Behind the scars: Beautiful and broken.

These bubbles of confusion and longing that are churning up from some hidden corner of my soul, they leave me craving for a remedy. I'm broken, you see. These wide crevasses on the canvas of my heart have veiled themselves from the world. A spotless blank parchment is all they see. Who wants to examine the small gaps that the fake layer of clarity veils? How will they? No one looks at it from close enough. Some did and it horrified them, you know. The hideous nature of the scar, the ever so repelling  rotten tissues of broken dreams? A doctor's medicine didn't help. 

"I'm afraid, madame. The wounds are too deep. They'll never heal." through sea shells I heard the shipwrecked man whispering my fate. He was a doctor, some said. 

"Isn't there a remedy? A cure? Anything?" I questioned, a gush of cold wave hitting my legs. 

"There is. There is. Plastic surgery."

And so it was. A thin layer of flesh and the ever so ignorant world would forget that it ever happened. I won't blame them because until recently I had convinced myself that it had. Oh god bless my delusional self. But then the canvas started to wear off. How could it not? What except the great wall of china will not succumb to the constant wear and tear, constant disappointment, constant rejection? Not a heart, atleast. Not mine, atleast. 

I thought it had healed. Then I took a closer look. And I was no longer astonished why the scars drove away the onlookers. I realized that the scars are too prominent now and even though the world cannot see it, I feel the paws of the injury clawing deeper into my heart with each passing day, I can see them peeping through the small crevasses in the canvas and its not long until they will be gaping at everyone with wide eyes. 

I am afraid, I am no longer beautiful from within. A life time ago, when you were here, that was all that mattered. I never let the insecurity of not being the prettiest take over me. But now, I am losing my inner beauty, as you called it. And I'm afraid that before I meet you I would have turned into a hideous monster and you will not recognize my anymore. You won't even recognize which of the innumerous scars were gifted by you. I'll never heal, I am afraid. I have always been this way. 

I take a deep breath and let time play its last cards. As I close my ragged eyes, I see you standing on the shore with me, our laughters echoing through sea shells, whispering to each other for help. The warm waves touch our feat, the sun shimmers on the wide expanse of water, my scars are wide open, but they don't repel you. You are not horrified. You instead stand there looking at me, and it is like we are meeting for the first time. The scars will never heal, I know. But as long as you are here, there is something extremely beautiful about the way they stare at you, compassionately, the way your glance soothes them. I don't mind being a wreck, I don't mind being broken. As long as you believe that my scars do not define me,That scars are beautiful and so are the stories behind them. 

Lost And Found.

To the forbidden pleasure and the guilt, I feel I've lost myself to the innocent deceptions that the world had to offer. I've lost myself to the thumping of my confused brain. I've lost myself to the possibilities of what could have possibly been mine, but never was. I have lost myself to the memories I clinged on so desperately too. That was never enough though. Someone had given up on them while I held on, or may be they had not treasured them enough to give up on them in the first place.
Constant disappointment, the never ending despair and the darkness that follows after every sunrise. I have lost myself to incomplete endings, to conversations that never happened, to words that were never spoken, to stories that cried, to impossibility of possibilities, to myself. I've lost myself to the world that should have been ours and I am stuck in a world that 'is'. The only way you can find me is through my writings, in these words. Words that bridge the gap between the starking realities. You'll find me noticing the tail of a shooting star. No, I don't wish on shooting stars. I try to decipher their language of loss. Wishing on stars is cliched and yet,  we mortals find pleasure and joy in hoping that our dreams and wishes will turn into reality. What an irony, planning  scripts of happiness through someone's language of loss.
Did you look for me? Did you find me there? See, I've pressed on with care, hoping it would pass. Unapologetically baffled and estranged, numb and apathetic, mundane and half dead. A path overshadows with peels of hopelessness, stumbling across a broken road, left with what is solely mine to bear. I amble on without care, hoping I'll find along the way, a part of me that I had lost. Not long ago.
Oops, I forgot someone was looking for me. I'm sorry. Did I waste your time? I hope not. Its a difficult business, filling the gaps, you know.
See, I am losing you again. Its been happening too often these days. Forgive me. Forget me. Don't try to find me. I won't let you find me. I won't let you know the state of my mind. Its boomeranging between walls of apathy, lunacy and confusion. My life is a long struggle of trying to gain control over situations that are not under my control.
*Sigh.* I know, it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't make sense to me either. You know, when I wander away into this land of nothingness, I realize all I need is a blank parchment of paper and a bottle of ink. Next time, if you want to find me, come prepared with some. Or if I dwindle into nothingness and fade away like the day light, find me here - in my words.

An auburn evening and a never made phone call.

 In her moments of solitude she often wondered, "does he still think of me? Does he want to call me up and tell me about his dreams? Does he want to send me a message but is still too busy with his life.. Does he miss me as much as I miss him?" The answers always disappointed her. Naive as she was, she decided to listen to her heart. After staring at the screen for some good ten minutes, she searched for his name. She desperately wanted to dial that number. Wanted to listen to his voice, ask him how he was keeping, if he had started seeing someone. Above all, she wanted to tell him that she missed him, her best friend, her only friend. She wondered if what they said was true. That when you miss a person so much, it is only because they are missing you too. She wondered, even if for a moment, did she ever cross his mind? Did he try to call her up. She decided to put aside her thoughts and pretend as though they hadn't been through anything. As though they were still best of friends.. It took her about a year to muster up all her courage, to dial that one number. Just then, the airhostess placed a gentle tap on her shoulder.
"Ma'am, the flight is preparing for take off. We cannot allow you to use the phone. Can you please switch it off?" A plastic smile from her side made Kritika's stomach drop and she felt as though she would puke, any moment. After all, it is not every day that you miss a person from your past and you end up cancelling meetings and board a flight to another corner of the country, just to find an escape route? Just because some unexpressed emotion has come back to haunt you, just because something has triggered in your mind a cavalcade  memories and questions of "what might have happened"
Disappointed, she switched off her phone and put it back in her purse. "I promise I will call him as soon as the flight lands."
As the flight took off, Kritika, lost in her thoughts, continued to stare into the oblivion . She stared at the clouds as the flight swayed towards its destination, she stared at the orange crowning of the sun around the clouds, it made the sky pregnant with an eerie sense of nostalgia. She stared at the distant necklace shaped lights as the flight prepared for landing. Any moment now. She thought. She would listen to his voice after so long. The joy of imagining the feeling had in itself another pleasure.
The flight landed, she took out her phone, only to switch it on and receive a call from her secretary.
"Madam. The cab driver is waiting for you  near gate number five"
The device vibrated near her ears and as a reflex she dropped it from her hands."Battery too low of radio use." the message read.
She cursed her blackberry once again. She promised she would reach home and call him.
But as she traveled back home, her mind took over he heart. She realized she was being foolish.That  he was a chapter from the past and the story had ended. That she was now a woman of twenty three, running a successful management consultancy firm,  that he was her first love and not the other way round, that some things are best when left incomplete, that starting off on a new note was not possible for them and that they can only be what she had always dreaded the most - "familiar strangers". She took out the battery from her cell phone. As she reached her house, she didn't wait for the servants to serve dinner. She took a bath, switched off the light, popped in some sleeping pills and turned on her favorite symphonica music. Yet, she couldn't stop thinking, how wonderful it might have been if her phone would have rung; she would have dropped everything to answer that call. Just like she used to when she was sixteen. She remembered his eyes. Nut brown, twinkling as though he was a kid. She remembered his touch; warm and affectionate. She closed her eyes.. The sleeping pill had started  showing its effect. Her limpid body laid motionless on the round bed. Her senses over powered by sleep. She didn't call him. The phone didn't ring that night. She didn't switch it on for two days. The first thing she did after coming back to her senses was to ensure that his number had found a way out of her phone. Yet, it didn't. It stayed there. A different name, a blacklist and a memory that refused to forget some ten digits.

Seven thousand miles away..

As a wilted carnition caught his attention, his mind raced back to a long gone era. A man of twenty three, Arnab was a serial entrepreneur. All day long he had felt an unrest streaking within him. He tried to dissuade himself from believing that he was missing someone. He thought he had succeeded. But seeing the wilted carnition, an eternal symbol of unrequited love, a face flashed in front of his eyes. He sat on a wooden bench, underneath a maple tree, watching the ducks struggling to maintain a calm pace above water. He felt like a duck. All the world saw of him was his calm exterior, no one ever cared to empathize with those pangs of grief that he often battled and tried to over come. He picked up the carnition. After twirling it between his fingers, he noticed the orangish crowning in the clouds. The sun was forming a beautiful ring around the clouds. The sky seemed to be touching the lake and the tree formed a brown carpet of maple leaves and a canopy over his head. As the unrest grew, he finally took out his phone and decided to dial her number. "The number you are trying to reach is not reachable at the moment. Please try later." And so he did. For one and a half day. Every time her phone returned the same message. He finally decided to stop. "She has moved on. She doesn't love me anymore. I shouldn't not call her up and make it difficult for her to move on. I don't know why I even tried to contact her in the first place.." Deep within, he knew he was missing her. But his ego and his schedule would not allow him to waste another day trying to call her. If only he knew that she was right there, waiting for him. That he was and will always be her number one.

 A never dialed number,
a discharged battery,
an auburn evening in two different parts of the world,
 sleep that didn't come easy,
leisure that didn't stay long,
time- that was the rarest commodity,
words that were never spoken, feelings that grew unabated,
and a story - that always remained incomplete.

The mistake is yours: For the choices you've made, for the bridges you've burnt.

There she was. Alone and desolate. She was struggling for something. A remedy, a helping hand, anything. But she knew that the struggle would do no good.Somewhere, she was sure she deserved it.So what do you do when you are so confused that you end up losing your paradise, twice? Do you forgive yourself and  move on or do you keep holding on to the bits and pieces of the once perfect dream, hoping that you won't have to face the consequences of the choices you made, choices that had dramatic consequence? This is no movie, there won't be a happy ending. The choice was always yours, you made the wrong one. You burnt the wrong bridges, now you are stuck in an island so forlorn that any trace of relief sounds like a bizarre, far fetched cry. So what stops you from crying now? Your ego? Yes, may be. You valued it more than you valued anyone. Or wait, was it your inability to communicate? Well, you'll never find out. And that is your punishment. For  making the wrong choices. Now you are alone. Struggling for relief, waiting for another chance. But you know you won't have another chance. You'll sail through your life and say it was "destined to happen. You were destined to stay alone." Days will go by, like sand flows through a sand glass. Nothing will change. Salvation is and will always be a far fetched cry. You'll get what you deserve: Here if your boat, no you won't get any oars.The earth is round, sail your way out of this soledad's river.


Notes :
Soledad means "lonely place" in spanish.

A tiny tale : The Visitor

One stormy night there was a knock at his door. His  heart was roaring with fear and legs were trembling out of weakness, he opened the door.The moonlight shone and draped the visitors face with an unexplainable hue of melancholy . Tears mingled with raindrops rolled down his face. The visitor joined his palms, and before breaking into tears he murmured  "Forgive me". A thud, and he was on the floor.

The visitor  had eloped with the owner's wife after gifting  him  an ugly scar. The owner spent his life hiding from the world.The scar drew pity from many, at times it drew terrified glances. So he locked himself in the house for the rest of his life. For the world , he was 'dead'.

The man on the floor was ego,
apologizing to the owner of the old house, his name was "relation".
"How is she ?" the owner asked. He still missed her, "words".
"She is dead". The visitor declared,his eyes burnt up with guilt and the last thing he saw was the  weak rage in the old man's eyes, before the shovel penetrated his chest. The visitor had finally received his reward.

That strange friend named "Ego" : A short story.

Ego is a strange thing. It doesn't change what you feel , but it ensures in its own sweet way that you proceed towards self destruction.It ensures your withdrawal from the world , from your close one's , from people who mattered.
It would be the last time , she had thought. Not until she had had that conversation , had she realized that she was one self concieted woman , who placed her ego before every one , before everything.But he had made her act in ways she never thought she would. That she , Marisa D'souza , would fight so hard to keep him close. He ,who had triggered the series of unsupressable emotions. But how could she tell him , when she knew that the words that had escaped her mouth that evening , were too harsh to be taken back. But she wished she could. Because with every lup dup of her heart , it was getting difficult for her to anticipate if he would ever come back.
"Guess what Selva ? Even if we were the last humans on the earth , I'll never chose you. Even if I don't have a choice" Her comment was met with series of shrieking silence.But now she wished she could take them back. She tried to tell him , tried to get their friendship back on track , tried to forget that they'd had a moment a lifetime ago.She failed. For his ego was big enough to block away emotions. Why wouldn't he , when his were denied so blatantly , in a ruthless way.Yet, he wished , wished to talk to her the way they used to , wished to laugh at her silly gestures , wished to take a walk to the metro station like they used to. He tried to tell her , tell her that he was sorry , but he had a friend named ego. And every time his once best friend 'heart' made him so restless as to pick up his phone and talk to her , his new best friend named 'ego' would snatch it from his hand , remind him that she thought he was not good enough. If only this friend really knew him. The once best friend kept on whispering "Go to her , she must be waiting for you to contact her. May be she is too scared to contact you. May be she never meant those words. May be she is not an egotist as she claimed to be. May be , just may be , she wants to tell you innumerable things." But he ignored "what could be". He saw what was , and yet was invisible. He held his new best friends hand , wallked on , walked away.
There , she kept on wondering how after everything that had happened , he made everything look so easy.How easily she gave up her ego to bring him back in her life but he took no notice. He walked away. "May be" , she thought "I was right. I am a self concieted woman. A woman who can never be good enough for anyone.How I wish I could tell him , tell him that I would chose him even if I don't have a choice."
Despite everything they thought , every unwanted emotion that clogged their mind , nothing severed the ego from their existence.Life moved on and unjumbled verses and incomplee dreams became an inseperable part of their life. Alas , their once best friend grew week and died. However the sin it had committed , lived on after its death. The mark it had left on their life , they could never erase it ,  no matter how hard they tried. They learnt to live with it. With the offspring of their once  best friend. They named it "Regret"

An Excursion of Insight : Harsh Agarwal : Book Review

OverView 
Sonam was young of course, but this does not tell the story of just another young lad! Sonam did fall in love with Sarika, but this is not just another candid love endeavour! It all happened in an Engineering College Campus, but still it's not just the tale of another Campus. 
Sonam, who had his own dreams and vision, came from the Land of Bhutan to India to pursue Engineering. A Buddhist (both by birth and faith), a little philosophical too, but the reader is not given a philosophical treatise on Buddhism.
A story that takes you from the valleys and tea-gardens of Assam, to the hullabaloo of student life and eventually to an Excursion, An Excursion of Insight...



Intriguing is history, while its chapters unfold;yet rumour it was,till it stood untold"

An excursion of Insight is not just another book. It is about innocence and how our society murders it. It is the story of a system that changes you , if you try to change it. Harsh Agarwal, who was just 19 when he wrote this book , has done a commendable job .

The love affair between Sonam Dorji and Sarika is sweet , however, not exceptional. The love story is but a phase of Sonam's life that leads him towards his destination.
 The circumstances surrounding the protagonists life, push him towards a realization and before we realize , involuntarily , Sonam sets off on a life altering odyssey.The destination of this odyssey can only be reached after one has battled the vagaries of life.
I am of the opinion that the ending was kind of abrupt and the twists were foreseeable. Editing could have been better. I did spot some spelling and punctuation errors.The love story becomes boring after a point. May be because there is nothing extra ordinary about it.

Apart from that , the imagery and description of the situations , have been jotted down with such ease and perfection that it brings the book to life.One good thing about the book is that you can somewhere relate yourself with the characters of the story. (More so , if you are an engineering student :p). There is a striking touch of reality.After reading the title, if you are expecting the protagonist to set off on a literal journey , with his bagpacks , then you will be disappointed.
It is a journey , for sure. Sonam will take you on a philosophical journey. Read this book for Sonam , his innocence is rare and his questions ,  thought provoking.
The story leaves behind a trail of questions. "Where is our society heading ? Do we live in a society that follows the 'sab chalta hai' attitude ?,
Isn't accepting and not raising your voice against evil a greater sin ? Are we all , by doing so , not fueling the malice and corruption named fire that is eating up the  society ?"
This and many more. An excursion of Insight , coming from the kitty of a young author , is simple and straight from heart.An easy one time read.
3 out of 5 stars.
PS - Way to go , Harsh.Something other than a chic flick from a nineteen year old. 'Insightful'
:)

About the Author
Harsh Agarwal is a young writing enthusiast who made his debut in the publishing industry at the age of nineteen. An excursion of insight is his second novel.
Harsh, basically a third year Mechie from NIT Assam, always aims to present out of the box stories. He is a voracious reader, a professional freelancer, and a book-reviewer as well. He currently owns a literary organization Asylum (www.theasylum.in) which is dedicated to aspiring authors.
He is also the project head for Times Lost Atlas (anthology of short stories) and chairperson of a charitable project, Project Humming Bird.
Apart from writing, Harsh finds interest in music, travelling and networking.