Silver Linings!

Just to change the tone of the blog for a bit.
My encounters with the Mighty Orb that can be so easily overpowered by a ball of vapor!

Between the layers upon layers of clouds before landing in San Francisco.
Boy!.. It was day to night in less than 30 secs.
Below, the city was dark and all the street lights were on.

In a remote place in North East India... playing hide and seek in the storm. 
Was able to take the snap just before the winds picked up and blew the flimsy wooden fence away.
No one got hurt!

Outside a public parking lot in Miami, Florida.
The cloud came from nowhere on what was an awesome sunny February afternoon!

 At the Everglades, Florida. 
The solitary (well, almost) cloud in Shark Valley trail. 
Must say, it was a welcome respite. 
We chose a particularly sunny day to rent bicycles.

 Again at the Everglades! 
Peeping out...

Sunset in the Glades that same day, taken from an air boat.. Not one of the typical silver linings but definitely, one of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw.

On a side note, there is nothing airy about the air boats. They are cumbersome and noisy and I was surprised, we could spot even one gator in the wild.

If I were a gator, I would be miles away from that noise.

Will post more pics and stuff later.

Clarity... or Lack of it!

My previous blog was full of outrage.

Fueled by a sense of unfathomable betrayal.

Probably, based on a belief that telling someone you love them, somehow makes a difference.

It gets you the right to be directly informed.

It makes you deserve that much.

Apparently,it doesn't.

Only madmen in love can nourish such romantic notion.

The timing is so atrocious.

The moment I gather myself and shards of my heart.

The moment I decide to distance myself, he has to come back.

He has to leave a word.

A formal greeting.

A word so deprived of emotion, it feels disrespectful.

Disrespectful, and fouler than an abuse.

Like spit in the face.

Like alms so petty, they offend a beggar.

It is like he mocks my love.

Or his knowledge of it.

Yet, I wait for that one pitiful word.

Wait with eager anticipation.

Wait, till it brings the disappointment of its bland notion.

Yet, I love him, over the other who loves me so truly.

Am I so blindly ungrateful?

There is nothing I appreciate more than my unparalleled fortune in what I already have.

Then why are my affections so divided?

Is it the allure of that which is beyond reach?

At least, the question is clear now. 

In time, the answer may present itself too.

Until then...

Interpreting Silence!... What a mess?

Everything I posted so far, I kept impersonal.
Derived from so deep in the heart or so far in the past that it has a surreal distance from me.
Like it was someone else's story.

Today I must talk of something so recent that it can't be separated from reality.
Cannot be draped in any veil of comfort.

I told him I love him and I would leave everything for him.
It was too early to let him know but it was my only chance.

I asked for five minutes to hold him because something inside me knew he was too good to stay.

He didn't give me those five minutes.
He gave me a song and went silent.

I needed one answer.
He wouldn't even let me ask the question.

I kept banging at the door.
He let me know he was there but he wouldn't make a sound.

The song could have meant anything.
His silence could have meant anything.

Did it mean he didn't feel the way I felt?
Did it mean it just wasn't right?
Did it mean anything at all?
What? 
What did it mean?

I kept telling myself that it was I who came on too hard.
That the silence could only mean he loved me not.
And it looked like it.
He removed all trace of me.
Even as I watched.

So I tried to keep up my best face.
I believed he moved on.
So I tried to make myself believe I moved on.

Then he shows up with this girl.
So much of me in her, from the trinket she wears to the words she used.

Now.. what do I make of the silence?
Am I reading into it because I feel jealous?
I must be jealous but something else is bothering me more.

What's wrong with boys?
Why don't they say it to your face?

It will hurt much less to know the truth than to keep guessing.
A man can't read a woman's mind but so is true for women.
Women can't read minds too.

Why don't you go lose yourself Jad?
Why don't you say it out loud?
Even now, why don't you?

How long till I am free of you?
How long till I can move on?

How long till this noisy silence lasts?

Cowards

Cowards.
They are humans.
They have dreams.
They want to make it big.

They want it all like someone owes it to them.
Like it would just show up in a sock in the morning.
It doesn't.

They think it is everybody's job to give them what they want.
Like they gave it all the longing they had.
Like they gave all their time and effort to someone else's dream.

Like just wanting is enough to deserve it.
It isn't.

The boss believes it.
The client believes it.
The coward doesn't.

They can't accept it.
Their own failure.
Or a lack of achievement.

Sights are set on the next generation.
Like the child is born with all their own unfulfilled dreams.

The child keeps trying to live the coward's life.
Subdued by force.
Forced by duty.

Duty-bound to its creator.
With its own dreams in the back seat.

Suddenly the child is all grown up.
With wants and dreams there is no time to fulfill.

Another coward bred on cowardice.
And the spiral continues into another generation.

Interpreting Silence

This is where it all started in fifth grade:

"I finished my test and sat in the library while I waited for my brother to finish his. 
It was an exam day. 
I waited for the whole school.
Third to twelfth grade.

I marveled at the silence that surrounded me. 
I waited for the Goddess of Learning to descend and bless the tranquility.
I could almost see a chariot of light descend any moment now.
That moment was not to happen.

What descended was realization.
I realized this silence was not what seers and hermits sought to be enlightened.

This silence did not lift burdens off the mind.
This silence was born of the burdens that young minds bore.

This silence was born of fear.
What fruit could a tree bear that grew from the seed of fear.

There was no amazement of learning.
No joy of achievement.

Only the fear of not performing well enough for expectations.

It was the silence of childhoods silenced in the name of education."

My dad read the unsigned note two years later. 
He showed it to me.
He said I should learn from whoever wrote it.

I told him it was mine.

He went silent.
I tried to interpret his silence.

To this day I do not know if he approved that his child was not someone he couldn't be ashamed of.

I kept interpreting silence per my convenience...

to be continued...

A Moment of Truth...

Missing someone.
So deeply, it feels like the heart may rip from the chest.

Want to see once more.
Want to hear once more.
Want once more.

Go to the website to listen to a song.
The song that plays in the background.
The background of the video.
The only video posted since leaving.

The video is now private.
Just like every photograph.
Like every tag.

How private?


Does the privacy endorse its truth?
What does it mean?


Fear? 
Of what?
Escape? 
From where?
Denial? 
What was to be accepted or denied?

An unpleasant truth does not change by closing the eyes to its existence.

The truth remains.
The heart remains.
The heartache remains.


Like it will rip the heart out of the chest.

Like Before...

Someone told me a few months back, "You'll go back home and everything will be like before."

Took those words and kept them in my heart.
Worked so hard to see them come true.

Tried. 
Really tried.
And then tried some more.
And every time looked around to see if everything was like before.


Never happened.

How can it ever be if a part of your soul is changed?
If your heart has been touched?
If you have known the change and let it know that you know?

Life happens and we walk away.


Try to walk away...  
But can we?

Every past moment was different.
Every passing moment is changing.
Every moment that will pass will change.

It can never be like before.
However much you say it or want to believe it.

It can never be like before.