Daldal - A mental anguish

जाने कैसा दलदल है यह
जिसमे मैं धसा जा रहा हूँ
जितना छटपटाता हूँ मैं
उतना इससे घिरा जा रहा हूँ
देह मेरा बाहर  है इसके
फिर भी जकड़ महसूस होती है
शायद मैं दलदल में नहीं, यह दलदल मेरे अंदर है।
शायद मैं दलदल में नहीं, यह दलदल मेरे अंदर है
इस घुटन से भागते-भागते
खुद से ही दूर जा रहा हूँ
"हाँ, मैं ठीक हूँ!" कह-कह कर
एक झूठ की दीवार खड़ी किये जा रहा हूँ
अकेलेपन से डरता हूँ और
अकेले ही धसा जा रहा हूँ
कभी रोया, कभी चिल्लाया, जो बाल खुद ना गिरे उन्हें नोच गिराया
पर सारी चीखें झूठ की दीवार के पीछे दब गयी
हर आंसू की बूँद चोर-बालू में उलझ कर फँस गयी
हस्ते चेहरे पर कोई ध्यान नहीं देता, इसीलिए मुस्कुराये जा रहा हूँ
जाने कैसा दलदल है यह
जिसमे मैं धसा जा रहा हूँ
बीमार नहीं हूँ मैं, तुम दया दिखाना बंद करो
तुम जितना अब करीब आ रहे हो, उतना ही तुमसे दूर जा रहा हूँ
"यह मत सोचो! वह मत देखो!" सब कह जाते है
आँखों पर पट्टी और मन को डोरी से बांधे चला जा रहा हूँ
रात को नींद आती नहीं, और सुबह उठ नहीं पाता
हफ़्तों की थकान  को कन्धों पर लादें जा रहा हूँ
यह बाँध अब टूट जायेगा, यह ढोंग अब फूट जायेगा
भले भांति मैं समझ रहा हूँ
पर अब भी कोई पूछता है "कैसे हो भाई?"
तो "एकदम बढ़िया, आप सुनाओ!" कहे जा रहा हूँ
जाने कैसा दलदल है यह
जिसमे मैं धसा जा रहा हूँ

~ सौरव गोयल 

Abstruse Love

(Read the prequel here: Unfathomable Love)

I woke up with a start and dropped my fist on the loud alarm clock. It was nine-thirty in the morning, the sun was out and my head throbbed in pain. I did not remember when I had fallen asleep. The bottle of Campari on the side-table kept staring at me, uncapped and uncared for; the ashtray was overflowing and the autumn-morning breeze was carrying the remains of burnt tobacco with it. I stretched my way out of the bed and crawled towards the balcony, grabbing the pack of cigarettes as I trudged along. As I lit a cigarette, the cold winds left rough marks of goosebumps all across my naked chest and shoulders. It was a perfect October morning, with not a cloud in the sky and the streets below bustling with business. 

My mobile was lying on the floor, its notification light blinking, reminding me of the series of events lined up for the day. As I looked around my one-room apartment, I realised I had time to neither clean-up the room, nor myself. I put on the first ironed shirt I could see in my wardrobe, took a shot of Campari (breakfast of champions) and picked up my sling-bag from behind the door. 

As I got off the bus in front of The Gagosian Gallery at Via Francesco Crispi, I could see that a few people had already started coming-in for the exhibition. I hurried my way to the Office of the Curator and took my ‘Artist’ ID and lanyard. I walked, smiling, towards the area where my sketches were up on display; suddenly feeling hungry, anxious, nervous, and a range of other emotions I found hard to describe. There were people congratulating me, some asking me about my muses, media personnel taking pictures and the critics talking about the arrogance in my work.

The entire day felt like a dream dreamt half asleep. I could remember very little and I just felt groggy. It was probably ten minutes before the closing time; I was walking towards the bar counter when I noticed a set of eyes glued upon one of my sketches. A young woman who was not just admiring the canvas, she was conversing with it in silence. A crisp white shirt with a pair of high-waist trousers over white heels; she was carrying a tan-coloured purse and wore brown spectacles which made her look more serious than she intended to portray. She had tied her hair in a bun carelessly and was carrying an empty cocktail glass in one hand. I just stood there for a couple of minutes, admiring her admiring my work. Then suddenly, as if the dialogue between her and the sketch ended in an argument, she turned and noticed me staring at her in a strange bewilderment. She adjusted her glasses and came towards me with her right hand extended to congratulate me on the successful exhibition. She knew who I was, and she had come to check out my work in particular. She had already bought the piece she was so minutely analysing.

I offered to refill her cocktail out of gratitude and she counter-proposed dinner instead. We went to a small open-air restaurant at the corner of the street and she told me how she was an art collector. I told her about my time traveling the world, trying to learn the different kind of painting, sketching and drawing techniques and how I fell in love with the city the first time I came here as a tourist and decided to rent out a small apartment. She told me all about herself, her family, how she has lived everywhere around the world because of her father’s profession, her art collection; she kept talking and I kept sipping on my whisky. She seemed to be enjoying just having someone with whom she could talk. Her body relaxed with every story she narrated. She was in an emotional stupor, and the only way out of it seemed to be through it. 

We finished our meal, she hardly ate, but she looked satisfied nonetheless. It was not food or drinks she was craving for, it was company. She graciously paid for the bill too and we walked towards her home in silence. As we approached her villa, she gave me a hug and said she would be waiting for my call. She turned and went inside the building as suddenly as she had come towards me earlier that evening. I just stood there thinking about what had happened. I smiled to no-one in particular and continued walking towards my apartment.

She was a beautiful mess!

How lucky are you

How lucky are you
To have tasted the nectar of love
From the moist corners
of your lover's dripping affection;
To sit peacefully in their shadow
Being the only subject
of their unswerving attention;
To create absolute silence
unknowingly; the noise you hear
of two bodies breathing in unison;
To feel time stand still
while witnessing that smile, a symbol
of undying love and passion!

How lucky are you
To just have someone with whom
you can talk sans fear
of being judged, of misinterpretation;
To be secure, and
never cower behind the phobia 
of being alone, of desertion;
To hold a hand, which
gives you strength in moments
Of self-loathing, misery, depression;
To look into a pair of shimmery eyes
and an unhindered, unscathed view
of love, the purest human emotion!

~ Saurav Goyal

The Last Erudition

Samira could feel her heart racing. Her throat dried up and attempts to swallow her own spit felt like she was trying to gulp down thorns. Her head felt light and dizzy. She looked at her right hand shaking violently as she grabbed the low iron rail fence. She took a moment to calm her nerves and took three deep breaths. As she extended her left hand and grabbed the rail, her head started throbbing; as if the body was trying to send all the blood to the brain so it functions more efficiently and thinks correctly. Her body seemed to be losing all energy and she had to put in a lot of effort just to lift her right leg over the railing.

Now she had one foot on the edge of the terrace of the 23 storeyed building, and the second one on the other side of the iron fence. Her sweaty palms were holding on to the railing with every iota of strength left in her body. This was not the right time to doubt the decisions she had vowed to undertake, she reminded herself as she sat down on the wobbly iron fence. Cautiously and slowly, she lifted her left hand and took out the neatly folded piece of paper from the back-pocket of her jeans. She held the letter from its edges as she did not want the sweat of her palm to smudge the ink. “What if the fall makes my butts bleed and the letter becomes illegible?” she thought to herself and dismissed the bizarre idea of blood spurting from her bottoms like a fountain. 

“This is going to be the last memory which I will share with the world. These words, strung together, are going to be my eulogy. This is what I will be remembered for.” she said to herself fighting back tears as she started reading her last ode to the world.

Hi (one last time),

I am aware that I will be called immature, weak, stubborn and careless after this final act I do, especially by you, pop. But this is the last disappointment I will be giving you, I promise. I want to state it clearly right at the very onset of this last letter I am leaving behind that I do not hold any person responsible for what I am going to do. This decision is mine and mine alone. It is not because of any kind of physical or emotional threat from any person.

If you were to ask me the reason behind this decision, it is not one but many small things that have snowballed into creating an avalanche of emotional turbulence in my life. I am treated like a caged bird, the cage being my home. There is no lack of love, no domestic violence against me; I am loved and cared for just like a domesticated pet, I am to do what I am told without having my own say in things. I have lived whole of 26 years of my life doing exactly what Pop wanted me to do. Right from choosing which subject I would study to which kind of clothes I would wear, even at home!

Being a girl, I always thought it would be easier for my mother to understand the kind of problems I was facing; the curb on free thinking, the high expectations in both academic and social fields simultaneously and the curfew timings from pre-evening just to name a few. But expecting Mom to interfere in these matters was pure stupidity on my part. She had faced the same problems when she was growing up in her ancestral house in the small town in Madhya Pradesh but she was blind to see my struggles and fight. But the problem is that the life of the generation before us is filled with hypocrisy, starting right from women’s rights to right to individuality.

However, I do feel that I myself am to be blamed for this discriminatory treatment. My parents were always harbouring such a mindset and I was just too meek to stand against it as I was growing up. I agreed to and did whatever they wished from me without questioning them or telling them how it made me feel. I never stood up for my beliefs, my thoughts, my decisions, which in turn made them think that I was happy and content with the life THEY had chosen for me. But after college, when I started working and met so many different people from all spheres, my life started to feel like a train-wreck. These people were bustling with confidence. They were independent and strong individuals, who had developed their own thought-process and took their own decisions after weighing what was right, wrong and best for them. I have never been able to do this. When I started to demand more from my parents, when I started demanding for my own individuality, they were taken aback. For 24 years of their lives they had moulded me to form a perfect little girl who would do as told, was educated, had a good job and would probably be married in a respectable family. When I tried to argue with them, they felt I am defying their order and going against their authority. The hypocrisy is so deep rooted in their psyche that they develop a feeling of denial towards it; denial to accept that this behaviour might be hampering my way of living and my mental state. This denial is now leading to them alienating me. I am virtually a stranger living in the house of my father. 

I am growing tired of the battle I am fighting daily to keep a happy face while staring at the blank faces of my parents. Then go to my office and continuously think about not going back home and taking the first train out of this damned city, and deciding against it. I feel claustrophobic even when I am out in the open. In the middle of this entire conundrum going on in my head, it is almost impossible to focus on any real things. This is leading to a fall in standard of my office work, my relationships and my happiness. If there is one thing I have always tried to stay away from –it is mediocrity; and mediocre is exactly what I have been feeling nowadays. I am not ending my life today; I am ending the mediocre woman’s life that has been staying in my head and body for the last couple of months. Do not hate me for what I have become and done. Please remember me for who I was when I was still your Simmu!

With immense love, regret, anger, angst, shame, humility and respect,

Signing off

She wiped the stream of tears that were flowing uncontrollably. She folded the paper neatly and stood up, still holding the iron rail with her right hand. She kept the letter in her back pocket and lifted her left leg over the railing. Now both her legs were a few inches from the perimeter of the building. She took a peek at the ground below her, the parking lot was empty with just a few cars scattered around, none too close to where she would fall. Being a weekday and school hours, there were no kids playing in the compound. 

Samira could feel her heart jumping in her chest, almost ready to break the ribcage and burst out. Another moment of delay would have definitely led to weakness. She took a few inches further towards the edge with her knees wobbling and a very strong urge to vomit rising from the pit of her stomach. She looked up at the creator whom she was heading to meet. She should have simply taken the train to another city.

THUD!!

Children's Day!!

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये..

नन्हे हाथों से ढाबों पर चाय बनवाये,

छोटे बच्चों से घर के काम कराये,

पटाखों के कारखानो में बारूद पकड़ाए,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

क्यों ना एक नक्सलवादी बनाये,

खिलोनो के जगह इसे बन्दूक थमाए,

उसके दिमाग से सही-गलत का फर्क मिटाये,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

सड़कों पर इनसे भीख मंगवाए,

मिठाई के बदले तम्बाकू दिलाये,

एक चौरस्ते को इनका घर बनाये,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

मासूमियत का पूरा फायदा उठाये,

भीड़ वाले इलाकों में इन्हें छुआ जाये,

शोषण करके अपनी मर्दानगी दिखाए,

आओ बाल दिवस मनाये ।

क्यों ना किसी गरीब माँ बाप से इन्हें ख़रीदा जाये,

दूर कहीं विदेश में इन्हें बेचा जाये,

अपना ज़मीर और इनका भविष्य तबाह किया जाये,

आओ धूम धाम से आज बाल दिवस मनाया जाये।।

~सौरव गोयल