A friend gets married...

She was the most beautiful person in the marriage hall
She also seemed the most anxious
I tried inquiring about it to her garland and her ornaments

But they were too busy posing for the photographs
Oh! The photographs and the photographers!
Did they not know that she liked posing with her head tilted?
And the priest! Why did he have to be the only one singing verse after verse?
I badly wanted to shut his mouth and make my friend sing
Her song would have been a sunflower shining in the moonlight
Her song would have been a young boy's laughter in a military camp
Her song would have been a rabbit running around the marriage hall
But slokas and traditions had to precede talent
An amazing singer had to remain silent as her marriage music played on.

I recall the gifting / photography session
The gifts served as the entry tickets to be a part of the marriage album
What if my friends and I had gone without a gift?
All we had wanted had been to see our princess become a queen
But a gift we had - perhaps a formality, perhaps a happy reminder when dusted years later
Though who were we fooling?
Would she have wanted a better reminder than glancing at us from her wedding stage?
What would have run in her mind during that momentary glance?
The lunches we all shared? The fights we all fought? 
The birthdays we all celebrated? Our favorite spot at our college?
We had often debated as to who in our gang would get married first
And there she was, the smiling winner
A few feet away we all stood, happy, proud and emotional...

I recall the gifting / photography session
It reminded me of my school annual days
Climb up the stage, shake hands with a smile, pose with the prize, climb down the stage
All of a sudden, a 25 member gang rushed on to the stage
Similar to the energetic crowd surrounding the news reporter reporting live from a location
The gang positioned itself around the couple, all smiles
As my friend smiled at them politely and as her husband let out a hearty laugh
I realized that it was the husband's family
I looked at my friend amidst the 25 people and felt my heart becoming heavier
She had always found it difficult to select a dish in the college canteen without the gang's help
And there she was, prepared to serve this new family with joy 
A few feet away I stood, happy, proud and emotional...

I recall the gifting / photography session
My friends and I also climbed up that stage and we also handed over a gift
But we did not want to climb down - Her eyes would not let us
We knew she had so much to share, so much to laugh and cry about
Seated in a circle on the stage, sharing the marriage meal
Our gang could have relived the past once more
But then it hit us - Beside her was standing her new friend
We wanted to share a few tips with him
We did not, knowing it would spoil the fun
Letting the new love blossom, my friends and I stepped down.

The protest of two minds

"Thamizhan nenaichaa enna nadakkum nu theriyuthaa!" screams a voice. 

"Is this even right? In the wake of emotion, are we sowing the seeds for the downfall of  democracy?" screams another.

The former is filled with passion and rage. The latter is filled with doubts and fears. 

I realize that a new revolution is on its way in my birth state, Tamil Nadu. My friends, standing amidst the sea of people gathered at the Marina beach, call me and ask me why I haven't yet returned to Chennai from Bangalore to be a part of the protests. One of my friends asked me bluntly, "Do you support Jallikattu or do you not?".

I did not know the answer. 

Is not knowing the answer wrong? Is not having an opinion wrong?

The human in me wanted me to take a stand. But the writer in me did not want to. 

The writer wanted me to think about the people who did not want to form an opinion. The writer wanted me to think about the people who did not want to protest. The writer wanted me to remember Aaron Sorkin's lines from The American President.

"You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest."

I see Facebook and WhatsApp being bombarded with memes praising the involvement of the youth and memes mocking the state and central governments. There's a feeling of fear filled joy. 

It is very evident that social media will continue playing a very important role in the forthcoming major political changes. But the fear builds up thinking about the fairness of the battleground it will provide to the two sides of the scenario. 

"Social media is the voice of the common man", one might say. But can the common man be always looked up to for the solutions of political problems?

I do not know the answer. 

But I know to this extent that not knowing the answer and knowing a wrong answer should be given as much importance as knowing the right answer. 

Not being right is also, after all, a democratic right. Denying that would be wrong.

Leaving behind love...

(A fictional piece dedicated to an angel who made a man out of me)

"How would it be if we had black stars on a white sky?", she asked with a serious face, looking at the dark night sky. I did not care to look at the stars. I was looking at one, seated beside me, on the lawn that spread before my office building.

"I am going to miss these questions", I replied in a sad tone.

She remained silent. Her silence always signaled the start of a sad thought train in her head. I wished I had the power to derail her sad thought trains. I wished I had the power to command her brain to stop overthinking though I loved the way her face shrunk with a sad thought.

"What did your boyfriend say?", I asked her, putting up a red signal to her thought train, with the fear of starting another. She had met her boyfriend an hour ago. 

"The usual stuff - 'Don't take a new job in an unknown place. You will get a better one here. I am scared of a long distance relationship.'" 

A teardrop rolled down her cheek. I knew she liked talking while crying and I remained silent.

"I am scared too. Shit scared." Her handkerchief came out. "What if I turn uninteresting over messages and phone calls and Skype?" The blue flowers on her handkerchief were getting watered. "What if he decides to end it? What if I am making the biggest mistake of my life?" The handkerchief covered her entire face. Her hair strands falling across the handkerchief made the blue flowers part of a hanging garden.

I let her cry knowing that she would scold me if I tried consoling her and she would scold me worse if I did not.
Five minutes later, her handkerchief curtain came down, revealing her face that had become so beautiful with the mascara mess. I raised my left hand to point to it but she quickly grabbed it and locked it between her hands. The pressure in her grip revealed her pain. I wished it could be wiped away as easily as her mascara.

"What will I do without you?" she asked. A teardrop rolled down her cheek. I realized I had to keep my handkerchief ready.
And suddenly, as if she had attained enlightenment, her face turned calm. Letting my hand go, she fixed her stare upon me. As I looked at her eyes, my heart skipped a beat. I recognized the stare. I knew what followed next and she uttered it seconds later.
"I feel I am a magician whose most powerful trick is to push myself away from the people I love the most".

My head began spinning in its three year old memory. A teardrop rolled down my cheek. "Maybe it is not your fault. Maybe I am the magician and you ended up getting hurt because you were part of my trick", I told her.

She lifted her hand and placed it on my cheek, a smile appearing across her face. My teardrop rolled down across her fingers. She then moved closer and hugged me. I slowly joined my arms around her.
We were ready for our big magic trick.

****

Three years ago

"Did she really admire me?" my mom asked, excited.

"Yes", I replied. My mom smiled and let silence prevail.

A mild breeze was blowing upon us on our terrace. The sun was on its slow rise and flocks of birds were starting their day's duties.

"Why do you think a girl like her would not like me?" I asked my mom. I felt she would hold the best answer, me being her creation.
"It was not that she did not like you. She just liked someone else more. There is a difference", she replied. I wondered how she constantly managed to look at life standing behind a glass of goodness.

"Do you think I committed a mistake waving her a final goodbye? Do you think I should have stayed a good friend?" I asked my mom, knowing the answer I wanted.
"I do not have an answer to that", my mom replied and added,"But life is pleasant in the way that it rarely lets you reach a point where it is too late to correct things".

"I feel I should just stay away from her", I announced, after a minute of thought.

My mom turned to fix her stare upon me. Her face looked calm. As I looked at her eyes, I was able to hear what she was about to say. The world heard it seconds later.
"Along with my artistic skills and shy nature, I feel that I have also passed on to you my magic of pushing myself away from the people I love the most".

For the first time in my life, she did not seem a mother. Standing beside me was a normal woman with her own pains and sufferings. A teardrop rolled down my cheek.
"Maybe I was intended to be the magician all along. Maybe you don't have to carry it further, having passed it on to me", I whispered, stepping closer to her.

My mom lifted her hand and placed it on my cheek. She then hugged me.
I could feel magic coursing throughout my body.

The writer's block

The pen has not run out of ink
Contrarily, it is so filled that it only releases blobs
I want to be a horse with blinkers
Not the housefly I am now, noticing more than needed
I look around my bedroom
The walls keep expanding, letting in ideas and images
I am yet to find the door
I take a deep breath, hoping to exhale the chaos
The nostrils refuse to open
Sense is left screaming in suffocation
I do not know if the brain is to be blamed or the heart
One seems too filled and the other, too empty
Maybe it should be the other way around
Maybe the meaning is too hidden to be found
Maybe I need to step off my masochistic mound
Maybe a lesson of life to keep the writer earthbound
As clarity ceases and confusion compounds
I offer a bittersweet smile to the universe
It doesn't seem to have learnt
It can never prescribe pain to stop my writing
Words are my way out of worries and wounds.