Bekarar Karke Humein: Of Cancer, Medical college and Love.

The story started few months ago, few years ago perhaps. The lesion was in her lungs but now it has disseminated to all her organs, including her brains. Bones viciously affected. She's on radiotherapy by linear acceleration.
Yesterday, when I knocked on her door, just the sight of her peeping through the window brought back a flood of memories of our medical college days. She smiled and greeted me with carrot juice and fried makhana as we reminisced  Darbhanga Medical College days.
 The topper of our batch. Admission number 050, Paromita Sarkar 052 Rajesh Bhardwaj 075 Sarita Kumar. 050 and 075 talked graciously in english and I was flooded with jealousy. She strummed her guitar as she flashed a gracious smile at anyone who looked at her. Soon the feeling of "J" was replaced with a sense of glorification. She was our batch mate.
Twenty years ago my wife suffered serious brain injury. Paromita contacted her friends Sarita Kumar, who is now setteled in UK. After five years of constant effort that they put in, my wife had an unbelievable recovery. I owe her life to Paromita.
I ask her about her husband, her daughters. A ghost of smile  apparates on her face from a distant land. "They are fine" she says. She scans her contact list. T.N Jaiswal, Mini Sharma. She makes a few calls, divulges very little of her condition and asks more about them. She is leaving for Germany this weekend. Her daughter stays there, married to a famous radiologist. "We should plan a get together" she cracks a loud smile as she talks to Jaiswal and Sharma, but it is soon lost in her long drawn palpitation. If only I could learn from her the zeal of life. She excuses herself  after a while. She says she is tired. She had undergone the radiation last evening.
As I get up to greet her goodbye, I notice her floating in an ocean of thoughts, staring at the rain drops lashing against the window. A calm look prevails on her face. It brings home a deja senti. The pista color bed sheet neatly covered her legs. I rebuke the tears seeking permission to flood down my eyes.
"Take care, Paro" I mumble. She disposes of a faint smile. The dark patches under her bird shaped eyes terrify me to the point where I can hardly breath.
As I wave her goodbye, leaving behind a scrawny frame, I have a flash of memory.
A jam packed auditorium. I occupied the corner seat and looked at her with appreciation and then without realising, with love. A bright yellow  long skirt fluttered due to the table fan fixed at the corner of the stage, her pin straight waist length hair swinged to the tune of the guitar that she strummed, dressed in a white turtle neck top, the words that lost their way somewhere between my heart and her's .
"Bekaraar karke humein yun na jayien. Aapko hamari kasam laut ayien..."

Haiku: #Remember Me

"Remember me" he hissed

wedding gift, a poisonous sting
the black saree bled

This Haiku is shared with Imaginary Garden: Open link monday

Haiku Poetry: Ways

defiance for pleas
lashes for tears
lets part ways

This Haiku is shared with Imaginary Garden: Open link monday

The house: D'souza's Residence.

House. The kind of house that is built and not made. They lived underneath the same roof, looking at each other with silent contempt and disgust. You could never hear shrieks of laughter. It didn't smell like home. It didn't allow them to let go of their fear. Instead, the house howled with cries of silence. The silence which prevails after a long lost argument. The silence which reeks of anger, that which speaks a thousand words of denial and disappointment. They were strangers to each others world, each others emotions. There was a constant battle amongst the three of them. Who could hurt the other more? A battle with themselves. Who could continue to hold on to their ego even after the other had given up.
They were afraid, you can say. Afraid of what the other might do to  rip them of their dignity and self respect. Afraid that they would lose themselves a little more. They were tired, you can say. Tired of hurting themselves and then searching for a reason, a chance to seek revenge upon the other.
They lived in the same house. To the world outside they were a family. D' souza's. The semi furnished wooden door had undergone an intense one day carving session to make it easier for the visitors to trace where the D'souza's lived. Lived? They lived inside the house like disjoint letters of English alphabet.
They lived in the same house. A house that didn't sing to them a lullaby to drive home the wheels of sleep. But a house that robbed them of their dreams and replaced them with nightmares. 

Hey there, Stranger: A letter to a lost best friend.

Hey there, Stranger,

It's been a while since we last talked. I am sure you know by now that the decision of turning into strangers was yours and not mine. I have no idea how you are doing but somewhere in the corner of my heart I know you are doing well. I think its weird that we, who were once so inseparable, have cut off all our ties and contacts in such a beautiful way that even if we want, we cannot find our way back to each other. Life is weird and we humans, twisted.

At times I wonder what went wrong? What happened to all our promises and years of friendship? We were too young to make promises you'd say?It makes me sad to think that what meant so much to me, at the end of the day was just another chapter in the book of your life. But I sincerely want to thank you for being there for me and then cutting off all ties. I sometimes find myself stuck in those memories, I find myself wondering how wonderful it would have been if we had stayed in touch. If we could just call up each other once in a while? Or well, calling has become archaic, but texting? We could definitely drop in a word or two or call each other on our birthday's or New Year? We have been through so much and you were such an integral part of my life that it tears me apart everytime I think,'how difficult it would have been to just ask if the other was doing fine?' The decision of staying in touch or not was always yours. Turns out you made the easier choice.

There is so much to say but every time I begin to write something, I end up fighting those memories. So I have decided, this is it. I am writing this letter aware of the fact that you will never read it but I just want to say, I really loved you with all I had. But I guess sometimes that is just not enough. I have tried and tried for years to get over my feelings for you, despite of knowing that you didn't take a days time to get over yours. And maybe that is what hurts me a little more. How you could make my feelings seem so insignificant in front of your pragmatism?

But I am beginning to get over the past and now I know I have come so far that I won't ever return, I know that if you call me years later, asking for a chance to talk, I will. I will happily meet you over a coffee, share a word or two and laugh about how great my life has been. However, I will never be able to tell you that no matter where I went, I carried a huge hole in my heart that screeched, unable to find you. I will never be able to tell you that this heartache was like a broken bone and even though it healed with time, every time I tried to move, it hurt.

People ask me to forget you but it is not possible to forget you, I won't. Because forgetting you would mean forgetting myself. And I don't want that to happen. What I am today is such a big chunk of what you made out of me. So I sit here and wish. I wish that where ever you are, who ever you are with, you are happy. I wish you a great future and a great life. And even though we are nothing but strangers, I wish for you nothing
short of happiness.

Never to be yours again,
Your once best friend.