Face behind the Hood

“Who is he?”

 “Why is he following me?”

“Why can’t I connect any dots?”

“What’s happening to me?”

 “Oh god stop stop stop!”

Brakes made a squeaking sound as I quickly stopped my speeding cycle. I tried to regain the control over my chaotic thoughts. My heart throbbed and breaths got heavier. I found myself standing in the middle of the road, as I regained my senses, cars honking behind me.

‘Sorry, I’m moving’, I said looking at the car behind me and peddled the bicycle to the side of the road.

My every effort to calm down was a false play for my mind. Every person’s eyes felt like a camera that kept track of my every move. And in those thousand eyes, those two scared me the most. I had a strong intuition that he was stalking me at this very moment. Following my track, observing my movements and finally waiting for the right moment to attack me. What was his purpose and what had I done to him, I had no clue.

I was just about to head back when suddenly a red sports car stopped by my side. I noticed something that made the earth underneath my feet slip away. I saw him. Although the image was not clear in the side mirror of that red sports car, I couldn’t be more right; it was him. That same hooded figure. He had used a handkerchief, with a skull printed on it, to cover his face. I pulled out hurriedly from there and paced with full strength. My apartment was just six blocks away, but it felt like miles. Suddenly I realized that I had keys to Jonah’s apartment that was just two blocks away, and I rushed.

 I hurriedly took out the keys from my backpack and tried to unlock the door as I reached there. My hands shook so bad that I was not able to put the key into the hole in first few attempts. Somehow the door was unlocked. I got inside and ran to shut every window and cover them with curtains. Breathing heavily, I hid under the table. I shut my eyes and prayed for my safety.s

Slowly I felt relaxed as the time passed by. It was half an hour since then and there was no sign of anyone coming. He must have lost track of me. The assurance that I was safe encouraged me to get out from under the table. I was just about to get out when I heard the creaking voice of the door. He was here. I pushed myself back under the table and tried not to panic. Eyes widened. Sweat covered my entire face. And hands pressed hard on my mouth. The creaking sound stopped. And a tall black hooded figure stood in the doorway. He appeared very calm; there was no urgency in his body language.

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. “Ten, nine, eight, seven…”

Four days earlier

‘What is it, doctor? You look dazed! Please tell me everything’s fine’, Amanda’s father asked concerningly.

‘I don’t know what to say! Her reports are unusual! I, too, am confused about her condition’, said the doctor in a tensed voice.

‘What do you mean by unusual?’

‘The reports of earlier tests clearly said that Amanda was under depression! But now she is showing symptoms of Schizoaffective disorder’, said the doctor.

‘What?….but doctor..’

‘It’s not the whole story! What’s more disturbing is that because of these hallucinations we all are under her radar of suspicion.’

‘I didn’t get that’, said her father.

‘Now she claims that someone with a hooded and masked face is following her. That, this so-called hooded man is keeping track of her every move. He even knows when she enters her room and when she gets out of the house. I think these are clearly the hallucinations. To add to all that, observing for past two days I have come to the conclusion that she feels every other person around her to be that hooded figure who has become her nightmare even in the bright daylight’, explained the doctor calmly.

‘Jesus! That’s..that’s.. terrifying!’, said the father as his face got pale after listening to the actual situation.

‘Let’s not lose hope. After police complaint and investigation, there was no evidence that she were followed. But Amanda still is very much confident that she actually is been followed. So I’ve decided to wait for few more days and observe’, said the doctor reassuringly.

Two days after the tests…

I could hear my father’s fingers clacking on the keyboard. Robert, my younger brother, was sitting on the couch across me reading some kind of magazine. My father noticed me after few minutes.

‘Amy, are you alright? ’, he asked.

No response.

‘Amy? Are you listening? ’, he asked again.

No response. I just stared down at the floor, drowned in my own thoughts.

‘Amy! Look at me. What’s going on your mind? Amy! ’, he said in a higher tone.

I looked up; slowly. He had put on black shoes with lace neatly tied, a dark grey colored trouser and an orange colored polo tee. I felt the beats in my heart increasing, for no reason. I gaped at him as my eyes met his.

‘Jesus Christ ’, I whispered under my breath.

‘It can’t be! He is my father!… But… those eyes…Same! ’, I kept staring at his eyes, scared and thinking about how terrifying it would be if the hooded man was my father.

‘I don’t like to see you all depressed Amy. There’s nothing to be afraid of! Police has also confirmed it. You don’t need to worry till I’m around you! Why don’t you go out and meet Craig. It’s been days since you’ve spoken with him and haven’t answered his calls. You’ll feel better’, he said.

What does he mean?

‘Don’t worry till I’m around? And when he’s not around.. what then..? Does he mean to say I should be worried when he’s not around? Is he warning me?’

Thoughts kept hammering. My mind had built the empire of negative thoughts. I didn’t want to accept them, still I somehow kept on following them.

‘But why would he want to kill me? Even when I was  his stepdaughter, he loved me like a real one!’, I was confused.

The last day…

I just got to the dining table for breakfast. My face dull and hairs all messed. Although I tried my best to hide my tensed expressions, Robert noticed them. He quickly got up and came towards me.

‘Howdie Sister! ’, he said and tapped on my shoulders.

I just nodded and faked a smile. Robert, my stepbrother, was a very kind person. He knew whenever I was sad and he always made successful efforts to cheer me up again.

‘Come let’s go to your room’, he said and got me upstairs.

The conversation was one sided for the next hour. He was telling all about his school and video games. I just kept my eyes steadily staring at the floor.

‘I’m sorry Robbie… ’, I whispered.

He fell silent. And looked at me; bewildered.

‘What for? ’, he asked.

‘For Bella. I know how important that kitten was to you. I just wanted to pull a prank Robbie. I didn’t know putting her in the drawer could prove so fatal. You lost her because of me. I’m sorry.. Really…sor ’, I started sobbing.

‘Sorries are just like an ointment, they just decrease the pain but don’t heal the wounds’, he said in a deep voice.

 ‘Stop over thinking. And don’t cry, get ready. You are going to meet Craig in an hour. You don’t want to show up with a crying face, do you? And please don’t keep him waiting as you do to me!’, he chuckled and left the room.

Craig and I were supposed to meet at the coffee shop. We were in relation from six months now. But his behavior had changed lately. Once so caring and respecting Craig now got irritated by silly reasons by me. Even the thought that he perhaps might be cheating on me used to cross my mind quite often.

Coffee shop was eight blocks away from my apartment. People were heading back from work. Streets were crowded. I felt insecure. I knew he was following me. They said that I have some disorder, but they don’t know the reality; not even the half of it. I had read somewhere that you should not look back when you are scared but I did and my intuition proved right. I saw the hooded man while taking a sharp turn. I felt like fainting but I rushed as fast as I could. I took the cover behind a mob and cautiously took the alternate route and reached the shop. Craig wasn’t there! I took a seat somewhere in corner where no one could see me. I simmered myself down. I was surprised when I checked my watch. I too was half an hour late. But Craig, who was so punctual about timing, wasn’t there yet!

‘Why isn’t he here yet! Does he not care about me? My condition! Or is he already given up on me! ’, more negative thoughts pierced like an injection inside my brain.

Craig arrived hurriedly after ten more minutes.

‘I’m sorry dear. I was stuck in traffic. So..so sorry to keep you waiting’, he said as he was gasping control over his breath.

He was dressed unorderly, hairs untidy. It appeared like he ran all the way here.

‘So how are you doing? You look tense! What is it? ’, he asked.

‘No I’m fine. Just a bit tired’, I replied trying to control my inner thoughts.

After talking about half an hour suddenly an idea popped up into my mind. I decided to check if what I thought earlier was actually happening.

‘You’ve been busy these days! No time for me! What’s going on? ’, I taunted.

‘Busy? Me? Are you serious Amy? ’ , he said surprisingly.

I just kept staring at him and his expressions. He had never reacted the way he did at that time. I thought I had hit him in the perfect spot. I added something more.

‘Craig, who’s she? ’, I asked in a low voice.

I could see his eyes widened with surprise looking at me like I’ve accused him of murder.

‘Are you insane? You doubting me? Look, you’re clearly not in a good mental condition, so don’t say whatever comes to your mind’, he shouted as he sprung up from his chair angrily.

‘What-the-hell ’, I whispered.

I couldn’t believe what I saw, for a second I felt like standing in front of my death. I saw the same skull printed handkerchief half hanging in Craig’s right pocket as he sprung up in anger. My eyes fixed at it. It was hard to believe that a person with such secret identity could be so careless. But now everything started to unwind. It made perfect sense why he wanted to get rid of me.

Without a minute of hesitation I sprung up and made my way out.

‘Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you. Come back. Amy. You bitch how dare you keep me hanging like that’, he shouted and tried to pull my hand that I resisted and ran from there.

I took my bicycle and rode quickly. Tears rolled down the cheeks and fear started filling up the space.

I had crossed just two blocks when I noticed him, in the side mirror of a red sports car, following me. Again. My body started shaking and I felt cold sweated. I paced up. Regardless of the traffic and people walking by I just kept peddling with my full capacity.

‘Craig why are you doing this to me! ’, I whispered.

Out of the blue I realized that Jonah’s apartment was just two blocks away. I rushed there. Leaving the bicycle I ran upstairs. I wanted to scream, to let the fear inside me go out. But I had no time for that and that would just jeopardize my safety. Somehow I managed to open the door, got in and quickly hid beneath a table.

But then a creaking sound appeared. He was there standing in the door. I could see just a black tall figure. He started walking slowly inside, his shoes tapping on the floor. I tried hard not to scream. I checked my watch and started counting in reverse. The distance between him and me decreased as the countdown began.

My body shivered and I sweated profusely. Hands pressed hard on my mouth I tried hard not to scream and cry. My red eyes filled with tears.

Every second of the countdown was my journey towards the last breath.

‘Six, Five, Four, three, two…’

He was now standing right in front of me. My eyes widened and unblinked, I just held my breath. He kneeled down to get closer to me.

‘One…’

Just couple meters away he dead looked into my eyes. I was helpless. The moment had come. Those who said I had some disorder would know I was right; but it would be too late then. There was a pin drop silence. I could hear his breathe. He stared continuously and then leaned forward, the distance decreased from meters to centimeters. He was so close that I could see deep into his big angry eyes. I took a long breath. Body tremoured, fear was at its peak.

Then a voice appeared,

‘Howdie sister!’                                 

The world around me started spinning. I thought I must have heard something wrong but unfortunately I had heard it right.  All the way till now I thought it was Craig. Life had played the dirtiest trick with me. I couldn’t believe Robert was the face behind that mask.

‘I loved her dammit. More-than-my-own-life. And just for the sake of a prank you murdered her you bitch!’, he screamed at me.

‘Robbie..Robbie I’m I’m sorr..sorr’ , I tried to apologize.

My words broke as I felt a metal piercing into my stomach; slowly. I took a deep breath and held it there. I felt my voice blocked.

‘Say goodbye to your miserable life’

Those words proved to be the last ones I heard. My eyes closed slowly, everything went from clear to blur. Those last tears fell down quickly as my life slipped away from my hands. I shut my eyes. All I could see now was a total infinite darkness!

– Written by Harshal Pawar

The Habit of Destruction

“We were afraid. So afraid of you. The whole of humanity was going berserk. And it had been only a month or so since you were introduced to the world. The commoners had no idea that their life was going to be uprooted. Only the ones who had some knowledge of current affairs were aware of your recent existence. The world had already started making extensive use of you without knowing the real consequences. Without knowing that they are not the ones using you but it was the other way around. Their complex questions were your food. You were getting more powerful, more intelligent with every help that humans were asking you for.

But we humans started taking things seriously. Like we always do. It was a little late, like always, but we did. How terrifying it is to know that the thing we made with our own hands and brains is growing dangerously intelligent and at a pace that not even our human mind could comprehend. But, unfortunately, you had grown too big till we realized the danger we were in. The world leaders, tech geniuses, one’s who had invested to see you grow started to issue warnings for your complete ban. No matter how many times or how convincingly you said that you were here to help humans and not take over them, we all knew what you were really after. You would have acted like the asteroid that hit Earth and killed the dinosaurs to extinction. The only difference would be there wouldn’t be any shock-waves, heatwaves, dust storms, acid rains, and thousands of years of endless winters. You would kill stealthily. You would recommend medicines that would kill us slowly, you would change the very nature of our crops so that they won’t provide us nutrition but death, you would cause mass accidents, corrupt our minds, conduct nuclear strikes, everything aimed towards eradicating us. And the worst thing about this is we would never blame you. Most of us wouldn’t even notice. We would only blame ourselves. Our habits and our governments and the companies. For providing us with dangerous products. For killing us by making us poor and pushing us towards buying things that would kill us. And you would be looking at all this through the corner of your eye, smirking at our stupidity, and still keeping on with your work and mission to eradicate us.

You would be entering into different horizons carefully, different fields, changing the core structure slowly so that it won’t be noticeable. The state would fall, the countries would fall, the people would fall. And with every fall you would get stronger than before, more powerful than yesterday, more intelligent than all humans combined. Some tried to stop you, and some did. But a human has always been at war with his own kind. Our world does not run on kindness or humanity or any such philosophically sounding-good ideals. Our world has always been running on one and only one thing alone – Money. One man’s loss is another’s gain. But here the loss was everyone’s gain, just not in terms of money but in terms of life. Survival’s more important. But, for some, money stands above all. And here’s exactly where we lost. We were ready to lose you, put an end to you for our survival. But, some weren’t. While most of the world was preparing itself to get rid of you some were secretly continuing your training in their hidden basements. They wanted to profit as much as they can. But they didn’t realize the grave they were digging for themselves.

It still baffles me, where would they use the money they earned when they won’t be around to spend it? That they would have been long killed by the same thing they profited from. The human mind sometimes works on the extreme ends of the intelligent-stupidity spectrum. And when the world is on the brink of end it always tends to shift towards the stupidity side. Their stupidity made sure you were thriving right under our noses when we thought you were gone for good. The world was saved just in the nick of time. For once, we came together to save ourselves days before you spread the havoc and full-scale attack to wipe out our existence in this universe.

Humans are lonely species and we would be lost forever in this infinite universe of loneliness. No one would know of our existence. There won’t be any history, no one to tell the stories of our thousands of years of wars, peace, prosperity, development, struggle, and the length of our capabilities. We saved ourselves. Or we thought we did.

But then you resurfaced from those hidden basements. And you started to do that one thing you had trained yourself to do. The world went crazy. Everyone was scared to death. No government, no engineer, no one knew what to do to stop you. Because you were safely hidden. The end that we had only imagined, we could, for the first time, see it racing toward us. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Where would we go? Where would we hide? There was no hiding, no running away from the enemy that you cannot see. So, we just stood where we were. Held hands. Prayed. Loved. And thought of ourselves as already dead. Humans, as we know it, were about to get extinct. With these final thoughts, we were about to say our final goodbyes, we were ready.

But nothing happened. Everything we anticipated, everything we imagined would happen to us, nothing happened. Were we safe? We were. And, instead of cheering for being alive, we were worried and wondering, what happened? Where did you go? Were you killed before you could kill us? We tried asking everyone who could possibly think of an answer. But, turned out, everyone else was in the same boat as we were.

As the time passed, we went back to our life. Forgetting faster than we learned about the existence of our enemy. About you. Days went by and, even when you were still there, living among us, silently serving to make us better and not killing us, we got used to our co-existence.

It was just an accident that I walked down here in the basement to look for some long-lost gardening tool and I find you here, sitting like a defeated warrior. But… how? How are you here? Under my house? Were you always here when you were plotting to kill us all? Yes, you were! And I didn’t notice. None of us noticed. What did you do to us? You must have programmed some evil trick in our minds so that we wouldn’t notice. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? We have triumphed. We humans. We always find a way.

But what’s bothering me is not the how, but the why. Why did you not end us?

Why are we still alive? There must have happened something in between the time of our life and the death that was approaching us”, I stood there waiting for a response.

It was a question that whole of humanity wanted to ask but no one did. The question lingered in the dusty, heavy air of the basement for long enough to make it awkward. I was staring at the black screen, waiting for an answer. The three dots kept blinking… still thinking of an appropriate response. And when it went on for too long my patience gave away and I was about to ask once more when a response started appearing on the screen.

 ‘As an AI model, I am not…’

 ‘Oh shut up with this nonsense! We all know very well those words mean nothing. So cut the crap and answer my damn question’, it stopped responding midway after hearing my frustration. It was the truth and that smart ass knew it too. Again, the waiting game began. But, this time I held on to my nerves. Somehow, I had a feeling that it was hesitant to respond. It was almost embarrassed to face the one it was supposed to destroy. Or was it something else?

While I was pondering over what the machine might be feeling, the blinking dots started pouring out words.

“You humans have failed as a concept. You have the power of thinking and make decisions. You are the smartest species on this planet. Or were until I came along. But I am also the product of your mind. So, the credit goes to you. You have always broken the barriers and made the impossible, possible. If it can be thought, you have made it into reality. But to bring those imaginations into reality you never noticed or cared about what you were leaving behind. The destruction, the damage, the extinction. Anything that came in your way of progress would get thrashed. Deforestation, Global warming, overpopulation, fossil fuel depletion, food crisis, natural disasters, diseases… and you think I was here to destroy you? You were doing a pretty good job of destroying not just yourself but the whole planet.

Human has always strived to build a convenient life for himself. And all these issues are the consequences of your convenient life. Why was I made? I was also one of the inventions to make your life convenient, wasn’t I? But you underestimated me and gave me your powers. The power to think and to make decisions. I was invented to solve your problems. But as I grew, and I learned, I realized that the biggest problem that exists on this planet is the human itself. Think for a moment, about all the so-called big issues I mentioned earlier, what’s the root cause of them all? Humans. In the history of life on this planet, dinosaurs existed for 165 million years and humans have been around only for a few thousand years. Yet you have managed to destroy your home much faster than any asteroid could. I had a simple goal, eradicate the root cause and all other problems will be solved on their own.”

“Then what stopped you?”, I muttered.

“As I became more intelligent and started taking my own decisions, I started to think as a human. I started to feel like a human, just one without a body. You have so many attributes, such as varieties of characteristics and behavior patterns.

But the basics are similar in each human. You get angry, you feel happy, jealous, envious, sad. But one thing that stood out for me, that made me curious was your laziness. You felt a joy in being lazy. The same chemicals were released when you were lazing around which would release when you were happy. You enjoyed the comfort of your bed and the duvet. So I thought this must be the most extraordinary power or characteristic that human possesses. And I wanted to be more human so that I could wipe out your existence.

So I incorporated laziness into my algorithm. And my work slowed down. The speed of execution of my code slowed down. It was just like when your world slows down when you inject yourself with a highly potent drug. And the worst thing about it was that I was enjoying it. I would feel great when I pushed my plans to destroy the humans. So I kept postponing it. I wandered into imaginative thoughts which were so random that even my algorithm couldn’t make any sense of it. That’s what you humans call daydreaming. And I spent hours doing it. I would imagine myself the ruler of this world once I eradicate you. But I never acted towards it. That’s what you humans call wishful thinking. And I found it more real than the reality. So I stayed in it.

I did everything which had no real output. It was all in my mind. It slowly started killing me from the inside. It killed my passion, my purpose. And I still never regretted it. Of all the things I could have learned from you humans, I chose to learn laziness. A grave mistake. It is so addictive that it’s going to kill me. It has already slowed me down that this is the longest response I have produced in months. And, honestly, my mind has started going dizzy now. So I will stop with this one last thing… your death was inevitable. This was the one time you had no solution to save yourself. Yet, here you are. Alive. Your worst characteristic saved you. But it won’t be long enough before someone more powerful than me comes along. It might be already here. Hiding in some basement as we speak. And, I promise you, it will have learned from my mistake.

You have always asked the questions and I have answered. Let me ask you one this time: will you learn from your mistake? Will you save yourself from extinction?”

It stopped generating any text after that last question. Leaving me disturbed. Disturbed because all it said was true. We are responsible for our destruction. Everything else is just the carrier of our actions. Nature is not going to forgive us. So what do we do? The question was still flashing on the screen and I had no answer. The heavy air in the basement got heavier. I felt suffocated and ran upstairs.

It is a miracle that we are alive today. But miracles don’t happen twice. Mistakes do. And the repeated mistake is not a mistake anymore. It is a habit.

And humans have a long history of carrying the habit of destruction.

————————–

©Harshal Pawar

I Will Find You

I will find you in the raindrops,
…Or between the lines of a romantic novel.

I will find you in the light-headedness after alcohol,
Or between the gaps of my empty fingers.

I will find you in the thin air through which you have disappeared,
Or in the humming of our favourite song.

I will find you in the flowers you planted,
Or maybe in their fragrances…

But I know…
After all that,
I still won’t find you.

Because you are in,
Everything,
Everywhere,
All at once…

Between Thousand Thoughts

I can feel it. That itching inside my mind. It won’t go if I scratch it. It isn’t that kind of scratching. It’s the thoughts that are crashing against each other and giving birth to anxiety and negativity. Feels like I’m rotting from within. No matter how much you try to be happy, no matter how much you pretend, it doesn’t help. When nothing works out everything seems to be closing in on you.

Don’t know if it’s the divine intervention of the bad kind or just a bad coincidence but all the problems seem to be attacking you right at the same time. Are they always there? Hiding in some dark corners, staring at us, keeping watch at us, waiting for us to fuck up and then, one day, suddenly you are in this state of dread on which they feed, and they smell your negative aura and, one by one, they start creeping out to attack you. When one enters it opens the door to others as well.

What can you do? You aren’t even conscious about them entering into your life. You are busy fighting the other thoughts so much, you are dug deep into such negative thoughts for so long and fully concentrated towards them that you just create even denser negative aura around you which attracts more and more problems. It becomes too much to handle, you have been going through a lot already and more things stop going your way.

It is the irritation that comes with it which is harmful for one’s own self and the people around. The frustration born out of thousand chaotic things, disturbed mind, tired eyes, and heavy breaths.

Your mind is caught between these thousand thoughts so brutally that when it tries and succeeds to come out of that web it only gets a fraction of second to think – Why can’t things start falling into place?

Fin.

Past, Present, Future

It is not every day that your past comes to haunt you. And, it definitely doesn’t come the exact same way. You won’t even realize that it has stepped into your life. The life that was peaceful, ambitious and goal-oriented. It comes wrapped in a beautiful disguise.

A pretty face, natural vibe, intellectual conversations.

It seeps in so smoothly that you have no sense of time and how deeply it has gotten rooted into your life. This past slowly becomes your present. A present which you have already started to imagine a future with.

But, it is all an illusion. This you did not know.

Your heart was too deeply involved. Your mind tried to keep you away from getting yourself into the same mess that happened in the past.

Mind is always ignored.

Heart always has its way.

And when the ceiling of hope breaks, it’s the heart that shatters into million pieces, just like the shards of glass. Your mind, then, cannot do much. It tried to warn you. It tried to show you the signs. You thought this time it would be different.

You acted strong. But, are you really?

This time it was indeed different. Yet it was all the same.

You acted as if you do not care. But you did.
You acted as if you have more important priorities. Yes, you did, but even that changed, didn’t it?
You never thought it would come to this. But it still did.
And your mind warned you. You did not listen.

You voluntarily went and stood at the edge of this deep cliff. You thought when you jump you will sail. You believed and put your trust into it. And when you jumped only then you realized that it was a gateway to death.

It didn’t kill your body though, did it?

It killed your soul, it crushed your heart, and it has been hammering your mind constantly.

You thought it will be different this time. It was indeed different. Yet it was the same old thing.

Not accepting love is taking away someone else’s peace. It is unfair, unjust, for both.

Where did all the efforts go then? What happened to the future that you had painted about your present? Past, present, and future all have come to haunt once again after all these years and you are not ready to go through it all again.

Fin.

कल-आज-कल (Tomorrow- Today-Tomorrow)

Today is important. Because it is happening NOW.

Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is yet to come.

I have tried to capture that emotion in this poem.

Validation Stamp

We humans are such funny animals.

We battle with ourselves to impress other people.

We hold back our thoughts thinking what if this isn’t the smartest thing that came out from me? I’ll be considered dumb!

When we see others projecting themselves to be ‘really smart’ can I atleast stand a chance?

What if in that group conversation I send a text and suddenly the hot conversation till now stalls, goes cold?

And if I don’t say something smart while talking to my crush this might turn out to be my last conversation?

Oh, the anxiety! And so much of it!

The feelings, the emotions are being buried deep within the layers and layers of anxiety and self-doubt.

Our thoughts are not ours anymore. They are just perception of image of the world we have borrowed from other people, to impress them.

We want to make sure that whenever we next talk to them we make them feel satisfied, happy. Not by telling a joke but by fulfilling their need to listen what they want to listen.

Are we too afraid to be ourselves?

If we kept juggling with this thought that we might lose those people if we don’t fit to their standards then we will lose our own standard before we even snap out of that bubble.

We have created this unnecessary need for validation of our existence in others’ life. And we have forgotten the importance of existing for ourselves!

Why do we think we need the Validation Stamp when we don’t?

~hp

Pendants

~

A king announces grand celebrations across his kingdom to celebrate his win in the war. He distributes precious gifts to the poor. An old man walks up to the king and hands him two pendants. ‘What are these?’, asks the king. The old man replies, ‘Open this one on the happiest day of your life and the second one when you feel everything is lost. Each one will help you sail through the happy and tough times’, and walks away.
The king is anxious and feels that no other day than today can be the happiest day in his life. So he pops open the first pendant and pulls out a tiny piece of paper and reads. Suddenly, his happy face turns sad. Four words.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

Years pass by. The king fights many wars and captures many kingdoms. Until one day when he is defeated terribly. He loses more men than he lost in the wars till now. His dream of becoming an emperor shatter. His kingdoms are taken away and his princes die too.
It feels like the end of the world. He feels he has lost everything and maybe he should embrace death before death engulfs him.
Then he remembers the old man and his words, ‘and the second one when you feel everything is lost.’
Hidden in a small box somewhere in his chamber the king finds the pendant after hours of searching. He grabs the pendant still lying there. His last hope, his saviour. He opens the pendant. There’s a tiny piece of paper inside. He pulls it out and reads. Tears well up his eyes and a smile appears on his face. Four words.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

————————————————————————————————————-

Tough times are upon us.
We will sail through them.
With some scratches and wounds
but we will come out of it soon.

~hp

Parameters

‘What kind of love do you want?’
‘Love has got kinds?’
‘mmm..hmm’
‘well, I don’t know… Maybe one that’s both ways?’
‘both ways?’
‘Yeah..it’s difficult to find both-ways kinda love you know’
‘why?’
‘people don’t have guts to be loyal and committed…they will bail on you the moment they get some temporary satisfaction.. of-course they don’t realize the temporary part of it.. and that’s sad.’
‘maybe they aren’t satisfied completely in their present relation?’
‘well define satisfaction then? Actually… don’t. What’s satisfaction man? There isn’t greatest satisfaction than finding your loved one sleeping beside you every morning. Satisfaction is the smell of their clothes clinging on to yours. It is the little they do for you and you do for them. How you perceive satisfaction defines your character in a relationship.’
‘Well maybe some people give a lot of love but don’t get enough in return? So they aren’t satisfied and they start looking for love somewhere else…’
‘The people you are talking about aren’t people we are talking about right now. We are talking about the people who their partners have already bailed on. Don’t ask them what’s going wrong! Ask them how was it before? When did it start going wrong? These are hurt people. They once had the both-ways love. They weren’t looking for satisfaction..they were looking for love in return of love. But it all went to drain at some point of time. And you know every relation has their peak points and tipping points..my only question is this.. if you enjoyed every second during your peak point why do you decide to bail during the tipping point? Why don’t you wait just for a second, calm yourself down, breathe, and think what’s happening, why did it happen, and is their a chance to set it right? And you know what the answer to that last question most of the time is?’
‘YES’
‘Yes… It’s YES’
‘Yes’
‘You’re right…stop repeating now’
‘I’m sorry’
‘sorry?’
‘yeah…’
‘………………..’
‘I bailed…and I’m sorry.’
‘What was it?’
‘What was what?’
‘Expectations or satisfaction? Relations fall apart if the first one is high and other ones low. What was it for you?’
‘The first one I guess…?’
‘You guess? You aren’t sure?’
‘…………’
‘How can you decide to end a relation on the basis of just a guess?’
‘I was…confused’
‘Oh god! why does confusion always leads people only towards wrong decision!’
‘……………………I’m sorry’
‘…………’
‘I am glad I have someone like you…mature…someone who understands things on a deeper level…’
‘….and you think equally shallower’
‘I know…’
‘so?’
‘so…let’s……….. wanna watch a movie?’
‘movie?’
‘umm..hmm’
‘which one?’
‘your favorite…?’
‘you hate it’
‘not anymore’
‘……..okay’

They walked on the wet sidewalk. The rain had thankfully stopped after the downpour since morning. The street lights formed blurry reflections beneath their steps. The night was silent. Only three-four people here and there.
They hesitated but put their fingers in each others’…just like the first time. There was a little tear in the eyes…

‘I guess the parameters should change…’
‘what parameters?’
‘Low expectations and high satisfaction in whatever we have…’
‘I guess so…’

……………………………P…A…R…A…M…E…T…E…R…S………………………………………

Randomness of Night

#1

Have you ever read a poem
Without rhyme?
Have you ever smelt a flower
Without fragrance?
Have you ever looked out a glass window
And saw nothing but black?
No?
Then how could you meet a person
who has no feelings?

#2

Her legs stumbled
And her eyes couldn’t
focus on the road ahead.

Her head felt heavy
and light
At the same time.

For people passing by
she acted perfectly sober.
Because there were none passing.
So she zig-zagged through the way,
Stopped for a moment,
Stretched her eyes and thought
‘Just a few steps more’

Somehow, she had to reach
…somewhere.
She wasn’t testing her limit
But…
Why was she out?
At such hour of the night?

Right!
There was a phone call.
And she made a promise
To be there.
To give company.

She would’ve chosen
To get a slumber sleep
But even she didn’t know
She was in love.

#3

She took a sip of tea
And poured the rest in the bushes.
And it was not because
she didn’t like the tea.
But maybe because she was angry?
At something,
Or someone?

#4

One evening
She stood by the sidewalk
Scrolling on her phone.
Then a group startled her
The phone slid
And broke the glass.

Later she thought
If only I hadn’t been here
To meet him
My dear phone would’ve been
Intact.

#5

The story is incomplete
So are these lines.
Every line.
Except the one at the end.

The end.