Me and my Walking Adventures!

Okay, time again for putting my foot in my mouth so you all get to open yours -mouth, that is, for guffaws.

I go for evening walks is a wide known fact, almost just as wide as my rare rear end that is not being benefitted in the least by it. Such a big, fat HBTI campus that I traverse, teeming with boys and never has there been one treat for my tired eyes tired of looking and not tired by aging, mind you. If I had not known some super adorable engineers through the blogosphere, I would have given up on their fraternity long ago. Anyways, there is this one boy/man in his late twenties who often comes by the same route to walk his dogs. He is reasonably handsome, with a tad hint of mystery and thereby charm. So about a month ago, in a fit of imbalanced inspiration, I updated a Facebook status in his honour which went something like this:

“There’s a cute n very decent looking twenty something of a boy who comes many evenings to walk with his two ferocious dogs n his peon, in the same campus where I go. He was kinda hot till today when he came by himself, holding the leash of both dogs in each hand n a cigarette dangling in his mouth...Ah, the ciggy kinda killed it :/ ”

I wrote, people commented, we created general awareness on important social issues-like discussing the physical perfections of his taut body and how walking can lead to greater avenues especially for those who are single and we forgot about it.

After all, it is the least I thought I could do in lieu of public interest and support the government’s less hyped campaign of cigarette smoking being hazardous to health and add my innovative angle-injurious also in attaining female curiosity. I was serving my society and hence rested with a guilt free heart in peace. But then we don’t always let skeletons rest, do we?

Cut to yesterday evening- Seeya and I were sauntering in our usual manner-me on my legs and she on her pram being pushed around by her otherwise-not-pushy mother. The “Dish” appears again dressed in a chocolate brown t-shirt why is everything tempting all chocolaty? and black shorts covering half of his thighs and thankfully full of the rest of the stuff. The two dogs were snappier than usual, like they say bitches in heat and when a hormone driven motor-biker vroomed past very noisily, the bitches got wilder and barked the life out of me, being just a few steps behind us. It scared me so much that I gripped the pram tighter and almost faltered on the pavement from the main road, assuming I was about to be bitten. First that stupid biker who made me scrunch my nose and eyes with that screeching cacophony and clouded my instinctive actions and then the stupid dogs who barked as though they saw ‘bone in a suit’ in me and effected my sensible reactions! Seeya gave me the most flabbergasted of looks for never had she seen mommy scared of anything else but her.

The young man in question ventured ahead and apologized for I had turned around and given the dirtiest glare to the menagerie no, not the dirty, wild in bed waala dirty look but the dirty you-son-of-a-gun waala look-yes, I have many classifications of all my looks that I might enumerate some other day. Anyways, he came forward, muttering some hurried blah-blah and seeing me take steps further back, the dimwit realized that the object of my anti-affection was at the edges of his limbs-he handed the reins of the equally dumb dog to the equally amused peon.

Remember I spoke of some mystery in the initial paragraphs? Well, I just cracked it even without wearing my Ms. Homes-on-the-prowl hat. He opened his mouth and I saw bad teeth and heard poor diction and not so husky a voice as I had imagined for him. But worse still was when he opened his gap, he also revealed perfectly bad and ungentlemanly manners.

“I’m really sorry. These dogs are sometimes difficult to handle.... (Looking at Seeya)That’s such a sweet kid, waving to everyone every day.”I mumbled something with a smile on my face though heartbeats still sky rocketing due to the sudden and rude shock to my hitherto placid ambling.

“I think you would have noticed me around here, been walking with my dogs for a while.” I pretended surprise. Heeeellooo-what else can a helpless ambushed woman say-I have been checking out for your taut jaw line and the rippling calf muscles and also how your silky hair wave in the breeze, without really looking at you??????????

“And you also noticed that I smoke...” A very mischievous smile spread on his face which I am yet to decode fully. Oh god, now there was almost hot smoke coming out of my ears. I very badly need a leash for my mouth-velcro, zippers, quick fix...kuch bhi chalega.

“Yes, we know of your status. My chachi is on your friends list-Mrs. ABC and apparently I am the only one walking here with two dogs and this is the only place where I managed to smoke sometimes. But thanks to you now everyone at home knows that I do.” Why was there a grin on his face I don't know but my chote-mote se smile suddenly disappeared.

I was about to ask if she told him that I also made “everyone” know that he was kinda hot and cute, but seeing the not-so-friendly demeanour I resisted the urge. What’s with men, they only pick up those words of mine that suit them and what about all my hidden implications?

I didn’t know what to say or do now. How was I supposed to know that people pay so much attention to my stupid statuses and also lagao so much dimaag on them to lead to stupider inferences? Mental notes to myself:

1. Do not add students’ moms to my Fb account.

2. Think of self interest before public interest.

3. Don’t stop to talk to strangers on walks even if they are cute...you never know how you may have unknowingly rubbed them.

4. Speak something to someone while he is looking at you for a retort instead of making mental notes.

So as he stood there waiting for some kind of explanation, I managed to word just an aaaa....mmmm....Though what I did manage to do very inconspicuously was, give a slight kick of my toe from the bottom on to the seat on which rested Seeya’s bums so that she grew restless and began to holler -that always works my friends-beloved in a horny mood post your putting baby to sleep and thou art not: fear not, just give a nudge with the feet to the cot and watch the baby wake and beloved sleep and you rest in peace!

“I am sorry too then and I really must go.” I whisked past leaving him saying something, I couldn’t hear and didn’t care. I soon realized that those dogs were not snappier naturally but perhaps made to be just so that he would find a suitable intro line to vent out. Though this would go down as the worst opening ever made-Omg! What revengeful streaks for someone trying to do good to the society! Ram, Ram! Ghor Kalyug!

Phew! One more flirt interest crossed off from my already flagging list. I need a new muse and so badly. Someday the dumb head would come and thank me when his cigarette smoking friends would rot in lung wards and his family would give him the most unspoilt munda tag. It was all due to one harmless little status that a beautiful woman updated one evening.

P.S. In case I was missed in the first half of the month, I had gone holidaying with beloved and Seeya to Goa and this was my first proper holiday after almost three years...yiy yiy yiy...Here are some pictures of the same though put up in such a haphazard way coz of my inability to put them up in a better way, read that as any other way!:(

Happy weekend! :-)

 

The Night to Remember!

Her giggle filled the dark and desolate corner of the unkempt park that was like an upbeat prostitute-in demand during prime time and then brutally ignored when without. Darkness and mirth generally do not go hand in hand unless it is to walk down the path of sinful bliss. Her subdued effort to hide it could not conceal this obvious pleasure. It was a lucky thing that the nearest guard’s post was a good hundred meters away-this meant they could get away with anything...yes, anything!

Romona and Ambrish were naturally and slowly slid into the experimental mode-more like drugged into it. After months of ‘being’ in love, they were getting to manifest it into bodily exploration. They both lived “virtually” as neighbours in the posh locality of the apartments sprawling opposite the huge campus of that private technical college but could never find a common ground to meet without prying eyes and gossiping acquaintances. They had run out of excuses also to bump into each other, with an age gap of three years-Romona being fifteen and Ambrish all of eighteen. After painstaking scheming, they finally managed their first clandestine date and then decided to declare their official ‘status’ to friends the next day. There was an inexplicable excitement seething within their small frames. After all there is just once in a lifetime that you lose your virginity and the prospect that hitherto scared youngsters seems to be viewed with a stance of adventure in the current times.

It was Ambrish’s birthday to legal adulthood and when asked by his steady girlfriend, what he wanted as a gift, no prizes for guessing, he voiced his dream of seeing her gift wrapped so he could slowly unfurl and taste the eagerly awaited gratification. They had talked over the phone for hours about what they wanted to do to each other and now in that dusk dipped evening of solitude and almost no light except the faint sheen of some street lamp at a far off distance of the closed college block, their dreams were finally seeing the daylight.

Romona had almost sighed with some bugs hovering over her head and butterflies in her well toned stomach, sitting crumpled on a big rock behind the thickest of hedges. Doing some random text forwards on her phone, she waited like Prince Charming would have, to find Cinderella gone without her shoe-she waited for darkness to fall. She had sauntered in as an evening walker, though a tad overdressed for it.

“Fuck! All that time spent on dressing up was such a waste.” She could barely tell even the colour of her see-through top, let alone the colour of her cheeks, which blushed even further as she had finally heard Ambrish’s whisper, for he was to walk in about half an hour after her. ‘Clever’ she had thought of him with an unspoken pride, to be so meticulous and for all the detailed planning to keep it hush-hush. It was THE big night as she jumped up to hug him. The first physical touch sent a charge down their systems as hungry bodies clung to each other, yearning for a fusion.

“Fuck!” he grimaced.

“This is the first thing that you have to say on meeting me Rishu-reallyyy?”

“Baby, it’s not that. I forgot the damn condom.”

“Crap...although I knew something like that might conspire. "Happy birthday, baby!” And Romona presented herself to him with condoms dangling at the ends of her forefingers teasingly. ‘Clever’ she had thought of herself too, when as if to defy it, her mobile phone began to ring in the most obnoxious of Lady Gaga’s numbers, breaking the silence sheepishly like a jarring note stuck in peaceful flowing music.

“Switch the damn thing off Romo...you’ll get us noticed,” is what Ambrish could manage to mutter in the quietest of blasting tones.

“It’s Natashi. Oh god, I told her I’ll call after we finish. She’s as excited about this as you are,” she almost laughed, switching off her phone. “Baby, stop frowning. Just because I can’t see that frown too well does not mean that I can’t feel it,” and she ran her fingers tenderly all over his face and melted him faster than ice in daylight. His hands clenched her tight by the back and pressed her to himself feeling her well endowed chest breathing heavily against him. It was so difficult to contain himself now for the moment he had fantasized about for hours at an end sometimes, was materializing and for a while he did not know what to do first.

He began to grope and closed her mouth with his own, his heart beat skyrocketing. So this was what all the porn promised, he mused with eyes closed. So this was how the fairytales feel, she reflected. He unbuttoned her shirt with a frantic zeal unmatched by all that he had felt for all the expensive gadgets that his father’s money had got.

“Kaun hain wahan?” said a stern tone, in a heavy local accent, accompanied with a thud sound of a laathi beaten on the cemented floor and a flashlight blinding their vision momentarily. And the lovers fumbled-Ambrish trying to get in control of himself and Romona of her clothes and almost bare torso. They couldn’t see the guard but knew it was one by the sound and situation that they were in.

“To yahan tum chora chori mauj karne aaye, haan?” and gurgled a mean laughter that instantly sent a chill down Romona’s spine. Trying to be the man there Ambrish got up to explain but could barely walk a few steps ahead, with the light focussed on his eyes, when the well targeted laathi came crashing down his head, making him squeal and slip into unconsciousness. Romona gasped in horror as she saw Ambrish fall to darkness and felt the gleam on her face now. The torch then moved down on her body, as though the guard was relishing every inch and the slow movement of the light became excruciatingly painful for the victim.

For victim she was now transpiring to become, as she realized and her body shuddered at the prospect of what could happen now. She tried to speak but words came out dreadfully broken and sweat covered her even in the cool windy evening perhaps just as much as fright enveloped her. She could shout for help but at that time there were no walkers and this was the most secluded, closed block of the college-they had made sure of that before setting up the date but apparently not sure enough. The other nagging dilemma was that even if someone did come for help, how she would explain to people what she was doing there in the first place. Teenage is a tough phase when you have to make decisions based on morals and righteousness-the path is always slippery and the walker always tentative and unapprised.

The guard walked towards her, fully aware of the predicament of the pretty young thing before him, perhaps even better than she was. She did not know that he had watched them since the time they were together, as he was walking back after the end of his shift from the path behind the undergrowth. He knew he wasn’t much visible to the girl and that her phone was switched off and if there was light enough, perhaps she would see on his face the most devilish grin that had ever so blatantly smeared a human countenance.

The next few minutes saw Romona encounter the worst nightmare of her life as he ripped her off the modesty that is transfixed to a woman’s soul. She had come there knowing she was going to surrender her all, but never in her most horrendous of horrors would she have imagined it happening like this. Her mouth was closed as the bulky and sweaty man overpowered her and brutally satisfied the unwarranted lust that had taken over his body. She was wriggling in pain both physical and mental and tears were the only way that the agony seemed to be finding an outlet, as her entire being crumpled. She tried to move a hand to reach to Ambrish or fight back but she was too tiny before the monster like every biggest of good thing just by itself becomes miniscule before the unfeeling relentlessness of the evil.

Half an hour later Romona walked out in a dishevelled state to Natashi’s house where she was supposed to be for the night spend. Her clothes were untorn but her body and soul were in irreparable shreds. She did not know how Ambrish was and couldn’t care less. Suddenly love was no longer magical. Suddenly life was transformed within a matter of a few minutes. Although swinging between regret and anger, she knew there was no other end to this except utter helplessness, for she couldn’t even identify her assaulter with conformity. What was to be the night to remember, became the night she could never forget!

P.S. Though the drama is fabricated, the story is based on the fact that a couple of teenagers were caught making out in a secluded park recently. It has led to way lot of gossiping and speculation but perhaps what no one learnt from this was that even the smallest of risks can sometimes lead to the most hazardous of damages. Having to deal with students myself, I am aware of how lightly they take such matters and how quickly they jump into relationships that cloud reasoning. This is an attempt to make them think over before doing anything “blindly” in love.

Let's talk about Love!

Let’s talk about Love-love as we know it, love as we want it and Love as it should be. But they say “True love” is like a ghost that everyone talks about and few have seen. Love is like that-vague at one time and yet so bang-on at another. Try telling someone exactly why you love a person or exactly why you don’t love another and you’ll encounter utter helplessness of the highest order. And like someone said, it is more than three words mumbled before going to bed or hanging up the phone.

Love is a momentary or a momentous spark? Actually a bit of both-it comes to you like lightning. Strikes you once and effects you forever. The spark may be gone but the smouldering remains. It burns as well as warms you for life. But then for some it is like fever-it comes and goes with changes in the environment around them. For many others it is breathing-it sustains and completes and though we may not realise that we need it and have it all the time, when gone it suffocates.

The falling in love in itself is such an extraordinary phenomenon! It becomes a temporary state of frenzy within-as though all the atoms are suddenly charged up and hyper active. Slowly they become sluggish or your system becomes attuned to the velocity and you crave for an upgrade yes, I know, trying to sound all scientific and all. Some bodies harbour very lazy atoms perhaps-they become satisfied with what and how they are and live like that forever. You may view that as a blessing what another man may call a curse!

Love at first sight is something equally intriguing. Imagine for a blind man then-the dim possibility of this ever coming true. But blind mortals fall in love too. Sight as our guiding partner is a boon or bane depending upon how well we balance the other senses with it. So imagine it also for a man blinded by what he thinks is beautiful! There is only attraction at first sight-love is too long a process to get so simplified. Yet love at first sight can really not be dismissed as too dreamy, for dreams are said to reflect the sub conscious.

Erich Segal had said-‘True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.’ It is a latent phenomenon, say like a dormant volcano simmering within. To outsiders there appears nothing till one day it all bursts out and everything succumbs in its sway. Loving someone is not the same as being in love. A dear friend once said-everything is about a season, a reason or a lifetime. You may love with all your heart for all your life but that feeling of being in love comes for a short while. Some want the transient madness and others run after the perennial assurance.

We live in a world that waits for the extraordinary to come about to love and the ordinary rarely gets a chance to show that it can rise to that level. Why do we ignore the fact that ordinary requires just that little bit ‘extra’ to make it rise to the occasion? We sit with a list of what we want in a man/woman to make us love him/her. When truth is we never know what we really want from love till we fall in love. It is then that we realize what more we could and should get and how juvenile was the list to begin with. It then becomes an internal dilemma to accept the person as he is, which is the popularly deemed yardstick for love, or to keep on the search. We generally fall in love with our eyes and fall-out from our mind. Very few people are actually happy in love-as for the rest, they were either too quick to declare love to someone or too late in doing so!

If you say you can’t live without someone, get a rain check there too. Living without someone is easy-living with someone is the difficult part. When you fall in love once, there are chances that it becomes a habit-you can fall again-the body becomes inured to it and on its own finds ways to satisfy its craving. Living with whom you love, is THE test-for then you step down from the hazy clouds to the caked dry surface of reality and remove the shades to face the glare. You can scrunch your eyes or shut them or stare at the dazzle in its face. How long you can take it before you look for shade then measures if it was true love?

True love is often confused with romantic and frantic love. It is believed that if there is no madness, there is no love? If there is complacence there is something missing. So it is sometimes the hardest to derive at the inference of whether it is love or just a very deep-seated infatuation. It always is baffling for the symptoms are almost similar. The craving to be together, the adrenalin rush, the constant meditation of the beloved to the extent of becoming oblivious to it all-how do we know when it really is love?  This is where being in love and loving might come in handy. It is so easy to convince ourselves that we are in love and so difficult to actually love.

Some live to love and some love to live. It is what segregates wanting to sleep with someone hot but not wanting to do so too. It makes you look past all the negativity for that one positive aspect which thrills you no end. Love is such an incomparable feel-good. It is what happens to your mind when your mind should be at someplace else. It is the feeling of fear that grips at the thought of it being lost even before it is found. We love because nothing thrills like love does.

Can love be selfish? Yes and no. There is no such thing as ‘unrequited love being the strongest’. How long can you love someone who is unaware or unconcerned about how you feel? Loving someone is the reassertion of loving ourselves. We love because our love makes US feel good. Would we love where we do not experience the feel-good? So it really is about “me” at the end of the day. But then again-when two people do fall in love, there is no room for selfishness-no games played, no jealousy, no boastfulness, any offense or defence. In the Utopian state, there is no thinking then if you are being used or no devising of ways to play hard to get. Love is simple-you don’t do ANYTHING to hurt the one you are in love with-anything at all, and you know you’ve landed on something pure. Love makes you always ready to accept, to understand, to trust, to justify, to support. That explains why some women stand by their men despite knowing that they have been unfaithful. They know no other way of being than by giving unconditional love-accepting and not expecting is sometimes love’s biggest characteristic.

That also brings us to the very debatable issue of being in love with more than one person at a time. Is it possible or is it just an excuse to sleep around or boost your ego with the possible notion that you are so loveable? We can be in love with multiple people with evenly balanced purity of emotions and intentions. Aren’t we equally loving towards our parents, brothers, set of friends-why segregate romantic love from the domain of feelings? It’s like saying you can feel kindness just for once, compassion just for another and passion just for someone else.

We always look for a love that is forever-but how can something that is born have no end? And forever has anyways become redundant in the present times that we live in-nothing lasts forever and never say never! It is natural to expect something that’s been begun to reach its destination and thereby completion. A line can never become a circle till what you give comes back to you. And why is ‘end’ associated with a ‘dead end’? It can be a cross over to begin something new. Yes, love is like that too-transcending, changing its shades, taking new forms and you must move along with the flow or be beaten upon the crags on shore.  

Love is never easy-nothing that is worthy ever is! It tests before it puts you to rest. For some absence makes the heart grow fonder and for others-out of sight and out of mind. Love requires consistency, otherwise you just might turn around a few years down the line and realise it was just another fascination or fling. You may not hold hands anymore, you may not caress as before, but love is that million dollar look of concern when the loved one trips or a message on the phone that says ‘We don’t kiss much anymore and I know it is my fault.’

Love is a must for at least once in a lifetime. Find it if you feel it might not come searching for you. Experience it, for it might not give you opportunities forever. Treasure it, for nothing is more valuable. Without love, you’d remain vacant from within, lost even when found!

You love so you may live

Or do you live so you may love?

Tossing over a feathery bed,

Yearning for a tender touch!

You see the wonders the world has to offer

But only then close your lids gratified,

When you see passion in some loving eyes!

Why run after riches and fame

Suffering just to see your name

Etched in history as a glorious memory,

When all you need is to be stuck up

In someone’s fond reverie!

Crave not for immortality

Nor desire the world’s adulation

Pray to keep close a heart

That skips its beats on separation!

I want not gods or heavens or things money can buy,

I want not the worldly ties.

I want this fluttering heart of mine

To feel true love before it dies.