotions... Sad but True!!!