LONGING

Just long to see the raindrops on your brow,

skidding down to the place where my love grows,

those caressing hands, those prying eyes,

those loving hugs, those adorable lies.

that feeling of having you around
heals every pain, every wound.
those moving acts of  compassion and care,
those miles of eyes to stare.

the loving things you'd say to me
that would add all the sparkle and glee.
those flowing hair in the breeze,
and on my arm, that gentle mild squeeze.

Just long to feel those eyes on me,
Looking out of corners to catch a glimpse of me.
those caressing hands, those prying eyes,
those loving hugs, those adorable lies.

DRAGON MOUNTAIN PART 1

The waves lurched onto the hull of the ship lazying around in the Indian Ocean. The air smelled of new places, new people, adventure and  off course, tasted salty. The people were merry and brimming with enthusiasm, enthusiasm which was contagious. This was not my first journey on board ,sea bound but still it was not like any other.

 I was 16 and my heart had started to function as dual- To pump blood and not to pump blood. I sound funny. But this is no joke. I saw him in the Diner. He was sitting on the dinner table with his family. He was eating some leafy salad with a (cute) scorn on his face. Suddenly, he looked towards me and I looked away. My face was flushed with blush. After that, I never took my eyes off my platter.I was a very shy thing.

Two days passed. I didn't see him(It didn't matter.It was just a crush).On the Sunday night, there was a KARAOKE NIGHT and I was thrilled. KARAOKE nights are still a big favorite with me. I put on my prettiest floral dress and went to the Social Chambers. The air was all music and the room was full of people of all sorts.

Everybody was volunteering and had to wait for their turn. Some were singles, some were duets and there were some freaky rappers too. It was just so awesome. And then it was my turn, the tapes rolled and it was one of my favorite Bollywood Number. The crowd seemed delighted with my performance. I got quite a huge number of pats.It hurt but it felt nice.(Pun Intended)

The next day, I was standing on the front decks of the ship and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and he was there. He smiled shyly and said , "Hi, I am Gotham. You sing very beautifully." and then smiled back sheepishly. I thanked him and then the conversation never ceased.

He was in his last year of High School too and this made us great buddies. Although, that was not the only reason.

That night, there was a huge storm at the sea. Our ship's compass broke, radio didn't function and we had completely lost our way. The whole night had been a nightmare. We had stood holding our bedposts. All the things were moving here and there, things were breaking, people were hurt. But the ship survived the storm. The compass was a goner and the propellers were in a sad state. Water  pumps were set up on the deck to drain the water. The crew was exhausted, injured and in despair.We were moving with the waves into the unknown expanses of the Indian Ocean. There was not even a single vessel to be seen. Land was nowhere to be seen.

Hour felt like days and finally we saw an island, a tiny speck on the huge canvass of Earth. It had a huge mountain to its center. Luckily, the ship sailed near the island. We were wishing for some human life on the island so that we could send a distress signal. What we saw the next instant shaked us from head to foot. The mountain unfolded into a huge green DRAGON with wings like a Housefly, webbed and transparent.

It flew direct towards the ship. All the people started to run towards the inner chambers.Within seconds, we were running inside the corridors of the ship. The dragon grabbed the side of the ship with its hind claws and rotated it by 60 degrees. We couldn't make out where to put our foot. All of us had hurt ourselves. The already torn ship was totally losing it. I felt trouble with my left arm. The pain was so awful and blood was oozing out from every place possible. Everybody looked equally haggard. Gotham was there, lying on the floor ,unconscious. I tried to move towards him when the dragon tore off the upper compartment full of people like unwrapping a gift. It threw the compartment into the ocean with people falling off like ants.

It suddenly dawned on me that mom, dad and my brother were sleeping in that portion of the chambers. Everything was blurring out. The dragon was using its numerous hands to pick people out of the ship into his mouth as if eating popcorn.

I remember his face, right in front of my eyes, looking for any signs of recovery. We were in some dark room. Everything was moving and jerking around. We just stayed close. It just kept happening for a long period of time. I had lost a lot of blood and was drifting every moment.

The next thing I remember is that, everything became very silent. There was only the sound of the sea and muffled cries and screams. And then the room fell, as if falling from a great height into water. We somehow kept steady. After it stopped, we kept frozen, fixed to our spots, for hours till we could gather the courage to open the door which was like to our side now. We were sitting on one of the wall. The door creaked open and there was nothing outside except water. Not a soul. Few days back, it was a huge ship of merry people, big chimneys, excellent crew and all the luxuries you could name and now, there was nothing.

We knew the end was near. We had no food, no water,broken limbs and no hope. We had lost our families. We had no idea where we were heading to. I looked towards the bare ceiling(which was a wall actually) and everything dissolved into zilch.

You!!

You define words for me,
You define those feelings,
In pen and paper I had seen them,
But never felt within.

You make me smile.
You' re always on my mind.
And these are not just words,
They now have a meaning.

I miss, I care, I cry for you.
Just don't want to lose you.
I'll never be able to tell you ,
HOW much I love you.
Just hope you can see it through my eyes.
You will sail through them to the 
Waters of my heart
Red with the color of the
Intense love I harbor for you.

What WE want!!

WE , the girls, the women, the ladies, the "mahilayein", the "auratein", the "ladkiyan", the aunties and the "didis", the "betis" and the "bahus", the endless clan, one half of the human population wants the other half,even the clan itself to hear what it wants. Centuries of oppression,submission and humiliation has to end. Till the day we relied on others, on their love, we remained oppressed.But, its high time now that we shout out to the deaf years.

According to the stats: "Majority of girls in the age 7-11 quote Maths as their favorite subject but by the age of 12-15 the count dwindles to even less than 50 %. The reason why only 33% of the world's techies are women. "

This is not irrelevant. This is where the differential breeding starts. The general words a girl hears is "Pretty girl", "My Princess", "Why don't you pick up some girly stuff", "Let your brother handle the lawn mower". It affects deep down inside the psyche of the kids.

The girl gets low on self confidence and the guy learns to treat girls like some weakling. This is where it all starts.

All the anti-rape laws, anti-dowry laws,domestic violence laws,protests, reservations are of no use until the very roots are moved.

We don't want reservations in schools and colleges. Just let us go there, we will touch the skies.
We don't want bus reservations, just guarantee us that we will not get dirty caresses to our body.
Give us a free world to breathe and grow and WE will rise to glory.

We Love and We Fight.

  

 We had had a fight, he had given me a choice to move on and I told him "Its not an option for me. There is no going back after this." Why we fought is that, he just keeps very busy and doesn't find time for me. I am not complaining. I haven't heard his voice from a month. I don't know how he manages, but it kills me.

We fought and cooled down. I woke up in the morning and i saw his mail.The mail said ,

I miss you at night as I gaze upon the stars. I miss you during the day as clouds cover my sun .I miss you and want to hold you in my arms .I miss you so much, my dear, I feel no more fun. I miss your smile, your joy, your lips. I wish you would be here, my loneliness grips.I miss you every second, my love.

I saw this and slept again. When I woke up, I thought it must be a dream. I checked my Inbox again and it was really there. I was just so surprised at the gesture. He did not write it , but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he actually missed me and took his time out to Google "I Miss You" . 

Neuro guys say that there are two sides of our brain. When you are emotionally overwhelmed, one part gets so busy with the situation that it is not able to coordinate with the other part of the brain which is responsible for speech. As a result, you just fall out of words in any overwhelming situation. I just cannot find words for the feeling I had when i saw the mail. It went all fuzzy in my brain...LOL.

i don't know why I love him. He doesn't pamper me, he doesn't talk to me (I would call the communication poor),he doesn't make me feel wanted. In short, none that a girl wants. But I know his love is true and selfless and it just drives me on. I only know how difficult my side of the journey is and he knows his. I just try not to make it more difficult for him.

Turbulence

The train became airborne and sped spiraling along the steel pipe, never moving more than a foot away. The people were running helter- skelter to their tiny refuges and staring at the massive bodies moving in the air with mouths agape and eyes full of horror.

It was yet another day in the city of Amritsar. Yet another day, till this happened. Amarjeet was sitting on the  floor looking at her mother making aam ka achar (mango pickle) with that content concentration. She had always seen her like that, content in the routine of routine things. It was her world, her own little world, well removed from the games of the WORLD. She saw the Phulkari (embroidery) hanging from the wall which her mother had made for her 2 months back.

 Her dad was watching the special news feed on the Indo - Pak crisis. Two days earlier, the Pak Army had started marching inside the Indian territory, crossing the LOC into Rajasthan's remote villages. The whole country was ablaze with anger. Her dad came out of the room, blurting abuses and curses for the Pakistani administration. Her mother said " Calm Down! You will ruin your health. What do we common people have to do about the doings of these Vadde Loki (Big People). " She picked up her container of pickle and climbed the terrace to put it out in the sun to ripen up. Her dad also went to the terrace to have a look at the freshly made pickle.

Amarjeet decided to stay back and savour the taste of the mango which couldn't make it to the pickle. She heard her mother and father talk about random routine things and then came the distant hum of the train which used to move about in that part of the town with its steel pipe running just next to Amarjeet 's house.
It was the year 2104 and trains no longer ran on tracks. They ran in the air apparently. The steel pipes housed huge electromagnets which made the train float in the air. It was a routine thing. But there was immense hue and cry. She went upstairs to check it out and just couldn't believe her eyes.

This time the train was not alone. It was far away and there was another thing flying behind it. The train left its normal tread, of going straight and started taking gigantic confusing spirals around the steel pipe. Just when it came near Amarjeet's house, a thing emerged from inside the steel pipe and engulfed the train. The thing which was coming behind the train was a missile. As soon as the train entered that huge shield- like thing , two mini missiles came out and blew away the bigger missiles. There was a huge explosion and bits of shrapnel flew in all directions.

She saw her mother and father die in front of her screaming in agony and despair. She got a tiny piece in her left arm but was just injured. The pain was great but the loss greater.

However remote the things may look, they will always affect us in the end. We have to act for anything that is happening to any person on this planet because one day or the other, we may have to face it.

P.S. All the characters and places mentioned above are fictitious. Any relation to any person, thing or place is purely co-incidental.

How it all began!

Its olways nice to write. I left the habit somewhere in the midst of all the not-so-productive things.
But, as they say
                   
                       " Subah ka bhula agar shaam ko ghar laut aye to use bhula nahi kehte"
                              ( You're not lost if you find your way back home by evening)


Thanks to some very amazing people and the conducive environment the company bench provides. I have all the time and all the inspiration in the world.

I don't have any specific things to write about as of yet. Still, I will share the joys of writing with you.
I started off writing as an accident...LOL. Yes, that's true. I was in the sixth standard. My house-mistress told me she had put on my name for a Creative Writing Contest in the story writing section. I was just so surprised at the "suicidal" act. Maybe, she saw a knack in me for writing. I  got a bigger shock in the contest itself when I was told that I was sitting there for a Poem writing contest.
         
I recalled all the poems I knew and the only thing I could gather about poems was that they had a rhyme scheme.I took out my palette o'words and wrote a nice song on trees and nature. Song because you could actually sing it. To my utter surprise, I was awarded the third price for my MASTERPIECE. I had actually forgotten about the contest because I genuinely had no expectations. Thanks to the wonderful lady for making me realize the power I had in my hands.

Writing has become my soother, my stirrer, my escape, my friend. I have something to turn to when nothing seems right, when I want to say something, when I want someone to listen, somewhere I am not judged. I can be weak, crib, exaggerate or anything that I am. Also, I realized I had power which can move mountains and hearts all equally. After - all,

                      "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

P.S. I wish I could find that Masterpiece but i know it ain't possible. :(