NOVEMBER...(fiction/non-fiction)

This is perhaps the eighteenth time in i-don't-know-how-many-months, that i've checked my mail-box. Hey wow! have a belated birthday card from my best friend Diksha. How sweet ! Some things in life never change; and received my Sahitya Academy bi- monthly too. That has surely made my day. But no trace of the letter i have been waiting for all these months...I was kinda dissappointed...for the eighteenth time. No, 'dissappointed' wouldn't be the perfect word. This time I was angry. Really very pissed off. What kind of an emotional hide-and-seek is he trying to play??

I came back to my room. My flatmates haven't returned from their office yet. We have different shifts and hardly get to meet now-a-days. I tidied up the kitchen, had a quick shower and prepared dinner for us - it was my turn tonight. I was godamn hungry, but decided to wait for them. Afterall, it's not everyday that the three of us get to dine together. uh oh ! POWERCUT. How irritating!! I didn't bother to light the candles, instead took out an easychair to the balcony and sat there counting stars. Beyond the boundary wall is the lush green rigde area. There are lots of peacocks and wild birds out there. I'd love to explore it, but my friends wouldn't agree. I think our balcony is the best place to be in this mad city. I love to sit there alone and spend timeless hours staring at the moon. What do they call it- moonstruck?

I don't long for any other company then. But somehow, he's always at the back of my mind. It all started way back in school when having pen-pals were a craze amongst us. Teens Today and Student's Today were my favourite mags. Apparantly they connected us. Our letters survived the tide of emails, IMs, phone calls and sms. I never met him, never called him, yet i don't know why, I tend to miss him. He has become a habit which is hard to give up. It's a non-existent relationship, but I find refuge in it. 12 years!!! You call it a joke??

I hope my friends return fast.

I wonder what's keeping him so long to reply to my last letter... Busy with his new found job? Or is it because I moved to a different city? No...that shouldn't be a reason 'coz, it was distance that brought us close. Probably he's sulking 'coz I refused to give him something he had asked for...Or is he experimenting with his newest dating strategies on me again?? Who says women are difficult to understand? It's men who are difficult to understand. They confuse us like hell. It's taking long, and somehow this wait is killing me.

Thankkkkgod the power is back.

I got a msz. No, not him. He hasn't my number. It's them, my chums - "hey, wil b hme in 5 mins.dinr redy? huntin 4 sum gud movies. c ya." Oh great! what a welcome break! We're gonna watch movies tonight ! We had our supper and soon got into our favourite corners. Hmm... "A Cinderella Story" featuring Hillary Duff. Wow! It turned out to be such a nice-sweet-cute-romantic flick! It immidiately entered my fav movie list. Somehow, "A Cinderella Story" seemed like my lost story- unseen friends,budding love-story, misunderstandings, inflated egos, the big off-period and a long wait for reconciliation... It's here that I came across these lines by Hillary- "waiting for you is like waiting for the rain in drought. Useless and Dissappointing."

Heck!! Wait a sec. Was I looking for these lines in my mental diary?? But the movie ended in a happy note ! Why should I pay attention to this particular line? But it did tally. Waiting for him indeed was useless and dissappointing. I rushed to my room, took out my diary and scribbled with a red sketch pen: the same dialogue. A big drop of tear from i-don't-know-where fell on my page, but I don't care anymore! I wiped it away. And I wiped him away forever.

Ideally this should have been the end of this story right? Rising from the ashes like the phoenix and ending in liberation...But sometimes you just come across things that make you take back your frequent claims...The VERY next day the most IMPOSSIBLE thing happened. Read this:

Dated NOV 22 '07, afternoon: It rained!! good heavens it rained!! It just came from nowhere- a cloudless, untimely shower- in this part of the world !! How impossible!! But it did rain. It should have rained harder, in greater gulps. The more stormy it is the more i'm in love with it. But you know how it rains in this fortified city...just in a few drops- as if to keep its promise made to the parched land. But it quenched our thirst none-the-less. As I stepped out into my balcony and let myself feel the rain, i decided to take back my words...This rain was important to me- you know it why. It was the sweetest november. Ever.

Crossroads and Cobwebs

Here I come again. Travelled a full 360 degree circle and once again found myself at the same point...at the same crossroad where I was a year or two ago...or was it 5 years ago?? 7 ?? Thrash !!! Thrash all crossroads !! It's a cobweb this time. The more I struggle to free myself , the more they try to strangulate me.

I escape.

Somewhere down the lane I seem to have gone the Hansel and Gretel way- lost track while following bread- crumb trails. But was it meant to be this way?? I travelled through the longest and supposedly the safest way by the woods. Kept close to the creeks... and finally arrived here. Smile not! I'm no Little Red Riding Hood, and I met no prying wolf.
But then, is this the same kingdom that beckoned me throughout my childhood? If so, where is my castle then? Where are the folks? The kinsmen? The king? The queen? The horses? The carriages? where is my prince??

As I near my 4th crossroad, I tell you this part of Alice in Wonderland's story-

'Cheshire puss', she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name. However it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far', thought Alice and she went on.
' Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to', said the cat.
' I don't much care where', said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go', said the cat.
' So long as I get somewhere.' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh you're sure to do that', said the cheshire cat, ' if you only walk long enough'.

Well, I walked long enough. It took me full 20 years ... But i've realized- we are all Alices, we are all Hansels and Gretels. It's easy to pretend and declare that everything is going on perfectly fine, but it's quite a task you know, to step out of your fairy tale boots, dust the childish fantasies off your coat, and prepare yourself for the trek. I didn't make much sense to you, did i? Or may I please put it in a more ressuring way?- I made some sense, did I not?

Told you ! It's a cobweb. A complex web. I too have woven one for myself. And so have you. Infact each one of us has.