Curtains Fall!

My heart retorted, my breath fell short, I clutched the bed sheets, my mind scurried all over the place trying relentlessly to absorb all that had transpired in the last 2 years. The clouds outside were pouring down mercilessly amid the dark, venomous night. Thunders rumbled startling me almost every time. They felt as little explosions, painting the canvas of the night sky. I camouflaged under my blanket and seized my chest and my eyes bled rain! Whom could I confide into, with whom could I let it all out. I lay low all by myself with my heart aching, looking into that 5 inch piece of gadget that I possessed. My finger trembled while typing the texts. She was breaking up with me. In a blink of an eye, it felt as if all the doors of my life were slammed right at my face. I felt the walls of the room contracting towards me, encapsulating me, with an intention to engulf me. I was numb! All I knew at that moment was I was losing out on my life. I felt myself giving away at an anvil as if a sword or hammer would just come down at me any moment taking away my head with it! My parents were fast asleep in the room right next to mine, probably tired and satisfied after toiling hard all day at their respective workplaces. The clouds roared again and the tempest turned more violent and satanic. I just wanted to see her, tell her that it ain't over yet, that no matter what happened between us; this is not where our story ends. Tears, like rain spilled out of my eyes. She was sure about putting an end to all of it - the relationship, me, our memories, the promises we both made to each other, everything that connected us! With every text we exchanged, I was beginning to fall apart bit by bit, speck by speck! I begged her for a reason, anything which could justify why we were doing this to ourselves! It just took her a text to sum it all up!

“I dnt luv u! U were a mistake. I was jst playing with ur emotions!”

The very next moment, I felt something break! My heart snapped just like a mirror would after enduring a big heavy blow! The lump that was building in the throat from the last one hour had reached it's crescendo! I was stunned, shattered, and speechless, all at one. The lump had gripped my throat and I struggled to breathe, gasping for air! I don’t know what hormones got the better of me as a sharp pain surged up my heart, visible on my face. It was then I came to know that it all had come to an end, that she had made her decision, that she had just passed that knife through my chest making a slit which would take a lifetime to recover. She had just cursed me with a pain I could never get rid off! She had just called 'curtains'!

A Little Broken!

‘Smiling is easy; at least in pics!’, my friend said with a bright smile on her face, glancing through the photographs we had clicked in a recent outing along with our other friends. Our newly made pack of 4 was sitting on the sides of Gandhi Bhawan after a long day of toil in college preparing for a college event. It was late evening and the weather was gracious enough to be pleasant with a cool breeze blowing across brushing our bodies, the whiff of it like that of one after the rain. It had actually rained in the afternoon. We all were so busy working that we didn't pay attention. The place was one of my favorites to introspect and to ooze out my limbered up soul. Today was no different. I was lying on the grassland with my eyes drawing the constellations in the dusky sky and my heart busy collecting and reconciling my thoughts about the day and my troubled life. In the midst of such lovely weather, the latter part of the statement somehow broke my trance and caught my attention. The happy voice had a hidden pain in it. I was forced to check on my friend if she was okay or not.

‘Are you okay?’, I inquired.

‘Yes! I’m okay. Don’t worry! Just a few old memories!’

I couldn't speak anything after that. The statement she made was one which was very familiar to me. It was the exact same thing I used to encounter with the same ‘Are you okay?’ question. I had no reply to it but it sure got me concerned. She too was in an emotional turmoil. I guess all the four of us shared the same feeling. Maybe that is what strengthened our bond in such a short span of time. Whatever the reason was, the statement made me uncomfortable. I tried to lighten up the atmosphere but it was visible and evident that she had made her statement for the day. Though, we all were back to our super lunatic mode with all kinds of veg and non veg jokes being cracked at each other, all of us had that undying pain and sorrow lurking through our eyes which no one spoke off. Amid the madness and the PET bottle of Fanta that looked to us as if our pint of vodka, we shared not only our sorrows and pain but an affection, a sense of care that ‘Yes, we are there for one another!’ As we gulped our fanta down, our eyes testified and became the alibi that we all shared some moments of true happiness.

As I came back to my room, comfortably seated in my bed under the quilt feeling its warmth, I was still thinking. ‘Is everyone a little ‘broken inside’? Or is it just me and a few of us? Am I a pessimist? Is my fight with God justified?’. Traversing through the labyrinth of my heart, mind and my inner conscious, I looked for answers. The crypt in my heart didn't respond to my call. I felt my soul catapulting for an answer between my heart and mind! I started to recall names of the people I envied for a better life then me. It was my habit to mark names in my head during the normal day in college of people who I thought had a much cooler, carefree life unlike me! Her name was also on the list. Maybe that is what made me wonder about all these questions that I was thinking of. She wasn't supposed to be in pain in my head for what I had pictured of

her. The famous, ’Don’t judge a book by its cover!’ quote seemed so true at that moment! I actually drew out my notebook and a pencil and made a list of all those names. It took me about 15 minutes to think of them all and I finally had a list of 10-15 names. ‘Should be good enough to start with!’, I told myself. Taking one name at a time, I started to analyze whether their life was as perfect as it seemed or had they been just a little better in carrying themselves off in this brutal, unforgiving world! Some had family issues, some disturbed due to their relationships, some struggling with grades, some into fight with friends, some heartbroken, some betrayed. The list of ‘tragedies’ kept getting bigger. I started striking the names that

didn't qualify to my ‘Happy people list with no problems in life’! It took me other five minutes and I realized that all the names had been stripped off from the list. I tried a few more names but they too met the same fate as others. I was motionless for a moment. ‘But they all seem so happy! Is it that it’s easy to smile on the outside?’. I somehow had the answer to this question in my heart. I had nothing to say. Over the next few days, I put forward a observation test in front of me as I started observing everyone a bit more closely than usual. It took me a week to cover a few more classmates but I still couldn't find a perfect name. My hunt failed. It was then I realized how naive I had been for the past 19 years of my life where all I thought was how troublesome my life was. It took me some time to absorb the stark realization I had just

witnessed!

Everyone has to face their share of troubles. No one in this world has a perfect life. Everyone has to deal with something or the other. Some have family issues, some irritated with their friends, some troubled with their relationships, some pinned down due to the stress of studies, some in a fight with their own. Not some, actually everyone was in a fight with their own self! A fight between the pessimist and the optimist in them to determine how they lead their way. A battle which took place every morning after waking up before starting the day and every night in bed before sleeping. Life isn’t perfect! Life isn’t always what you wish for. Life is a little imperfect and everyone has to face it! The Almighty does not use different balance to measure

other person’s happiness! It’s all about the attitude you portray towards a given problem. It’s about how you take things in your stride and how you deal with them. Everyone is different but yet same in some sense when it comes to it. Everyone’s ‘A little broken!’.