The Shades Of Grey

I sit with a million hearts pounding around me, residing in flesh and bones puffing air in and out. I can hear them when I close my eyes and sit in silence. I try to match their pace, I lag behind. I try to catch up, I fall further behind. I feel like I am running towards something vague at the other end. It seems closer than it actually is. As I reach out to hold it, it vanishes and I feel a strong grip around my throat. Something from a dark hole sneaks behind. I can just see the shadow, it is pitch black and too small. It approaches near, I can feel my blood getting colder. The shadow grows bigger. I can feel the grip around my neck getting stronger, I am losing sight of what I almost caught hold of. I feel choked as it pulls me towards itself inside the darkness. The gravity is too strong to resist. I try hard to fight but it is all in vain. The hands are too strong, the battle is draining me of my strength. There is a sudden weakness and the light of my life seems to flicker. All my life plays like a movie in front of my slit-wide eyes. The pain is severing and seems unbearable. It peaks and then, it is all gone to dust. The grip loosens and the pain eases. It all calm, I am not scared. I feel like I can breathe now, but just don't feel the necessity to do so. It feels light and calm. The light is no more and it is only darkness that surrounds me. I am not scared. This darkness is not fearsome, it gives me solace, it soothes me, it is a bliss. My lashes seem to heavy to open, the slits are now closed. I feel drowsy. There is no fatigue, just sleep. A long peaceful sleep.

Suddenly, I am awake. All this, just gone in a snap. I feel sweat on my brows, like it was a nightmare. It seemed so real yet far away from reality. I think about it. It was just those dark days that bred such thoughts in my head. Happens to all of us, does it not?

I starkly remember someone telling me, life is just black or white, rest of it are just shades of grey. Mine gave me solace. Find out yours.

She

Long dark hair, petite little frame

Hazel brown eyes, outline black

With a star resting on that perfect nose

The perfect curves, skin with the right amound of gold

Dark black blouse, hugging her torso

A red skirt sweeping the floor

She swayed across the room

The trinklets clinging to her ankles sing

The beautiful lips coloured blood red

The curve they made,

could kill a thousand men

As she spoke, it felt like a nightingale's melody

THe way she flipped her hair

Tossed men off their feet

The shine in that arresting pair

The wonder and beauty they overflowed with

Hid all her sorrows she had suffered

The torture and barbarism she was subjected to

And has left her soul tormented and mortified

As the sun shone bright,

She got up each day to fight

She stands upright and fears none

She wears a cloak to hide from the demons

She stands each day with honour and pride

Like a shooting star, she blazes through life,

High up in the sky.

Rise up! It's time.

Look around and see, for how many souls wander, imprisoned in flesh and bones. With fluid flowing through miniscule pipelines which carry the potion of life. What do they have in their hearts, what keeps them going, what burns their light? All this and so many other questions that still pop in many heads. How do you read these souls, how will you know how much pain and agony they are the victims of? How does one lessen their pain, what brings them solace?

You can buy some food for the hungry , or some  shelter for a deserter. You can do whatever your means allow you to do, but you ought to do it with the right intent. You need to stand up for them, for the voiceless, wandering souls, clutched in the hands of filth, dirt and rotten heads. You ask why? For they have a right to live, the right to breathe freely without any bondage. You need to rise up for those who have been crippled not by the labour but by the societal ignorance and down trodding attitude. You need to be their saviour, you need to listen to their pleas, their lives, their fates. Uplift them from the dark dungeons and show them the brighter side where the sun shines bright, the water reflects better than a mirror, where brothers sow seeds of love and not hatred. You need to make this place the best one could possibly think of.

This seems like a Herculean task that has been placed on your shoulder, but if you stand together in this fight, we shall be invincible, unstoppable, heroes of tomorrow, who today, are scattered across the planet, leading their own petty lives under the delusion of being a normal human. They are living in oblivion, unknown of their ferocious powers and capacities. The day they rise up to their realisation , they will change the world they exist today. A hero isn't someone larger than life, surely not someone they depict in the comic strips, all chiseled and bulky with the most dashing of looks. But for me,
   

"A hero is someone who has given his/her life to something bigger than oneself."

Do not underestimate your potential. You are a shooting star. You are the dragon who can melt stones. You can change this world. You might lack the physical strength to move even a small boulder, but you have the strength to move mountains if you ought to. Find the reason to fight, find a reason to stand up, find that one thing that wakes up the latent spirit. Awaken it. 

Rise up, it's time!

The Fog and You

It was a foggy December noon

Walking on a lonely road with you

Holding hands we came to a silent place

You held my hand and I heard you say

You've fallen for me and felt it to be true

I was stunned to hear you say

But of all I could do was to blush

When you touched my hand with a soft kiss

No one had done this to me

Respected me in such a way

Been so gentle to handle me

As if I were a Dutchess

 I wanted everything to black out

Only You and I in the scene

Standing so close that we could

Listen to each other breathe

I wanted soft music to play behind

Holding my waist, an inch away we stand

And that moment freezes forever

I want this to happen

I want us together

But as they say,

Everything has its own time 

So I shall wait for heavens to praise and say

Never have they seen such love, in the history of time

Unleash the Might

He wakes up after a long sleep, only to realize that he had missed the phenomenon eagerly awaited for the few days. Waking up after the thunderous rains, he felt like a warrior, sent to the battle field only to know that he failed to reach the field in time. He felt like he got back to his senses only after the war got over, victory or defeat didn't cross his mind. The open doors banged because of the strong winds and only added to the strange and gloomy environment. He rose from his accidental hibernation, went towards the balcony, walking through he darkness to look upon what remains after the war. The murkiness and moist air made it nothing different from post battle scenarios. The rain drops fell and echoed in the silence.

 The rain just didn't feel too soft or soothing to him. It had a ghastly effect on him, not very pleasant. Strange it seems, how people always associate the rains to something soft and tender in its essence and subtle in emotions. His dream or imagination you might call, just broke all stereotypes of this association  and left him bewilderingly astonished about the comparison he drew between the gloomy , turbid and damp atmosphere and the missed war and its aftermath.

The little walnut looking piece of meat in the calcium made box, is indeed one great masterpiece of the Lord, intricately designed and full till the brim with thoughts and imaginations which run wild. I firmly believe that anything that it sees is influenced by my actions. I wonder if this small ball of flesh had the  ability to bring life to all it sees and dreams of. Who would've thought, back in earlier times ,that man could fly or send letter without paper or commute form one place to other in less that one-tenth the time they took then. But, the results are all in front of your eyes. 

I would quote Albert Einstein here;

 " Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions"

 So I say, set your mind free, let it gallop in the open grounds and see what you may find. Think beyond the stereotypes and rule the world. After all it is just about our perceptions, he found a battlefield in the rains. What did you?

Without leaps of imagination and dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.
                                                           -Gloria Steinem

The Fault In Her Stars

Why was she trying to run away from the monotony and solitude in the four walled bricked structure, called home where in stayed amalgamation of flesh and bones. Six individuals, leading their own lives, always seemed unconcerned about the other creature breathing right next to them, with blood gushing out of the fist sized organ.Why is it only her life and freedom that pinched them the most? What was it that she escaped from? Why did it bother her to stay indoors and read the tragic stories of Afghan women? Why did she want to go out to the open grounds, feel the wind kissing her softly? Maybe, it gave her solace and composure. Maybe, she enjoyed the silence. She still wonders, why does she want to flee away, break all her barriers and fly as high as she can, as far as she can. Meet people from lands near and far. But, with the fault in her stars, the moments she rises high enough, her chains pull her back and she remains stagnant. She was caged with a limited horizon, she had dreams of the skies and they seemed too far fetched. She wonders if she'll ever break free, but as they say,

"In freedom, most people find sins"

                           -The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

Freedom seemed like a double-edged sword to her, but that was a risk, she was willing to take. Most of us are, aren't we?

  

The Cognitive Tussle

 

Why do we often take a decision at times, after a lot of introspection and evaluation, yet after a few incidents that happen and change our scenario, we end up regretting them? Why is that decision irreversible, unlike others? It bothers me. Almost a month ago, I was quite clear on what I wanted and had pictured my entire routine post that one thing which had surrounded me and had been a part of my life since the past 11 months. But then, that one announcement, those few words out loud, those conversations, they changed everything. They gave me reasons to hold onto it. It was for the first time that I was told I was wanted, yet now I stand at the junction where my path diverges, and I don't know which to chose, unlike Mr. Frost who chose the one less traveled. I wish I could decide. Both seem equally important to me. I feel that I would kill hopes if I leave this place which has made me who I am, which has been my crutch all along, but on the other hand, not letting go of it and sailing in two boats would be no good either. I won't be doing justice, neither to the duties I have taken nor to myself as an individual. If I call out for aid, all I get is to let the moment pass and flow along. But I want to cease and redirect the flow along the direction I wish to follow. If at all I could create my own path, through the rougher terrain, untraveled and undiscovered, I might just end up finding myself at the end of the road. Yet, I sit here, with this plastic and metal under my hands, glaring at a glass sheet, dabbing the plastic squares, putting across my thoughts. I do not know why, and the day I seek all the answers, that day, I'll have an answer to this never ending cognitive tussle.

Wondering in the passing car

Was it the weather, was is the time or what is just the female hormones that were trying to make an adjustment? As I felt the wind through my hair, the chill in the wind evaporated the heat from the earth, it also happen to stir my feelings. The feelings which I chose not to bury but they faded away with time, the feelings I chose to overlook or maybe they were too weak to surface and stand strong and make me feel the butterflies again. All those moments of the sweet past flashed like a movie right in front of my eyes. As I sat in the car, driving away from home, a place which gave me my identity, a place which will define me no matter where I am or who I am: my heart felt heavy like a boulder rested on my chest and I felt burdened. I do not know why, maybe because of the uncertainty  of never returning back, or was it because of the sudden urge of being loved. Being able to feel those chills running down my spine on seeing his face, to feel my heart pounding with just a single glimpse. Looking at the gloomy clouds through the windows of my car, with the trees sprinting by, I wondered if all those days, the amalgamation of emotions, the memories of togetherness, the lessons learnt, the mistakes made, do they mean anything at all? To you, or to me?