The once-in-4-years Neelakurinji...

I started the day wondering about flowers that bloom once in 4 years. I then remembered about the Neelakurinji flowers that bloom once in 12 years. 
As the garden in my mind started witnessing the blooming of the purplish blue flowers, I remembered that a sister of one of my schoolmates celebrated her birthday today. 
Wasn't she too a sort of Neelakurinji?!
I then pondered over the difficulties that would be faced by such people blooming-once-in-4-years and my thoughts shifted to an article I had read sometime back. 
It seems that during its initial phase, Facebook did not have an option on common years to remind users of a friend's birthday that fell on 29th February.
As a matter of fact, many websites do not provide 29th February as an option for the birth date. 
How strange would it be to face such a problem in a matter as simple as the birth date?!
Setting aside the application forms and online registrations, how does a person born on 29th February decide upon a day to celebrate his/her birthday during the common years?!
There are actually 2 choices - 28th February and 1st March. It is said that people born before 12 PM on the leap day choose 28th February whereas the people born in the latter half of the day choose the 1st of March.

But having said all these, is life so difficult for a leap-day baby?!

Imagine you are in a room full of strangers. You need to introduce yourself and put something forth to the crowd in an interesting manner and sorrily, you are an introvert. In such a situation, don't you think announcing to the room that you are a leap-day baby would suffice?! 
After all, you would be someone who shares his/her birthday with only about 1/1461 of the population.
Similarly, imagine that you are in college as you celebrate your birthday today. By your next (actual) birthday, in 2020, there is a high possibility that you might have found yourself a partner to accompany you through life. By the birthday after that, in 2024, there is again a high possibility that you would have played your part in bringing out a beautiful baby into this world. Thus, with the passage of every birthday, it would seem like literally a new chapter is made to begin.
How many of us can claim of something so marvelous?!

I would like to end the piece with a line from an article by a writer born on 29th February,
My mom always offered me the same consolation, telling me that I'd thank her one day - on the morning when I can truthfully tell the world I'm only 10 instead of 40.
What an amazing gift! 
How many of us get to lead a mature life at an immature age?!

EMOtionally JInxed!

This happened two weeks back.
All my flatmates were gathered around in the hall and were discussing about a cricket match. For a reason I can't really recollect now, I joined them. In about 5 minutes, the discussion steered from the match to work at office. Each of the guys started complaining about the workload, about the unrealistic deadlines their team leaders were promising to their clients, about the careless mistakes their team mates were committing. When it was my turn, I really had nothing to complain about work. And I admitted the same. Which was reason enough for my flatmates to start a string of jokes attributing my happiness at work to the opposite gender in my team. 
In all the situations I have been made a subject of mockery - which is quite often - one of my strongest observations is that my responses to the mockery only made things worse. And so, I decided to remain silent. 
The jokes kept coming one after the other and at one point, I decided that at least a facial gesture was necessary and I turned towards my flatmates and made a 'sad face'. 
That moment, that very moment as my eyes shrunk and my lips attained the outline of an umbrella, my heart skipped a beat owing to a realization that had popped up in my brain. 
A realization that the moment before my face had become a 'sad face', the image of the WhatsApp 'sad face' emoji had come up in my brain. 
And this realization froze my world, shutting out all the mockery and laughs around me.
Had I brought about an expression on my face based upon an emoji?!
Had my emotions become so weak that they were beginning to mimic emojis for an outlet?!
Wasn't it supposed to happen the other way around?!
My brain couldn't handle the series of thoughts and in panic, it started throwing up images of all my facial expressions trying to examine the severity of the WhatsApp-emoji-mimicry-syndrome.
(Un)Fortunately, only 2 out of all my facial expressions - the 'tongue-sticking out face' and the 'sad face' - had fallen prey to emojis. All the others were safe and sound and original. 
But such an assurance did very little to pull me out of my panic. 
How in technology's name did an emoji become a reference point for a bone and flesh facial expression - my thoughts continued screaming. 
I locked them up after sometime and have held them in imprisonment till now.
I am afraid to acquit them since I fear being revealed the answer to their question. 
An even worse fear is the imagination that once the answer is out, my face would appear so shocked that it would resemble the 'mouth-less' emoji.
So much so for instant socializing :-/ 
So much so for the Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year 2015 :-/ :-/

Li(f)e

The point in a person’s life when he/she realizes that a lie is better than a truth – maybe for a good reason like to make another person happy or maybe for a not-so-good reason like to make oneself happy – is the point when childhood takes leave after being a memorable tenant and maturity steps in, with recommendations for renovation.

Fitness infatuation

In my residential layout, I observed a huge increase in the number of joggers today morning.

I wondered as to the reason for a sudden fitness awareness.

And in a totally unrelated way, I remembered that it was Valentine's day.

Thinking about it now, perhaps there was a relation. Or perhaps not.

Lamps and Smokes

She looked at her son who was sound asleep. She liked looking at him for he reminded her of her father. She had lit many oil lamps and had broken many coconuts as heartfelt gifts to her favorite goddess, Devi, for having given her a son just like her father. She had never understood whenever her son had tried to explain her about genes. She had longingly looked, many a day, at her son's pair of jeans trying to figure out why her son thought they were responsible for his resemblance to her father. But she had always been proud of her son. Always. To her, he was smarter than all her family members put together. She also knew that he was going to lead her into a happier future. Because of which she was overjoyed with the decision she had taken that morning. The mother and the son had walked into a Humanities college and the son had gotten himself enrolled in an undergraduate course in Sociology. She still had difficulty pronouncing her son's to-be educational qualification and she had ended up saying 'Sosiam' to a few of her neighbors who had immediately opinionated that she had spoilt her son's future. But she had not cared. To her, all her neighbors were fools. They had, after all, let their children become engineers. And according to her, all engineers were chain smokers. Such an understanding was not her fault though. She had just reached her own conclusion sweeping thousands of cigarette butts everyday at the 'Smoking Zone' of the IT Park she worked in. She was more than happy her son had not become an engineer/chain smoker. She decided that she would light 101 oil lamps the next day in the Devi temple and went to sleep. Half an hour later, noticing that his mother was fast asleep, the son slowly tiptoed towards the door and stepped outside the house for a quick smoke. 

The unspoken words...

Have you ever stared at the sky and been amazed

By the expanse and the emptiness

I believe I would feel the same 

When I would look into your eyes

They would show me a life fully lived

And a life yet to be lived

How many many tears would they have seen?

I spend my nights crying

Imagining your tear drops stepping out as your eyelids come down 

What did you have to go through those days?!

I wish I had pressed your head against my chest

And let my heart suffer the wrath of your tears..

I wish you had Alzheimer's

Something I wish of no other person

You would forget words

You would forget places

You would forget people

But you would also forget that fateful night..

I would not mind sitting by your side all day and all night

I would not mind guiding you around the same house you had lived for 20 years

I would not mind introducing the people you meet again and again and again

Even as you keep trying to remember who I am

I wish you had Alzheimer's

If only life could be more cruel than it already has been..

How do you feel when your friends crack a joke?

Do you try warming up to the laughter

Or have you matured like a monk beyond it all?

Do you indulge yourself in any form of entertainment anymore

Or do you spend your days seriously pursuing a passion?

Do you speak out anymore or do you only speak in?

But then, why do I ask you such questions?!

Why should your life have changed from what it had been earlier?

Why can't you go back to snapping random selfies?

Why can't you go back to spending hours to choose the right shade of nail polish?

Why can't you go back to mocking your mom's cooking?

Why can't you go back to mocking your dad's driving?

Why do you have to punish yourself, Why

For being beautiful, For being vulnerable

For becoming a moon filled with scars..

I sometimes wish you knew me

I sometimes wish I knew you..

I had always been running behind love 

Hoping it would make my life colorful

Little did I know that when love would grasp me

It would go about making my life meaningful..

All the girls I had come across in my school

All the girls I had come across in my college

How hard I would have tried to impress them

I would not have, I would never have 

If only I had known you would happen..

All my life had been a wait for you

All my joy and sadness had been for you

I had crawled as an infant, screamed as a kid, played as a boy all for you

I had liked and disliked all that I had liked and disliked only for you

I had read and watched all that I had read and watched only for you

Will anyone understand how exhilarated I am 

To know that I had breathed every moment of my life for you..

How do I tell you all this?

Should I write you a letter?

Should I visit your home?

What if I never expressed my love?

What if I liberated my soul just by thinking about you?

As I do now, imagining your face, imagining your hair

Imagining your smile, Imagining your shadow

I continue staring at the source where I had met you first

I have been for the past two months

That newspaper article of 500 words

Titled - 20-year-old Chennai girl gang-raped!

I sometimes wish you knew me
I sometimes wish I knew you...