Moment of clarity

She looked out of the window of the moving car. A simple gesture, and yet it made her feel liberated. As she inhaled the fresh air of the mountains, she felt a strange sort of happiness rushing into her lungs. 

She had almost thought she was incapable of experiencing this feeling. But here it was, embracing her with open arms, traveling as if part of the breathtaking scenery that was traveling alongside her, racing with the wind, the trees, and people.

She found herself smiling at complete strangers. And found them returning the gesture. Away from the hustle of mundane city life, the air here felt pure and the warmth in people genuine. 

All of a sudden, a thought crossed her mind. She retrieved her Nikon SLR from her bag and started clicking random shots from the car window.

But all she could manage from a moving car were blurred images. Preserving the moment would mean slowing down to capture it. And slowing down meant to risk lowering the adrenaline rush.

And that made her think about life, about all the times she had traded those little moments of happiness for something more solid, more promising, more permanent.

But wasn’t happiness a fluid concept, she wondered. One fleeting moment after another. Maybe sometimes she tried too hard to make a memory out of them. Perhaps these moments weren’t meant to be preserved, but lived in there and then...exactly like the beauty she was experiencing around her.

The emotional freedom she felt was a state of mind. And trying to freeze it merely distracted from the here and now. 

Like every authentic emotion in the world, happiness too had to be perceived, first, with the heart...before it was lived, loved, and let gone of. 

Packing her camera back into her knapsack, she smiled to herself.

From now on, there was just one thing to do...enjoy the moment! 

Of truth and trauma

"Keep the child within you alive.”

Her timeline was flooded with similar tweets and messages. All of a sudden, everybody wanted to be a kid again.
14th November, the day when everyone reminisced about their childhood days, the good old days like they called it, the days of glory.

She cringed at the mention. Try as she might to avoid it, she was forced to temporarily relive her past on this one blasted day every year.

She had managed to slay the monster from under her bed.
But every once in a while, someone would reminded her of that ugly phase in her life. She would then feel it fresh in her bones, in the blood of her veins...that ghost of a memory that devoured her entire childhood or whatever she had ever loved of it.

Unlike the others swinging back and forth in nostalgic meanderings, she never wished to go back. How she hated the kind of wishful thinking her friends indulged in—-the kind about time machines and hypothetical travel that can transport one through time back to their childhood. What was the big hype about cotton candy and hop scotch anyway? They missed the innocence of childhood, they’d say. And she’d stay silent, not wanting to argue any further, because they wouldn’t understand. They hadn’t had to live with her demons.

They hadn’t had to go to bed every night, terrified wondering whether the monster from under her bed would come atop of it. They hadn’t had to go through the agony a nine year old felt when a middle aged male violated her fragile body. They hadn’t had to lay beneath him afraid of being crushed to death by his weight, his palm blocking out their shrieks until they could feel nothing but the wish to die before the next morning.

They hadn’t had to wake up to the disappointment of  seeing another day, to the helplessness of knowing they wouldn’t be believed, to the dread that they would have to bear the same excruciating pain again that night and God-forbid so many innumerable nights in the future, and to the insurmountable anger and disgust at having to acknowledge the man their mother loved and depended on as the monster who visited them in the dark, as the demon who raped them when all else were sleeping, as their ‘Dad’.

Yes, she was glad she wasn’t a child anymore. It had taken her years to fight the cutting, the drug dependency, the suicidal urges.

And now she was finally here. She had fought through the ghosts of her childhood to reach where she was today.

It had taken forever to kill the child within her. The scared, trembling, fragile child whose vulnerabilities had made her a victim for far too long.

Today on Children’s day, she felt a protective urge towards all those who might be going through the same experiences as her.

“Keep the child within you alive.” flashed the message on her timeline.

She knew the message meant well, but she did not need it.
She had cleansed herself from the toxic effects of her  ruined childhood, killed off the demons.
Now if only she could exorcise the ghosts!

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Author's note:  Those who undergo the trauma of childhood abuse often tend to internalize such incidents and suffer internally for years after.

If you are one of them, please remember; YOU are strong. YOU are resilient. YOU have survived it. And most importantly, IT IS OVER!

#FlashFiction: Emotional atyachaar

She gazed in his eyes a little too long, her face inches away from his.
The tension in the air was thick. A million thoughts were creating havoc in his mind. There was anxiety writ on her face as well.

It took hardly a minute. But the solace it brought would last a while.

"Fundus normal. No evidence of macular or retinal changes," she smiled, scribbling down his latest report.

The diabetic heaved a sigh of relief. He wouldn't need to visit the Ophthalmology department for the next six months at least.

#FlashFiction: 'Always'

It was a cloudy September morning. The street was full of noises; birds twittering, cars honking, hawkers trying to sell their wares.
Inside the house, Anjali had cried herself to sleep once again.
Ten years had passed but she still spent nights stark awake, yearning to hear his voice.

“September ninth will always be lucky for me,” he’d say to her, each time worded a little more lovingly.
“Why? What’s so special about it?” she’d ask in mock innocence, knowing fully well what he’d reply but wanting to hear it anyway.
“Well, the person I love most in the world was born that day.
Anjali would never tire of hearing these words.

That day too, he was on board talking to her when it happened. “Happy birthday, sweetheart. “
“How I wish you were here with me,” she’d said.
“I am always around you even when I cannot be,” he’d replied.
“That doesn’t even make sense,”  she had scowled. He had laughed, making her blush even through the miles between them.

But even before she knew it, the laugh in his voice had changed...to panic.
Then confusion.
Chaos.
And the phone had gone blank!

Anjali’s eyes flew open. Life had been a recurring nightmare since the 9/11 attack ten years ago.
Today, as she mindlessly checked the birthday messages and missed calls on her phone, his voice still resonated in her ears...as if it had all happened just yesterday.

Warm tears trickled down her face as she recalled his last words.
 “I am always around you, even when I cannot be.”
 His words made perfect sense now.

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#MicroFiction: New girl in town

One small gesture was all it took to make her feel like a princess again, even in this strange new place.
Bent on one knee, he flashed her a charming dimpled smile. With a gossamer touch, he slipped the sandal onto her foot, his attention unwavering, making her feel like she was the only one in the room.

She recalled that day when a similar charmer had stirred a similar feeling inside her. But she had left that all behind. The past felt like another life...another world.
Was she falling in love all over again? Hadn’t the journey through the rabbit hole taught her anything at all? She found herself dreaming once again. This time she’d got it right.

The bubble popped only when the sales man in the shoe store scurried off to attend to another customer.
Cinderella sighed. She needed to snap out of her fairy tale hangover.

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#MicroFiction - 'Besotted'

“She’s the most selfish creature I’ve ever seen. I don’t know why you love her so much.”

He laughed. His friend was trying to stuff sense into him again.

But that’s not the way love functioned. What he felt for her was unconditional.

“If I were you, I’d have thrown her out of the house already,” his friend frowned. “She does a fine job keeping you on your toes. And for what?” he paused for effect. “Does she even acknowledge the attention? No! Always acting high and mighty, the queen that she is.”

It was true. She literally owned him and there were times he felt she didn’t care at all.

“But just because they don’t love you the way you want, doesn’t mean it’s not love, no?” he reminded himself.

Even now he could feel her eyes on him from the other side of the room.  The expression on her face was smug, reserved only for those who had the liberty of living life, nine times over.

Stretching on the davenport, she stifled a bored yawn and resumed to lick her majestic Persian fur.

“Quit trying,” she hissed at the friend. “He is not going anywhere.”

Then meowing sweetly at her besotted human, she jumped in his lap for her daily dose of belly rubs, and purred authoritatively.
“Not without my permission.”

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All for the best (a microstory)

Only a fool would offer a gypsy a home to live, expecting him to never leave.
And she was one!

He was always the wandering kind. Fickle as a cloud. And she, sturdy as a tree stood tall, gripping the soil below her firmly planted feet.
When she met him, her roots only grew stronger. She bloomed with self-confidence in his presence, showering him with her fragrant flowers every now and then, thinking that would make him stay.

But soon enough, she realized he wasn’t happy. The far-away look in his eyes made her sad. He wasn’t looking for safety. He wanted to walk on the edge. He didn’t care about her flowers. He was born to chase the wind.
Because gypsies did not need firmly rooted trees for company. They needed caravans that would move with them on all their adventures.

She, who always took pride in her stability, realized that sometimes consistency was not enough. Change was the only thing that could make him hers. And she was incapable of change. For what was a tree if not strong and sturdy. If it changed, it would be a tree no more.

She knew she had to let him go. They weren’t meant for each other.
He was meant to travel.
She, to stand her ground...


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Also, linking this blog post to #MondayMusings by Corinne Rodrigues of Everyday Gyaan

Blood justice (A microstory)

“This doesn’t seem like the work of a human," commented the investigating officer, wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead.

“Haven’t heard of any wild animals in the area,” said his mate.
Both exchanged a silent stare.

They were at the scene of the crime. The victim, a seventeen year old boy, had been discharged that very evening from a remand home for juvenile delinquents. Within a couple of hours, his mangled body had been discovered in the woods behind his house, stark naked, eyeballs upturned, entrails out.

A few blocks away, a paraplegic Mrs D’Souza chortled...for the first time since her daughter had been raped to death seven months ago, in the same woods.
Justice had been finally served!


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