An early morning struggle

I hurriedly crossed the roads, taking one step forward and stepping two steps back, all in the flash of a second after my husband dropped me on the main road. I ran, curling my nimble toes inside my pink shoes whenever a vehicle came threateningly close. My lips curved into an elongated 'O', my palms patting and subsiding the yawn that spread to the eyes, my early morning sleep oozing out of my eyes in the form of saline water.

As I made my way to my office to teach an early morning batch, I recalled my bed, the comfort of snuggling into my warm blanket, deciphering the struggle of an early morning start. As several of these thoughts flashed across my mind, I saw a lady, clad in an orange saree, clutching her pallu and dashing past me. Confused for a while, I figured that the bus was what the woman was after. She ran for a good distance, relentlessly, refusing to slow down, her goal looking well withing sight. As the woman screeched closer to her target, it whirred away, faster than she'd anticipated, leaving her in the cloud of grey smoke that marked an indication of its departure. She stopped, unable to breathe, the tears threatening to invade her cheeks.

Perhaps that's what an early morning struggle actually is. A husband ready to drop me, without a crease on his brow, teaching students in an ac classroom -- all these count for comfort.

As I entered my classroom, with seven pairs of eyes eager to learn, I chided myself and made a promise -- to look at the world with my pink shades on, always.

A fall, a lesson

She was tapping away on her computer, the intense honking on the roads indicating it was the home-going rush. She tapped away a little more, waiting for him, thinking of all that had happened, a blunt pain pricking her insides.

The soft voice of the lady crooning away into her ears made her eyes warm, the tears, threatening to break the dams they were being held captive within. She was tapping away, without blinking, without reading, her eyes playing scenes on the blank wall; scenes that disturbed her sanity. A sigh escaped her parted lips.

Then she heard it, the unmistakable thud of pain, a couple of scared shrieks. He was downstairs and he would have been heading up to her. Was it him? Had the wicked stairs snatched the ground beneath his feet? What would it be? Would he be clutching his head in pain? Would there be blood? "Let him be ok, let him be ok," she prayed, desperately.

All of these clouds gathered in her mind in a split second as she raced towards the place where doom beckoned, her heart ramming violently, her lips dry. She saw a petite girl, clutching a broom in her hand, shivering and looking helpless. Two helping hands and a bottle of water, a considerate rub of her back and she was a little better.

As she walked back into her cabin, looking at her shoes lying in two different parts of the room, she realised, sometimes it takes a sudden jolt to tell us what someone means, to tell us how much we are ready to forgive and forget, how much much we are willing to let go, to ensure that the ones we love are happy and healthy.

Ego battles are best fought with strangers, for when we fight with the ones we love, we are just fighting with ourselves.

The petite girl, meanwhile, went about, brooming the office floors.

Guns and Roses

“Let’s do some duck-faced selfies,” she requested. “It’s trending,” she added, making the best of her know-it-all faces. He continued watching TV like it was nobody’s business. She walked away. I knew I had to intervene. “Hey, it’s okie,” I cooed, playing a harp inside my head. “I want to show my friends that I’m in love, but he doesn’t understand…” her voice trailed off.

What is being in love? Is it falling for someone, acting all school-girly? Is it all hearts and roses? When we say it’s love at first sight, aren’t we just falling for looks and mannerisms? What if the person outside is nothing like the person inside? Do we fall out of love then? Maybe yes.

More often than not, we bump into the realisation that the person we fell for is hardly the person we are with. It’s nobody’s fault, really. Situations change, people change, therefore, we change too. It’s not on purpose. The initial few months (or days), best described as the honeymoon period, is all about showing each other the best shades. It’s only with comfort that this external please-all mask erodes and the real person within emerges. Do we fall out of love then? Maybe yes.

Love isn’t easy. It requires stability, understanding, compromise, acceptance of mistakes and willpower. With time, tipping points are reached, tempers flare, accusations fly and there are tears. Do we fall out of love then? Maybe yes.

But sometimes, these things don’t matter. When we ask ourself what is more important: the issue or the person and if we chose the latter, we’re in love. If we can close our eyes and erase all the shades of grey that come as a package, and still say, “I love you”, then, we are in love. If we can see off the rough patches, while still holding hands, emerge stronger to still say, “I love you”, then we are in love. If even after waking up in the middle of the night to a snoring husband, we can murmur “I love you”, then we are in love. If we can forgive and forget and still say, “I love you”, we are in love. It’s not easy. But can we do it? Yes, definitely yes.

It isn’t hearts and roses. It’s guns and roses.

Story of her life

She was nervous. Her friend stood by her side, looking at her face, that had, by now, broken into pearls of sweat. She wiped her brow, looked intently at the cars, bikes and buses whirring past her, taking one step forward, and retracing her way back. “You ok,” the friend asked, but she didn’t bother replying. She squeezed her hands and trudged along nervously, rushing to the safer side of the road.

“What happened to you,” her friend asked again, rubbing her cold palms. “I’m a bit nervous while crossing roads. I saw one of my friends get hit by a car while crossing. It’s just paranoia, I guess,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders and disappeared into the building after a hasty goodbye.

About a month-and-a-half later, they’d made plans of meeting at an uptown restaurant; her friend was treating her. There they were on the opposite ends of the roads; she on one side, with her husband by her side; and her friend, with her boyfriend. The roads were twinkling with lights of the peak office hour traffic. The roads epitomised madness. In between the fleeting traffic, they exchanged enthusiastic waves. And then, in a swish, there she was, with her friend, on the other side of the roads, chattering away.

Her friend clutched her palms, surprised to feel them in perfect body temperature. “Hey! You aren’t a tad bit nervous. And look at you, all crossing the road like a pro. You didn’t even glance at the traffic when he whisked you here,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you feel scared? I mean, tu dekh bhi nahi rahi thi, left, right,” she added.

She smiled, glanced at him, and said, “I trust him,” and said no more. Three words, story of her life.

Growing Up...

She was walking around, looking at the world through her pink shades. Everything seemed rosy. She had Dido crooning White Flag, a song about change into her eardrums. She trudged on, without glancing at anything, walking straight, gazing at the dusty horizon.

Suddenly, she tripped, fell off balance and landed with a thud. Her knees were bruised and bleeding, her palms were scraped. She got up, dug into her XL sized handbag, ruffled for a few minutes and grabbed her water bottle. Took a few sips and sighed. Suddenly, she removed her shades and realised that the sun had disappeared and the clouds had taken over. It began raining and before she realised, she was dripping wet. She placed her bag over her head and rushed to a nearby petrol pump, seeking shelter and answers.

Oh how the weather had changed without intimation, she thought. But then, isn’t that how life happens? She thought about all the people she knew. The once smooth faces of her parents now were lined with fine wrinkles. She drifted back to old times when hanging out with friends would mean simple harmless gossip over a five-rupee stick icecream. Now, her timeline was filled with wedding pictures and her friends with their babies. Yes, married and parents. Wow! Discussions had shifted planes from who’s seeing whom, to who’s cooking what. They’d grown up.

And then, the final strand of her meaningless time travel brought back her reflection in the mirror. Did anything change there? Not much, The height, sadly still the same. The face -- the same old boring one. Her eyes however, that used to twinkle with the advent of seeing the world, now shone with wisdom of having seen it. Yes, she’d seen it. Changes.

It stopped raining. The sun was tired playing hide and seek, so much, that it openly challenged the clouds, that had, by now, retreated like a cornered animal. She placed her shades back and it was rosy again.

A house then, home now

The house was nice. The tiles, they were neat. The furniture wasn’t over-the-top, but was compactly adequate. The bedsheets were decent, not too well-picked. She walked in, not looking at swishing her magic wand and turning everything around. The barren kitchen was being taken care of, little by little. Plastic jars, a kitchen queen, dinner sets of all forms -- melamine, plastic, china. Beautiful cane lamps splashed a new lease of life to the otherwise boring walls. Terracotta artwork displayed on intrinsically handwoven cane discs. Beautiful lamps on tiles that now wore a more polished look. Carefully hand-picked bedsheets and matching pillow cases replaced the old one. Soon, new curtains came in. Mats and carpets added blobs of colour to the floor. Everything had a designated place. Everything was chosen carefully. Everything was bought and gifted with oodles of love. Well-planned, every penny spent to its worth.

Bit by bit, they transformed their apartment into home. Their nest, their paradise. A house then, a home now. Homes aren't built overnight. You need to invest love and care. Only then can the beautiful transformation begin...

No kid-ding!

His bum rested on the soft, grey carpet that was spread out royally, covering every inch of the room. The TV was blaring away with some obnoxious-looking woman gyrating to a stolen tune. His big, green, inquisitive eyes were glued to the colourful plastic blocks that his mother had scattered over the carpet.

One by one, the 10-month-old meticulously picked up block after block, and began stacking them. There were obvious distractions -- the crooning woman on the TV was one for sure. He raised his tiny, wobbly head and looked at the TV for a while, but eventually, he got back to business, stacking ‘em away. When the block building was almost as tall as him, he took a second, admired his work of art and let out a squeal of delight, clapping his hands.

Soon enough, their cat, taking exceptional interest in the colourful screen of the TV, made a beeline for the idiot box. In a second, the masterpiece was gone; the beauty was lost; the blocks, shattered; all the efforts wasted. It hurt him, his eyes gave it away.

He looked down at the scattered blocks and without a hint of tears in his eyes, he picked them up, one by one, and began creating the masterpiece, again.

Second chance. It worked, hopefully.