#ToHope

 I was young once. None of us really assume we grow old but time and again, the reflection in the mirror makes us realize just how far along we've come from what we used to be. 

There was once a time when I was young. I did all those silly things, the memories of which I perceive differently nowadays; some, I cherish. Some, I regret. 

While there could be no better day to reminisce over whatever fond memories I have, today, the sky is gloomy enough to make me think of the other things - things from past I would rather forget. 

It was after my boards. I remember wanting to go out with friends. We were planning to go to Pokhara and my plan was along the lines of enjoying sunset at the lake and getting drunk. Little did I know those were not the original plans. My friends, rather correctly, assumed my contempt for hikes and hid from me quite well that we were going to Annapurna Base Camp. 

So, we headed to Pokhara, me dressing as 'hip' as I could. The next day, we headed out for the base camp. I still had no idea. Of course, I didn't make so much of a fuss and continued on the hike - but not without bickering. 

It was the second day of my constant complaining and it was for good reason too. We had to walk for several hours at a time and my feet were killing me. I remember I was on the back, a good few minutes behind the two friends who were adapted to such walks. I was with another friend who too was miserable. We were basically dragging ourselves. 

It was there that I met her. I didn't know her name at first. I think she was pretty but I don't remember her face. I remember a young lady who was walking the same trail as us. She was walking with a red face, perspiring throughout but she was walking. A young lady whose attitude revitalized the two of us in the back and with this energy, we were soon sprinting and behold - we had overtaken the two friends who were well ahead of us. 

While I have grown not to depend on strangers to draw my inspiration from, I do note that that was an important milestone in my life. I had witnessed, first hand, the value of dreams - the power of hope. It was her name too which was either a co-incidence or was it preordained. 

I have grown old now. Crossed 30 on last march, I am old and broken. There are a few visible cracks and few hidden ones but they are there - ever slowly expanding to the entire surface. Maybe it will end one day with the cracks culminating in the defacement of whatever I have stood for until now - maybe the pieces will be too far broken to be reattached with adhesives. 

I still have not lost hope though - that lesson was far too valuable to be lost to meaningless charades life throws at me. There have been countless people, myself included, that have tried to break me. People I have trusted with my life actively pursuing to hurt me. But, I shall persevere. I have loved unconditionally and just because of a lack of reciprocation, I will not cease to continue loving so. I might be unwanted to a few people or to many if not all. But, I am all I have and I only have this lifetime to cherish whatever I can, whoever I can. My legacy will not end in failure. 

I will try to live a life such that if ever I perish, I can think back to everything I accomplished over my lifetime and in those few passing moments just before I am gone forever, I can smile. 

In serenades and silly jokes,

To townsmen and village folks, 

In the pain of fatigue and chest pain from too much laughing - 

In the loss of what we're used to, in gains of life passing - 

Let me remember how roughed are the underside of my boots, 

May I never forget where I come from - may I hold on to my roots. 

#ToHope

What when the stars don't twinkle?

 Hello. 

It's been a long time since we last talked. And there's so much to talk about. I have moved up one step. These steps count, I suppose. It doesn't feel that way right now, but I hope in the long run it will matter. The sacrifices, the oversights - I hope they make a positive difference. Maybe nothing will culminate out of all this but in the least, I hope, it doesn't breed guilt in an already weak heart. 

The song on the background is always depressing. Maybe a character trait? Ha!

There are quite a few things on my mind and a couple of trivial unanswered questions. Let's start with the questions and then let me try to reason my way out of these troubles troubling my already troubled heart. 

This requires some premise. Lemme start then: We often wander off to the terrace late at night when the warmth of the bedroom is too suffocating. We gaze upon the stars and this act brings forth for most of us the same feeling of loneliness and awe - quite a disturbingly bizarre combination. Loneliness in that we're brought face-to-face with the fact that we are pathetically alone in the grand scheme of things. A speck suspended in sunbeam - and we're just a miniscule inhabitant of this speck. Depressing. And then there is awe - dazzling lights on the horizon and above it as well as below. We witness the grand show brought forth not just by the rehearsal of billions of years of the universe above the horizon whereas below - of our making. Awe. 

And, in those feelings, lurking just out of sight is our longing to become that moment - frozen in time at that moment and whoever our hearts reminisce at that instance. We do not wish to stay in that moment - it is too painful. We wish to become that moment itself - something non-living and yet more alive than anything we've ever seen. It is depressing. 

And, yet, what if the stars don't twinkle? What if the sky is overcast by clouds and we cannot see anything in the eeriness of the dark? What then? I think we're lost in more than one ways - and the stars show us the way to where we are headed, not necessarily where we want to go. And, in their absence we lose the sight of that way. 

There are clouds in the sky tonight. I cannot see my Betelgeuse. Maybe tomorrow? 

There are people we forsake for the sake of our 'self'. If the times had been different, maybe we wouldn't have to do that. We make mistakes because we fixate on the now. Or, maybe that's not a mistake at all? I do not know.

Another discovery was that 'Maybe your red is not my red' is not a thought unique to me. There are people who have thought this exact thought. The human culture is more vast than we're led to believe. When there was no internet, no way to communicate with people on that side of this paradise - I was still bound with people who apparently were just like me - tied together with this 'human culture'. And, to make the matters worse, those who've doubted their 'Red' - have done so earlier than me. It's not bad per se but it definitely hurts my ego! Ha! I am happy nonetheless. My eyesight may remain as it was but my vision definitely has improved because of this discovery. 

With heavy hearts, I wish people well - People whom I think I have done wrong by not being honest. I can but I will not. Some secrets are not secrets. Rather, they are silent messages we share with our eyes and our words and with that we share what we feel and what we aren't allowed to.

To those I have lost - Cheers! I doubt we'll have another shot at this but whatever there was (mostly undiscovered - good or bad) was good enough for this lifetime. 

#Farewell

This is the end.

I have so much to be thankful for and I have yet to pass the half-time mark. I am more today than I was yesterday. I am not sad; this is a personality trait. I still have long ways to go - yet to understand where I stand and what actually is the purpose of everything and I would love to have someone to share my thoughts with and listen to him or her. Maybe we could better each other. But - this is not the way to achieve that, I realize.
Internet is not my home. My home is somewhere within me. My home is where I am feel like I belong. My home is where I am right now. She is my home.

Getting Him Back

Scribbling in dead silence. This time for no bigger purpose than the last. Finding him and bringing him home. How did I lose him? When did I lose him? How could I lose him again?!

Somewhere in the cross-roads of life lies his lifeless body. In blood perhaps or in tears is it covered, some belong to others; the fee previous hearts he shattered, treasures lost to the ungiving sea. But, mostly his own shed out of his pointlessness his insignificance and failure to come out of life in one piece. Nothing much has he really. Just his will. Nothing much at all.

I have to pick him up. Show him the roads ahead - full of stones and scorns perhaps or perhaps not. I have to show him the roads ahead and push him forwards however I can. After-all, he's not a heart I can safely ignore. He is me.

I have to find myself and return home, where I belong.

In the End

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could.."

The End draws near. '6 years!' almost like what a prisoner would say. But it was nothing like it. Here, I wasn't forced into not was I unhappy. Of course there were moments when I 'knew' I should not be here and moments when all I'd do was lament over my 'unwise' decision. Worst of all were those moments when I hated myself. Self loathing, it can't get worst than that. Overall, at a glance, it was sunshine and rainbows. That's perhaps the best description I can muster with my tiny vocabulary now further shrunk by technical terms, diseases and medications the name of which mean nothing to the everyday traveller.

When did it get so beyond return? When was turning back and walking away not an option? I would like to think it was perhaps never too late but that's not right. The moment I stepped into medicine, the day it all started was the day I knew that I could never turn back. How could I? How can anyone leave behind the opportunity to be a part of something so grand? Grand. Majestic. I remember the day as if it was yesterday. The anticipation of what is to come and what to and what not to expect. I remember telling myself, ' Enough screw-ups! Now focus. You have to give this your everything.' And, I did. I am glad I did. It wasn't just me, don't get me wrong but one person could never do this alone. The teachers, each and every one of them did their fair share of job educating me. I remember my biochemistry teacher consoling me with his most soothing voice. I didn't like him very much. He used to teach a lot of things that I couldn't understand. But that moment all I could think was, 'I am the one who did bad, why is he behaving as if it was his fault?!' Perhaps it was then that I realized that he was as much into (or, more perhaps) my success as I was. That was the kind of care I obtained in 6 years. Even the ones who seemed to hate my face suddenly behaved, if only in their actions, like my older brother and sister when I needed them to. That was weird until I realized I would do the same in my future. Nobody can make it through on their own and who better to realize this than the ones who have been through this? It was nothing short-off a second family and I loved, if not all, most part of it. I hated the exams. I doubt anyone lives who doesn't. I assume even the examiners hate the exams.

Ha!

But, the best part of it all was in the friends. Six years would have been a lot more like actual six years had it not been for the friends I had. But this is nothing new. Be in the same field for six years and you are bound to make friends and some grow so close they're bound to stay with you for a lifetime. So, I was no different. I had friends and they had me. The 'illegal' things we did together, studying together, getting frustrated with the other gender for their weird quirks and lament over the lovers-that-went-wrong together; all of this helped me get through.
With my choices, decisions, I got here and I know I'm not yet ready to conquer all but I'll get there too, in time. Every time I leave the other me behind, I'm setting into a journey the alternate end of which I'll never know except perhaps in my leisure, lost in thoughts pondering what it could've been like.
And, thus, the journey concludes in memories sweeter than any I could explain in words. And, onwards I march into the unknown knowing full well that there are countless faces, disguised as friends and teachers whose conscious wish is for me to succeed and be the best me I can be.

'"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference."

-The Road Not Taken, R. Frost