Not that long back

He slowly moved his hands and picked up the photo frame kept on the high table beside the fireplace. Adjusting his glasses, he brought it closer to his face. Staring at that picture had become a daily ritual for him. It wasn't that long back when the picture was taken. He could still remember the exact incidents clearly.

It was the very starting phase of their long distance relationship. He was visiting her for the weekend. They stood in front of mirror trying to take a mirror selfie. Her both hands were wrapped around him, eyes closed, planting the most loving kiss on his left cheek, just above his thick beard line. His left hand wrapped around her shoulder, managing her balance while holding camera in right hand with a fake surprise expression on his face. How cheesy! 

Click! 

"Show my how it came", she said excitingly. 

He proudly showed the phone's screen.

"Chheee, I look ugly. You look really good though. Your expression is superb. (in a sad voice) But I look ugly. Delete it"

"No I am not deleting it. You look great. I was faking a surprise expression but look at you! Your kiss is real, so loving it looks. (smilingly) I am not deleting it."

They settled on the picture argument and sat into the couch in the corner of the room, facing each other and talking. She was telling him about something. But his mind was not there. He kept nodding his head, pretending to listen but he was only half-listening. Something was bothering him but he was hiding his expressions with a smile plastered at his face. 

Inside his head "This is so confusing. Everything seems to be going so fast. I like her a lot. But does she likes me back equally? Yeah you dumbo, look at her. She is too much into you. That's the problem you see, she is too much into me. Everything looks bright initially. But what if she loose interest in me after a while? What if I loose interest in her after knowing her more? What if I fall for her but she never falls for me? But she seems to be already into you! Then what if I never feel about her the same way she feels about me? I don't want to hurt her feelings. It will hurt me as well!. What do you want? Are you scared that she has feeling for you and you doubt you will have similar feelings for her and you might hurt her? Or are you scared to hurt yourself that you might get more feelings for her but she never get the similar feelings for you? I don't know. The first one probably. It's okay if I get hurt. I will manage. She shouldn't get hurt. Why am I so complex? why can't I just let it be. It's too confusing. I just...."

Suddenly she broke his chain of thoughts, "You know I can read your face? Something is bothering you. What is it?"

"Nothing". He tried to widen his smile while looking away from her eyes.

"I know it's not nothing. Look at me"

He couldn't hide his expressions any more. He looked away. 

"Look at me sweetie, come on. What is it that's bothering you. Look at me"

He hid is face in his palms. "I am scared."

"What are you scared of?"

"myself. I always ruin things. I repel people. What if this doesn't work out?"

"You won't repel me"

"You don't understand. When I am scared, I cut myself off from people. What if I hurt you? I don't want to hurt you, I just can't. I ....."

"Hey! listen. look here (lovingly trying to move his hands away from his face). listen. You won't hurt me. I am very strong. If things don't workout, I can handle it. But I can't see you like this. I am mentally prepared in case things don't work out and you want to end things. Yeah, it will hurt me. I won't date anyone for next two years probably. But it's okay. You take your time. But I can't see you like this"

Can someone love somebody so much that they can let them go away, even when they know it will kill them from inside? How can someone walk away from a love like that?
Sometimes simplest things in life seems most complex. When this happens, all we gotta do is go with the flow. 

"Hey! Keep that old picture back and come here, sit with me." Her loud voice brought him back from
the memory lane.
"Coming Laavvo" he said while keeping back the photo frame.
He walked slowly towards the couch near the window, leaning on his walking stick. The bright rays of sun from the window were kissing her pink cheeks. Time had added to her beauty. He thought in his mind, "Ghosh she looks so beautiful. I can't imagine what I would have done without her. I am glad I went with the flow" His heart skipped a beat looking at her.
He slowly sat beside her, wrapping his arm around her while she gently leaned her head on his shoulder. 

She said softly, "I don't understand why you keep staring at that old picture every day. I look ugly in that."

He in his heavy voice, "Ahh.. it's not that long back when I took that picture and you look great in it"

"Yeah yeah, not that long back. Just some 50 plus years old."

They both smiled.

My arms are hurting

Ding dong.

My heart was racing up like never before. I could hear my heart beat louder than the doorbell ring. I knew it's her standing out, we just texted each other. I had met her in the office cafeteria less than 3 hours back. Still I had the strongest butterfly feeling in my stomach. 

Ding dong. 

Was that the sound of the doorbell again or was it my heart pounding? How do I look? Am I looking okay? How is the hair? Ohh there is no time for checking myself now. She is waiting outside. Come on, just open the door. Wait, what are you wearing? Doesn't matter, you are fine. Just open the door already. Wait, don't forget to smile.

With thousand thoughts going through mind, I unlocked the door and slowly swung the door to a side. It was her! Standing with a shy composure. Our eyes met and we both smiled. She stood there, staring the ground, hands folded behind, slightly swinging her shoulders side by side like a shy kid. Moving aside the door, I tried saying come on in but all I could manage was to signal her with hands to walk in. She swiftly walked in, turned around facing me and stood. I closed the door and stood facing her. For the first time we were standing face to face inside a room without anyone else around, without people waiting for us outside, without any mental pressure, inhibition or any time limit. The last few weeks were very stressful. Everyday felt like the last day we might be talking over phone. But somehow we survived. The stress had taken a toll on her. She had lost several pounds. In the mellow light of the bed lamp, I could not help but notice how pale and fragile the stress had made her. The usual pink glow from her cheeks was missing. Her beautiful deep eyes looked tired. I felt sorry to put her through this. An uneasiness started to grow in my chest. I stood there looking at her with mixed feelings. Worried to see her in this fragile, weak state. At the same time admiring that in spite of all the turbulence of last few weeks, how she still looked gorgeous. The long, smooth dark silky hairs, the naturally red lips, long slender neck and the tall figure. I just stood there perplexed, not sure what to do. 

We stood frozen, 3 feet apart in front of each other, occasionally glancing at each others face, our

eyes would meet and immediately we would gaze away. Suddenly something happened. She leapt forward, almost in a flash of moment, and before I could understand she hugged me. Her long thin arms tightly wrapped around me, as if she is afraid of letting go. I gently hold her with one arm while keeping the other hand behind her head and took a deep breath. I could smell her sweet hairs. All the thousand thoughts vanished from my mind. I was truly in that moment. I don't know how long we remained standing like that. I slowly lowered my head and kissed her forehead. She tightened her arms more around me and dug her face deeper into my shoulder. I could feel the moistness of her tears through my shirt. I tightened my one arm around her and softly patted her back with the other. Almost together, we both took a deep sigh.  Our heart beats had synchronized by now.  There was a kind of calmness, a feeling of relaxation and peacefulness in that moment. We  lost the track of time. We stood like that in silence, soaking in every bit of that blissful moment. Sometime later, she broke the silence in the most innocent voice saying, "my arms are hurting now". We both laughed. 

That was our first hug :)

Scars

"We all have scars. Scars that we are insecure about. Scars we try to hide from everyone. But we all wish to meet someone in front of whom we don't feel the need to hide our scars. Someone who makes us believe that those scars are our beauty marks. I wish we all meet that someone some day. " -Priyanshu Raj
Dedicated to my very close friends Diggy and Eli.

First Shoes

September 2017

"What are you doing, move your foot ahead and pull the shoe backward, then only it will go. You are just pulling the shoe in random directions. Here, let me help you. See, how easily it fits. Now let me tie the laces." 

"Leave it, I can do that myself." Struggles for a while.

"Let me show you. First pull the laces and put a single knot. Fold the two ends of the laces into half, Move one from inside other and it's done! Look how beautiful the tied laces look. Like flower petals. Now walk around and tell me if it's too tight or too loose"

Walks around cheerfully. "It's perfect!"

Sometime in 1994

I remember vaguely when first time my mom tied my shoes on my first day to school (I started schooling a little late than usual Indian kids). I was sitting on the corner of my bed,  my legs hardly reaching to the ground, half bend and trying to figure out how to tie my shoes. My mom came to my rescue. She lovingly showed me how to tie shoe laces while I kept a hand on her head to balance my tiny weight. She had a gleam of happiness as well as a little moisture in her eyes. The new shiny school shoes were symbol of a new beginning. 

Every time my mom helped me tie my shoes, I would ask her curiously, "why don't you wears shoes?" Dad put on shoes when he goes out, my sisters wear shoes when they go to school and even I wear shoes when I go out of the house. Mom would always have a different funny answer with various expressions to this question. Sometimes she will smile and say "because mom's don't wear shoes". Sometimes she would laugh and say "because I am a lady and ladies wear sandals and chappals but not shoes, you will understand when you have a wife."  Sometimes, she will say with a straight face, "because your grand father never bought them for me when I was growing up." And sometimes she would just say "you won't understand. We are from small town. Women in my age can't wear shoes."

I could never understand her reasonings but I would just nod. 

Fast forward a few years, I was in my teens. While going out to market, I would get really irritated how slow my mom would walk. I had to stop and wait for her every few minutes. She would try walking faster and smilingly say, "you keep walking, I will catchup".  I would just look irritated at her sandals, making her slower and walk ahead again.

12 years later, I now live in Seattle, one of the largest city in Pacific Northwest in USA. Sometimes I look back and think how a kid from a small town like Siwan in one of the backward states from a third world country, ended up here. Had it been not for my mom's stubbornness against our joint family's will  to send me to a better schools out of our state for higher studies, probably I might be running a local shop in Siwan right now. 

September 2017

My mom visited Seattle a few days back and I planned to take her to a small beautiful hike in Mt.

Rainier. But the problem was it would be cold and hiking in sandals isn't possible. I convinced my mom to try shoes. She again gave me weird reasons that she won't wear shoes but this time, I just bought a nice looking pair of shoes for her and convinced her to try them. But it turned out the person who taught me how to put on shoes couldn't tie it herself because she never wore a shoe in her life! I helped her tie the laces in flower petal shapes, just as she taught me long back, while she kept a hand on my head, balancing her tiny weight. She smiled, walked around and said, "It's Perfect." I smiled back and looked at the shoes, with a gleam of happiness while hiding the small moisture building up in my eyes. The new shiny shoes are symbol of a new beginning. 

The Lost Kid

There is this kid probably 5 years old. Bright eyes, chubby cheeks, smiling face. Wearing clean white shirt, nicely ironed brown half pants, shiny black shoes with the shoe laces beautifully tied as flower petals. Small white and brown striped tie around his neck. Carrying a heavy rectangle shaped school bag, with the two click-clack buttons to open the bag. Inside the bag is his empty lunch box, homework notebooks on one side and books on the other side, nicely arranged. Holding a red colored small water bottle with red strips. Swinging the bottle, he walks. Lost in his own world, smiling and amused at everything he sees on the road, unaware of the cobwebs of the world. He is returning from his school to his home. The sincere most kid one can think of. Finishes his homework on time, eats when his mom thinks he would be hungry, he does not know what is hunger. This is the same street he walks back home from school every day but he still looks at everything with same amusement. Walking through the same narrow streets, soiled road, filled with people, everyone thrice his size, he navigates through legs of strangers. Food and vegetable vendors on both side of the street, shouting as much as their lungs can support to attract possible customers. There are red apples, shiny and reflecting sun’s ray. Another vendor selling guava, the smell attracts him. On the other side of the road is the samosa vendor, taking out hot samosas out of the kadahi, hot oil dripping from it. His small smiley face looks at everything with big eyes. He is smiling and walking, thinking of nothing. Probably he doesn’t know yet that people believe there should be a reason to be happy. He is always happy.

He bumps into a stranger and fells down. His chain of thoughts breaks. He looks up and sees a complete stranger giving a stern look back at him. He rises quickly and run away from the scary stranger. He looks around, the street does not seem familiar to him. He gets confused, runs to the next intersection on street. No, this also does not look familiar. He runs to the next intersection, the water bottle swinging from his shoulder, hitting him on both sides of his waist but he does not feel the pain. The next street is also not familiar. He stands in the middle of the road and starts thinking where he might have taken wrong turn. But he could not figure it out. He decides to run back in the direction he came back from, in hope of backtracking his path. He is a smart kid. The street is still crowded, the vendors are still shouting, oil dripping samosas are still there. But he sees nothing, he smells nothing. All he can hear is gibberish noises. He feels like every eye is watching him. He runs faster. But the street seems to be not going anywhere as if he has been running but he is not moving forward, as if someone is holding him back. He starts panting. He stops running and stand in middle of the street and looks around. All eyes seem to be looking at him. He gets scared. He cannot let people know that he is lost. What if they stole him and take him away from his family? The thought of family moistens his eyes. He looks around for any familiar face, but sees none. He tries to keep calm but he finds it hard. He runs one last time. In a random direction. People around him staring him more now. He runs faster. He is on verge of letting his tears loose. But he cannot let them know he is lost. He feels pain in his chest. He is sweating and really tired. 

He stops running. He looks around one last time to see any familiar face. But there is none. He thinks is he lost? He has never been this scared in his life. He feels weird pain in his belly. He doesn’t understand what it is. He is confused. He prays god to send someone from his family to find him. With all hope he can muster, he looks around once more but sees no one but unfamiliar crowd. He is still trying to hide from people that he is lost but the cloud of tears forms in his eyes. Images of everyone in his family flashes in front of his eyes. He feels restless looking at his mother’s face. He mumbles maa. But all the images vanish. He gets the thought that he will never see those faces again. The thought makes something between his chest pound heavily. He cannot breathe. He opens his mouth to gasp air. It doesn’t help. 

He is lost, he accepts it. He is never going to see his family again. He looks up no more. He loses his last hope. He stands still, motionless, his mind blank, he loses all the emotions at once but sadness. It’s pure sadness. But he still does not cry. He cannot let people around him know he is lost. But he is disheartened. He is never going back home. 

Suddenly he hears a sweet voice calling his name. Everything around him stands still. There is no sound but the one which called his name. He looks up and he sees her. She has no clue that he is lost but one look at his face and she understands everything. Her heart feels his pain and unconsciously she comes on her knees on the soil road, spreading her arm and calling his name again. He just runs. He does not know the feeling. He does not know anything. There is no one around but her. And he just runs into her arms. He let himself loose and cries. Tears trickling from his big eyes moistening his chubby red cheeks. He says nothing nor he feels like saying anything because he knows that she understood everything. He just cries tears of happiness.

-->

But the smile remains floating on your lips……….

Often in our life we reach to some point where we are living away from our family and friends, in a new town, at a new place, with new faces around you and sometimes even a new language and culture. The friends with whom you spent your college are all engrossed in their work and life. The frequency of phone calls to each other decreases exponentially. You are too much busy in your work life that you don’t even have time to know who is living in your adjacent apartment. It is in such scenario that one day suddenly you start feeling like crap and you want to leave everything and just sit idle somewhere. You take a small break from your work for coffee, go the office balcony and look down at the people on the ground floor, how small they appear to be from such a height and soon you are lost in your own thoughts. Thoughts from some happy moments with your friends in past, thoughts of your old crush or girlfriend and a small smile floats on your lips. You take a deep sigh and wish you had someone around here, with you, someone who listens to all your nonsense, someone who laughs when you laugh, with whom you want to hang-out,  whose smile is the sweetest thing you could ever taste. Slowly you start forming an image of such a person in your mind and start smiling at the imaginary talks with this person.

How you two walk side by side on a cool evening, the breeze flowing through your hairs and you two exchanging eye contacts now and then. Sometimes talking and sometimes listening, ignorant to everything surrounding you two, walking down an unknown road. And after a few minutes you realize that you have been smiling from ear to ear and then you give a small slap at the back of your head, still smiling at the silly thoughts and slowly start moving towards your desk. But the smile remains floating on your lips……….

A Common man on shameful Delhi Gangrape Incident...

i am a common man.... i have seen things like this in the past....every time any thing like this happens....i feel annoyed at my insignificance....about being common.........but i cannot help my self.... i am angry and frustrated at the incident.....on fb, i like the photos and status of the people who are protesting against this to mark my presence and show my anger.....i even share a few..........some of me are even protesting on streets.......i am doing all that is possible for a common man........still i am unsatisfied at my efforts.........but what can i do because i am a common man and i am insignificant...... most of me, are now feeling unsafe and insecure for my own family members.......i cannot even dare to think anything similar coming to them.....still i cannot discuss the issue among my family members......because i am not from a high class society, i am a common man..... i have lots of other things on my mind......i have to worry about my job.....some of me's have to buy household items which wife asked for....another some of me's have to prepare for exam.....some of me's have some celebration coming up in a few days and so I have to make arrangements..........some of me even have to think about how to arrange the school fees of my child...........where do i have time to think of anything else?...........still this incident has annoyed me.......i support that accused in such events should be given no mercy........i am anxious where the society is going, although for a small time...and i know tomorrow i will be back to my daily cycle of routines........its a festive time in country............new movies are being released which i planned long back to watch.........day after tomorrow is 21st december......the whole funny cartoons i will share on that day and laugh out loud on the dumbs who believed in dooms day.............but somewhere inside i am frustrated of tolerating........ and i am annoyed because i am a common man and i feel too insignificant............

One of my poems.....

Agar mohabbat hai teri nadiya to dil hamara bhi samandar hai…..

Agar mohabbat hai teri nadiya to dil hamara bhi samandar hai…..

Kisi na kisi sahil pe mulakat to hogi…..       (sahil-  kinara, jaha samandar aur nadi milte ho)

Aaj meri khamoshiya shayad keh na paye tumse kuchh…..

Aaj meri khamoshiya shayad keh na paye tumse kuchh…..

Lekin ek din in nigaho se baat to hogi……….

Agar milna mumkin na hua is jahan me to kya…..

Agar milna mumkin na hua is jahan me to kya…..

Is duniya ke paar koi aur kaynat to hogi….          (kaynat:- nature)

Naam chahe hotho pe  tum na lana mera lekin ……

Naam chahe hotho pe  tum na lana mera lekin……

jab bhi nikloge roshni me hamari parchhai saath to hogi……

In Love with Delhi! In love with Shahdara

I have always heard  that "Dilli hai dilwalo ki" (Delhi is the city of people with kind heart). During my stay at Delhi I appreciated this saying and I hope by the end of this article, you will also appreciate it. Firstly a quick overview of how I landed in Delhi. I am doing my 2 month long B.tech industrial internship from a company in Noida(20-25 km from Delhi) and since I have my cousin in IIT Delhi so I stayed there for a month and later on I moved to Shahdara (a locality in Delhi) for the next one month. So this post is out during the duration of my stay at Shahdara.
Without wasting any moment, here I go to show you the generous heart of Delhiites.

The first act of kindness I found at the metro stations of Delhi. You never have to move your body to get into the train. You just need to go and stand in the queue. The people are so generous that they will literally lift you and next moment you will find yourself enjoying the cool air of the ac in the metro. Same applies while deboarding the train.

If you are pleased then this is nothing. The people travelling by DTC bus are even far ahead in kindheartedness. These sweet people are so friendly that when their bus stop comes, they will press you to move out of the bus with them-self, even when its not your destination, only because they do not want to get apart from you. And Masshah-allah their respect for girls and women. They will keep an eye on them during the entire journey, just to ensure that they are in good health, feeling comfortable and cozy and nothing goes wrong with them during the journey.

I hope by now, you too appreciate Delhi. For those who don't I have one more evidence which I am sure will touch your heart and will leave your eyes moist with tears on the generosity of the people. There is a thharra shop (liquor shop) in Shahdara. O' you must visit this famous place. The best time to visit is 7 pm to 10 pm in summers and 6 pm to 9 pm in winters (7 days open). There is great rush of 50-60 people all the time. But people here don't follow the queue system because they feel that everyone has equal right to be at the front. They care about the health of their fellow customers and that is why they constantly try to pull them behind and go ahead them-self so that other persons do not spoil their health due to drinking. Hail to such great lives who sacrifice their health (and sometimes even life) for the cause of the community.
JAI DILLI.

P.S. : This article is meant only for entertaining so please don't let your heart get hurt itself. Please post your comments to let me know how you liked/disliked it and share your thoughts/experiences.

Delhi Metro Ladies Compartment

Note:The following are my own views and they are not meant to hurt anyone.

In last few days, the ladies compartment of Delhi Metro has been in news due to various reasons. I read views of many people including my friends and classmates. Most of them have same thing to say that its not a right step. On one hand we keep shouting that women are at par with men and on other side we provide special reservations and quotas to them. Moreover many people have problem that many of the girls travel in general compartments of the metro in spite of their being a reserved compartment for them. According to these people, there should not be separate compartments. But when the mother/sister or any young ladies family member of such people is traveling alone in metro, then they instruct her to travel only in the ladies compartment. Why? Lets try to find out the reason



I have been traveling in Metro for last 3 weeks and I have seen a lot of incidents which modified my views. Once I saw two young men standing in the space between the ladies compartment and the next compartment. They were engineers at a very reputed company (that i know because the company icard was hanging around their neck). As there was great rush in the train, many girls were standing around. These two men were continuously gazing at girls and talking vulgar things about them(loud enough so that the nearest standing girls were able to listen to him). Now they were not the only two people who are like that, there are many out there who are far ahead of those two in teasing girls.


So, for the ladies who are traveling alone, I support the idea of the L-compartment. The L-compartment gives the sense of security to the girls traveling without any companion. Now coming on the issue of some girls traveling in general compartments with their boyfriends/family, its simply because there are no couple/family compartments. They have some companion and moreover this companion cannot go inside the L-compartment so their traveling in general compartment is justified. The girls who were shouting slogans against the L-compartment on news channels were mostly those who have never entered a public transport or those who are always surrounded by friends and so occupied in gossiping in metros that are unable to see whats going on around.

P.S.:- I support the idea of separate L-compartment for the ladies traveling alone.