Each day of life is like a tide in the sea. We don’t know how big it is, or how destructive — but we know that at the end of the day, when we have crossed the tide, we are near the shore, where we can relax for a while, realize how far we have come, having achieved one more success, and prepare ourselves for another day.
Tag: Reflection
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25th May 2012
1:10 a.m., 25th May 2012.
I am still struggling with my mind and its thoughts, wondering what happened last night. Is my wildest fear — that she now knows of my madness for her — finally coming true? Or has it already happened, and in my ignorance I simply couldn’t see it?
The solution isn’t complicated; it could even be the simplest thing — just letting her know. But the mismatch of mind and heart, of fire and water, of past and present, keeps competing inside me — and, I think, inside her too. What can I do at this particular moment?
So, as before — but with new evidence, and new feelings — I write, again and again, to map out my thoughts: my cloud of worry, my pursuit of happiness, poured into my poems and my blog. And I hope that one day she’ll read it.
Near midnight, she says goodnight to me, and I wonder if it is the morning of her dreams. She holds my breath with her voice, and unsettles me with the familiar mischief of her charm — and I wonder if this is just the beginning of her love.
She blinds me with her eyes, and I am lost in the endless depth of it; I wonder if it is only a part of her world.
But sooner or later, I wake from the dream. I find the reality exactly the same — except that, this time, she is not by my side.
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Another Beautiful Day
I do believe in coincidences. I do believe in love at first sight. I do believe in destiny — though belief tends to step aside the moment it becomes reality.
Lost in a crowd of strangers, I was struggling through my daily commute — Noida Sector 64, from AIIMS. Most days were just travel and crowd, like any other. But one day, something happened that I could never have imagined: I looked at her, and I couldn’t stop looking, again and again. The day ended at my stop, and I bade her a silent farewell — certain I would never see her again.
Today is the 17th of March. I boarded my bus at the usual time, and somewhere after South Ex and before Andrews Ganj, she stepped into the same bus. Her eyes met mine, and I went a little mad. That one hour felt like a moment of ultimate solace — I kept shifting, leaning, half-hiding, just to watch her, and often to catch her watching me too.
Like the rain of a July summer, I was drenched all over in her presence.
Like the cold of December, I was held by the charm of her endless depth.
Like a fleeting, buttery life, she comes into mine, and goes — but always with a little hope.I hope I’ll see her again.
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On the Mirror Side
A long way of time, but another line just like it,
dubbing the self so gracefully;
I quest for myself, on the mirror’s side.The opened threads of memories,
delicate enough to tear apart —
disillusion is another life,
with the person living on the mirror side.I throw myself into him,
and lose my reflection in the grey;
it ends with the start of a new quest:
who is living on the mirror side?Holding it back with a few faint clings,
I sit on yet another cliff of time;
I am ready to leave behind, to begin —
but the person on the mirror side? -
At the Dawn of a New Horizon
The clock says 1:07 a.m., 1st January — and I am wondering what I can offer in the dusk of the departing year. A farewell? Or should I begin with something — an offering for the new horizon ahead of this dawn? But the point shifts to something that amazes me this time: the timeline itself.
I posted my status online, wishing everyone a Happy New Year, but with a line of my own: “A single joyous moment of life can overcome many wells of sadness — and we are all just in a quest for that one moment.”
With this end-that-is-a-beginning, I notice one thing: how small happiness can be, and yet how the fulfilment it offers compares to nothing else. A stranger’s smile, a loved one’s goodbye, the adieu of a good or a bad year — a farewell is always welcomed with something new in life.
I have ended some of my years in the easy comfort of losing myself, or of losing others; but the strange thing is, I never quite encounter it. It means that whatever I attain in life will, one day, perish. We forget this with time — yet when it comes to action, we meet the greatest fear of life: being alone. It is this fear that makes us weak and vulnerable.
There is nothing worse than satisfaction — but longing is equally bad.
The essence is this: life is just a fountain of moments. Whether by the muddy way or by decoration, it has to find itself again.
Often, the subject most talked about is the one I understand the least.
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I Wonder
It’s 2010 — a new year — and what I’m about to publish is simply a reminiscence of the last one, written in the hope that I can learn from it and live this year more fully.
Last year, I was good to many and bad to most — sad, but true. And the first name I count among them is my own.
Yes — I said me. We can be good to anyone we meet, but not until we are good to ourselves. We keep trying to pretend to be what we are not; our inner self reflects who we truly are, and I spent the whole year pretending to be what others wanted me to be.
Still, I’ll remember 2009 as a memorable year. You must be wondering why — because I lived through so much good and bad in it. January, the beginning of the year, fortunately brought some good my way; but instead of simply celebrating it, I began demanding more, and slipped into a circle of suffering.
But as I always say, “Bad brings better for you” — and I try to follow that.
Thank you, friends, for being so wonderful to me.
— Abhay Gupta
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
Rabindranath Tagore