Choice

What does the ocean do with the tiny drop that just became a part of him, the drop that with just a tiny little plunk had suddenly become huge and wide. Does the ocean just wash it ashore,alone or have it make the sea a force so gigantic no walls could bind?

 

Do the drops have a democracy of their own to veto to let go or just hold on?

 

How does a tree cope with its leaves,those who turn colours like that of a chameleon, a different hue for every day of every season they go through. Does the tree shed them off hoping for his new companions to bud soon or just let them be the way they are all throughout whatever the phase?.

 

Does it have the metabolic sensors that beeped everytime as if to help it decide to let go or just hold on?

 

What would a flower feel while being robbed off their nectar by ting bugs that feed on them. Does it let that mini creature feed of its sweet juices or trap them only to feed itself in disguise?

 

Would the nature just put on a program in them decide to let go or just hold on?

 

With the complex and one of the most meticulously smart structure fitted in the cranial vault, The brain that would work faster than any machine known. The nature made the human independent of its signs, programs,omens.. Well fate as many of us may call it. Still all the calculations and theories and even more theories go to vain to make a decision for oneself, do you let go or just hold on?

 

How many theories you put to use, the laws that you thought defined your existence, the pros and cons you jotted down on that legal pad.

  

Do you let go of anything and everything that has both the ability to make you reach the greatest heights and a power to break you down to the pieces incurable. Or just hold on till it builds you into a hollow person?

Neither the democracy, the sensors nor the programs would make the decision to let go or to hold on, Then what does?

 

What makes the universe to decide which essential evil it allows to shape itself??

 

What makes you choose if to let go or hold on?

Ever said

It was me sitting in the rear most end of the class staring through my big bug glasses vividly on the board...

You said, I was a geek to the core and only for someone special who deserved only more. Because you said, you knew me, You said it will always be about me, You said it will always be you and me...Us Together.. It will always be...

Because, you said...

 

Just as I see you stepping down on your knee with all of your friends around us.. Because you said, They were the best..

Just then did you pop the question.. You said, I was your beloved and you would want only to be with me when your grey and old... You said, I was cherished and loved and everything beyond.. You said, It will be rosier now that we would be together..

Because you said...

 

That day seeing you walking up and down the hospital corridors screaming at the staff, gazing through emergency room doors..

You scream, you shout.. You said, you will keep me grounded... You said, you will be enough for us and our baby enough for you.. You said, we would be your world now and forever..

Because you said...

 

Today stepping over the motel curb, shaky at the knees and with trembling fingers ,a cold chill runs down my spine...

Just because you said,I had never been pretty enough.. You said, I had never been good enough.. You said, I'd never amount enough to belong to you.. You said, Our.. Yours and mine forever had expired...

All this time..Because you said, but now do I realize...

 

You only ever said... Never did.

 

That last moment

You told me, you were leaving me over lunch. Well, to be precise over a plate full of your favourite pizza, with your choice of toppings, french fries and iced tea in a tall iced glass.

 

Could it possibly get more insipid? It was a nice day too. And for something to do, I looked at my plate. The olives were sitting over the pesto like little ladies on green garden grass.

 

I could almost hear them gossiping.I almost laughed. I almost cried. I almost threw my half of the money on the table and left. Like one of those dramatic, deranged heroines in movies, made by the little man in big,bug glasses.

 

And then I thought. What? Is this it? Is this going to be our last moment? Sitting in a restaurant amidst insane people, eating food priced too high?

 

I have an insatiable appetite for last moments. I like to plan them, cherish them and make them into memories .

 

Big,beautiful grandiose. Melancholy full of pathos. Leaving of lovers, parting of friends, it must all go perfectly.

 

Its not a recommended way of doing things frankly.But if you have ever missed out on a last moment, one that you can never have back, that you have no memory of, you'll probably feel this hunger clawing at you too.

 

That it will be an only moment when the feeling of how it ever felt will be the last? That last kiss,last time you didn't let go holding hands,last touch, last time you will ever stare into each others eyes, that last time you will ever remember how his eyes changed colours with the sun, last time when affection had failed to travel easy distance between our eyes.

 

And then will you probably understand why that over priced lunch, on that wonderful day.. Looked so bland... And that hunger will come clawing at you..

 

A Promise.. Continued...

Aaskha, apple of father's eye, mother's parting gift. She was what they said incarnation of an angel from heaven. Grounded, well-mannered, and that unknown charm that her father said was most definitely from her mother's genetic pool.

 

She was Akash's only ray of hope when his better half had left him for a better abode on the flip side of our world. He was with Aaskha from her first social smile to her first steps, through her potty training to school dramas. All the way to her graduation.

He had given her himself in a fully dedicated manner as a mother and a father. But that had to have come at price. A price of losing his own identity. His career had seen the downside, bussiness going hay wire. Ended with them completely broke by the time Aaskha had graduated as a lawyer.

From what aaskha had known her father was an open book. For she had known about the dwindling business, scarce cash and hard to pay tuitions and shifting and moving to new homes they made wherever they went. He was her rock as she was his, in a world they had longed to be loved by.

But locked in the high walls of Akash's heart was secret. A secret made so long back that in the maze of his love for his daughter it was lost and lost were the all the means to get through the padlocked doors that hid the promise all along.

One day after going through weeks of torment and tight cash, aaskha had finally found a job in a law firm, pay was meagre but kept them to thrive a little better for now. That's what they hoped, while akash still job hunted only to return defeated at the end ot the day.

He was back to the dusty noons and harder times of struggle only he missed was the play of eyes all noon with background mumbles and how he was pretty much incapable of the promise buried long back in the secret vault of his own heart.

Years had gone by, things slightly started to look up.. Aaskha was 25,hard-working and in line to enter the administrative know how of the law firm she'd been working 5 years.

Aaskha had bought a little apartment just close to her office, nothing fancy just a small 2-BHK but a heaven altogether from what they've been living in the past. Her father was happy would've been an understatement of the century!! He was ecstatic,joyous, on cloud nine of pride,highest a father could ever reach.Only the best was yet to come his way.

One late night when aaskha returned home burning the night oil for a presentation next morning, she had found her father asleep on the living room sofa, mumbling to himself. "I wish I could be a better father,Tara"he said with an indecipherable mumble."I had wanted for you to see the oceans, all seven of them from the best possible view. I really wanted,only if I could do better, I wished to be good enough for you." Another round of mumble.

He had broken the walls and the secret was out in the open. Aaskha had heard it. She knew what her father had regretted all his life. The secret that had been spilled was now her own to be filled and cherished and regret to be put down the drain.

A month had passed by since the day of sleep full mumbles and one morning daughter declared that they had to be going to the United states for an annual conference of the firm.

Akash had hated to tag along but, aaskha's stubbornness came from her mother,well getting to the point he would never get past it once she decided.

Ten days after the announcement, they had boarded a flight to U.S.. Only it was a hopping flight via Australia and last second stoppage at Paris to reach its destination.

Only once flight took off, and they flew over the vast expanse of the indian ocean, Aaskha whispered in her father's ear, "One".He knew what she was talking about. He knew,that she had known all along. Only he didn't know was 'HOW?'. And than aaskha had told him about the nights of mumbles and sleepful regrets.

 

Did I say that he was on cloud nine, when they bought an apartment?? Well listening to his daughter explain about the night he was literally stepping on cloud 50,000 feet above ground level and he could still be going higher in what in ecstasy could take him.

 They met their count of 7. Speeding through in plane, giving the best of views. Landing in the final destination, he had fulfilled his once done promise to Tara. He had seen all 7 of them with his daughter's eyes, which he sweared on his own life were exactly like his wife's.

A promised fulfilled, a lifetime lived and now no padlock could tie those feelings behind the walls of a secret vault.

"Life couldn't be any fairer,it could only be fairer than death", Akash breathed his last whispering to his daughter at the airport checkout.

A Promise.

Sat across from each other. Separated by the barrier of gender two soul mates eyed each other with little puppy love that had perpetuated between them as they played notoriously around the village all noon long.

 

 

In the background teacher murmured about some foreign land, situated way beyond the gigantic expanse of the of bluest ocean. The land with soil so bright, water as sweet as nectar and food of varieties they never wondered about. The land with people of the kindest souls preaching only of love.

 

 

While the play of eyes continued Akash couldn't resist himself of all that the foreign land had to offer beyond all those oceans and thousands of miles away. He had promised himself he would give his Tara all of that one day. Someday.

 

For some world might not be a wish granting factory, for Akash it definitely was working. He had it all. Tara, wealth, success all he could ask for and more.

 

 

Not long after both of them were married Tara had given him the "good news". He was on the top of the world. Happiness unbounded by any barriers nothing could now stop him. Not one thing.

 

 

Except that during the birthing procedure Tara had complications which were manageable as per doctors. But, she could never make it, and died after she had birthed a baby girl.

 

 

It was the barrier that had left Akash broken and shattered and a beautiful baby girl that was theirs and a promise that he had made to himself to give to Tara when they had been playing their game of eyes in the dusty school of the village.

 

 

A promise of seven seas........... And beyond

 

TO BE CONTINUED......