Poems, Prayers and Promises

‘And talk of poems and prayers and promises,
And things that we believe in.
How sweet it is to love someone,
How right it is to care.
How long it's been since yesterday,
And what about tomorrow?
And what about our dreams?
And all the memories we share…’

‘Poems, Prayers and Promises’ was a compilation of my writing that I put together between classes 9 and 12. It was also the title of a collection of poems I wrote as a birthday present for that special someone in my life. And as 2007 passes gently into the good night of 31st December, Denver’s words keep running through my head as the signature song of a year that changed my life more completely than most have.

Five days before 2007 started, I ended a seven year long relationship. In a way it was a fitting farewell of sorts-to people, institutions, places, events and even memories that had defined and carried me through high school and college. I came back to a college which lacked many a familiar face that I had taken for granted earlier. And with some of those who remained, it was just not the same anymore.

As the year unfolded, a few old ties unravelled while others grew stronger and totally new ones formed and developed with stunning rapidity. And as the fates took their treacherous turns and I unwittingly played along, a faster swimmer free of the emotional baggage weighing me down in previous years, a series of realisations followed. That I did not like the girl I thought I did for the last two years, that maybe I liked someone else instead. Only to fall for someone completely different later. Well, at least I was spot on third time...

That I did not mean as much to certain people as I thought I did. And strangely enough, that I did not care so much about it because they no longer meant the same to me. That maybe, friends come and go and you can cling only to the precious few you must...

That the outside world was knocking and like it or not, I needed to leave the comforting confines of college life and look it in the face and spare a thought or two about what I would do out there...

That I knew nothing about love and how beautiful it felt...

‘I've seen a lot of sunshine,
Slept out in the rain.
Spent a night or two all on my own…
Had myself some friends,
And spent a night or two in my own home.’

The latter part of 2007 was one that I had always dreaded as an abyss of loneliness that I just wanted to get through as fast as possible. But once again, fate plays the strangest tricks. When the time actually came, it was the happiest time that I can remember as long back as my memories go. And I kept trying to hold on to it, to stretch it further and make it last forever, to fill those precious hours with everything I could find. Believing that by doing so, I could somehow prevent it from slipping through my fingers like the sand I gathered on the beach…

‘The days they pass so quickly now,
Nights are seldom long.
And time around me whispers when it's cold,
The changes somehow frighten me…’

Back home after a year and a half, lots of people tell me that I have changed. They are right, of course. I speak less, I am less interested in meeting new people, I hardly care about the ones I do meet unless there is something really special about them. In the past year, I have made just two friends. But they have been truly extraordinary ones.

To a friendship that sprang up in the course of an action-packed week that took us to four different places in seven days, thank you for all those late night phone calls on the back stairs of 9th block where I could pour out my most closely guarded secret to you. For those lonely days in the vacations when you were the one person in town I could share my fears and worries and loneliness with. For a thousand times when I have stood you up or kept you waiting and you have not uttered a word in protest. For all the jokes that I have made at your expense which you have taken with your sporting spirit and astonishing lack of ego…

To the other, what can I say? That has not been said already with every embellishment of language that I am capable of. Never has anyone taught me so much in so short a time. Never have I looked up to anyone as much as I look up to you each and every day. Never have I been so very sure that I need someone around for the rest of my life to make every day as complete as it should be. Never has anyone loved me so totally and believed in me in such trying circumstances. Never has anyone fought so much opposition from people close to them and given up so much to be with me. Suffice it to say that you are the major reason I will always look back upon 2007 as the most significant year in my life and look ahead to each day knowing that it will have your indelible imprint upon it…

To old friends who have borne with me in a year in which it has been increasingly difficult to do so, I pledge my gratefulness. This new streak of selfishness that has sprung up inside me has often made me insensitive to the fact that even you have lives and problems that you need to talk about. To the best of my little ability, I will try and make amends…

To my colleagues, I look forward to doing some great work together in the months to come. There is so much that you have to teach me and I can only hope that I will be fortunate enough to learn at least some of it. To my debating team, my quizzing team, my editorial board and others I will work with, I pledge the best efforts that my talent renders me capable of.

I realise now that some things never end, they never can. And clinging on to old times simply means that you miss the joy and the adventure and the challenges of the one which beckons so excitingly. 2008 marks yet another watershed in my life-the time when I will step out of college to put into action the plans that I have been formulating and re-formulating for most of the last year. I have certain hopes and expectations as to where I will find myself, but those may well turn out to be a mirage though I hope that at least one small detail falls into place. Be that as it may, it will be a year that satisfies to the full the old Chinese blessing-May you live in interesting times!

‘How long it’s been since yesterday?
What about tomorrow…’

What about tomorrow? Only tomorrow will tell…

Never have I looked forward to a year as much as I do to this one…

Happy New Year!

I Won't Cry for Yesterday...

Cigarette smoke has a weird way of drifting on the air even when the fan is off. It forms funny little patterns and if you stare too hard, you start seeing every imaginable shape in those wreaths as they rise slowly towards the ceiling and disperse into non-existence.

"...also broke up."

"Yeah, that happened quite a few months back, right?"

And in those twenty odd words, we sum up the ending of the love and the hopes and dreams that love invariably brings of yet two more people, at least one of whom we care about deeply. More often than not, we ache for both of them. The elation, the congratulations and the happiness that fly around when two of your friends start going out is in stark contrast to the prevailing mood when something of the sort comes to an end. Once you find out if they are sure that they have made the right decision, something inside you feels like it will never feel the same again.

My best friend says that guys never know how to comfort other guys (or even girls for that matter!). But, if truth be told, there is not much a guy needs from his friends at a time like this. A squeeze of the shoulder, a nod to acknowledge the reality and a comfortable shared silence in which you reach out without any words being necessary to do so. And we wait to let him tell the story in his own way, at his chosen time. If he wants to share it at all, that is. Our friendship will not come crashing down from the heavens if he does not.

There were just two of us at that table the other day and neither of us had just been through a breakup. Yet I somehow understood what solidarity and comradeship means among men. And just how much I miss people barging into my room at 3 a.m. to brutally shake me awake and settling down for completely useless conversations that ramble on long after the first streaks of dawn appear in the eastern sky...

On another level, it is at times like this that you realise that what you have is too precious to throw away with behaviour that suits a 3 year old more than a 23 year old. If you are reading this, thank you once again for keeping us going through my spoilt tantrums. I promise I will do my bit to chip in henceforth. Stay gold!