Goodbye

I hate goodbyes. I just can’t do it. It is always the other person who had to do it if they must. Most of the times goodbyes are unsaid and these are more painful than the ones that are said. Because you always have that hope of their returning back to you, but usually they don’t. And even if they do, it is not the same person that you know earlier.

I saying goodbye to someone is of no use because I always turn back to them to say a hello or to know how are you? These goodbyes I am referring not only to your loved ones, but there are unsaid goodbyes between the friends also. Your school or college or just any friend who promised to stay by your side always, but then everyone gets busy in the hustle-bustle of their own life, make new friends and then you never talk again and lose contacts. But thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, he made a wonderful thing called Facebook. Now, you can find them but only if you can still recognize them in their display pictures and if you have the patience to scroll down to the list of hundreds of profiles with the same name.

There are also some friends, whom you say goodbye no matter how many times, but you always drift back in a year or two or sometimes more. These are my favorite people. I think even I am also one of these because I usually don’t lose phone numbers and I always save it somewhere or maybe just because of my good memory. Good memory, I must say is not always a good thing to have. Because it also not lets you forget the bad memories or the things you want to forget.

But one should never say goodbye to the ones they can’t do without, no matter what the circumstances are. I think if you really want them in your life you can always manage things and try harder. Maybe, I am not right completely because one cannot change the destiny and sometimes goodbye is the only option left. In the end, I would say goodbyes are the hardest part of my life but somehow it always comes back in my life with one or another face.

Togetherness

When his big eyes and my small eyes meet which for the whole year talk though computer screens. Mine are searching for those big eyes in the crowd of thousands on the metro station and as those deep eyes found mine, I feel it is the best moment ever and wishes it just pause right there.

The feeling of being with those big eyes, holding those hands which tapped the keyboard every night and chatting with me sacrificing his sleep forgetting his tiredness and tensions.

When we breathe in the same ambience, I realize it is the same air which might have touched his face just now. Standing in the same metro together just a few inches apart made me remember the times when I had talk to him on the phone while travelling on the same route alone, when he is thousands and thousands of miles away from me.

When we walk the same paths hand in hand as our fingers cross each other’s filling the gaps in between. When those big eyes always follow and watch me as I watch others, outside the metro, then at the route map. I realize they are staring at me and I return the watch back to them with small ones and they looked away.

For the whole year we ate two different meals of two different cuisines German and Indian from two different dishes, and now we are eating from the same dish, the same food. When we sit together on the same table sips the drink from the same glass and straw. When I can tell those thoughts right at that time when they come in my mind, which I used to remember till the time we talk at night.

When I realize we are breathing in the same city and same country, when the sunlight falls on us  and we are doing the same things at the same place and same time.

When he put his head on my shoulder and then I rest my head on his shoulder with my eyes closed and I wish this moment to stop right there for the eternity, so I could sit like this for the rest of my life without anyone’s fear of catching us.

When we compare the lines on our palms and when we compare who is taller (though I always know he is taller than me but still I love teasing him and saying we are equal in height). When we walk on the pathways holding each other’s hands listening to the tweeting sounds of nightingale  sparrows and cuckoo.

These rare days, these rare feelings, these rare realizations of togetherness and sameness come once in a blue moon and that is why they are so precious and lovely. We cherish them forever and wait for them to come.

Jab We Met

After ages, when we met

it feels as if we met right after our first meeting.

I can still see the same little eyes full of dreams,

nonchalant smile that still freaks me out,

a complex mind with a billion thoughts.

Though she grew older, I got a little fat

but, it does not matter.

After one million seconds, when we holded each other's hands

it still feel like our first touch, a high voltage current.

Her moving eyes, her stupid smile and a perfect evening near a lake,

all looked so imperfectly perfect, just like a beautiful moon with tons of spots,

we talked, laughed and bored together and it was beautiful.

Though, I was not the most humorous person and neither she was the most wittiest.

After breaching million miles distance, when our heart met,

we still feel that how little we know about each other.

I enjoyed her acrobatic way of photography and she adored my stupid talk,

I admired the way she ignores my talk

and she gave me her usual bewildering look.

After getting one more year old, when we met

I enjoyed telling her my boring stories,

and she behaved as if they were the most interesting ones.

We sat under the tree and looked in to each other's eyes,

finding our future dreams - dreams of hope, love and affection.

I dreamed about how many more dark lines she will get when she grew old,

she measured my idiotic activities and declared me a certified fool.

Though I am not perfect, neither she is an imperfect

I still know that she has the most beautiful heart of all creatures (including birds and animals).

Image Source: www.art.com

                                                                                                                                                     

Love

The dimpled smile
Below her little eyes
Innocent talk
And the honest heart
The care for everyone else
And for me the most.
That smile at my first sight
After waiting whole night
Then fills my heart
With delight and glee.
She fights with her pillow
And makes my heart wave billow
She says I am his teddy bear
Everything gonna be alright
And fills my eyes with glare
When whispers I love your stare.

Once upon a time

“A few years back, we used to have a thin, hollow stick of plastic in which it had another thinner stick which used to fill with ink of blue, green, black or red in color. It was called a pen which was used for all the things related to writing which is now done by keyboards and computers.”

I can imagine that we may need to give an explanation to our future generations about what a pen was and how it looked. It may also be available in their time too but may not be so commonly in use and an old fashioned thing – just a piece of colored plastic filled with different colors of inks. The technology will be so advanced that all the things would be done through computers and laptops. We will type everything but not write.

Even now we send texts, e-mails, type articles on our laptops but not write. Typing is easier and less erroneous because we can always backspace out mistakes or errors and type it correct again with just a few buttons. While when writing with a pen errors and cuttings make the write up look dirty but those mistakes are always visible to us and we do no repeat them again because we remember them.

Image Courtesy : Anjali Saini

Though technology is always a good thing to have and it is also saving a lot of time. But I personally like writing with a pen it gives me a feeling of a writer even I am not good at it.

I remember when I was in grade 4 everyone was so excited and joyous that from next grade we will also write with a pen like our seniors and elders. And I used to buy a new pen in every terminal exam because I was really fond of collecting pens even if they are empty. Pens of different types – pilot pen, fountain pen, parker pen were the most favorites and most expensive also at that time.

Slowly and steadily it is going to be a thing of past or history, an outdated thing. The children in schools are already so familiar with mobiles, iPhones, iPads, laptops and computers that all their projects need to be done electronically and in printouts and they always need Google by their sides.

I know all things of past become old and with the new generation, new technology, and new things appear but I will miss this little piece of plastic and a significant part of my childhood and education in near future.

Sparrows - the missing neighbours

Gone are the days when you listen to the chirping and tweeting sound of the little birds on early mornings and evenings in your garden and balconies. But now you only listen to the honking of cars and motorbikes or the sound of air conditioners and coolers. I remember the days when I used to see sparrows playing and jumping from one stem to another, lying in the mud to cool their bodies on hot summer days, hiding in a searched shelter or on a tree in heavy rains. Most of my time in vacations, I pass seeing the parrots and sparrows flying and sitting on terraces and balconies. Their freedom to go anywhere anytime made me jealous and I also wanted to fly like a bird in the high sky.

Image Courtesy: Tootlepedal's Blog

Remember, some 9-10 years back when you  used to go on a morning walk few little birds giving you company and singing beautiful songs for you which made the atmosphere more beautiful and musical. But now they all are silent because only a few are left in metropolitans like Delhi and so many of them have lost their friends. I remember in monsoon many of them sat in my balcony fluttering their wings to shed down the rain water, it seems like they were feeling cold.

They used to make their nest on my balcony and on trees opposite my house, lay eggs and watch it the whole day flying from here to there, sitting on the wall to wire to grill and keep a watch on their nest. Sometimes fast winds broke their nest and eggs, they look at broken eggs for some time she felt bad and make sounds chi-chi-chi like they were crying.

Goraiya, the little sweeties in countless poetries, lyrics, songs and folk songs and paintings, is today facing a crisis for survival. It’s been long that we miss the “chi-chi-chi-chi” of Goraiyas or little sparrows every morning and lovely sight of them dancing around.

When they were abundant around us at times, we got irritated of the chirping sound “chi-chi-chi-chi” of Goraiyas outside our houses or in verandahs and gardens. But now most of us miss it actually. Universally familiar in appearance, once in abundance the common house sparrow has become a mystery bird and is becoming increasingly rare all over the world. If proper measures are not taken on time, then we might lose it totally or it might be added to the list of many extinct birds and animals.

Image Courtesy: The Hindu

The tiny sparrow is perhaps the earliest bird we can remember from our childhood which is diminishing now. Their petite nests in almost every house in colonies as well as in public places like railway stations and bus stands. They survived on food grains, tiny worms, and leftovers from houses which people give to feed them.

Unfortunately, this tiny neighbor is disappearing now. The reasons behind this are many and we the human community is somehow responsible for it. The combustion from petrol vehicles which produces compounds which are highly toxic for small insects, which are a major part of young sparrow’s diet. The lack of nesting sites in modern buildings, radiating waves from mobile towers and increasing pollution are some of the causes for their decrease in population.

Today I miss the chirrups, swinging and hopping from branch to branch on trees and balcony to balcony in colonies of little birdies and remember a story I read when I was in Grade 1 or 2 in which a sparrow feed her children and teach them how to fly. The modernization and advancement in our society have taken away almost the whole natural beauty and environment and everything is artificial or man-made in big cities.